THE WORKS OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EDMUND BURKE IN TWELVE VOLUMES VOLUME THE FOURTH [Illustration: Burke Coat of Arms. ] LONDONJOHN C. NIMMO14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W. C. MDCCCLXXXVII CONTENTS OF VOL IV. LETTER TO A MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, IN ANSWER TO SOMEOBJECTIONS TO HIS BOOK ON FRENCH AFFAIRS 1 APPEAL FROM THE NEW TO THE OLD WHIGS 57 LETTER TO A PEER OF IRELAND ON THE PENAL LAWS AGAINST IRISHCATHOLICS 217 LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE, ON THE SUBJECT OF THE ROMANCATHOLICS OF IRELAND 241 HINTS FOR A MEMORIAL TO BE DELIVERED TO MONSIEUR DE M. M. 307 THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS 313 HEADS FOR CONSIDERATION ON THE PRESENT STATE OF AFFAIRS 379 REMARKS ON THE POLICY OF THE ALLIES WITH RESPECT TO FRANCE: WITHAN APPENDIX 403 A LETTER TO A MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, IN ANSWER TO SOME OBJECTIONS TO HIS BOOK ON FRENCH AFFAIRS. 1791. Sir, --I had the honor to receive your letter of the 17th of Novemberlast, in which, with some exceptions, you are pleased to considerfavorably the letter I have written on the affairs of France. I shallever accept any mark of approbation attended with instruction with morepleasure than general and unqualified praises. The latter can serve onlyto flatter our vanity; the former, whilst it encourages us to proceed, may help to improve us in our progress. Some of the errors you point out to me in my printed letter are reallysuch. One only I find to be material. It is corrected in the editionwhich I take the liberty of sending to you. As to the cavils which maybe made on some part of my remarks with regard to the _gradations_ inyour new Constitution, you observe justly that they do not affect thesubstance of my objections. Whether there be a round more or less in theladder of representation by which your workmen ascend from theirparochial tyranny to their federal anarchy, when the whole scale isfalse, appears to me of little or no importance. I published my thoughts on that Constitution, that my countrymen mightbe enabled to estimate the wisdom of the plans which were held out totheir imitation. I conceived that the true character of those planswould be best collected from the committee appointed to prepare them. Ithought that the scheme of their building would be better comprehendedin the design of the architects than in the execution of the masons. Itwas not worth my reader's while to occupy himself with the alterationsby which bungling practice corrects absurd theory. Such an investigationwould be endless: because every day's past experience ofimpracticability has driven, and every day's future experience willdrive, those men to new devices as exceptionable as the old, and whichare no otherwise worthy of observation than as they give a daily proofof the delusion of their promises and the falsehood of theirprofessions. Had I followed all these changes, my letter would have beenonly a gazette of their wanderings, a journal of their march from errorto error, through a dry, dreary desert, unguided by the lights ofHeaven, or by the contrivance which wisdom has invented to supply theirplace. I am unalterably persuaded that the attempt to oppress, degrade, impoverish, confiscate, and extinguish the original gentlemen and landedproperty of a whole nation cannot be justified under any form it mayassume. I am satisfied beyond a doubt, that the project of turning agreat empire into a vestry, or into a collection of vestries, and ofgoverning it in the spirit of a parochial administration, is senselessand absurd, in any mode or with any qualifications. I can never beconvinced that the scheme of placing the highest powers of the state inchurch-wardens and constables and other such officers, guided by theprudence of litigious attorneys and Jew brokers, and set in action byshameless women of the lowest condition, by keepers of hotels, taverns, and brothels, by pert apprentices, by clerks, shop-boys, hair-dressers, fiddlers, and dancers on the stage, (who, in such a commonwealth asyours, will in future overbear, as already they have overborne, thesober incapacity of dull, uninstructed men, of useful, but laboriousoccupations, ) can never be put into any shape that must not be bothdisgraceful and destructive. The whole of this project, even if it werewhat it pretends to be, and was not in reality the dominion, throughthat disgraceful medium, of half a dozen, or perhaps fewer, intriguingpoliticians, is so mean, so low-minded, so stupid a contrivance, inpoint of wisdom, as well as so perfectly detestable for its wickedness, that I must always consider the correctives which might make it in anydegree practicable to be so many new objections to it. In that wretched state of things, some are afraid that the authors ofyour miseries may be led to precipitate their further designs by thehints they may receive from the very arguments used to expose theabsurdity of their system, to mark the incongruity of its parts, and itsinconsistency with their own principles, --and that your masters may beled to render their schemes more consistent by rendering them moremischievous. Excuse the liberty which your indulgence authorizes me totake, when I observe to you that such apprehensions as these wouldprevent all exertion of our faculties in this great cause of mankind. A rash recourse to _force_ is not to be justified in a state of realweakness. Such attempts bring on disgrace, and in their failurediscountenance and discourage more rational endeavors. But _reason_ isto be hazarded, though it may be perverted by craft and sophistry; forreason can suffer no loss nor shame, nor can it impede any useful planof future policy. In the unavoidable uncertainty as to the effect, which attends on every measure of human prudence, nothing seems a surerantidote to the poison of fraud than its detection. It is true, thefraud may be swallowed after this discovery, and perhaps even swallowedthe more greedily for being a detected fraud. Men sometimes make a pointof honor not to be disabused; and they had rather fall into an hundrederrors than confess one. But, after all, when neither our principles norour dispositions, nor, perhaps, our talents, enable us to encounterdelusion with delusion, we must use our best reason to those that oughtto be reasonable creatures, and to take our chance for the event. Wecannot act on these anomalies in the minds of men. I do not conceivethat the persons who have contrived these things can be made much thebetter or the worse for anything which can be said to them. _They_ arereason-proof. Here and there, some men, who were at first carried awayby wild, good intentions, may be led, when their first fervors areabated, to join in a sober survey of the schemes into which they hadbeen deluded. To those only (and I am sorry to say they are not likelyto make a large description) we apply with any hope. I may speak it uponan assurance almost approaching to absolute knowledge, that nothing hasbeen done that has not been contrived from the beginning, even beforethe States had assembled. _Nulla nova mihi res inopinave surgit. _ Theyare the same men and the same designs that they were from the first, though varied in their appearance. It was the very same animal that atfirst crawled about in the shape of a caterpillar that you now see riseinto the air and expand his wings to the sun. Proceeding, therefore, as we are obliged to proceed, --that is, upon anhypothesis that we address rational men, --can false political principlesbe more effectually exposed than by demonstrating that they lead toconsequences directly inconsistent with and subversive of thearrangements grounded upon them? If this kind of demonstration is notpermitted, the process of reasoning called _deductio ad absurdum_, whicheven the severity of geometry does not reject, could not be employed atall in legislative discussions. One of our strongest weapons againstfolly acting with authority would be lost. You know, Sir, that even the virtuous efforts of your patriots toprevent the ruin of your country have had this very turn given to them. It has been said here, and in France too, that the reigning usurperswould not have carried their tyranny to such destructive lengths, ifthey had not been stimulated and provoked to it by the acrimony of youropposition. There is a dilemma to which every opposition to successfuliniquity must, in the nature of things, be liable. If you lie still, youare considered as an accomplice in the measures in which you silentlyacquiesce. If you resist, you are accused of provoking irritable powerto new excesses. The conduct of a losing party never appears right: atleast, it never can possess the only infallible criterion of wisdom tovulgar judgments, --success. The indulgence of a sort of undefined hope, an obscure confidence, thatsome lurking remains of virtue, some degree of shame, might exist in thebreasts of the oppressors of France, has been among the causes whichhave helped to bring on the common ruin of king and people. There is nosafety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief. I well remember, at every epocha of this wonderful history, in everyscene of this tragic business, that, when your sophistic usurpers werelaying down mischievous principles, and even applying them in directresolutions, it was the fashion to say that they never intended toexecute those declarations in their rigor. This made men careless intheir opposition, and remiss in early precaution. By holding out thisfallacious hope, the impostors deluded sometimes one description of men, and sometimes another, so that no means of resistance were providedagainst them, when they came to execute in cruelty what they had plannedin fraud. There are cases in which a man would be ashamed not to have been imposedon. There is a confidence necessary to human intercourse, and withoutwhich men are often more injured by their own suspicions than they wouldbe by the perfidy of others. But when men whom we _know_ to be wickedimpose upon us, we are something worse than dupes. When we know them, their fair pretences become new motives for distrust. There is one case, indeed, in which it would be madness not to give the fullest credit tothe most deceitful of men, --that is, when they make declarations ofhostility against us. I find that some persons entertain other hopes, which I confess appearmore specious than those by which at first so many were deluded anddisarmed. They flatter themselves that the extreme misery brought uponthe people by their folly will at last open the eyes of the multitude, if not of their leaders. Much the contrary, I fear. As to the leaders inthis system of imposture, --you know that cheats and deceivers never canrepent. The fraudulent have no resource but in fraud. They have no othergoods in their magazine. They have no virtue or wisdom in their minds, to which, in a disappointment concerning the profitable effects of fraudand cunning, they can retreat. The wearing out of an old serves only toput them upon the invention of a new delusion. Unluckily, too, thecredulity of dupes is as inexhaustible as the invention of knaves. Theynever give people possession; but they always keep them in hope. Yourstate doctors do not so much as pretend that any good whatsoever hashitherto been derived from their operations, or that the public hasprospered in any one instance under their management. The nation issick, very sick, by their medicines. But the charlatan tells them thatwhat is past cannot be helped;--they have taken the draught, and theymust wait its operation with patience;--that the first effects, indeed, are unpleasant, but that the very sickness is a proof that the dose isof no sluggish operation;--that sickness is inevitable in allconstitutional revolutions;--that the body must pass through pain toease;--that the prescriber is not an empiric who proceeds by vulgarexperience, but one who grounds his practice[1] on the sure rules ofart, which cannot possibly fail. You have read, Sir, the last manifesto, or mountebank's bill, of the National Assembly. You see theirpresumption in their promises is not lessened by all their failures inthe performance. Compare this last address of the Assembly and thepresent state of your affairs with the early engagements of that body, engagements which, not content with declaring, they solemnly deposedupon oath, --swearing lustily, that, if they were supported, they wouldmake their country glorious and happy; and then judge whether those whocan write such things, or those who can bear to read them, are of_themselves_ to be brought to any reasonable course of thought oraction. As to the people at large, when once these miserable sheep have brokenthe fold, and have got themselves loose, not from the restraint, butfrom the protection, of all the principles of natural authority andlegitimate subordination, they become the natural prey of impostors. When they have once tasted of the flattery of knaves, they can no longerendure reason, which appears to them only in the form of censure andreproach. Great distress has never hitherto taught, and whilst the worldlasts it never will teach, wise lessons to any part of mankind. Men areas much blinded by the extremes of misery as by the extremes ofprosperity. Desperate situations produce desperate councils anddesperate measures. The people of France, almost generally, have beentaught to look for other resources than those which can be derived fromorder, frugality, and industry. They are generally armed; and they aremade to expect much from the use of arms. _Nihil non arrogant armis. _Besides this, the retrograde order of society has something flatteringto the dispositions of mankind. The life of adventurers, gamesters, gypsies, beggars, and robbers is not unpleasant. It requires restraintto keep men from falling into that habit. The shifting tides of fearand hope, the flight and pursuit, the peril and escape, the alternatefamine and feast of the savage and the thief, after a time; render allcourse of slow, steady, progressive, unvaried occupation, and theprospect only of a limited mediocrity at the end of long labor, to thelast degree tame, languid, and insipid. Those who have been onceintoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They maybe distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never lookto anything but power for their relief. When did distress ever oblige aprince to abdicate his authority? And what effect will it have uponthose who are made to believe themselves a people of princes? The more active and stirring part of the lower orders having gotgovernment and the distribution of plunder into their hands, they willuse its resources in each municipality to form a body of adherents. These rulers and their adherents will be strong enough to overpower thediscontents of those who have not been able to assert their share of thespoil. The unfortunate adventurers in the cheating lottery of plunderwill probably be the least sagacious or the most inactive and irresoluteof the gang. If, on disappointment, they should dare to stir, they willsoon be suppressed as rebels and mutineers by their brother rebels. Scantily fed for a while with the offal of plunder, they will drop offby degrees; they will be driven out of sight and out of thought; andthey will be left to perish obscurely, like rats, in holes and corners. From the forced repentance of invalid mutineers and disbanded thievesyou can hope for no resource. Government itself, which ought toconstrain the more bold and dexterous of these robbers, is theiraccomplice. Its arms, its treasures, its all are in their hands. Judicature, which above all things should awe them, is their creatureand their instrument. Nothing seems to me to render your internalsituation more desperate than this one circumstance of the state of yourjudicature. Many days are not passed since we have seen a set of menbrought forth by your rulers for a most critical function. Your rulersbrought forth a set of men, steaming from the sweat and drudgery, andall black with the smoke and soot, of the forge of confiscation androbbery, --_ardentis massæ fuligine lippos_, --a set of men brought forthfrom the trade of hammering arms of proof, offensive and defensive, inaid of the enterprises, and for the subsequent protection, ofhousebreakers, murderers, traitors, and malefactors, --men, who had theirminds seasoned with theories perfectly conformable to their practice, and who had always laughed at possession and prescription, and defiedall the fundamental maxims of jurisprudence. To the horror andstupefaction of all the honest part of this nation, and indeed of allnations who are spectators, we have seen, on the credit of those verypractices and principles, and to carry them further into effect, thesevery men placed on the sacred seat of justice in the capital city ofyour late kingdom. We see that in future you are to be destroyed withmore form and regularity. This is not peace: it is only the introductionof a sort of discipline in their hostility. Their tyranny is complete intheir justice; and their _lanterne_ is not half so dreadful as theircourt. One would think, that, out of common decency, they would have given youmen who had not been in the habit of trampling upon law and justice inthe Assembly, neutral men, or men apparently neutral, for judges, whoare to dispose of your lives and fortunes. Cromwell, when he attempted to legalize his power, and to settle hisconquered country in a state of order, did not look for dispensers ofjustice in the instruments of his usurpation. Quite the contrary. Hesought out, with great solicitude and selection, and even from the partymost opposite to his designs, men of weight and decorum ofcharacter, --men unstained with the violence of the times, and with handsnot fouled with confiscation and sacrilege: for he chose an Hale for hischief justice, though he absolutely refused to take his civic oaths, orto make any acknowledgment whatsoever of the legality of his government. Cromwell told this great lawyer, that, since he did not approve histitle, all he required of him was to administer, in a manner agreeableto his pure sentiments and unspotted character, that justice withoutwhich human society cannot subsist, --that it was not his particulargovernment, but civil order itself, which, as a judge, he wished him tosupport. Cromwell knew how to separate the institutions expedient to hisusurpation from the administration of the public justice of his country. For Cromwell was a man in whom ambition had not wholly suppressed, butonly suspended, the sentiments of religion, and the love (as far as itcould consist with his designs) of fair and honorable reputation. Accordingly, we are indebted to this act of his for the preservation ofour laws, which some senseless assertors of the rights of men were thenon the point of entirely erasing, as relics of feudality and barbarism. Besides, he gave, in the appointment of that man, to that age, and toall posterity, the most brilliant example of sincere and fervent piety, exact justice, and profound jurisprudence. [2] But these are not thethings in which your philosophic usurpers choose to follow Cromwell. One would think, that, after an honest and necessary revolution, (ifthey had a mind that theirs should pass for such, ) your masters wouldhave imitated the virtuous policy of those who have been at the head ofrevolutions of that glorious character. Burnet tells us, that nothingtended to reconcile the English nation to the government of King Williamso much as the care he took to fill the vacant bishoprics with men whohad attracted the public esteem by their learning, eloquence, and piety, and above all, by their known moderation in the state. With you, in yourpurifying revolution, whom have you chosen to regulate the Church? M. Mirabeau is a fine speaker, and a fine writer, and a fine--a very fineman; but, really, nothing gave more surprise to everybody here than tofind him the supreme head of your ecclesiastical affairs. The rest is ofcourse. Your Assembly addresses a manifesto to France, in which theytell the people, with an insulting irony, that they have brought theChurch to its primitive condition. In one respect their declaration isundoubtedly true: for they have brought it to a state of poverty andpersecution. What can be hoped for after this? Have not men, (if theydeserve the name, ) under this new hope and head of the Church, been madebishops for no other merit than having acted as instruments of atheists?for no other merit than having thrown the children's bread to dogs? and, in order to gorge the whole gang of usurers, peddlers, and itinerantJew discounters at the corners of streets, starved the poor of theirChristian flocks, and their own brother pastors? Have not such men beenmade bishops to administer in temples in which (if the patrioticdonations have not already stripped them of their vessels) thechurch-wardens ought to take security for the altar plate, and not somuch as to trust the chalice in their sacrilegious hands, so long asJews have assignats on ecclesiastic plunder, to exchange for the silverstolen from churches? I am told that the very sons of such Jew jobbers have been made bishops:persons not to be suspected of any sort of _Christian_ superstition, fitcolleagues to the holy prelate of Autun, and bred at the feet of thatGamaliel. We know who it was that drove the money-changers out of thetemple. We see, too, who it is that brings them in again. We have inLondon very respectable persons of the Jewish nation, whom we will keep;but we have of the same tribe others of a very differentdescription, --housebreakers, and receivers of stolen goods, and forgersof paper currency, more than we can conveniently hang. These we canspare to France, to fill the new episcopal thrones: men well versed inswearing; and who will scruple no oath which the fertile genius of anyof your reformers can devise. In matters so ridiculous it is hard to be grave. On a view of theirconsequences, it is almost inhuman to treat them lightly. To what astate of savage, stupid, servile insensibility must your people bereduced, who can endure such proceedings in their Church, their state, and their judicature, even for a moment! But the deluded people ofFrance are like other madmen, who, to a miracle, bear hunger, andthirst, and cold, and confinement, and the chains and lash of theirkeeper, whilst all the while they support themselves by the imaginationthat they are generals of armies, prophets, kings, and emperors. As to achange of mind in those men, who consider infamy as honor, degradationas preferment, bondage to low tyrants as liberty, and the practicalscorn and contumely of their upstart masters as marks of respect andhomage, I look upon it as absolutely impracticable. These madmen, to becured, must first, like other madmen, be subdued. The sound part of thecommunity, which I believe to be large, but by no means the largestpart, has been taken by surprise, and is disjointed, terrified, anddisarmed. That sound part of the community must first be put into abetter condition, before it can do anything in the way of deliberationor persuasion. This must be an act of power, as well as of wisdom: ofpower in the hands of firm, determined patriots, who can distinguish themisled from traitors, who will regulate the state (if such should betheir fortune) with a discriminating, manly, and provident mercy; menwho are purged of the surfeit and indigestion of systems, if ever theyhave been admitted into the habit of their minds; men who will lay thefoundation of a real reform in effacing every vestige of that philosophywhich pretends to have made discoveries in the _Terra Australia_ ofmorality; men who will fix the state upon these bases of morals andpolitics, which are our old and immemorial, and, I hope, will be oureternal possession. This power, to such men, must come from _without_. It may be given toyou in pity: for surely no nation ever called so pathetically on thecompassion of all its neighbors. It may be given by those neighbors onmotives of safety to themselves. Never shall I think any country inEurope to be secure, whilst there is established in the very centre ofit a state (if so it may be called) founded on principles of anarchy, and which is in reality a college of armed fanatics, for the propagationof the principles of assassination, robbery, rebellion, fraud, faction, oppression, and impiety. Mahomet, hid, as for a time he was, in thebottom of the sands of Arabia, had his spirit and character beendiscovered, would have been an object of precaution to provident minds. What if he had erected his fanatic standard for the destruction of theChristian religion _in luce Asiæ_, in the midst of the then noondaysplendor of the then civilized world? The princes of Europe, in thebeginning of this century, did well not to suffer the monarchy of Franceto swallow up the others. They ought not now, in my opinion, to sufferall the monarchies and commonwealths to be swallowed up in the gulf ofthis polluted anarchy. They may be tolerably safe at present, becausethe comparative power of France for the present is little. But times andoccasions make dangers. Intestine troubles may arise in other countries. There is a power always on the watch, qualified and disposed to profitof every conjuncture, to establish its own principles and modes ofmischief, wherever it can hope for success. What mercy would theseusurpers have on other sovereigns, and on other nations, when they treattheir own king with such unparalleled indignities, and so cruellyoppress their own countrymen? The king of Prussia, in concurrence with us, nobly interfered to saveHolland from confusion. The same power, joined with the rescued Hollandand with Great Britain, has put the Emperor in the possession of theNetherlands, and secured, under that prince, from all arbitraryinnovation, the ancient, hereditary Constitution of those provinces. Thechamber of Wetzlar has restored the Bishop of Liege, unjustlydispossessed by the rebellion of his subjects. The king of Prussia wasbound by no treaty nor alliance of blood, nor had any particular reasonsfor thinking the Emperor's government would be more mischievous or moreoppressive to human nature than that of the Turk; yet, on mere motivesof policy, that prince has interposed, with the threat of all his force, to snatch even the Turk from the pounces of the Imperial eagle. If thisis done in favor of a barbarous nation, with a barbarous neglect ofpolice, fatal to the human race, --in favor of a nation by principle ineternal enmity with the Christian name, a nation which will not so muchas give the salutation of peace (_Salam_) to any of us, nor make anypact with any Christian nation beyond a truce, --if this be done in favorof the Turk, shall it be thought either impolitic or unjust oruncharitable to employ the same power to rescue from captivity avirtuous monarch, (by the courtesy of Europe considered as MostChristian, ) who, after an intermission of one hundred and seventy-fiveyears, had called together the States of his kingdom to reform abuses, to establish a free government, and to strengthen his throne, --a monarchwho, at the very outset, without force, even without solicitation, hadgiven to his people such a Magna Charta of privileges as never was givenby any king to any subjects? Is it to be tamely borne by kings who lovetheir subjects, or by subjects who love their kings, that this monarch, in the midst of these gracious acts, was insolently and cruelly tornfrom his palace by a gang of traitors and assassins, and kept in closeprison to this very hour, whilst his royal name and sacred characterwere used for the total ruin of those whom the laws had appointed him toprotect? The only offence of this unhappy monarch towards his people was hisattempt, under a monarchy, to give them a free Constitution. For this, by an example hitherto unheard of in the world, he has been deposed. Itmight well disgrace sovereigns to take part with a deposed tyrant. Itwould suppose in them a vicious sympathy. But not to make a common causewith a just prince, dethroned by traitors and rebels, who proscribe, plunder, confiscate, and in every way cruelly oppress theirfellow-citizens, in my opinion is to forget what is due to the honor andto the rights of all virtuous and legal government. I think the king of France to be as much an object both of policy andcompassion as the Grand Seignior or his states. I do not conceive thatthe total annihilation of France (if that could be effected) is adesirable thing to Europe, or even to this its rival nation. Providentpatriots did not think it good for Rome that even Carthage should bequite destroyed; and he was a wise Greek, wise for the general Grecianinterests, as well as a brave Lacedæmonian enemy and generous conqueror, who did not wish, by the destruction of Athens, to pluck out the othereye of Greece. However, Sir, what I have here said of the interference of foreignprinces is only the opinion of a private individual, who is neither therepresentative of any state nor the organ of any party, but who thinkshimself bound to express his own sentiments with freedom and energy in acrisis of such importance to the whole human race. I am not apprehensive, that, in speaking freely on the subject of theking and queen of France, I shall accelerate (as you fear) the executionof traitorous designs against them. You are of opinion, Sir, that theusurpers may, and that they will, gladly lay hold of any pretext tothrow off the very name of a king: assuredly, I do not wish ill to yourking; but better for him not to live (he does not reign) than to livethe passive instrument of tyranny and usurpation. I certainly meant to show, to the best of my power, that the existenceof such an executive officer in such a system of republic as theirs isabsurd in the highest degree. But in demonstrating this, to _them_, atleast, I can have made no discovery. They only held out the royal nameto catch those Frenchmen to whom the name of king is still venerable. They calculate the duration of that sentiment; and when they find itnearly expiring, they will not trouble themselves with excuses forextinguishing the name, as they have the thing. They used it as a sortof navel-string to nourish their unnatural offspring from the bowels ofroyalty itself. Now that the monster can purvey for its own subsistence, it will only carry the mark about it, as a token of its having torn thewomb it came from. Tyrants seldom want pretexts. Fraud is the readyminister of injustice; and whilst the currency of false pretence andsophistic reasoning was expedient to their designs, they were under nonecessity of drawing upon me to furnish them with that coin. Butpretexts and sophisms have had their day, and have done their work. Theusurpation no longer seeks plausibility: it trusts to power. Nothing that I can say, or that you can say, will hasten them, by asingle hour, in the execution of a design which they have long sinceentertained. In spite of their solemn declarations, their soothingaddresses, and the multiplied oaths which they have taken and forcedothers to take, they will assassinate the king when his name will nolonger be necessary to their designs, --but not a moment sooner. Theywill probably first assassinate the queen, whenever the renewed menaceof such an assassination loses its effect upon the anxious mind of anaffectionate husband. At present, the advantage which they derive fromthe daily threats against her life is her only security for preservingit. They keep their sovereign alive for the purpose of exhibiting him, like some wild beast at a fair, --as if they had a Bajazet in a cage. They choose to make monarchy contemptible by exposing it to derision inthe person of the most benevolent of their kings. In my opinion their insolence appears more odious even than theircrimes. The horrors of the fifth and sixth of October were lessdetestable than the festival of the fourteenth of July. There aresituations (God forbid I should think that of the 5th and 6th of Octoberone of them!) in which the best men may be confounded with the worst, and in the darkness and confusion, in the press and medley of suchextremities, it may not be so easy to discriminate the one from theother. Tho necessities created even by ill designs have their excuse. They may be forgotten by others, when the guilty themselves do notchoose to cherish their recollection, and, by ruminating theiroffences, nourish themselves, through the example of their past, to theperpetration of future crimes. It is in the relaxation of security, itis in the expansion of prosperity, it is in the hour of dilatation ofthe heart, and of its softening into festivity and pleasure, that thereal character of men is discerned. If there is any good in them, itappears then or never. Even wolves and tigers, when gorged with theirprey, are safe and gentle. It is at such times that noble minds give allthe reins to their good nature. They indulge their genius even tointemperance, in kindness to the afflicted, in generosity to theconquered, --forbearing insults, forgiving injuries, overpaying benefits. Full of dignity themselves, they respect dignity in all, but they feelit sacred in the unhappy. But it is then, and basking in the sunshine ofunmerited fortune, that low, sordid, ungenerous, and reptile souls swellwith their hoarded poisons; it is then that they display their odioussplendor, and shine out in the full lustre of their native villany andbaseness. It is in that season that no man of sense or honor can bemistaken for one of them. It was in such a season, for them of politicalease and security, though their people were but just emerged from actualfamine, and were ready to be plunged into a gulf of penury and beggary, that your philosophic lords chose, with an ostentatious pomp and luxury, to feast an incredible number of idle and thoughtless people, collectedwith art and pains from all quarters of the world. They constructed avast amphitheatre in which they raised a species of pillory. [3] On thispillory they set their lawful king and queen, with an insulting figureover their heads. There they exposed these objects of pity and respectto all good minds to the derision of an unthinking and unprincipledmultitude, degenerated even from the versatile tenderness which marksthe irregular and capricious feelings of the populace. That their cruelinsult might have nothing wanting to complete it, they chose theanniversary of that day in which they exposed the life of their princeto the most imminent dangers and the vilest indignities, just followingthe instant when the assassins, whom they had hired without owning, first openly took up arms against their king, corrupted his guards, surprised his castle, butchered some of the poor invalids of hisgarrison, murdered his governor, and, like wild beasts, tore to piecesthe chief magistrate of his capital city, on account of his fidelity tohis service. Till the justice of the world is awakened, such as these will go on, without admonition, and without provocation, to every extremity. Thosewho have made the exhibition of the fourteenth of July are capable ofevery evil. They do not commit crimes for their designs; but they formdesigns that they may commit crimes. It is not their necessity, buttheir nature, that impels them. They are modern philosophers, which whenyou say of them, you express everything that is ignoble, savage, andhard-hearted. Besides the sure tokens which are given by the spirit of theirparticular arrangements, there are some characteristic lineaments in thegeneral policy of your tumultuous despotism, which, in my opinion, indicate, beyond a doubt, that no revolution whatsoever _in theirdisposition_ is to be expected: I mean their scheme of educating therising generation, the principles which they intend to instil and thesympathies which they wish to form in the mind at the season in which itis the most susceptible. Instead of forming their young minds to thatdocility, to that modesty, which are the grace and charm of youth, to anadmiration of famous examples, and to an averseness to anything whichapproaches to pride, petulance, and self-conceit, (distempers to whichthat time of life is of itself sufficiently liable, ) they artificiallyfoment these evil dispositions, and even form them into springs ofaction. Nothing ought to be more weighed than the nature of booksrecommended by public authority. So recommended, they soon form thecharacter of the age. Uncertain indeed is the efficacy, limited indeedis the extent, of a virtuous institution. But if education takes in_vice_ as any part of its system, there is no doubt but that it willoperate with abundant energy, and to an extent indefinite. Themagistrate, who in favor of freedom thinks himself obliged to suffer allsorts of publications, is under a stricter duty than any other well toconsider what sort of writers he shall authorize, and shall recommend bythe strongest of all sanctions, that is, by public honors and rewards. He ought to be cautious how he recommends authors of mixed or ambiguousmorality. He ought to be fearful of putting into the hands of youthwriters indulgent to the peculiarities of their own complexion, lestthey should teach the humors of the professor, rather than theprinciples of the science. He ought, above all, to be cautious inrecommending any writer who has carried marks of a derangedunderstanding: for where there is no sound reason, there can be no realvirtue; and madness is ever vicious and malignant. The Assembly proceeds on maxims the very reverse of these. The Assemblyrecommends to its youth a study of the bold experimenters in morality. Everybody knows that there is a great dispute amongst their leaders, which of them is the best resemblance of Rousseau. In truth, they allresemble him. His blood they transfuse into their minds and into theirmanners. Him they study; him they meditate; him they turn over in allthe time they can spare from the laborious mischief of the day or thedebauches of the night. Rousseau is their canon of holy writ; in hislife he is their canon of Polycletus; he is their standard figure ofperfection. To this man and this writer, as a pattern to authors and toFrenchmen, the foundries of Paris are now running for statues, with thekettles of their poor and the bells of their churches. If an author hadwritten like a great genius on geometry, though his practical andspeculative morals were vicious in the extreme, it might appear that invoting the statue they honored only the geometrician. But Rousseau is amoralist or he is nothing. It is impossible, therefore, putting thecircumstances together, to mistake their design in choosing the authorwith whom they have begun to recommend a course of studies. Their great problem is, to find a substitute for all the principleswhich hitherto have been employed to regulate the human will and action. They find dispositions in the mind of such force and quality as may fitmen, far better than the old morality, for the purposes of such a stateas theirs, and may go much further in supporting their power anddestroying their enemies. They have therefore chosen a selfish, flattering, seductive, ostentatious vice, in the place of plain duty. True humility, the basis of the Christian system, is the low, but deepand firm foundation of all real virtue. But this, as very painful in thepractice, and little imposing in the appearance, they have totallydiscarded. Their object is to merge all natural and all social sentimentin inordinate vanity. In a small degree, and conversant in littlethings, vanity is of little moment. When full-grown, it is the worst ofvices, and the occasional mimic of them all. It makes the whole manfalse. It leaves nothing sincere or trustworthy about him. His bestqualities are poisoned and perverted by it, and operate exactly as theworst. When your lords had many writers as immoral as the object oftheir statue (such as Voltaire and others) they chose Rousseau, becausein him that peculiar vice which they wished to erect into ruling virtuewas by far the most conspicuous. We have had the great professor and founder of _the philosophy ofvanity_ in England. As I had good opportunities of knowing hisproceedings almost from day to day, he left no doubt on my mind that heentertained no principle, either to influence his heart or to guide hisunderstanding, but _vanity_. With this vice he was possessed to a degreelittle short of madness. It is from the same deranged, eccentric vanity, that this, the insane Socrates of the National Assembly, was impelled topublish a mad confession of his mad faults, and to attempt a new sort ofglory from bringing hardily to light the obscure and vulgar vices whichwe know may sometimes be blended with eminent talents. He has notobserved on the nature of vanity who does not know that it isomnivorous, --that it has no choice in its food, --that it is fond totalk even of its own faults and vices, as what will excite surprise anddraw attention, and what will pass at worst for openness and candor. It was this abuse and perversion, which vanity makes even of hypocrisy, which has driven Rousseau to record a life not so much as checkered orspotted here and there with virtues, or even distinguished by a singlegood action. It is such a life he chooses to offer to the attention ofmankind. It is such a life that, with a wild defiance, he flings in theface of his Creator, whom he acknowledges only to brave. Your Assembly, knowing how much more powerful example is found than precept, has chosenthis man (by his own account without a single virtue) for a model. Tohim they erect their first statue. From him they commence their seriesof honors and distinctions. It is that new-invented virtue which your masters canonize that ledtheir moral hero constantly to exhaust the stores of his powerfulrhetoric in the expression of universal benevolence, whilst his heartwas incapable of harboring one spark of common parental affection. Benevolence to the whole species, and want of feeling for everyindividual with whom the professors come in contact, form the characterof the new philosophy. Setting up for an unsocial independence, thistheir hero of vanity refuses the just price of common labor, as well asthe tribute which opulence owes to genius, and which, when paid, honorsthe giver and the receiver; and then he pleads his beggary as an excusefor his crimes. He melts with tenderness for those only who touch him bythe remotest relation, and then, without one natural pang, casts away, as a sort of offal and excrement, the spawn of his disgustful amours, and sends his children to the hospital of foundlings. The bear loves, licks, and forms her young: but bears are not philosophers. Vanity, however, finds its account in reversing the train of our naturalfeelings. Thousands admire the sentimental-writer; the affectionatefather is hardly known in his parish. Under this philosophic instructor in _the ethics of vanity_, they haveattempted in France a regeneration of the moral constitution of man. Statesmen like your present rulers exist by everything which isspurious, fictitious, and false, --by everything which takes the man fromhis house, and sets him on a stage, --which makes him up an artificialcreature, with painted, theatric sentiments, fit to be seen by the glareof candle-light, and formed to be contemplated at a due distance. Vanityis too apt to prevail in all of us, and in all countries. To theimprovement of Frenchmen, it seems not absolutely necessary that itshould be taught upon system. But it is plain that the present rebellionwas its legitimate offspring, and it is piously fed by that rebellionwith a daily dole. If the system of institution recommended by the Assembly is false andtheatric, it is because their system of government is of the samecharacter. To that, and to that alone, it is strictly conformable. Tounderstand either, we must connect the morals with the politics of thelegislators. Your practical philosophers, systematic in everything, havewisely began at the source. As the relation between parents and childrenis the first among the elements of vulgar, natural morality, [4] theyerect statues to a wild, ferocious, low-minded, hard-hearted father, offine general feelings, --a lover of his kind, but a hater of his kindred. Your masters reject the duties of this vulgar relation, as contrary toliberty, as not founded in the social compact, and not binding accordingto the rights of men; because the relation is not, of course, the resultof _free election_, --never so on the side of the children, not always onthe part of the parents. The next relation which they regenerate by their statues to Rousseau isthat which is next in sanctity to that of a father. They differ fromthose old-fashioned thinkers who considered pedagogues as sober andvenerable characters, and allied to the parental. The moralists of thedark times _præceptorem sancti voluere parentis esse loco_. In this ageof light they teach the people that preceptors ought to be in the placeof gallants. They systematically corrupt a very corruptible race, (forsome time a growing nuisance amongst you, )--a set of pert, petulantliterators, to whom, instead of their proper, but severe, unostentatiousduties, they assign the brilliant part of men of wit and pleasure, ofgay, young, military sparks, and danglers at toilets. They call on therising generation in France to take a sympathy in the adventures andfortunes, and they endeavor to engage their sensibility on the side, ofpedagogues who betray the most awful family trusts and vitiate theirfemale pupils. They teach the people that the debauchers of virgins, almost in the arms of their parents, may be safe inmates in their house, and even fit guardians of the honor of those husbands who succeedlegally to the office which the young literators had preoccupiedwithout asking leave of law or conscience. Thus they dispose of all the family relations of parents and children, husbands and wives. Through this same instructor, by whom they corruptthe morals, they corrupt the taste. Taste and elegance, though they arereckoned only among the smaller and secondary morals, yet are of no meanimportance in the regulation of life. A moral taste is not of force toturn vice into virtue; but it recommends virtue with something like theblandishments of pleasure, and it infinitely abates the evils of vice. Rousseau, a writer of great force and vivacity, is totally destitute oftaste in any sense of the word. Your masters, who are his scholars, conceive that all refinement has an aristocratic character. The last agehad exhausted all its powers in giving a grace and nobleness to ournatural appetites, and in raising them into a higher class and orderthan seemed justly to belong to them. Through Rousseau, your masters areresolved to destroy these aristocratic prejudices. The passion calledlove has so general and powerful an influence, it makes so much of theentertainment, and indeed so much the occupation, of that part of lifewhich decides the character forever, that the mode and the principles onwhich it engages the sympathy and strikes the imagination become of theutmost importance to the morals and manners of every society. Yourrulers were well aware of this; and in their system of changing yourmanners to accommodate them to their politics, they found nothing soconvenient as Rousseau. Through him they teach men to love after thefashion of philosophers: that is, they teach to men, to Frenchmen, alove without gallantry, --a love without anything of that fine flower ofyouthfulness and gentility which places it, if not among the virtues, among the ornaments of life. Instead of this passion, naturally alliedto grace and manners, they infuse into their youth an unfashioned, indelicate, sour, gloomy, ferocious medley of pedantry and lewdness, --ofmetaphysical speculations blended with the coarsest sensuality. Such isthe general morality of the passions to be found in their famousphilosopher, in his famous work of philosophic gallantry, the _NouvelleÉloise_. When the fence from the gallantry of preceptors is broken down, and yourfamilies are no longer protected by decent pride and salutary domesticprejudice, there is but one step to a frightful corruption. The rulersin the National Assembly are in good hopes that the females of the firstfamilies in France may become an easy prey to dancing-masters, fiddlers, pattern-drawers, friseurs, and valets-de-chambre, and other activecitizens of that description, who, having the entry into your houses, and being half domesticated by their situation, may be blended with youby regular and irregular relations. By a law they have made these peopletheir equals. By adopting the sentiments of Rousseau they have made themyour rivals. In this manner these great legislators complete their planof levelling, and establish their rights of men on a sure foundation. I am certain that the writings of Rousseau lead directly to this kind ofshameful evil. I have often wondered how he comes to be so much moreadmired and followed on the Continent than he is here. Perhaps a secretcharm in the language may have its share in this extraordinarydifference. We certainly perceive, and to a degree we feel, in thiswriter, a style glowing, animated, enthusiastic, at the same time thatwe find it lax, diffuse, and not in the best taste of composition, --allthe members of the piece being pretty equally labored and expanded, without any due selection or subordination of parts. He is generally toomuch on the stretch, and his manner has little variety. We cannot restupon, any of his works, though they contain observations whichoccasionally discover a considerable insight into human nature. But hisdoctrines, on the whole, are so inapplicable to real life and manners, that we never dream of drawing from them any rule for laws or conduct, or for fortifying or illustrating anything by a reference to hisopinions. They have with us the fate of older paradoxes:-- Cum ventum ad _verum_ est, _sensus moresque_ repugnant, Atque ipsa utilitas, justi prope mater et æqui. Perhaps bold speculations are more acceptable because more new to youthan to us, who have been, long since satiated with them. We continue, as in the two last ages, to read, more generally than I believe is nowdone on the Continent, the authors of sound antiquity. These occupy ourminds; they give us another taste and turn; and will not suffer us to bemore than transiently amused with paradoxical morality. It is not that Iconsider this writer as wholly destitute of just notions. Amongst hisirregularities, it must be reckoned that he is sometimes moral, andmoral in a very sublime strain. But the _general spirit and tendency_ ofhis works is mischievous, --and the more mischievous for this mixture:for perfect depravity of sentiment is not reconcilable with eloquence;and the mind (though corruptible, not complexionally vicious) wouldreject and throw off with disgust a lesson of pure and unmixed evil. These writers make even virtue a pander to vice. However, I less consider the author than the system of the Assembly inperverting morality through his means. This I confess makes me nearlydespair of any attempt upon the minds of their followers, throughreason, honor, or conscience. The great object of your tyrants is todestroy the gentlemen of France; and for that purpose they destroy, tothe best of their power, all the effect of those relations which mayrender considerable men powerful or even safe. To destroy that order, they vitiate the whole community. That no means may exist ofconfederating against their tyranny, by the false sympathies of this_Nouvelle Éloise_ they endeavor to subvert those principles of domestictrust and fidelity which form the discipline of social life. Theypropagate principles by which every servant may think it, if not hisduty, at least his privilege, to betray his master. By these principles, every considerable father of a family loses the sanctuary of his house. _Debet sua cuique domus esse perfugium tutissimum_, says the law, whichyour legislators have taken so much pains first to decry, then torepeal. They destroy all the tranquillity and security of domestic life:turning the asylum of the house into a gloomy prison, where the fatherof the family must drag out a miserable existence, endangered inproportion to the apparent means of his safety, --where he is worse thansolitary in a crowd of domestics, and more apprehensive from hisservants and inmates than from the hired, bloodthirsty mob withoutdoors who are ready to pull him to the _lanterne_. It is thus, and for the same end, that they endeavor to destroy thattribunal of conscience which exists independently of edicts and decrees. Your despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fearsnothing else; and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through theirVoltaire, their Helvétius, and the rest of that infamous gang, that onlysort of fear which generates true courage. Their object is, that theirfellow-citizens may be under the dominion of no awe but that of theirCommittee of Research and of their _lanterne_. Having found the advantage of assassination in the formation of theirtyranny, it is the grand resource in which they trust for the support ofit. Whoever opposes any of their proceedings, or is suspected of adesign to oppose them, is to answer it with his life, or the lives ofhis wife and children. This infamous, cruel, and cowardly practice ofassassination they have the impudence to call _merciful_. They boastthat they operated their usurpation rather by terror than by force, andthat a few seasonable murders have prevented the bloodshed of manybattles. There is no doubt they will extend these acts of mercy wheneverthey see an occasion. Dreadful, however, will be the consequences oftheir attempt to avoid the evils of war by the merciful policy ofmurder. If, by effectual punishment of the guilty, they do not whollydisavow that practice, and the threat of it too, as any part of theirpolicy, if ever a foreign prince enters into France, he must enter it asinto a country of assassins. The mode of civilized war will not bepractised: nor are the French who act on the present system entitled toexpect it. They whose known policy it is to assassinate every citizenwhom they suspect to be discontented by their tyranny, and to corruptthe soldiery of every open enemy, must look for no modified hostility. All war, which is not battle, will be military execution. This willbeget acts of retaliation from you; and every retaliation will beget anew revenge. The hell-hounds of war, on all sides, will be uncoupled andunmuzzled. The new school of murder and barbarism set up in Paris, having destroyed (so far as in it lies) all the other manners andprinciples which have hitherto civilized Europe, will destroy also themode of civilized war, which, more than anything else, has distinguishedthe Christian world. Such is the approaching golden age which theVirgil[5] of your Assembly has sung to his Pollios! In such a situation of your political, your civil, and your socialmorals and manners, how can you be hurt by the freedom of anydiscussion? Caution is for those who have something to lose. What I havesaid, to justify myself in not apprehending any ill consequence from afree discussion of the absurd consequences which flow from the relationof the lawful king to the usurped Constitution, will apply to myvindication with regard to the exposure I have made of the state of thearmy under the same sophistic usurpation. The present tyrants want noarguments to prove, what they must daily feel, that no good army canexist on their principles. They are in no want of a monitor to suggestto them the policy of getting rid of the army, as well as of the king, whenever they are in a condition to effect that measure. What hopes maybe entertained of your army for the restoration of your liberties I knownot. At present, yielding obedience to the pretended orders of a kingwho, they are perfectly apprised, has no will, and who never can issue amandate which is not intended, in the first operation, or in its certainconsequences, for his own destruction, your army seems to make one ofthe principal links in the chain of that servitude of anarchy by which acruel usurpation holds an undone people at once in bondage andconfusion. You ask me what I think of the conduct of General Monk. How this affectsyour case I cannot tell. I doubt whether you possess in France anypersons of a capacity to serve the French monarchy in the same manner inwhich Monk served the monarchy of England. The army which Monk commandedhad been formed by Cromwell to a perfection of discipline which perhapshas never been exceeded. That army was besides of an excellentcomposition. The soldiers were men of extraordinary piety after theirmode; of the greatest regularity, and even severity of manners; brave inthe field, but modest, quiet, and orderly in their quarters; men whoabhorred the idea of assassinating their officers or any other persons, and who (they at least who served in this island) were firmly attachedto those generals by whom they were well treated and ably commanded. Such an army, once gained, might be depended on. I doubt much, if youcould now find a Monk, whether a Monk could find in France such an army. I certainly agree with you, that in all probability we owe our wholeConstitution to the restoration of the English monarchy. The state ofthings from which Monk relieved England was, however, by no means, atthat time, so deplorable, in any sense, as yours is now, and under thepresent sway is likely to continue. Cromwell had delivered England fromanarchy. His government, though military and despotic, had been regularand orderly. Under the iron, and under the yoke, the soil yielded itsproduce. After his death the evils of anarchy were rather dreaded thanfelt. Every man was yet safe in his house and in his property. But itmust be admitted that Monk freed this nation from great and justapprehensions both of future anarchy and of probable tyranny in someform or other. The king whom he gave us was, indeed, the very reverse ofyour benignant sovereign, who, in reward for his attempt to bestowliberty on his subjects, languishes himself in prison. The person givento us by Monk was a man without any sense of his duty as a prince, without any regard to the dignity of his crown, without any love to hispeople, --dissolute, false, venal, and destitute of any positive goodquality whatsoever, except a pleasant temper, and the manners of agentleman. Yet the restoration of our monarchy, even in the person ofsuch a prince, was everything to us; for without monarchy in England, most certainly we never can enjoy either peace or liberty. It was underthis conviction that the very first regular step which we took, on theRevolution of 1688, was to fill the throne with a real king; and evenbefore it could be done in due form, the chiefs of the nation did notattempt themselves to exercise authority so much as by _interim_. Theyinstantly requested the Prince of Orange to take the government onhimself. The throne was not effectively vacant for an hour. Your fundamental laws, as well as ours, suppose a monarchy. Your zeal, Sir, in standing so firmly for it as you have done, shows not only asacred respect for your honor and fidelity, but a well-informedattachment to the real welfare and true liberties of your country. Ihave expressed myself ill, if I have given you cause to imagine that Iprefer the conduct of those who have retired from this warfare to yourbehavior, who, with a courage and constancy almost supernatural, havestruggled against tyranny, and kept the field to the last. You see Ihave corrected the exceptionable part in the edition which I now sendyou. Indeed, in such terrible extremities as yours, it is not easy tosay, in a political view, what line of conduct is the most advisable. Inthat state of things, I cannot bring myself severely to condemn personswho are wholly unable to bear so much as the sight of those men in thethrone of legislation who are only fit to be the objects of criminaljustice. If fatigue, if disgust, if unsurmountable nausea drive themaway from such spectacles, _ubi miseriarum pars non minima erat videreet aspici_, I cannot blame them. He must have an heart of adamant whocould hear a set of traitors puffed up with unexpected and undeservedpower, obtained by an ignoble, unmanly, and perfidious rebellion, treating their honest fellow-citizens as _rebels_, because they refusedto bind them selves through their conscience, against the dictates ofconscience itself, and had declined to swear an active compliance withtheir own ruin. How could a man of common flesh and blood endure thatthose who but the other day had skulked unobserved in theirantechambers, scornfully insulting men illustrious in their rank, sacredin their function, and venerable in their character, now in decline oflife, and swimming on the wrecks of their fortunes, --that thosemiscreants should tell such men scornfully and outrageously, after theyhad robbed them of all their property, that it is more than enough, ifthey are allowed what will keep them from absolute famine, and that, forthe rest, they must let their gray hairs fall over the plough, to makeout a scanty subsistence with the labor of their hands? Last, and, worst, who could endure to hear this unnatural, insolent, and savagedespotism called liberty? If, at this distance, sitting quietly by myfire, I cannot read their decrees and speeches without indignation, shall I condemn those who have fled from the actual sight and hearing ofall these horrors? No, no! mankind has no title to demand that we shouldbe slaves to their guilt and insolence, or that we should serve them inspite of themselves. Minds sore with the poignant sense of insultedvirtue, filled with high disdain against the pride of triumphantbaseness, often have it not in their choice to stand their ground. Theircomplexion (which might defy the rack) cannot go through such a trial. Something very high must fortify men to that proof. But when I am drivento comparison, surely I cannot hesitate for a moment to prefer to suchmen as are common those heroes who in the midst of despair perform allthe tasks of hope, --who subdue their feelings to their duties, --who, inthe cause of humanity, liberty, and honor, abandon all the satisfactionsof life, and every day incur a fresh risk of life itself. Do me thejustice to believe that I never can prefer any fastidious virtue (virtuestill) to the unconquered perseverance, to the affectionate patience, ofthose who watch day and night by the bedside of their deliriouscountry, --who, for their love to that dear and venerable name, bear allthe disgusts and all the buffets they receive from their frantic mother. Sir, I do look on you as true martyrs; I regard you as soldiers who actfar more in the spirit of our Commander-in-Chief and the Captain of ourSalvation than those who have left you: though I must first bolt myselfvery thoroughly, and know that I could do better, before I can censurethem. I assure you, Sir, that, when I consider your unconquerablefidelity to your sovereign and to your country, --the courage, fortitude, magnanimity, and long-suffering of yourself, and the Abbé Maury, and ofM. Cazalès, and of many worthy persons of all orders in yourAssembly, --I forget, in the lustre of these great qualities, that onyour side has been displayed an eloquence so rational, manly, andconvincing, that no time or country, perhaps, has ever excelled. Butyour talents disappear in my admiration of your virtues. As to M. Mounier and M. Lally, I have always wished to do justice totheir parts, and their eloquence, and the general purity of theirmotives. Indeed, I saw very well, from the beginning, the mischiefswhich, with all these talents and good intentions, they would do theircountry, through their confidence in systems. But their distemper was anepidemic malady. They were young and inexperienced; and when will youngand inexperienced men learn caution and distrust of themselves? And whenwill men, young or old, if suddenly raised to far higher power than thatwhich absolute kings and emperors commonly enjoy, learn anything likemoderation? Monarchs, in general, respect some settled order of things, which they find it difficult to move from its basis, and to which theyare obliged to conform, even when there are no positive limitations totheir power. These gentlemen conceived that they were chosen tonew-model the state, and even the whole order of civil society itself. No wonder that _they_ entertained dangerous visions, when the king'sministers, trustees for the sacred deposit of the monarchy, were soinfected with the contagion of project and system (I can hardly think itblack premeditated treachery) that they publicly advertised for plansand schemes of government, as if they were to provide for the rebuildingof an hospital that had been burned down. What was this, but to unchainthe fury of rash speculation amongst a people of itself but too apt tobe guided by a heated imagination and a wild spirit of adventure? The fault of M. Mounier and M. Lally was very great; but it was verygeneral. If those gentlemen stopped, when they came to the brink of thegulf of guilt and public misery that yawned before them in the abyss ofthese dark and bottomless speculations, I forgive their first error: inthat they were involved with many. Their repentance was their own. They who consider Mounier and Lally as deserters must regard themselvesas murderers and as traitors: for from what else than murder and treasondid they desert? For my part, I honor them for not having carriedmistake into crime. If, indeed, I thought that they were not cured byexperience, that they were not made sensible that those who would reforma state ought to assume some actual constitution of government which isto be reformed, --if they are not at length satisfied that it is become anecessary preliminary to liberty in France, to commence by thereëstablishment of order and property of _every_ kind, and, through thereëstablishment of their monarchy, of every one of the old habitualdistinctions and classes of the state, --if they do not see that theseclasses are not to be confounded in order to be afterwards revived andseparated, --if they are not convinced that the scheme of parochial andclub governments takes up the state at the wrong end, and is a low andsenseless contrivance, (as making the sole constitution of a supremepower, )--I should then allow that their early rashness ought to beremembered to the last moment of their lives. You gently reprehend me, because, in holding out the picture of yourdisastrous situation, I suggest no plan for a remedy. Alas! Sir, theproposition of plans, without an attention to circumstances, is the verycause of all your misfortunes; and never shall you find me aggravating, by the infusion of any speculations of mine, the evils which have arisenfrom the speculations of others. Your malady, in this respect, is adisorder of repletion. You seem to think that my keeping back my poorideas may arise from an indifference to the welfare of a foreign andsometimes an hostile nation. No, Sir, I faithfully assure you, myreserve is owing to no such causes. Is this letter, swelled to a secondbook, a mark of national antipathy, or even of national indifference? Ishould act altogether in the spirit of the same caution, in a similarstate of our own domestic affairs. If I were to venture any advice, inany case, it would be my best. The sacred duty of an adviser (one of themost inviolable that exists) would lead me, towards a real enemy, to actas if my best friend were the party concerned. But I dare not risk aspeculation with no better view of your affairs than at present I cancommand; my caution is not from disregard, but from solicitude for yourwelfare. It is suggested solely from my dread of becoming the author ofinconsiderate counsel. It is not, that, as this strange series of actions has passed before myeyes, I have not indulged my mind in a great variety of politicalspeculations concerning them; but, compelled by no such positive duty asdoes not permit me to evade an opinion, called upon by no ruling power, without authority as I am, and without confidence, I should ill answermy own ideas of what would become myself, or what would be serviceableto others, if I were, as a volunteer, to obtrude any project of mineupon a nation to whose circumstances I could not be sure it might beapplicable. Permit me to say, that, if I were as confident as I ought to bediffident in my own loose, general ideas, I never should venture tobroach them, if but at twenty leagues' distance from the centre of youraffairs. I must see with my own eyes, I must, in a manner, touch with myown hands, not only the fixed, but the momentary circumstances, before Icould venture to suggest any political project whatsoever. I must knowthe power and disposition to accept, to execute, to persevere. I mustsee all the aids and all the obstacles. I must see the means ofcorrecting the plan, where correctives would be wanted. I must see thethings; I must see the men. Without a concurrence and adaptation ofthese to the design, the very best speculative projects might become notonly useless, but mischievous. Plans must be made for men. We cannotthink of making men, and binding Nature to our designs. People at adistance must judge ill of men. They do not always answer to theirreputation, when you approach them. Nay, the perspective varies, andshows them quite otherwise than you thought them. At a distance, if wejudge uncertainly of men, we must judge worse of _opportunities_, whichcontinually vary their shapes and colors, and pass away like clouds. TheEastern politicians never do anything without the opinion of theastrologers on _the fortunate moment_. They are in the right, if theycan do no better; for the opinion of fortune is something towardscommanding it. Statesmen of a more judicious prescience look for thefortunate moment too; but they seek it, not in the conjunctions andoppositions of planets, but in the conjunctions and oppositions of menand things. These form their almanac. To illustrate the mischief of a wise plan, without any attention tomeans and circumstances, it is not necessary to go farther than to yourrecent history. In the condition in which France was found three yearsago, what better system could be proposed, what less even savoring ofwild theory, what fitter to provide for all the exigencies whilst itreformed all the abuses of government, than the convention of theStates-General? I think nothing better could be imagined. But I havecensured, and do still presume to censure, your Parliament of Paris fornot having suggested to the king that this proper measure was of allmeasures the most critical and arduous, one in which the utmostcircumspection and the greatest number of precautions were the mostabsolutely necessary. The very confession that a government wants eitheramendment in its conformation or relief to great distress causes it tolose half its reputation, and as great a proportion of its strength asdepends upon that reputation. It was therefore necessary first to putgovernment out of danger, whilst at its own desire it suffered such anoperation as a general reform at the hands of those who were much morefilled with a sense of the disease than provided with rational means ofa cure. It may be said that this care and these precautions were more naturallythe duty of the king's ministers than that of the Parliament. They wereso: but every man must answer in his estimation for the advice he gives, when he puts the conduct of his measure into hands who he does not knowwill execute his plans according to his ideas. Three or four ministerswere not to be trusted with the being of the French monarchy, of all theorders, and of all the distinctions, and all the property of thekingdom. What must be the prudence of those who could think, in the thenknown temper of the people of Paris, of assembling the States at a placesituated as Versailles? The Parliament of Paris did worse than to inspire this blind confidenceinto the king. For, as if names were things, they took no notice of(indeed, they rather countenanced) the deviations, which were manifestin the execution, from the true ancient principles of the plan whichthey recommended. These deviations (as guardians of the ancient laws, usages, and Constitution of the kingdom) the Parliament of Paris oughtnot to have suffered, without the strongest remonstrances to the throne. It ought to have sounded the alarm to the whole nation, as it had oftendone on things of infinitely less importance. Under pretence ofresuscitating the ancient Constitution, the Parliament saw one of thestrongest acts of innovation, and the most leading in its consequences, carried into effect before their eyes, --and an innovation through themedium of despotism: that is, they suffered the king's ministers tonew-model the whole representation of the _Tiers État_, and, in a greatmeasure, that of the clergy too, and to destroy the ancient proportionsof the orders. These changes, unquestionably, the king had no right tomake; and here the Parliaments failed in their duty, and, along withtheir country, have perished by this failure. What a number of faults have led to this multitude of misfortunes, andalmost all from this one source, --that of considering certain generalmaxims, without attending to circumstances, to times, to places, toconjunctures, and to actors! If we do not attend scrupulously to allthese, the medicine of to-day becomes the poison of to-morrow. If anymeasure was in the abstract better than another, it was to call theStates: _ea visa salus morientibus una_. Certainly it had theappearance. But see the consequences of not attending to criticalmoments, of not regarding the symptoms which discriminate diseases, andwhich distinguish constitutions, complexions, and humors. Mox erat hoc ipsum exitio; furiisque refecti Ardebant; ipsique suos, jam morte sub ægra, Discissos nudis laniabant dentibus artus. Thus the potion which was given to strengthen the Constitution, to healdivisions, and to compose the minds of men, became the source ofdebility, frenzy, discord, and utter dissolution. In this, perhaps, I have answered, I think, another of yourquestions, --Whether the British Constitution is adapted to yourcircumstances? When I praised the British Constitution, and wished it tobe well studied, I did not mean that its exterior form and positivearrangement should become a model for you or for any people servilely tocopy. I meant to recommend the _principles_ from which it has grown, andthe policy on which it has been progressively improved out of elementscommon to you and to us. I am sure it is no visionary theory of mine. Itis not an advice that subjects you to the hazard of any experiment. Ibelieved the ancient principles to be wise in all cases of a largeempire that would be free. I thought you possessed our principles inyour old forms in as great a perfection as we did originally. If yourStates agreed (as I think they did) with your circumstances, they werebest for you. As you had a Constitution formed upon principles similarto ours, my idea was, that you might have improved them as we have done, conforming them to the state and exigencies of the times, and thecondition of property in your country, --having the conservation of thatproperty, and the substantial basis of your monarchy, as principalobjects in all your reforms. I do not advise an House of Lords to you. Your ancient course byrepresentatives of the noblesse (in your circumstances) appears to merather a better institution. I know, that, with you, a set of men ofrank have betrayed their constituents, their honor, their trust, theirking, and their country, and levelled themselves with their footmen, that through this degradation they might afterwards put themselves abovetheir natural equals. Some of these persons have entertained a project, that, in reward of this their black perfidy and corruption, they may bechosen to give rise to a new order, and to establish themselves into anHouse of Lords. Do you think, that, under the name of a BritishConstitution, I mean to recommend to you such Lords, made of such kindof stuff? I do not, however, include in this description all of thosewho are fond of this scheme. If you were now to form such an House of Peers, it would bear, in myopinion, but little resemblance to ours, in its origin, character, orthe purposes which it might answer, at the same time that it woulddestroy your true natural nobility. But if you are not in a condition toframe a House of Lords, still less are you capable, in my opinion, offraming anything which virtually and substantially could be answerable(for the purposes of a stable, regular government) to our House ofCommons. That House is, within itself, a much more subtle and artificialcombination of parts and powers than people are generally aware of. Whatknits it to the other members of the Constitution, what fits it to be atonce the great support and the great control of government, what makesit of such admirable service to that monarchy which, if it limits, itsecures and strengthens, would require a long discourse, belonging tothe leisure of a contemplative man, not to one whose duty it is to joinin communicating practically to the people the blessings of such aConstitution. Your _Tiers État_ was not in effect and substance an House of Commons. You stood in absolute need of something else to supply the manifestdefects in such a body as your _Tiers État_. On a sober anddispassionate view of your old Constitution, as connected with all thepresent circumstances, I was fully persuaded that the crown, standing asthings have stood, (and are likely to stand, if you are to have anymonarchy at all, ) was and is incapable, alone and by itself, of holdinga just balance between the two orders, and at the same time of effectingthe interior and exterior purposes of a protecting government. I, whoseleading principle it is, in a reformation of the state, to make use ofexisting materials, am of opinion that the representation of the clergy, as a separate order, was an institution which touched all the ordersmore nearly than any of them touched the other; that it was well fittedto connect them, and to hold a place in any wise monarchicalcommonwealth. If I refer you to your original Constitution, and thinkit, as I do, substantially a good one, I do not amuse you in this, morethan in other things, with any inventions of mine. A certainintemperance of intellect is the disease of the time, and the source ofall its other diseases. I will keep myself as untainted by it as I can. Your architects build without a foundation. I would readily lend anhelping hand to any superstructure, when once this is effectuallysecured, --but first I would say, Δός πον στῶ. You think, Sir, (and you might think rightly, upon the first view of thetheory, ) that to provide for the exigencies of an empire so situated andso related as that of France, its king ought to be invested with powersvery much superior to those which the king of England possesses underthe letter of our Constitution. Every degree of power necessary to thestate, and not destructive to the rational and moral freedom ofindividuals, to that personal liberty and personal security whichcontribute so much to the vigor, the prosperity, the happiness, and thedignity of a nation, --every degree of power which does not suppose thetotal absence of all control and all responsibility on the part ofministers, --a king of France, in common sense, ought to possess. Butwhether the exact measure of authority assigned by the letter of the lawto the king of Great Britain can answer to the exterior or interiorpurposes of the French monarchy is a point which I cannot venture tojudge upon. Here, both in the power given, and its limitations, we havealways cautiously felt our way. The parts of our Constitution havegradually, and almost insensibly, in a long course of time, accommodatedthemselves to each other, and to their common as well as to theirseparate purposes. But this adaptation of contending parts, as it hasnot been in ours, so it can never be in yours, or in any country, theeffect of a single instantaneous regulation, and no sound heads couldever think of doing it in that manner. I believe, Sir, that many on the Continent altogether mistake thecondition of a king of Great Britain. He is a real king, and not anexecutive officer. If he will not trouble himself with contemptibledetails, nor wish to degrade himself by becoming a party in littlesquabbles, I am far from sure that a king of Great Britain, in whateverconcerns him as a king, or indeed as a rational man, who combines hispublic interest with his personal satisfaction, does not possess a morereal, solid, extensive power than the king of France was possessed ofbefore this miserable revolution. The direct power of the king ofEngland is considerable. His indirect, and far more certain power, isgreat indeed. He stands in need of nothing towards dignity, --of nothingtowards splendor, --of nothing towards authority, --of nothing at alltowards consideration abroad. When was it that a king of England wantedwherewithal to make him respected, courted, or perhaps even feared, inevery state in Europe? I am constantly of opinion that your States, in three orders, on thefooting on which they stood in 1614, were capable of being brought intoa proper and harmonious combination with royal authority. Thisconstitution by Estates was the natural and only just representation ofFrance. It grew out of the habitual conditions, relations, andreciprocal claims of men. It grew out of the circumstances of thecountry, and out of the state of property. The wretched scheme of yourpresent masters is not to fit the Constitution to the people, but whollyto destroy conditions, to dissolve relations, to change the state of thenation, and to subvert property, in order to fit their country to theirtheory of a Constitution. Until you make out practically that great work, a combination ofopposing forces, "a work of labor long, and endless praise, " the utmostcaution ought to have been used in the reduction of the royal power, which alone was capable of holding together the comparativelyheterogeneous mass of your States. But at this day all theseconsiderations are unseasonable. To what end should we discuss thelimitations of royal power? Your king is in prison. Why speculate on themeasure and standard of liberty? I doubt much, very much indeed, whetherFrance is at all ripe for liberty on any standard. Men are qualified forcivil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moralchains upon their own appetites, --in proportion as their love to justiceis above their rapacity, --in proportion as their soundness and sobrietyof understanding is above their vanity and presumption, --in proportionas they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise andgood, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere;and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. Itis ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men ofintemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters. This sentence the prevalent part of your countrymen execute onthemselves. They possessed not long since what was next to freedom, amild, paternal monarchy. They despised it for its weakness. They wereoffered a well-poised, free Constitution. It did not suit their taste ortheir temper. They carved for themselves: they flew out, murdered, robbed, and rebelled. They have succeeded, and put over their country aninsolent tyranny made up of cruel and inexorable masters, and that, too, of a description hitherto not known in the world. The powers andpolicies by which they have succeeded are not those of great statesmenor great military commanders, but the practices of incendiaries, assassins, housebreakers, robbers, spreaders of false news, forgers offalse orders from authority, and other delinquencies, of which ordinaryjustice takes cognizance. Accordingly, the spirit of their rule isexactly correspondent to the means by which they obtained it. They actmore in the manner of thieves who have got possession of an house thanof conquerors who have subdued a nation. Opposed to these, in appearance, but in appearance only, is anotherband, who call themselves _the Moderate_. These, if I conceive rightlyof their conduct, are a set of men who approve heartily of the wholenew Constitution, but wish to lay heavy on the most atrocious of thosecrimes by which this fine Constitution of theirs has been obtained. Theyare a sort of people who affect to proceed as if they thought that menmay deceive without fraud, rob without injustice, and overturneverything without violence. They are men who would usurp the governmentof their country with decency and moderation. In fact, they are nothingmore or better than men engaged in desperate designs with feeble minds. They are not honest; they are only ineffectual and unsystematic in theiriniquity. They are persons who want not the dispositions, but the energyand vigor, that is necessary for great evil machinations. They find thatin such designs they fall at best into a secondary rank, and others takethe place and lead in usurpation which they are not qualified to obtainor to hold. They envy to their companions the natural fruit of theircrimes; they join to run them down with the hue and cry of mankind, which pursues their common offences; and then hope to mount into theirplaces on the credit of the sobriety with which they show themselvesdisposed to carry on what may seem most plausible in the mischievousprojects they pursue in common. But these men are naturally despised bythose who have heads to know, and hearts that are able to go through thenecessary demands of bold, wicked enterprises. They are naturallyclassed below the latter description, and will only be used by them asinferior instruments. They will be only the Fairfaxes of your Cromwells. If they mean honestly, why do they not strengthen the arms of honest mento support their ancient, legal, wise, and free government, given tothem in the spring of 1788, against the inventions of craft and thetheories of ignorance and folly? If they do not, they must continue thescorn of both parties, --sometimes the tool, sometimes the incumbrance ofthat whose views they approve, whose conduct they decry. These peopleare only made to be the sport of tyrants. They never can obtain orcommunicate freedom. You ask me, too, whether we have a Committee of Research. No, Sir, --Godforbid! It is the necessary instrument of tyranny and usurpation; andtherefore I do not wonder that it has had an early establishment underyour present lords. We do not want it. Excuse my length. I have been somewhat occupied since I was honored withyour letter; and I should not have been able to answer it at all, butfor the holidays, which have given me means of enjoying the leisure ofthe country. I am called to duties which I am neither able nor willingto evade. I must soon return to my old conflict with the corruptions andoppressions which have prevailed in our Eastern dominions. I must turnmyself wholly from those of France. In England we _cannot_ work so hard as Frenchmen. Frequent relaxation isnecessary to us. You are naturally more intense in your application. Idid not know this part of your national character, until I went intoFrance in 1773. At present, this your disposition to labor is ratherincreased than lessened. In your Assembly you do not allow yourselves arecess even on Sundays. We have two days in the week, besides thefestivals, and besides five or six months of the summer and autumn. Thiscontinued, unremitted effort of the members of your Assembly I take tobe one among the causes of the mischief they have done. They who alwayslabor can have no true judgment. You never give yourselves time to cool. You can never survey, from its proper point of sight, the work you havefinished, before you decree its final execution. You can never plan thefuture by the past. You never go into the country, soberly anddispassionately to observe the effect of your measures on their objects. You cannot feel distinctly how far the people are rendered better andimproved, or more miserable and depraved, by what you have done. Youcannot see with your own eyes the sufferings and afflictions you cause. You know them but at a distance, on the statements of those who alwaysflatter the reigning power, and who, amidst their representations of thegrievances, inflame your minds against those who are oppressed. Theseare amongst the effects of unremitted labor, when men exhaust theirattention, burn out their candles, and are left in the dark. --_Malomeorum negligentiam, quam istorum obscuram diligentiam_. I have the honor, &c. , EDMUND BURKE. BEACONSFIELD, January 19th, 1791. FOOTNOTES: [1] It is said in the last quackish address of the National Assembly tothe people of France, that they have not formed their arrangements uponvulgar practice, but on a theory which cannot fail, --or something tothat effect. [2] See Burnet's Life of Hale. [3] The pillory (_carcan_) in England is generally made very high likethat raised to exposing the king of France. [4] "Filiola tua te delectari lætor, et prohari tibi Φυσικὴνesse τὴν πρὸς τὰ τεκνα: etenim, si hæc non est, nulla potesthomini esse ad hominem naturæ adjunctio: qua sublata, vitæ societastollitur. Valete Patron [Rousseau] et tui condiscipuli [L'AssembléeNationale]"--Cic. Ep. Ad Atticum. [5] Mirabeau's speech concerning universal peace. AN APPEAL FROM THE NEW TO THE OLD WHIGS, IN CONSEQUENCE OF SOME LATE DISCUSSIONS IN PARLIAMENT RELATIVE TO THE REFLECTIONS ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 1791. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION. There are some corrections in this edition, which tend to render thesense less obscure in one or two places. The order of the two lastmembers is also changed, and I believe for the better. This change wasmade on the suggestion of a very learned person, to the partiality ofwhose friendship I owe much; to the severity of whose judgment I owemore. AN APPEAL FROM THE NEW TO THE OLD WHIGS. At Mr. Burke's time of life, and in his dispositions, _petere honestammissionem_ was all he had to do with his political associates. This boonthey have not chosen to grant him. With many expressions of good-will, in effect they tell him he has loaded the stage too long. They conceiveit, though an harsh, yet a necessary office, in full Parliament todeclare to the present age, and to as late a posterity as shall take anyconcern in the proceedings of our day, that by one book he has disgracedthe whole tenor of his life. --Thus they dismiss their old partner of thewar. He is advised to retire, whilst they continue to serve the publicupon wiser principles and under better auspices. Whether Diogenes the Cynic was a true philosopher cannot easily bedetermined. He has written nothing. But the sayings of his which arehanded down by others are lively, and may be easily and aptly applied onmany occasions by those whose wit is not so perfect as their memory. This Diogenes (as every one will recollect) was citizen of a littlebleak town situated on the coast of the Euxine, and exposed to all thebuffets of that inhospitable sea. He lived at a great distance fromthose weather-beaten walls, in ease and indolence, and in the midst ofliterary leisure, when he was informed that his townsmen had condemnedhim to be banished from Sinope; he answered coolly, "And I condemn themto live in Sinope. " The gentlemen of the party in which Mr. Burke has always acted, inpassing upon him the sentence of retirement, [6] have done nothing morethan to confirm the sentence which he had long before passed uponhimself. When that retreat was choice, which the tribunal of his peersinflict as punishment, it is plain he does not think their sentenceintolerably severe. Whether they, who are to continue in the Sinopewhich shortly he is to leave, will spend the long years, which I hoperemain to them, in a manner more to their satisfaction than he shallslide down, in silence and obscurity, the slope of his declining days, is best known to Him who measures out years, and days, and fortunes. The quality of the sentence does not, however, decide on the justice ofit. Angry friendship is sometimes as bad as calm enmity. For this reasonthe cold neutrality of abstract justice is, to a good and clear cause, amore desirable thing than an affection liable to be any way disturbed. When the trial is by friends, if the decision should happen to befavorable, the honor of the acquittal is lessened; if adverse, thecondemnation is exceedingly embittered. It is aggravated by coming fromlips professing friendship, and pronouncing judgment with sorrow andreluctance. Taking in the whole view of life, it is more safe to liveunder the jurisdiction of severe, but steady reason, than under theempire of indulgent, but capricious passion. It is certainly well forMr. Burke that there are impartial men in the world. To them I addressmyself, pending the appeal which on his part is made from the living tothe dead, from the modern Whigs to the ancient. The gentlemen, who, in the name of the party, have passed sentence onMr. Burke's book, in the light of literary criticism, are judges aboveall challenge. He did not, indeed, flatter himself that as a writer hecould claim the approbation of men whose talents, in his judgment and inthe public judgment, approach to prodigies, if ever such persons shouldbe disposed to estimate the merit of a composition upon the standard oftheir own ability. In their critical censure, though Mr. Burke may find himself humbled byit as a writer, as a man, and as an Englishman, he finds matter not onlyof consolation, but of pride. He proposed to convey to a foreign people, not his own ideas, but the prevalent opinions and sentiments of anation, renowned for wisdom, and celebrated in all ages for awell-understood and well-regulated love of freedom. This was the avowedpurpose of the far greater part of his work. As that work has not beenill received, and as his critics will not only admit, but contend, thatthis reception could not be owing to any excellence in the compositioncapable of perverting the public judgment, it is clear that he is notdisavowed by the nation whose sentiments he had undertaken to describe. His representation is authenticated by the verdict of his country. Hadhis piece, as a work of skill, been thought worthy of commendation, somedoubt might have been entertained of the cause of his success. But thematter stands exactly as he wishes it. He is more happy to have hisfidelity in representation recognized by the body of the people than ifhe were to be ranked in point of ability (and higher he could not beranked) with those whose critical censure he has had the misfortune toincur. It is not from this part of their decision which the author wishes anappeal. There are things which touch him more nearly. To abandon themwould argue, not diffidence in his abilities, but treachery to hiscause. Had his work been recognized as a pattern for dexterous argumentand powerful eloquence, yet, if it tended to establish maxims or toinspire sentiments adverse to the wise and free Constitution of thiskingdom, he would only have cause to lament that it possessed qualitiesfitted to perpetuate the memory of his offence. Oblivion would be theonly means of his escaping the reproaches of posterity. But, afterreceiving the common allowance due to the common weakness of man, hewishes to owe no part of the indulgence of the world to itsforgetfulness. He is at issue with the party before the present, and, if ever he can reach it, before the coming generation. The author, several months previous to his publication, well knew thattwo gentlemen, both of them possessed of the most distinguishedabilities, and of a most decisive authority in the party, had differedwith him in one of the most material points relative to the FrenchRevolution: that is, in their opinion of the behavior of the Frenchsoldiery, and its revolt from its officers. At the time of their publicdeclaration on this subject, he did not imagine the opinion of these twogentlemen had extended a great way beyond themselves. He was, however, well aware of the probability that persons of their just credit andinfluence would at length dispose the greater number to an agreementwith their sentiments, and perhaps might induce the whole body to atacit acquiescence in their declarations, under a natural and not alwaysan improper dislike of showing a difference with those who lead theirparty. I will not deny that in general this conduct in parties isdefensible; but within what limits the practice is to be circumscribed, and with what exceptions the doctrine which supports it is to bereceived, it is not my present purpose to define. The present questionhas nothing to do with their motives; it only regards the publicexpression of their sentiments. The author is compelled, however reluctantly, to receive the sentencepronounced upon him in the House of Commons as that of the party. Itproceeded from the mouth of him who must be regarded as its authenticorgan. In a discussion which continued for two days, no one gentleman ofthe opposition interposed a negative, or even a doubt, in favor of himor his opinions. If an idea consonant to the doctrine of his book, orfavorable to his conduct, lurks in the minds of any persons in thatdescription, it is to be considered only as a peculiarity which theyindulge to their own private liberty of thinking. The author cannotreckon upon it. It has nothing to do with them as members of a party. Intheir public capacity, in everything that meets the public ear or publiceye, the body must be considered as unanimous. They must have been animated with a very warm zeal against thoseopinions, because they were under no _necessity_ of acting as they did, from any just cause of apprehension that the errors of this writershould be taken for theirs. They might disapprove; it was not necessarythey should _disavow_ him, as they have done in the whole and in all theparts of his book; because neither in the whole nor in any of the partswere they directly, or by any implication, involved. The author wasknown, indeed, to have been warmly, strenuously, and affectionately, against all allurements of ambition, and all possibility of alienationfrom pride or personal pique or peevish jealousy, attached to the Whigparty. With one of them he has had a long friendship, which he must everremember with a melancholy pleasure. To the great, real, and amiablevirtues, and to the unequalled abilities of that gentleman, he shallalways join with his country in paying a just tribute of applause. Thereare others in that party for whom, without any shade of sorrow, he bearsas high a degree of love as can enter into the human heart, and as muchveneration as ought to be paid to human creatures; because he firmlybelieves that they are endowed with as many and as great virtues as thenature of man is capable of producing, joined to great clearness ofintellect, to a just judgment, to a wonderful temper, and to truewisdom. His sentiments with regard to them can never vary, withoutsubjecting him to the just indignation of mankind, who are bound, andare generally disposed, to look up with reverence to the best patternsof their species, and such as give a dignity to the nature of which weall participate. For the whole of the party he has high respect. Upon aview, indeed, of the composition of all parties, he finds greatsatisfaction. It is, that, in leaving the service of his country, heleaves Parliament without all comparison richer in abilities than hefound it. Very solid and very brilliant talents distinguish theministerial benches. The opposite rows are a sort of seminary of genius, and have brought forth such and so great talents as never before(amongst us at least) have appeared together. If their owners aredisposed to serve their country, (he trusts they are, ) they are in acondition to render it services of the highest importance. If, throughmistake or passion, they are led to contribute to its ruin, we shall atleast have a consolation denied to the ruined country that adjoins us:we shall not be destroyed by men of mean or secondary capacities. All these considerations of party attachment, of personal regard, and ofpersonal admiration rendered the author of the Reflections extremelycautious, lest the slightest suspicion should arise of his havingundertaken to express the sentiments even of a single man of thatdescription. His words at the outset of his Reflections are these:-- "In the first letter I had the honor to write to you, and which atlength I send, I wrote neither _for_ nor _from_ any description of men;nor shall I in this. My errors, if any, are _my own_. My reputation_alone_ is to answer for them. " In another place he says, (p. 126, [7])"I have _no man's_ proxy. I speak _only_ from _myself_, when I disclaim, as I do with all possible earnestness, all communion with the actors inthat triumph, or with the admirers of it. When I assert anything else, as concerning the people of England, I speak from observation, _not fromauthority_. " To say, then, that the book did not contain the sentiments of theirparty is not to contradict the author or to clear themselves. If theparty had denied his doctrines to be the current opinions of themajority in the nation, they would have put the question on its trueissue. There, I hope and believe, his censurers will find, on the trial, that the author is as faithful a representative of the general sentimentof the people of England, as any person amongst them can be of the ideasof his own party. The French Revolution can have no connection with the objects of anyparties in England formed before the period of that event, unless theychoose to imitate any of its acts, or to consolidate any principles ofthat Revolution with their own opinions. The French Revolution is nopart of their original contract. The matter, standing by itself, is anopen subject of political discussion, like all the other revolutions(and there are many) which have been attempted or accomplished in ourage. But if any considerable number of British subjects, taking afactious interest in the proceedings of France, begin publicly toincorporate themselves for the subversion of nothing short of the_whole_ Constitution of this kingdom, --to incorporate themselves for theutter overthrow of the body of its laws, civil and ecclesiastical, andwith them of the whole system of its manners, in favor of the newConstitution and of the modern usages of the French nation, --I think noparty principle could bind the author not to express his sentimentsstrongly against such a faction. On the contrary, he was perhaps boundto mark his dissent, when the leaders of the party were daily going outof their way to make public declarations in Parliament, which, notwithstanding the purity of their intentions, had a tendency toencourage ill-designing men in their practices against our Constitution. The members of this faction leave no doubt of the nature and the extentof the mischief they mean to produce. They declare it openly anddecisively. Their intentions are not left equivocal. They are put out ofall dispute by the thanks which, formally and as it were officially, they issue, in order to recommend and to promote the circulation of themost atrocious and treasonable libels against all the hitherto cherishedobjects of the love and veneration of this people. Is it contrary to theduty of a good subject to reprobate such proceedings? Is it alien to theoffice of a good member of Parliament, when such practices increase, andwhen the audacity of the conspirators grows with their impunity, topoint out in his place their evil tendency to the happy Constitutionwhich he is chosen to guard? Is it wrong, in any sense, to render thepeople of England sensible how much they must suffer, if, unfortunately, such a wicked faction should become possessed in this country of thesame power which their allies in the very next to us have soperfidiously usurped and so outrageously abused? Is it inhuman toprevent, if possible, the spilling _their_ blood, or imprudent to guardagainst the effusion of _our own?_ Is it contrary to any of the honestprinciples of party, or repugnant to any of the known duties offriendship, for any senator respectfully and amicably to caution hisbrother members against countenancing, by inconsiderate expressions, asort of proceeding which it is impossible they should deliberatelyapprove? He had undertaken to demonstrate, by arguments which he thought couldnot be refuted, and by documents which he was sure could not be denied, that no comparison was to be made between the British government and theFrench usurpation. --That they who endeavored madly to compare them wereby no means making the comparison of one good system with another goodsystem, which varied only in local and circumstantial differences; muchless that they were holding out to us a superior pattern of legalliberty, which we might substitute in the place of our old, and, as theydescribe it, superannuated Constitution. He meant to demonstrate thatthe French scheme was not a comparative good, but a positive evil. --Thatthe question did not at all turn, as it had been stated, on a parallelbetween a monarchy and a republic. He denied that the present scheme ofthings in France did at all deserve the respectable name of a republic:he had therefore no comparison between monarchies and republics tomake. --That what was done in France was a wild attempt to methodizeanarchy, to perpetuate and fix disorder. That it was a foul, impious, monstrous thing, wholly out of the course of moral Nature. He undertookto prove that it was generated in treachery, fraud, falsehood, hypocrisy, and unprovoked murder. --He offered to make out that those whohave led in that business had conducted themselves with the utmostperfidy to their colleagues in function, and with the most flagrantperjury both towards their king and their constituents: to the one ofwhom the Assembly had sworn fealty; and to the other, when under no sortof violence or constraint, they had sworn a full obedience toinstructions. --That, by the terror of assassination, they had drivenaway a very great number of the members, so as to produce a falseappearance of a majority. --That this fictitious majority had fabricateda Constitution, which, as now it stands, is a tyranny far beyond anyexample that can be found in the civilized European world of our age;that therefore the lovers of it must be lovers, not of liberty, but, ifthey really understand its nature, of the lowest and basest of allservitude. He proposed to prove that the present state of things in France is not atransient evil, productive, as some have too favorably represented it, of a lasting good; but that the present evil is only the means ofproducing future and (if that were possible) worse evils. --That it isnot an undigested, imperfect, and crude scheme of liberty, which maygradually be mellowed and ripened into an orderly and social freedom;but that it is so fundamentally wrong as to be utterly incapable ofcorrecting itself by any length of time, or of being formed into anymode of polity of which a member of the House of Commons could publiclydeclare his approbation. If it had been permitted to Mr. Burke, he would have shown distinctly, and in detail, that what the Assembly calling itself National had heldout as a large and liberal toleration is in reality a cruel andinsidious religious persecution, infinitely more bitter than any whichhad been heard of within this century. --That it had a feature in itworse than the old persecutions. --That the old persecutors acted, orpretended to act, from zeal towards some system of piety and virtue:they gave strong preferences to their own; and if they drove people fromone religion, they provided for them another, in which men might takerefuge and expect consolation. --That their new persecution is notagainst a variety in conscience, but against all conscience. That itprofesses contempt towards its object; and whilst it treats all religionwith scorn, is not so much as neutral about the modes: it unites theopposite evils of intolerance and of indifference. He could have proved that it is so far from rejecting tests, (asunaccountably had been asserted, ) that the Assembly had imposed tests ofa peculiar hardship, arising from a cruel and premeditated pecuniaryfraud: tests against old principles, sanctioned by the laws, and bindingupon the conscience. --That these tests were not imposed as titles tosome new honor or some new benefit, but to enable men to hold a poorcompensation for their legal estates, of which they had been unjustlydeprived; and as they had before been reduced from affluence toindigence, so, on refusal to swear against their conscience, they arenow driven from indigence to famine, and treated with every possibledegree of outrage, insult, and inhumanity. --That these tests, whichtheir imposers well knew would not be taken, were intended for the verypurpose of cheating their miserable victims out of the compensationwhich the tyrannic impostors of the Assembly had previously andpurposely rendered the public unable to pay. That thus their ultimateviolence arose from their original fraud. He would have shown that the universal peace and concord amongstnations, which these common enemies to mankind had held out with thesame fraudulent ends and pretences with which they had uniformlyconducted every part of their proceeding, was a coarse and clumsydeception, unworthy to be proposed as an example, by an informed andsagacious British senator, to any other country. --That, far from peaceand good-will to men, they meditated war against all other governments, and proposed systematically to excite in them all the very worst kind ofseditions, in order to lead to their common destruction. --That they haddiscovered, in the few instances in which they have hitherto had thepower of discovering it, (as at Avignon and in the Comtat, at Cavaillonand at Carpentras, ) in what a savage manner they mean to conduct theseditions and wars they have planned against their neighbors, for thesake of putting themselves at the head of a confederation of republicsas wild and as mischievous as their own. He would have shown in whatmanner that wicked scheme was carried on in those places, without beingdirectly either owned or disclaimed, in hopes that the undone peopleshould at length be obliged to fly to their tyrannic protection, as somesort of refuge from their barbarous and treacherous hostility. He wouldhave shown from those examples that neither this nor any other societycould be in safety as long as such a public enemy was in a condition tocontinue directly or indirectly such practices against its peace. --ThatGreat Britain was a principal object of their machinations; and thatthey had begun by establishing correspondences, communications, and asort of federal union with the factious here. --That no practicalenjoyment of a thing so imperfect and precarious as human happiness mustbe, even under the very best of governments, could be a security for theexistence of these governments, during the prevalence of the principlesof France, propagated from that grand school of every disorder and everyvice. He was prepared to show the madness of their declaration of thepretended rights of man, --the childish, futility of some of theirmaxims, the gross and stupid absurdity and the palpable falsity ofothers, and the mischievous tendency of all such declarations to thewell-being of men and of citizens and to the safety and prosperity ofevery just commonwealth. He was prepared to show, that, in theirconduct, the Assembly had directly violated not only every soundprinciple of government, but every one, without exception, of their ownfalse or futile maxims, and indeed every rule they had pretended to laydown for their own direction. In a word, he was ready to show that those who could, after such a fulland fair exposure, continue to countenance the French insanity were notmistaken politicians, but bad men; but he thought that in this case, asin many others, ignorance had been the cause of admiration. These are strong assertions. They required strong proofs. The member wholaid down these positions was and is ready to give, in his place, toeach position decisive evidence, correspondent to the nature and qualityof the several allegations. In order to judge on the propriety of the interruption given to Mr. Burke, in his speech in the committee of the Quebec Bill, it isnecessary to inquire, First, whether, on general principles, he ought tohave been suffered to prove his allegations? Secondly, whether the timehe had chosen was so very unseasonable as to make his exercise of aparliamentary right productive of ill effects on his friends or hiscountry? Thirdly, whether the opinions delivered in his book, and whichhe had begun to expatiate upon that day, were in contradiction to hisformer principles, and inconsistent with the general tenor of his publicconduct? They who have made eloquent panegyrics on the French Revolution, and whothink a free discussion so very advantageous in every case and underevery circumstance, ought not, in my opinion, to have prevented theireulogies from being tried on the test of facts. If their panegyric hadbeen answered with an invective, (bating the difference in point ofeloquence, ) the one would have been as good as the other: that is, theywould both of them have been good for nothing. The panegyric and thesatire ought to be suffered to go to trial; and that which shrinks fromif must be contented to stand, at best, as a mere declamation. I do not think Mr. Burke was wrong in the course he took. That whichseemed to be recommended to him by Mr. Pitt was rather to extol theEnglish Constitution than to attack the French. I do not determine whatwould be best for Mr. Pitt to do in his situation. I do not deny that_he_ may have good reasons for his reserve. Perhaps they might have beenas good for a similar reserve on the part of Mr. Fox, if his zeal hadsuffered him to listen to them. But there were no motives of ministerialprudence, or of that prudence which ought to guide a man perhaps on theeve of being minister, to restrain the author of the Reflections. He isin no office under the crown; he is not the organ of any party. The excellencies of the British Constitution had already exercised andexhausted the talents of the best thinkers and the most eloquent writersand speakers that the world ever saw. But in the present case a systemdeclared to be far better, and which certainly is much newer, (torestless and unstable minds no small recommendation, ) was held out tothe admiration of the good people of England. In that case it was surelyproper for those who had far other thoughts of the French Constitutionto scrutinize that plan which has been recommended to our imitation byactive and zealous factions at home and abroad. Our complexion is such, that we are palled with enjoyment, and stimulated with hope, --that webecome less sensible to a long-possessed benefit from the verycircumstance that it is become habitual. Specious, untried, ambiguousprospects of new advantage recommend themselves to the spirit ofadventure which more or less prevails in every mind. From this temper, men and factions, and nations too, have sacrificed the good of whichthey had been in assured possession, in favor of wild and irrationalexpectations. What should hinder Mr. Burke, if he thought this temperlikely at one time or other to prevail in our country, from exposing toa multitude eager to game the false calculations of this lottery offraud? I allow, as I ought to do, for the effusions which come from a _general_zeal for liberty. This is to be indulged, and even to be encouraged, aslong as _the question is general_. An orator, above all men, ought to beallowed a full and free use of the praise of liberty. A commonplace infavor of slavery and tyranny, delivered to a popular assembly, wouldindeed be a bold defiance to all the principles of rhetoric. But in aquestion whether any particular Constitution is or is not a plan ofrational liberty, this kind of rhetorical flourish in favor of freedomin general is surely a little out of its place. It is virtually abegging of the question. It is a song of triumph before the battle. "But Mr. Fox does not make the panegyric of the new Constitution; it isthe destruction only of the absolute monarchy he commends. " When thatnameless thing which has been lately set up in France was described as"the most stupendous and glorious edifice of liberty which had beenerected on the foundation of human integrity in any time or country, " itmight at first have led the hearer into an opinion that the constructionof the new fabric was an object of admiration, as well as the demolitionof the old. Mr. Fox, however, has explained himself; and it would be toolike that captious and cavilling spirit which I so perfectly detest, ifI were to pin down the language of an eloquent and ardent mind to thepunctilious exactness of a pleader. Then Mr. Fox did not mean to applaudthat monstrous thing which, by the courtesy of France, they call aConstitution. I easily believe it. Far from meriting the praises of agreat genius like Mr. Fox, it cannot be approved by any man of commonsense or common information. He cannot admire the change of one piece ofbarbarism for another, and a worse. He cannot rejoice at the destructionof a monarchy, mitigated by manners, respectful to laws and usages, andattentive, perhaps but too attentive, to public opinion, in favor of thetyranny of a licentious, ferocious, and savage multitude, without laws, manners, or morals, and which, so far from respecting the general senseof mankind, insolently endeavors to alter all the principles andopinions which have hitherto guided and contained the world, and toforce them into a conformity to their views and actions. His mind ismade to better things. That a man should rejoice and triumph in the destruction of an absolutemonarchy, --that in such an event he should overlook the captivity, disgrace, and degradation of an unfortunate prince, and the continualdanger to a life which exists only to be endangered, --that he shouldoverlook the utter ruin of whole orders and classes of men, extendingitself directly, or in its nearest consequences, to at least a millionof our kind, and to at least the temporary wretchedness of a wholecommunity, --I do not deny to be in some sort natural; because, whenpeople see a political object which they ardently desire but in onepoint of view, they are apt extremely to palliate or underrate the evilswhich may arise in obtaining it. This is no reflection on the humanityof those persons. Their good-nature I am the last man in the world todispute. It only shows that they are not sufficiently informed orsufficiently considerate. When they come to reflect seriously on thetransaction, they will think themselves bound to examine what theobject is that has been acquired by all this havoc. They will hardlyassert that the destruction of an absolute monarchy is a thing good initself, without any sort of reference to the antecedent state of things, or to consequences which result from the change, --without anyconsideration whether under its ancient rule a country was to aconsiderable degree flourishing and populous, highly cultivated andhighly commercial, and whether, under that domination, though personalliberty had been precarious and insecure, property at least was everviolated. They cannot take the moral sympathies of the human mind alongwith them, in abstractions separated from the good or evil condition ofthe state, from the quality of actions, and the character of the actors. None of us love absolute and uncontrolled monarchy; but we could notrejoice at the sufferings of a Marcus Aurelius or a Trajan, who wereabsolute monarchs, as we do when Nero is condemned by the Senate to bepunished _more majorum_; nor, when that monster was obliged to fly withhis wife Sporus, and to drink puddle, were men affected in the samemanner as when the venerable Galba, with all his faults and errors, wasmurdered by a revolted mercenary soldiery. With such things before oureyes, our feelings contradict our theories; and when this is the case, the feelings are true, and the theory is false. What I contend for is, that, in commending the destruction of an absolute monarchy, _all thecircumstances_ ought not to be wholly overlooked, as "considerations fitonly for shallow and superficial minds. " (The words of Mr. Fox, or tothat effect. ) The subversion of a government, to deserve any praise, must beconsidered but as a step preparatory to the formation of somethingbetter, either in the scheme of the government itself, or in the personswho administer it, or in both. These events cannot in reason beseparated. For instance, when we praise our Revolution of 1688, thoughthe nation in that act was on the defensive, and was justified inincurring all the evils of a defensive war, we do not rest there. Wealways combine with the subversion of the old government the happysettlement which followed. When we estimate that Revolution, we mean tocomprehend in our calculation both the value of the thing parted withand the value of the thing received in exchange. The burden of proof lies heavily on those who tear to pieces the wholeframe and contexture of their country, that they could find no other wayof settling a government fit to obtain its rational ends, except thatwhich they have pursued by means unfavorable to all the presenthappiness of millions of people, and to the utter ruin of severalhundreds of thousands. In their political arrangements, men have noright to put the well-being of the present generation wholly out of thequestion. Perhaps the only moral trust with any certainty in our handsis the care of our own time. With regard to futurity, we are to treat itlike a ward. We are not so to attempt an improvement of his fortune asto put the capital of his estate to any hazard. It is not worth our while to discuss, like sophisters, whether in nocase some evil for the sake of some benefit is to be tolerated. Nothinguniversal can be rationally affirmed on any moral or any politicalsubject. Pure metaphysical abstraction does not belong to thesematters. The lines of morality are not like the ideal lines ofmathematics. They are broad and deep as well as long. They admit ofexceptions; they demand modifications. These exceptions andmodifications are not made by the process of logic, but by the rules ofprudence. Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtuespolitical and moral, but she is the director, the regulator, thestandard of them all. Metaphysics cannot live without definition; butPrudence is cautious how she defines. Our courts cannot be more fearfulin suffering fictitious cases to be brought before them for elicitingtheir determination on a point of law than prudent moralists are inputting extreme and hazardous cases of conscience upon emergencies notexisting. Without attempting, therefore, to define, what never can bedefined, the case of a revolution in government, this, I think, may besafely affirmed, --that a sore and pressing evil is to be removed, andthat a good, great in its amount and unequivocal in its nature, must beprobable almost to certainty, before the inestimable price of our ownmorals and the well-being of a number of our fellow-citizens is paid fora revolution. If ever we ought to be economists even to parsimony, it isin the voluntary production of evil. Every revolution contains in itsomething of evil. It must always be, to those who are the greatest amateurs, or evenprofessors, of revolutions, a matter very hard to prove, that the lateFrench government was so bad that nothing worse in the infinite devicesof men could come in its place. They who have brought France to itspresent condition ought to prove also, by something better thanprattling about the Bastile, that their subverted government was asincapable as the present certainly is of all improvement andcorrection. How dare they to say so who have never made that experiment?They are experimenters by their trade. They have made an hundred others, infinitely more hazardous. The English admirers of the forty-eight thousand republics which formthe French federation praise them not for what they are, but for whatthey are to become. They do not talk as politicians, but as prophets. But in whatever character they choose to found panegyric on prediction, it will be thought a little singular to praise any work, not for its ownmerits, but for the merits of something else which may succeed to it. When any political institution is praised, in spite of great andprominent faults of every kind, and in all its parts, it must besupposed to have something excellent in its fundamental principles. Itmust be shown that it is right, though imperfect, --that it is not onlyby possibility susceptible of improvement, but that it contains in it aprinciple tending to its melioration. Before they attempt to show this progression of their favorite work fromabsolute pravity to finished perfection, they will find themselvesengaged in a civil war with those whose cause they maintain. What! alterour sublime Constitution, the glory of France, the envy of the world, the pattern for mankind, the masterpiece of legislation, the collectedand concentrated glory of this enlightened age? Have we not produced itready-made and ready-armed, mature in its birth, a perfect goddess ofwisdom and of war, hammered by our blacksmith midwives out of the brainof Jupiter himself? Have we not sworn our devout, profane, believing, infidel people to an allegiance to this goddess, even before she hadburst the _dura mater_, and as yet existed only in embryo? Have we notsolemnly declared this Constitution unalterable by any futurelegislature? Have we not bound it on posterity forever, though ourabettors have declared that no one generation is competent to bindanother? Have we not obliged the members of every future Assembly toqualify themselves for their seats by swearing to its conservation? Indeed, the French Constitution always must be (if a change is not madein all their principles and fundamental arrangements) a governmentwholly by popular representation. It must be this or nothing. The Frenchfaction considers as an usurpation, as an atrocious violation of theindefensible rights of man, every other description of government. Takeit, or leave it: there is no medium. Let the irrefragable doctors fightout their own controversy in their own way and with their own weapons;and when they are tired, let them commence a treaty of peace. Let theplenipotentiary sophisters of England settle with the diplomaticsophisters of France in what manner right is to be corrected by aninfusion of wrong, and how truth may be rendered more true by a dueintermixture of falsehood. * * * * * Having sufficiently proved that nothing could make it _generally_improper for Mr. Burke to prove what he had alleged concerning theobject of this dispute, I pass to the second question, that is, Whetherhe was justified in choosing the committee on the Quebec Bill as thefield for this discussion? If it were necessary, it might be shown thathe was not the first to bring these discussions into Parliament, nor thefirst to renew them in this session. The fact is notorious. As to theQuebec Bill, they were introduced into the debate upon that subject fortwo plain reasons: First, that, as he thought it _then_ not advisable tomake the proceedings of the factious societies the subject of a directmotion, he had no other way open to him. Nobody has attempted to showthat it was at all admissible into any other business before the House. Here everything was favorable. Here was a bill to form a newConstitution for a French province under English dominion. The questionnaturally arose, whether we should settle that constitution upon Englishideas, or upon French. This furnished an opportunity for examining intothe value of the French Constitution, either considered as applicable tocolonial government, or in its own nature. The bill, too, was in acommittee. By the privilege of speaking as often as he pleased, he hopedin some measure to supply the want of support, which he had but too muchreason to apprehend. In a committee it was always in his power to bringthe questions from generalities to facts, from declamation todiscussion. Some benefit he actually received from this privilege. Theseare plain, obvious, natural reasons for his conduct. I believe they arethe true, and the only true ones. They who justify the frequent interruptions, which at length whollydisabled him from proceeding, attribute their conduct to a verydifferent interpretation of his motives. They say, that, throughcorruption, or malice, or folly, he was acting his part in a plot tomake his friend Mr. Fox pass for a republican, and thereby to preventthe gracious intentions of his sovereign from taking effect, which atthat time had begun to disclose themselves in his favor. [8] This is apretty serious charge. This, on Mr. Burke's part, would be somethingmore than mistake, something worse than formal irregularity. Anycontumely, any outrage, is readily passed over, by the indulgence whichwe all owe to sudden passion. These things are soon forgot uponoccasions in which all men are so apt to forget themselves. Deliberateinjuries, to a degree, must be remembered, because they requiredeliberate precautions to be secured against their return. I am authorized to say for Mr. Burke, that he considers that causeassigned for the outrage offered to him as ten times worse than theoutrage itself. There is such a strange confusion of ideas on thissubject, that it is far more difficult to understand the nature of thecharge than to refute it when understood. Mr. Fox's friends were, itseems, seized with a sudden panic terror lest he should pass for arepublican. I do not think they had any ground for this apprehension. But let us admit they had. What was there in the Quebec Bill, ratherthan in any other, which could subject him or them to that imputation?Nothing in a discussion of the French Constitutions which might arise onthe Quebec Bill, could tend to make Mr. Fox pass for a republican, except he should take occasion to extol that state of things in Francewhich affects to be a republic or a confederacy of republics. If such anencomium could make any unfavorable impression on the king's mind, surely his voluntary panegyrics on that event, not so much introduced asintruded into other debates, with which they had little relation, musthave produced that effect with much more certainty and much greaterforce. The Quebec Bill, at worst, was only one of those opportunitiescarefully sought and industriously improved by himself. Mr. Sheridan hadalready brought forth a panegyric on the French system in a still higherstrain, with full as little demand from the nature of the businessbefore the House, in a speech too good to be speedily forgotten. Mr. Foxfollowed him without any direct call from the subject-matter, and uponthe same ground. To canvass the merits of the French Constitution on theQuebec Bill could not draw forth any opinions which were not broughtforward before, with no small ostentation, and with very little ofnecessity, or perhaps of propriety. What mode or what time of discussingthe conduct of the French faction in England would not equally tend tokindle this enthusiasm, and afford those occasions for panegyric, which, far from shunning, Mr. Fox has always industriously sought? He himselfsaid, very truly, in the debate, that no artifices were necessary todraw from him his opinions upon that subject. But to fall upon Mr. Burkefor making an use, at worst not more irregular, of the same liberty, istantamount to a plain declaration that the topic of Franco is _tabooed_or forbidden ground to Mr. Burke, and to Mr. Burke alone. But surelyMr. Fox is not a republican; and what should hinder him, when such adiscussion came on, from clearing himself unequivocally (as his friendssay he had done near a fortnight before) of all such imputations?Instead of being a disadvantage to him, he would have defeated all hisenemies, and Mr. Burke, since he has thought proper to reckon himamongst them. But it seems some newspaper or other had imputed to him republicanprinciples, on occasion of his conduct upon the Quebec Bill. SupposingMr. Burke to have seen these newspapers, (which is to suppose more thanI believe to be true, ) I would ask, When did the newspapers forbear tocharge Mr Fox, or Mr. Burke himself, with republican principles, or anyother principles which they thought could render both of them odious, sometimes to one description of people, sometimes to another? Mr. Burke, since the publication of his pamphlet, has been a thousand times chargedin the newspapers with holding despotic principles. He could not enjoyone moment of domestic quiet, he could not perform the least particle ofpublic duty, if he did not altogether disregard the language of thoselibels. But, however his sensibility might be affected by such abuse, itwould in _him_ have been thought a most ridiculous reason for shuttingup the mouths of Mr. Fox or Mr. Sheridan, so as to prevent theirdelivering their sentiments of the French Revolution, that, forsooth, "the newspapers had lately charged Mr. Burke with being an enemy toliberty. " I allow that those gentlemen have privileges to which Mr. Burke has noclaim. But their friends ought to plead those privileges, and not toassign bad reasons, on the principle of what is fair between man andman, and thereby to put themselves on a level with those who can soeasily refute them. Let them say at once that his reputation is of novalue, and that he has no call to assert it, --but that theirs is ofinfinite concern to the party and the public, and to that considerationhe ought to sacrifice all his opinions and all his feelings. In that language I should hear a style correspondent to theproceeding, --lofty, indeed, but plain and consistent. Admit, however, for a moment, and merely for argument, that this gentleman had as good aright to continue as they had to begin these discussions; in candor andequity they must allow that their voluntary descant in praise of theFrench Constitution was as much an oblique attack on Mr. Burke as Mr. Burke's inquiry into the foundation of this encomium could possibly beconstrued into an imputation upon them. They well knew that he felt likeother men; and of course he would think it mean and unworthy to declineasserting in his place, and in the front of able adversaries, theprinciples of what he had penned in his closet and without an opponentbefore him. They could not but be convinced that declamations of thiskind would rouse him, --that he must think, coming from men of theircalibre, they were highly mischievous, --that they gave countenance tobad men and bad designs; and though he was aware that the handling suchmatters in Parliament was delicate, yet he was a man very likely, whenever, much against his will, they were brought there, to resolvethat there they should be thoroughly sifted. Mr. Fox, early in thepreceding session, had public notice from Mr. Burke of the light inwhich he considered every attempt to introduce the example of Franceinto the politics of this country, and of his resolution to break withhis host friends and to join with his worst enemies to prevent it. Hehoped that no such necessity would ever exist; but in case it should, his determination was made. The party knew perfectly that he would atleast defend himself. He never intended to attack Mr. Fox, nor did heattack him directly or indirectly. His speech kept to its matter. Nopersonality was employed, even in the remotest allusion. He never didimpute to that gentleman any republican principles, or any other badprinciples or bad conduct whatsoever. It was far from his words; it wasfar from his heart. It must be remembered, that, notwithstanding theattempt of Mr. Fox to fix on Mr. Burke an unjustifiable change ofopinion, and the foul crime of teaching a set of maxims to a boy, andafterwards, when these maxims became adult in his mature age, ofabandoning both the disciple and the doctrine, Mr. Burke neverattempted, in any one particular, either to criminate or to recriminate. It may be said that he had nothing of the kind in his power. This hedoes not controvert. He certainly had it not in his inclination. Thatgentleman had as little ground for the charges which he was so easilyprovoked to make upon him. The gentlemen of the party (I include Mr. Fox) have been kind enough toconsider the dispute brought on by this business, and the consequentseparation of Mr. Burke from their corps, as a matter of regret anduneasiness. I cannot be of opinion that by his exclusion they have hadany loss at all. A man whose opinions are so very adverse to theirs, adverse, as it was expressed, "as pole to pole, " so mischievously aswell as so directly adverse that they found themselves under thenecessity of solemnly disclaiming them in full Parliament, --such a manmust ever be to them a most unseemly and unprofitable incumbrance. Acoöperation with him could only serve to embarrass them in all theircouncils. They have besides publicly represented him as a man capable ofabusing the docility and confidence of ingenuous youth, --and, for a badreason or for no reason, of disgracing his whole public life by ascandalous contradiction of every one of his own acts, writings, anddeclarations. If these charges be true, their exclusion of such a personfrom their body is a circumstance which does equal honor to theirjustice and their prudence. If they express a degree of sensibility inbeing obliged to execute this wise and just sentence, from aconsideration of some amiable or some pleasant qualities which in hisprivate life their former friend may happen to possess, they add to thepraise of their wisdom and firmness the merit of great tenderness ofheart and humanity of disposition. On their ideas, the new Whig party have, in my opinion, acted as becamethem. The author of the Reflections, however, on his part, cannot, without great shame to himself, and without entailing everlastingdisgrace on his posterity, admit the truth or justice of the chargeswhich have been made upon him, or allow that he has in those Reflectionsdiscovered any principles to which honest men are bound to declare, nota shade or two of dissent, but a total, fundamental opposition. He mustbelieve, if he does not mean wilfully to abandon his cause and hisreputation, that principles fundamentally at variance with those of hisbook are fundamentally false. What those principles, the antipodes tohis, really are, he can only discover from their contrariety. He is veryunwilling to suppose that the doctrines of some books lately circulatedare the principles of the party; though, from the vehement declarationsagainst his opinions, he is at some loss how to judge otherwise. For the present, my plan does not render it necessary to say anythingfurther concerning the merits either of the one set of opinions or theother. The author would have discussed the merits of both in his place, but he was not permitted to do so. * * * * * I pass to the next head of charge, --Mr. Burke's inconsistency. It iscertainly a great aggravation of his fault in embracing false opinions, that in doing so he is not supposed to fill up a void, but that he isguilty of a dereliction of opinions that are true and laudable. This isthe great gist of the charge against him. It is not so much that he iswrong in his book (that, however, is alleged also) as that he hastherein belied his whole life. I believe, if he could venture to valuehimself upon anything, it is on the virtue of consistency that he wouldvalue himself the most. Strip him of this, and you leave him nakedindeed. In the case of any man who had written something, and spoken a greatdeal, upon very multifarious matter, during upwards of twenty-fiveyears' public service, and in as great a variety of important events asperhaps have ever happened in the same number of years, it would appeara little hard, in order to charge such a man with inconsistency, to seecollected by his friend a sort of digest of his sayings, even to suchas were merely sportive and jocular. This digest, however, has beenmade, with equal pains and partiality, and without bringing out thosepassages of his writings which might tend to show with what restrictionsany expressions quoted from him ought to have been understood. From agreat statesman he did not quite expect this mode of inquisition. If itonly appeared in the works of common pamphleteers, Mr. Burke mightsafely trust to his reputation. When thus urged, he ought, perhaps, todo a little more. It shall be as little as possible; for I hope not muchis wanting. To be totally silent on his charges would not be respectfulto Mr. Fox. Accusations sometimes derive a weight from the persons whomake them to which they are not entitled from their matter. He who thinks that the British Constitution ought to consist of thethree members, of three very different natures, of which it doesactually consist, and thinks it his duty to preserve each of thosemembers in its proper place and with its proper proportion of power, must (as each shall happen to be attacked) vindicate the three severalparts on the several principles peculiarly belonging to them. He cannotassert the democratic part on the principles on which monarchy issupported, nor can he support monarchy on the principles of democracy, nor can he maintain aristocracy on the grounds of the one or of theother or of both. All these he must support on grounds that are totallydifferent, though practically they may be, and happily with us they are, brought into one harmonious body. A man could not be consistent indefending such various, and, at first view, discordant, parts of amixed Constitution, without that sort of inconsistency with which Mr. Burke stands charged. As any one of the great members of this Constitution happens to beendangered, he that is a friend to all of them chooses and presses thetopics necessary for the support of the part attacked, with all thestrength, the earnestness, the vehemence, with all the power of stating, of argument, and of coloring, which he happens to possess, and which thecase demands. He is not to embarrass the minds of his hearers, or toincumber or overlay his speech, by bringing into view at once (as if hewere reading an academic lecture) all that may and ought, when a justoccasion presents itself, to be said in favor of the other members. Atthat time they are out of the court; there is no question concerningthem. Whilst he opposes his defence on the part where the attack ismade, he presumes that for his regard to the just rights of all the resthe has credit in every candid mind. He ought not to apprehend that hisraising fences about popular privileges this day will infer that heought on the next to concur with those who would pull down the throne;because on the next he defends the throne, it ought not to be supposedthat he has abandoned the rights of the people. A man, who, among various objects of his equal regard, is secure ofsome, and full of anxiety for the fate of others, is apt to go to muchgreater lengths in his preference of the objects of his immediatesolicitude than Mr. Burke has ever done. A man so circumstanced oftenseems to undervalue, to vilify, almost to reprobate and disown, thosethat are out of danger. This is the voice of Nature and truth, and notof inconsistency and false pretence. The danger of anything very dearto us removes, for the moment, every other affection from the mind. WhenPriam had his whole thoughts employed on the body of his Hector, herepels with indignation, and drives from him with a thousand reproaches, his surviving sons, who with an officious piety crowded about him tooffer their assistance. A good critic (there is no better than Mr. Fox)would say that this is a masterstroke, and marks a deep understanding ofNature in the father of poetry. He would despise a Zoïlus who wouldconclude from this passage that Homer meant to represent this man ofaffliction as hating or being indifferent and cold in his affections tothe poor relics of his house, or that he preferred a dead carcass to hisliving children. Mr. Burke does not stand in need of an allowance of this kind, which, ifhe did, by candid critics ought to be granted to him. If the principlesof a mixed Constitution be admitted, he wants no more to justify toconsistency everything he has said and done during the course of apolitical life just touching to its close. I believe that gentleman haskept himself more clear of running into the fashion of wild, visionarytheories, or of seeking popularity through every means, than any manperhaps ever did in the same situation. He was the first man who, on the hustings, at a popular election, rejected the authority of instructions from constituents, --or who, inany place, has argued so fully against it. Perhaps the discredit intowhich that doctrine of compulsive instructions under our Constitution issince fallen may be due in a great degree to his opposing himself to itin that manner and on that occasion. The reforms in representation, and the bills for shortening the durationof Parliaments, he uniformly and steadily opposed for many yearstogether, in contradiction to many of his best friends. These friends, however, in his better days, when they had more to hope from his serviceand more to fear from his loss than now they have, never chose to findany inconsistency between his acts and expressions in favor of libertyand his votes on those questions. But there is a time for all things. Against the opinion of many friends, even against the solicitation ofsome of them, he opposed those of the Church clergy who had petitionedthe House of Commons to be discharged from the subscription. Although hesupported the Dissenters in their petition for the indulgence which hehad refused to the clergy of the Established Church, in this, as he wasnot guilty of it, so he was not reproached with inconsistency. At thesame time he promoted, and against the wish of several, the clause thatgave the Dissenting teachers another subscription in the place of thatwhich was then taken away. Neither at that time was the reproach ofinconsistency brought against him. People could then distinguish betweena difference in conduct under a variation of circumstances and aninconsistency in principle. It was not then thought necessary to befreed of him as of an incumbrance. These instances, a few among many, are produced as an answer to theinsinuation of his having pursued high popular courses which in his latebook he has abandoned. Perhaps in his whole life he has never omitted afair occasion, with whatever risk to him of obloquy as an individual, with whatever detriment to his interest as a member of opposition, toassert the very same doctrines which appear in that book. He told theHouse, upon an important occasion, and pretty early in his service, that, "being warned by the ill effect of a contrary procedure in greatexamples, he had taken his ideas of liberty very low in order that theyshould stick to him and that he might stick to them to the end of hislife. " At popular elections the most rigorous casuists will remit a little oftheir severity. They will allow to a candidate some unqualifiedeffusions in favor of freedom, without binding him to adhere to them intheir utmost extent. But Mr. Burke put a more strict rule upon himselfthan most moralists would put upon others. At his first offering himselfto Bristol, where he was almost sure he should not obtain, on that orany occasion, a single Tory vote, (in fact, he did obtain but one, ) andrested wholly on the Whig interest, he thought himself bound to tell tothe electors, both before and after his election, exactly what arepresentative they had to expect in him. "The _distinguishing_ part of our Constitution, " he said, "is itsliberty. To preserve that liberty inviolate is the _peculiar_ duty and_proper_ trust of a member of the House of Commons. But the liberty, the_only_ liberty, I mean is a liberty connected with _order;_ and that notonly exists _with_ order and virtue, but cannot exist at all _without_them. It inheres in good and steady government, as in _its substance andvital principle_. " The liberty to which Mr. Burke declared himself attached is not Frenchliberty. That liberty is nothing but the rein given to vice andconfusion. Mr. Burke was then, as he was at the writing of hisReflections, awfully impressed with the difficulties arising from thecomplex state of our Constitution and our empire, and that it mightrequire in different emergencies different sorts of exertions, and thesuccessive call upon all the various principles which uphold and justifyit. This will appear from what he said at the close of the poll. "To be a good member of Parliament is, let me tell you, no easytask, --especially at this time, when there is so strong a disposition torun into the perilous extremes of _servile_ compliance or _wildpopularity_. To unite circumspection with vigor 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 aremembers for that great _nation_, which, however, is itself but part of agreat _empire_, extended by our virtue and our fortune to the farthestlimits of the East and of the West. _All_ these wide-spread interestsmust be _considered_, --must be _compared_, --must be _reconciled_, ifpossible. We are members for a _free_ country; and surely we all knowthat 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 thetrue, legal rights of the sovereign, which form the key-stone that bindstogether the noble and well-constructed arch of our empire and ourConstitution_. A constitution made up of _balanced powers_ must ever bea critical thing. As such I mean to touch that part of it which comeswithin my reach. " In this manner Mr. Burke spoke to his constituents seventeen years ago. He spoke, not like a partisan of one particular member of ourConstitution, but as a person strongly, and on principle, attached tothem all. He thought these great and essential members ought to bepreserved, and preserved each in its place, --and that the monarchy oughtnot only to be secured in its peculiar existence, but in its preeminencetoo, as the presiding and connecting principle of the whole. Let it beconsidered whether the language of his book, printed in 1790, differsfrom his speech at Bristol in 1774. With equal justice his opinions on the American war are introduced, asif in his late work he had belied his conduct and opinions in thedebates which arose upon that great event. On the American war he neverhad any opinions which he has seen occasion to retract, or which he hasever retracted. He, indeed, differs essentially from Mr. Fox as to thecause of that war. Mr. Fox has been pleased to say that the Americansrebelled "because they thought they had not enjoyed liberty enough. "This cause of the war, _from him_, I have heard of for the first time. It is true that those who stimulated the nation to that measure didfrequently urge this topic. They contended that the Americans had fromthe beginning aimed at independence, --that from the beginning they meantwholly to throw off the authority of the crown, and to break theirconnection with the parent country. This Mr. Burke never believed. Whenhe moved his second conciliatory proposition, in the year 1776, heentered into the discussion of this point at very great length, and, from nine several heads of presumption, endeavored to prove the chargeupon that people not to be true. If the principles of all he has said and wrote on the occasion be viewedwith common temper, the gentlemen of the party will perceive, that, on asupposition that the Americans had rebelled merely in order to enlargetheir liberty, Mr. Burke would have thought very differently of theAmerican cause. What might have been in the secret thoughts of some oftheir leaders it is impossible to say. As far as a man so locked up asDr. Franklin could be expected to communicate his ideas, I believe heopened them to Mr. Burke. It was, I think, the very day before he setout for America that a very long conversation passed between them, andwith a greater air of openness on the Doctor's side than Mr. Burke hadobserved in him before. In this discourse Dr. Franklin lamented, andwith apparent sincerity, the separation which he feared was inevitablebetween Great Britain and her colonies. He certainly spoke of it as anevent which gave him the greatest concern. America, he said, would neveragain see such happy days as she had passed under the protection ofEngland. He observed, that ours was the only instance of a great empirein which the most distant parts and members had been as well governed asthe metropolis and its vicinage, but that the Americans were going tolose the means which secured to them this rare and precious advantage. The question with them was not, whether they were to remain as they hadbeen before the troubles, --for better, he allowed, they could not hopeto be, --but whether they were to give up so happy a situation without astruggle. Mr. Burke had several other conversations with him about thattime, in none of which, soured and exasperated as his mind certainlywas, did he discover any other wish in favor of America than for asecurity to its _ancient_ condition. Mr. Burke's conversation with otherAmericans was large, indeed, and his inquiries extensive and diligent. Trusting to the result of all these means of information, but trustingmuch more in the public presumptive indications I have just referred to, and to the reiterated solemn declarations of their Assemblies, he alwaysfirmly believed that they were purely on the defensive in thatrebellion. He considered the Americans as standing at that time, and inthat controversy, in the same relation to England as England did to KingJames the Second in 1688. He believed that they had taken up arms fromone motive only: that is, our attempting to tax them without theirconsent, --to tax them for the purposes of maintaining civil and militaryestablishments. If this attempt of ours could have been practicallyestablished, he thought, with them, that their Assemblies would becometotally useless, --that, under the system of policy which was thenpursued, the Americans could have no sort of security for their laws orliberties, or for any part of them, --and that the very circumstance of_our_ freedom would have augmented the weight of _their_ slavery. Considering the Americans on that defensive footing, he thought GreatBritain ought instantly to have closed with them by the repeal of thetaxing act. He was of opinion that our general rights over that countrywould have been preserved by this timely concession. [9] When, instead ofthis, a Boston Port Bill, a Massachusetts Charter Bill, a Fishery Bill, an Intercourse Bill, I know not how many hostile bills, rushed out likeso many tempests from all points of the compass, and were accompaniedfirst with great fleets and armies of English, and followed afterwardswith great bodies of foreign troops, he thought that their cause grewdaily better, because daily more defensive, --and that ours, becausedaily more offensive, grew daily worse. He therefore, in two motions, intwo successive years, proposed in Parliament many concessions beyondwhat he had reason to think in the beginning of the troubles would everbe seriously demanded. So circumstanced, he certainly never could and never did wish thecolonists to be subdued by arms. He was fully persuaded, that, if suchshould be the event, they must be held in that subdued state by a greatbody of standing forces, and perhaps of foreign forces. He was stronglyof opinion that such armies, first victorious over Englishmen, in aconflict for English constitutional rights and privileges, andafterwards habituated (though in America) to keep an English people in astate of abject subjection, would prove fatal in the end to theliberties of England itself; that in the mean time this military systemwould lie as an oppressive burden upon the national finances; that itwould constantly breed and feed new discussions, full of heat andacrimony, leading possibly to a new series of wars; and that foreignpowers, whilst we continued in a state at once burdened and distracted, must at length obtain a decided superiority over us. On what part of hislate publication, or on what expression that might have escaped him inthat work, is any man authorized to charge Mr. Burke with acontradiction to the line of his conduct and to the current of hisdoctrines on the American war? The pamphlet is in the hands of hisaccusers: let them point out the passage, if they can. Indeed, the author has been well sifted and scrutinized by his friends. He is even called to an account for every jocular and light expression. A ludicrous picture which he made with regard to a passage in the speechof a late minister[10] has been brought up against him. That passagecontained a lamentation for the loss of monarchy to the Americans, afterthey had separated from Great Britain. He thought it to be unseasonable, ill-judged, and ill-sorted with the circumstances of all the parties. Mr. Burke, it seems, considered it ridiculous to lament the loss of somemonarch or other to a rebel people, at the moment they had foreverquitted their allegiance to theirs and our sovereign, at the time whenthey had broken off all connection with this nation and had alliedthemselves with its enemies. He certainly must have thought it open toridicule; and now that it is recalled to his memory, (he had, I believe, wholly forgotten the circumstance, ) he recollects that he did treat itwith some levity. But is it a fair inference from a jest on thisunseasonable lamentation, that he was then an enemy to monarchy, eitherin this or in any other country? The contrary perhaps ought to beinferred, --if anything at all can be argued from pleasantries good orbad. Is it for this reason, or for anything he has said or done relativeto the American war, that he is to enter into an alliance offensive anddefensive with every rebellion, in every country, under everycircumstance, and raised upon whatever pretence? Is it because he didnot wish the Americans to be subdued by arms, that he must beinconsistent with himself, if he reprobates the conduct of thosesocieties in England, who, alleging no one act of tyranny or oppression, and complaining of no hostile attempt against our ancient laws, rights, and usages, are now endeavoring to work the destruction of the crown ofthis kingdom, and the whole of its Constitution? Is he obliged, from theconcessions he wished to be made to the colonies, to keep any terms withthose clubs and federations who hold out to us, as a pattern forimitation, the proceedings in France, in which a king, who hadvoluntarily and formally divested himself of the right of taxation, andof all other species of arbitrary power, has been dethroned? Is itbecause Mr. Burke wished to have America rather conciliated thanvanquished, that he must wish well to the army of republics which areset up in France, --a country wherein not the people, but the monarch, was wholly on the defensive, (a poor, indeed, and feeble defensive, ) topreserve _some fragments_ of the royal authority against a determinedand desperate body of conspirators, whose object it was, with whatevercertainty of crimes, with whatever hazard of war, and every otherspecies of calamity, to annihilate the _whole_ of that authority, tolevel all ranks, orders, and distinctions in the state, and utterly todestroy property, not more by their acts than in their principles? Mr. Burke has been also reproached with an inconsistency between hislate writings and his former conduct, because he had proposed inParliament several economical, leading to several constitutionalreforms. Mr. Burke thought, with a majority of the House of Commons, that the influence of the crown at one time was too great; but after hisMajesty had, by a gracious message, and several subsequent acts ofParliament, reduced it to a standard which satisfied Mr. Fox himself, and, apparently at least, contented whoever wished to go farthest inthat reduction, is Mr. Burke to allow that it would be right for us toproceed to indefinite lengths upon that subject? that it would thereforebe justifiable in a people owing allegiance to a monarchy, andprofessing to maintain it, not to _reduce_, but wholly to _take awayall_ prerogative and _all_ influence whatsoever? Must his having made, in virtue of a plan of economical regulation, a reduction of theinfluence of the crown compel him to allow that it would be right in theFrench or in us to bring a king to so abject a state as in function notto be so respectable as an under-sheriff, but in person not to differfrom the condition of a mere prisoner? One would think that such a thingas a medium had never been heard of in the moral world. This mode of arguing from your having done _any_ thing in a certain lineto the necessity of doing _every_ thing has political consequences ofother moment than those of a logical fallacy. If no man can propose anydiminution or modification of an invidious or dangerous power orinfluence in government, without entitling friends turned intoadversaries to argue him into the destruction of all prerogative, and toa spoliation of the whole patronage of royalty, I do not know what canmore effectually deter persons of sober minds from engaging in anyreform, nor how the worst enemies to the liberty of the subject couldcontrive any method more fit to bring all correctives on the power ofthe crown into suspicion and disrepute. If, say his accusers, the dread of too great influence in the crown ofGreat Britain could justify the degree of reform which he adopted, thedread of a return under the despotism of a monarchy might justify thepeople of France in going much further, and reducing monarchy to itspresent nothing. --Mr. Burke does not allow that a sufficient argument_ad hominem_ is inferable from these premises. If the horror of theexcesses of an absolute monarchy furnishes a reason for abolishing it, no monarchy once absolute (all have been so at one period or other)could ever be limited. It must be destroyed; otherwise no way could befound to quiet the fears of those who were formerly subjected to thatsway. But the principle of Mr. Burke's proceeding ought to lead him to avery different conclusion, --to this conclusion, --that a monarchy is athing perfectly susceptible of reform, perfectly susceptible of abalance of power, and that, when reformed and balanced, for a greatcountry it is the best of all governments. The example of our countrymight have led France, as it has led him, to perceive that monarchy isnot only reconcilable to liberty, but that it may be rendered a greatand stable security to its perpetual enjoyment. No correctives which heproposed to the power of the crown could lead him to approve of a planof a republic (if so it may be reputed) which has no correctives, andwhich he believes to be incapable of admitting any. No principle of Mr. Burke's conduct or writings obliged him from consistency to become anadvocate for an exchange of mischiefs; no principle of his could compelhim to justify the setting up in the place of a mitigated monarchy a newand far more despotic power, under which there is no trace of liberty, except what appears in confusion and in crime. Mr. Burke does not admit that the faction predominant in France haveabolished their monarchy, and the orders of their state, from any dreadof arbitrary power that lay heavy on the minds of the people. It is notvery long since he has been in that country. Whilst there he conversedwith many descriptions of its inhabitants. A few persons of rank did, heallows, discover strong and manifest tokens of such a spirit of libertyas might be expected one day to break all bounds. Such gentlemen havesince had more reason to repent of their want of foresight than I hopeany of the same class will ever have in this country. But this spiritwas far from general, even amongst the gentlemen. As to the lowerorders, and those little above them, in whose name the present powersdomineer, they were far from discovering any sort of dissatisfactionwith the power and prerogatives of the crown. That vain people wererather proud of them: they rather despised the English for not having amonarch possessed of such high and perfect authority. _They_ had feltnothing from _lettres de cachet_. The Bastile could inspire no horrorsinto _them_. This was a treat for their betters. It was by art andimpulse, it was by the sinister use made of a season of scarcity, it wasunder an infinitely diversified succession of wicked pretences whollyforeign to the question of monarchy or aristocracy, that this lightpeople were inspired with their present spirit of levelling. Their oldvanity was led by art to take another turn: it was dazzled and seducedby military liveries, cockades, and epaulets, until the French populacewas led to become the willing, but still the proud and thoughtless, instrument and victim of another domination. Neither did that peopledespise or hate or fear their nobility: on the contrary, they valuedthemselves on the generous qualities which distinguished the chiefs oftheir nation. So far as to the attack on Mr. Burke in consequence of his reforms. To show that he has in his last publication abandoned those principlesof liberty which have given energy to his youth, and in spite of hiscensors will afford repose and consolation to his declining age, thosewho have thought proper in Parliament to declare against his book oughtto have produced something in it which directly or indirectly militateswith any rational plan of free government. It is somethingextraordinary, that they whose memories have so well served them withregard to light and ludicrous expressions, which years had consigned tooblivion, should not have been able to quote a single passage in a pieceso lately published, which contradicts anything he has formerly eversaid in a style either ludicrous or serious. They quote his formerspeeches and his former votes, but not one syllable from the book. It isonly by a collation of the one with the other that the allegedinconsistency can be established. But as they are unable to cite anysuch contradictory passage, so neither can they show anything in thegeneral tendency and spirit of the whole work unfavorable to a rationaland generous spirit of liberty; unless a warm opposition to the spiritof levelling, to the spirit of impiety, to the spirit of proscription, plunder, murder, and cannibalism, be adverse to the true principles offreedom. The author of that book is supposed to have passed from extreme toextreme; but he has always kept himself in a medium. This charge is notso wonderful. It is in the nature of things, that they who are in thecentre of a circle should appear directly opposed to those who view themfrom any part of the circumference. In that middle point, however, hewill still remain, though he may hear people who themselves run beyondAurora and the Ganges cry out that he is at the extremity of the West. In the same debate Mr. Burke was represented by Mr. Fox as arguing in amanner which implied that the British Constitution could not bedefended, but by abusing all republics ancient and modern. He saidnothing to give the least ground for such a censure. He never abused allrepublics. He has never professed himself a friend or an enemy torepublics or to monarchies in the abstract. He thought that thecircumstances and habits of every country, which it is always perilousand productive of the greatest calamities to force, are to decide uponthe form of its government. There is nothing in his nature, his temper, or his faculties which should make him an enemy to any republic, modernor ancient. Far from it. He has studied the form and spirit of republicsvery early in life; he has studied them with great attention, and with amind undisturbed by affection or prejudice. He is, indeed, convincedthat the science of government would be poorly cultivated without thatstudy. But the result in his mind from that investigation has been andis, that neither England nor France, without infinite detriment to them, as well in the event as in the experiment, could be brought into arepublican form; but that everything republican which can be introducedwith safety into either of them must be built upon a monarchy, --builtupon a real, not a nominal monarchy, _as its essential basis_; that allsuch institutions, whether aristocratic or democratic, must originatefrom their crown, and in all their proceedings must refer to it; that bythe energy of that mainspring alone those republican parts must be setin action, and from thence must derive their whole legal effect, (asamongst us they actually do, ) or the whole will fall into confusion. These republican members have no other point but the crown in which theycan possibly unite. This is the opinion expressed in Mr. Burke's book. He has never variedin that opinion since he came to years of discretion. But surely, if atany time of his life he had entertained other notions, (which, however, he has never held or professed to hold, ) the horrible calamities broughtupon a great people by the wild attempt to force their country into arepublic might be more than sufficient to undeceive his understanding, and to free it forever from such destructive fancies. He is certain thatmany, even in France, have been made sick of their theories by theirvery success in realizing them. To fortify the imputation of a desertion from his principles, hisconstant attempts to reform abuses have been brought forward. It istrue, it has been the business of his strength to reform abuses ingovernment, and his last feeble efforts are employed in a struggleagainst them. Politically he has lived in that element; politically hewill die in it. Before he departs, I will admit for him that he deservesto have all his titles of merit brought forth, as they have been, forgrounds of condemnation, if one word justifying or supporting abuses ofany sort is to be found in that book which has kindled so muchindignation in the mind of a great man. On the contrary, it spares noexisting abuse. Its very purpose is to make war with abuses, --not, indeed, to make war with the dead, but with those which live, andflourish, and reign. The _purpose_ for which the abuses of government are brought into viewforms a very material consideration in the mode of treating them. Thecomplaints of a friend are things very different from the invectives ofan enemy. The charge of abuses on the late monarchy of France was notintended to lead to its reformation, but to justify its destruction. They who have raked into all history for the faults of kings, and whohave aggravated every fault they have found, have acted consistently, because they acted as enemies. No man can be a friend to a temperedmonarchy who bears a decided hatred to monarchy itself. He, who, at thepresent time, is favorable or even fair to that system, must act towardsit as towards a friend with frailties who is under the prosecution ofimplacable foes. I think it a duty, in that case, not to inflame thepublic mind against the obnoxious person by any exaggeration of hisfaults. It is our duty rather to palliate his errors and defects, or tocast them into the shade, and industriously to bring forward any goodqualities that he may happen to possess. But when the man is to beamended, and by amendment to be preserved, then the line of duty takesanother direction. When his safety is effectually provided for, it thenbecomes the office of a friend to urge his faults and vices with all theenergy of enlightened affection, to paint them in their most vividcolors, and to bring the moral patient to a better habit. Thus I thinkwith regard to individuals; thus I think with regard to ancient andrespected governments and orders of men. A spirit of reformation isnever more consistent with itself than when it refuses to be renderedthe means of destruction. I suppose that enough is said upon these heads of accusation. One more Ihad nearly forgotten, but I shall soon dispatch it. The author of theReflections, in the opening of the last Parliament, entered on thejournals of the House of Commons a motion for a remonstrance to thecrown, which is substantially a defence of the preceding Parliament, that had been dissolved under displeasure. It is a defence of Mr. Fox. It is a defence of the Whigs. By what connection of argument, by whatassociation of ideas, this apology for Mr. Fox and his party is by himand them brought to criminate his and their apologist, I cannot easilydivine. It is true that Mr. Burke received no previous encouragementfrom Mr. Fox, nor any the least countenance or support, at the time whenthe motion was made, from him or from any gentleman of the party, --oneonly excepted, from whose friendship, on that and on other occasions, hederives an honor to which he must be dull indeed to be insensible. [11]If that remonstrance, therefore, was a false or feeble defence of themeasures of the party, they were in no wise affected by it. It stands onthe journals. This secures to it a permanence which the author cannotexpect to any other work of his. Let it speak for itself to the presentage and to all posterity. The party had no concern in it; and it cannever be quoted against them. But in the late debate it was produced, not to clear the party from an improper defence in which they had noshare, but for the kind purpose of insinuating an inconsistency betweenthe principles of Mr. Burke's defence of the dissolved Parliament andthose on which he proceeded in his late Reflections on France. It requires great ingenuity to make out such a parallel between the twocases as to found a charge of inconsistency in the principles assumed inarguing the one and the other. What relation had Mr. Fox's India Bill tothe Constitution of France? What relation had that Constitution to thequestion of right in an House of Commons to give or to withhold itsconfidence from ministers, and to state that opinion to the crown? Whathad this discussion to do with Mr. Burke's idea in 1784 of the illconsequences which must in the end arise to the crown from setting upthe commons at large as an opposite interest to the commons inParliament? What has this discussion to do with a recorded warning tothe people of their rashly forming a precipitate judgment against theirrepresentatives? What had Mr. Burke's opinion of the danger ofintroducing new theoretic language, unknown to the records of thekingdom, and calculated to excite vexatious questions, into aParliamentary proceeding, to do with the French Assembly, which defiesall precedent, and places its whole glory in realizing what had beenthought the most visionary theories? What had this in common with theabolition of the French monarchy, or with the principles upon which theEnglish Revolution was justified, --a Revolution in which Parliament, inall its acts and all its declarations, religiously adheres to "the formof sound words, " without excluding from private discussions such termsof art as may serve to conduct an inquiry for which none but privatepersons are responsible? These were the topics of Mr. Burke's proposedremonstrance; all of which topics suppose the existence and mutualrelation of our three estates, --as well as the relation of the EastIndia Company to the crown, to Parliament, and to the peculiar laws, rights, and usages of the people of Hindostan. What reference, I say, had these topics to the Constitution of France, in which there is noking, no lords, no commons, no India Company to injure or support, noIndian empire to govern or oppress? What relation had all or any ofthese, or any question which could arise between the prerogatives of thecrown and the privileges of Parliament, with the censure of thosefactious persons in Great Britain whom Mr. Burke states to be engaged, not in favor of privilege against prerogative, or of prerogative againstprivilege, but in an open attempt against our crown and our Parliament, against our Constitution in Church and State, against all the parts andorders which compose the one and the other? No persons were more fiercely active against Mr. Fox, and against themeasures of the House of Commons dissolved in 1784, which Mr. Burkedefends in that remonstrance, than several of those revolution-makerswhom Mr. Burke condemns alike in his remonstrance and in his book. Theserevolutionists, indeed, may be well thought to vary in their conduct. Heis, however, far from accusing them, in this variation, of the smallestdegree of inconsistency. He is persuaded that they are totallyindifferent at which end they begin the demolition of the Constitution. Some are for commencing their operations with the destruction of thecivil powers, in order the better to pull down the ecclesiastical, --somewish to begin with the ecclesiastical, in order to facilitate the ruinof the civil; some would destroy the House of Commons through the crown, some the crown through the House of Commons, and some would overturnboth the one and the other through what they call the people. But Ibelieve that this injured writer will think it not at all inconsistentwith his present duty or with his former life strenuously to oppose allthe various partisans of destruction, let them begin where or when orhow they will. No man would set his face more determinedly against thosewho should attempt to deprive them, or any description of men, of therights they possess. No man would be more steady in preventing them fromabusing those rights to the destruction of that happy order under whichthey enjoy them. As to their title to anything further, it ought to begrounded on the proof they give of the safety with which power may betrusted in their hands. When they attempt without disguise, not to winit from our affections, but to force it from our fears, they show, inthe character of their means of obtaining it, the use they would make oftheir dominion. That writer is too well read in men not to know howoften the desire and design of a tyrannic domination lurks in the claimof an extravagant liberty. Perhaps in the beginning it _always_ displaysitself in that manner. No man has ever affected power which he did nothope from the favor of the existing government in any other mode. * * * * * The attacks on the author's consistency relative to France are (howevergrievous they may be to his feelings) in a great degree external to himand to us, and comparatively of little moment to the people of England. The substantial charge upon him is concerning his doctrines relative tothe Revolution of 1688. Here it is that they who speak in the name ofthe party have thought proper to censure him the most loudly and withthe greatest asperity. Here they fasten, and, if they are right in theirfact, with sufficient judgment in their selection. If he be guilty inthis point, he is equally blamable, whether he is consistent or not. Ifhe endeavors to delude his countrymen by a false representation of thespirit of that leading event, and of the true nature and tenure of thegovernment formed in consequence of it, he is deeply responsible, he isan enemy to the free Constitution of the kingdom. But he is not guiltyin any sense. I maintain that in his Reflections he has stated theRevolution and the Settlement upon their true principles of legal reasonand constitutional policy. His authorities are the acts and declarations of Parliament, given intheir proper words. So far as these go, nothing can be added to what hehas quoted. The question is, whether he has understood them rightly. Ithink they speak plain enough. But we must now see whether he proceedswith other authority than his own constructions, and, if he does, onwhat sort of authority he proceeds. In this part, his defence will notbe made by argument, but by wager of law. He takes his compurgators, hisvouchers, his guaranties, along with him. I know that he will not besatisfied with a justification proceeding on general reasons of policy. He must be defended on party grounds, too, or his cause is not sotenable as I wish it to appear. It must be made out for him not onlythat in his construction of these public acts and monuments he conformshimself to the rules of fair, legal, and logical interpretation, but itmust be proved that his construction is in perfect harmony with that ofthe ancient Whigs, to whom, against the sentence of the modern, on hispart, I here appeal. This July it will be twenty-six years[12] since he became connected witha man whose memory will ever be precious to Englishmen of all parties, as long as the ideas of honor and virtue, public and private, areunderstood and cherished in this nation. That memory will be kept alivewith particular veneration by all rational and honorable Whigs. Mr. Burke entered into a connection with that party through that man, at anage far from raw and immature, --at those years when men are all they areever likely to become, --when he was in the prime and vigor of hislife, --when the powers of his understanding, according to theirstandard, were at the best, his memory exercised, his judgment formed, and his reading much fresher in the recollection and much readier in theapplication than now it is. He was at that time as likely as most men toknow what were Whig and what were Tory principles. He was in a situationto discern what sort of Whig principles they entertained with whom itwas his wish to form an eternal connection. Foolish he would have beenat that time of life (more foolish than any man who undertakes a publictrust would be thought) to adhere to a cause which he, amongst all thosewho were engaged in it, had the least sanguine hopes of as a road topower. There are who remember, that, on the removal of the Whigs in the year1766, he was as free to choose another connection as any man in thekingdom. To put himself out of the way of the negotiations which werethen carrying on very eagerly and through many channels with the Earl ofChatham, he went to Ireland very soon after the change of ministry, anddid not return until the meeting of Parliament. He was at that time freefrom anything which looked like an engagement. He was further free atthe desire of his friends; for, the very day of his return, the Marquisof Rockingham wished him to accept an employment under the new system. He believes he might have had such a situation; but again he cheerfullytook his fate with the party. It would be a serious imputation upon the prudence of my friend, to havemade even such trivial sacrifices as it was in his power to make forprinciples which he did not truly embrace or did not perfectlyunderstand. In either case the folly would have been great. The questionnow is, whether, when he first practically professed Whig principles, heunderstood what principles he professed, and whether in his book he hasfaithfully expressed them. When he entered into the Whig party, he did not conceive that theypretended to any discoveries. They did not affect to be better Whigsthan those were who lived in the days in which principle was put to thetest. Some of the Whigs of those days were then living. They were whatthe Whigs had been at the Revolution, --what they had been during thereign of Queen Anne, --what they had been at the accession of the presentroyal family. What they were at those periods is to be seen. It rarely happens to aparty to have the opportunity of a clear, authentic, recordeddeclaration of their political tenets upon the subject of a greatconstitutional event like that of the Revolution. The Whigs had thatopportunity, --or to speak more properly, they made it. The impeachmentof Dr. Sacheverell was undertaken by a Whig ministry and a Whig House ofCommons, and carried on before a prevalent and steady majority of Whigpeers. It was carried on for the express purpose of stating the truegrounds and principles of the Revolution, --what the Commons emphaticallycalled their _foundation_. It was carried on for the purpose ofcondemning the principles on which the Revolution was first opposed andafterwards calumniated, in order, by a juridical sentence of the highestauthority, to confirm and fix Whig principles, as they had operated bothin the resistance to King James and in the subsequent settlement, and tofix them in the extent and with the limitations with which it was meantthey should be understood by posterity. The ministers and managers forthe Commons were persons who had, many of them, an active share in theRevolution. Most of them had seen it at an age capable of reflection. The grand event, and all the discussions which led to it and followedit, were then alive in the memory and conversation of all men. Themanagers for the Commons must be supposed to have spoken on that subjectthe prevalent ideas of the leading party in the Commons, and of the Whigministry. Undoubtedly they spoke also their own private opinions; andthe private opinions of such men are not without weight. They were not_umbratiles doctores_, men who had studied a free Constitution only inits anatomy and upon dead systems. They knew it alive and in action. In this proceeding the Whig principles, as applied to the Revolution andSettlement, are to be found, or they are to be found nowhere. I wish theWhig readers of this Appeal first to turn to Mr. Burke's Reflections, from page 20 to page 50, [13] and then to attend to the followingextracts from the trial of Dr. Sacheverell. After this, they willconsider two things: first, whether the doctrine in Mr. Burke'sReflections be consonant to that of the Whigs of that period; and, secondly, whether they choose to abandon the principles which belongedto the progenitors of some of them, and to the predecessors of them all, and to learn new principles of Whiggism, imported from France, anddisseminated in this country from Dissenting pulpits, from Federationsocieties, and from the pamphlets, which (as containing the politicalcreed of those synods) are industriously circulated in all parts of thetwo kingdoms. This is their affair, and they will make their option. These new Whigs hold that the sovereignty, whether exercised by one ormany, did not only originate _from_ the people, (a position not deniednor worth denying or assenting to, ) but that in the people the samesovereignty constantly and unalienably resides; that the people maylawfully depose kings, not only for misconduct, but without anymisconduct at all; that they may set up any new fashion of governmentfor themselves, or continue without any government, at their pleasure;that the people are essentially their own rule, and their will themeasure of their conduct; that the tenure of magistracy is not a propersubject of contract, because magistrates have duties, but no rights;and that, if a contract _de facto_ is made with them in one age, allowing that it binds at all, it only binds those who are immediatelyconcerned in it, but does not pass to posterity. These doctrinesconcerning _the people_ (a term which they are far from accuratelydefining, but by which, from many circumstances, it is plain enough theymean their own faction, if they should grow, by early arming, bytreachery, or violence, into the prevailing force) tend, in my opinion, to the utter subversion, not only of all government, in all modes, andto all stable securities to rational freedom, but to all the rules andprinciples of morality itself. I assert that the ancient Whigs held doctrines totally different fromthose I have last mentioned. I assert, that the foundations laid down bythe Commons, on the trial of Dr. Sacheverell, for justifying theRevolution of 1688, are the very same laid down in Mr. Burke'sReflections, --that is to say, a breach of the _original contrast_, implied and expressed in the Constitution of this country, as a schemeof government fundamentally and inviolably fixed in King, Lords, andCommons;--that the fundamental subversion of this ancient Constitution, by one of its parts, having been attempted, and in effect accomplished, justified the Revolution;--that it was justified _only_ upon the_necessity_ of the case, as the _only_ means left for the recovery ofthat _ancient_ Constitution formed by the _original contract_ of theBritish state, as well as for the future preservation of the _same_government. These are the points to be proved. A general opening to the charge against Dr. Sacheverell was made by theattorney-general, Sir John Montague; but as there is nothing in thatopening speech which tends very accurately to settle the principle uponwhich the Whigs proceeded in the prosecution, (the plan of the speechnot requiring it, ) I proceed to that of Mr. Lechmere, the manager, whospoke next after him. The following are extracts, given, not in theexact order in which they stand in the printed trial, but in that whichis thought most fit to bring the ideas of the Whig Commons distinctlyunder our view. * * * * * _Mr. Lechmere_[14] "It becomes an _indispensable_ duty upon us, who appear in the name andon the behalf of all the commons of Great Britain, not only to demandyour Lordships' justice on such a criminal, [Dr. Sacheverell, ] _butclearly and openly to assert our foundations_. " [Sidenote: That the terms of our Constitution imply and express anoriginal contract. ] [Sidenote: That the contract is mutual consent, and binding at all timesupon the parties. ] [Sidenote: The mixed Constitution uniformly preserved for many ages, andis a proof of the contract. ] "The nature of our Constitution is that of a _limited monarchy_, whereinthe supreme power is communicated and divided between Queen, Lords, andCommons, though the executive power and administration be wholly in thecrown. The terms of such a Constitution do not only suppose, butexpress, an original contract between the crown and the people, by whichthat supreme power was (by mutual consent, and not by accident) limitedand lodged in more hands than one. And _the uniform preservation of sucha Constitution for so many ages, without any fundamental change, demonstrates to your Lordships the continuance of the same contract_. [Sidenote: Laws the common measure to King and subject. ] [Sidenote: Case of fundamental injury, and breach of original contract. ] "The consequences of such a frame of government are obvious: That the_laws_ are the rule to both, the common measure of the power of thecrown and of the obedience of the subject; and if the executive partendeavors the _subversion and total destruction of the government_, theoriginal contract is thereby broke, and the right of allegiance ceasesthat part of the government thus _fundamentally_ injured hath a right tosave or recover _that_ Constitution in which it had an originalinterest. " [Sidenote: Words _necessary means_ selected with caution. ] "_The necessary means_ (which is the phrase used by the Commons in theirfirst article) words made choice of by them _with the greatest caution_. Those means are described (in the preamble to their charge) to be, thatglorious enterprise which his late Majesty undertook, with an armedforce, to deliver this kingdom from Popery and arbitrary power; theconcurrence of many subjects of the realm, who came over with him inthat enterprise, and of many others, of _all ranks and orders_, whoappeared in arms in many parts of the kingdom in aid of that enterprise. "These were the _means_ that brought about the Revolution; and which theact that passed soon after, _declaring the rights and liberties of thesubject, and settling the succession of the crown_, intends, when hislate Majesty is therein called _the glorious instrument of deliveringthe kingdom_; and which the Commons, in the last part of their firstarticle, express by the word _resistance_. [Sidenote: Regard of the Commons to their allegiance to the crown, andto the ancient Constitution. ] "But the Commons, who will never be unmindful of the _allegiance_ of thesubjects to the _crown_ of this realm, judged it highly incumbent uponthem, out of regard to the _safety of her Majesty's person andgovernment, and the ancient and legal Constitution of this kingdom_, tocall that resistance the _necessary_ means; thereby plainly foundingthat power, of right and resistance, which was exercised by the peopleat the time of the happy Revolution, and which the duties of_self-preservation_ and religion called them to, _upon the NECESSITY ofthe case, and at the same time effectually securing her Majesty'sgovernment, and the due allegiance of all her subjects_. " [Sidenote: All ages have the same interest in preservation of thecontract, and the same Constitution. ] "The nature of such an _original contract_ of government proves thatthere is not only a power in the people, who have _inherited itsfreedom_, to assert their own title to it, but they are bound in duty totransmit the _same_ Constitution to their posterity also. " * * * * * Mr. Lechmere made a second speech. Notwithstanding the clear andsatisfactory manner in which he delivered himself in his first, uponthis arduous question, he thinks himself bound again distinctly toassert the same foundation, and to justify the Revolution on _the caseof necessity only_, upon principles perfectly coinciding with those laiddown in Mr. Burke's letter on the French affairs. * * * * * _Mr. Lechmere. _ [Sidenote: The Commons strictly confine their ideas of a revolution tonecessity alone and self-defence. ] [Sidenote A: N. B. The remark implies, that allegiance would be insecurewithout this restriction. ] "Your Lordships were acquainted, in opening the charge, with how _greatcaution_, and with what unfeigned regard to her Majesty and hergovernment, and to the _duty and allegiance_ of her subjects, theCommons made choice of the words _necessary means_ to express theresistance that was made use of to bring about the Revolution, and withthe condemning of which the Doctor is charged by this article: notdoubting but that the honor and justice of that resistance, _from thenecessity of that case, and to which alone we have strictly confinedourselves_, when duly considered, would confirm and strengthen[A] and beunderstood to be an effectual security of the allegiance of the subjectto the crown of this realm, _in every other case where there is not thesame necessity_; and that the right of the people to _self-defence, andpreservation of their liberties, by resistance as their last remedy, isthe result of a case of such NECESSITY ONLY, and by which the ORIGINALCONTRACT between king and people is broke. This was the principle laiddown and carried through all that was said with respect to ALLEGIANCE;and on WHICH FOUNDATION, in the name and on the behalf of all thecommons of Great Britain, we assert and justify that resistance by whichthe late happy Revolution was brought about_. " "It appears to your Lordships and the world, that _breaking the originalcontract between king and people_ were the words made choice of by thatHouse of Commons, " (the House of Commons which originated theDeclaration of Right, ) "with the _greatest deliberation and judgment_, and approved of by your Lordships, in that first and fundamental stepmade towards the _re-establishment of the government_, which hadreceived so great a shock from the evil counsels which had been given tothat unfortunate prince. " * * * * * Sir John Hawles, another of the managers, follows the steps of hisbrethren, positively affirming the doctrine of non-resistance togovernment to be the general moral, religious, and political rule forthe subject, and justifying the Revolution on the same principle withMr. Burke, --that is, as _an exception from necessity_. Indeed, hecarries the doctrine on the general idea of non-resistance much furtherthan Mr. Burke has done, and full as far as it can perhaps be supportedby any duty of _perfect obligation_, however noble and heroic it may bein many cases to suffer death rather than disturb the tranquillity ofour country. * * * * * _Sir John Hawles. _[15] "Certainly it must be granted, that the doctrine that commands obedienceto the supreme power, _though in things contrary to Nature_, even tosuffer death, which is the highest injustice that can be done a man, rather than make an opposition to the supreme power [is reasonable[16]], because the death of one or some few private persons is a less evil than_disturbing the whole government_; that law must needs be understood toforbid the doing or saying anything to disturb the government, therather because the obeying that law cannot be pretended to be againstNature: and the Doctor's refusing to obey that implicit law is thereason for which he is now prosecuted; though he would have it believedthat the reason he is now prosecuted was for the doctrine he asserted ofobedience to the supreme power; which he might have preached as long ashe had pleased, and the Commons would have taken no offence at it, ifhe had stopped there, and not have taken upon him, on that pretence oroccasion, to have cast odious colors upon the Revolution. " * * * * * General Stanhope was among the managers. He begins his speech by areference to the opinion of his fellow-managers, which he hoped had putbeyond all doubt the limits and qualifications that the Commons hadplaced to their doctrines concerning the Revolution; yet, not satisfiedwith this general reference, after condemning the principle ofnon-resistance, which is asserted in the sermon _without any exception_, and stating, that, under the specious pretence of preaching a peaceabledoctrine, Sacheverell and the Jacobites meant, in reality, to excite arebellion in favor of the Pretender, he explicitly limits his ideas ofresistance with the boundaries laid down by his colleagues, and by Mr. Burke. * * * * * _General Stanhope. _ [Sidenote: Rights of the subject and the crown equally legal. ] "The Constitution of England is founded upon _compact_; and the subjectsof this kingdom have, in their several public and private capacities, _as_ legal a title to what are their rights by law _as_ a prince to thepossession of his crown. [Sidenote: Justice of resistance founded on necessity. ] "Your Lordships, and most that hear me, are witnesses, and must rememberthe _necessities_ of those times which brought about the Revolution:that _no other_ remedy was left to preserve our religion and liberties;_that resistance was_ necessary, _and consequently just_. " "Had the Doctor, in the remaining part of his sermon, preached up peace, quietness, and the like, and shown how happy we are under her Majesty'sadministration, and exhorted obedience to it, he had never been calledto answer a charge at your Lordships' bar. But the tenor of all hissubsequent discourse is one continued invective against the government. " * * * * * Mr. Walpole (afterwards Sir Robert) was one of the managers on thisoccasion. He was an honorable man and a sound Whig. He was not, as theJacobites and discontented Whigs of his time have represented him, andas ill-informed people still represent him, a prodigal and corruptminister. They charged him, in their libels and seditious conversations, as having first reduced corruption to a system. Such was their cant. Buthe was far from governing by corruption. He governed by partyattachments. The charge of systematic corruption is less applicable tohim, perhaps, than to any minister who ever served the crown for sogreat a length of time. He gained over very few from the opposition. Without being a genius of the first class, he was an intelligent, prudent, and safe minister. He loved peace, and he helped to communicatethe same disposition to nations at least as warlike and restless as thatin which he had the chief direction of affairs. Though he served amaster who was fond of martial fame, he kept all the establishments verylow. The land tax continued at two shillings in the pound for thegreater part of his administration. The other impositions were moderate. The profound repose, the equal liberty, the firm protection of justlaws, during the long period of his power, were the principal causes ofthat prosperity which afterwards took such rapid strides towardsperfection, and which furnished to this nation ability to acquire themilitary glory which it has since obtained, as well as to bear theburdens, the cause and consequence of that warlike reputation. With manyvirtues, public and private, he had his faults; but his faults weresuperficial. A careless, coarse, and over-familiar style of discourse, without sufficient regard to persons or occasions, and an almost totalwant of political decorum, were the errors by which he was most hurt inthe public opinion, and those through which his enemies obtained thegreatest advantage over him. But justice must be done. The prudence, steadiness, and vigilance of that man, joined to the greatest possiblelenity in his character and his politics, preserved the crown to thisroyal family, and, with it, their laws and liberties to this country. Walpole had no other plan of defence for the Revolution than that of theother managers, and of Mr. Burke; and he gives full as littlecountenance to any arbitrary attempts, on the part of restless andfactious men, for framing new governments according to their fancies. * * * * * _Mr. Walpole_. [Sidenote: Case of resistance out of the law, and the highest offence. ] [Sidenote: Utmost necessity justifies it. ] "Resistance is nowhere enacted to be legal, but subjected, by all thelaws now in being, to the greatest penalties. 'Tis what is not, cannot, nor ought ever to be described, or affirmed in any positive law, to beexcusable; when, and upon what _never-to-be-expected_ occasions, it maybe exercised, no man can foresee; _and ought never to be thought of, butwhen an utter subversion of the laws of the realm threatens the wholeframe of a Constitution, and no redress can otherwise be hoped for_. Ittherefore does and _ought forever_ to stand, in the eye and letter ofthe law, as the _highest offence_. But because any man, or party of men, may not, out of folly or wantonness, commit treason, or make their owndiscontents, ill principles, or disguised affections to anotherinterest, a pretence to resist the supreme power, will it follow fromthence that the _utmost necessity_ ought not to engage a nation _in itsown defence for the preservation of the whole_?" * * * * * Sir Joseph Jekyl was, as I have always heard and believed, as nearly asany individual could be, the very standard of Whig principles in hisage. He was a learned and an able man; full of honor, integrity, andpublic spirit; no lover of innovation; nor disposed to change his solidprinciples for the giddy fashion of the hour. Let us hear this Whig. * * * * * _Sir Joseph Jekyl. _ [Sidenote: Commons do not state the limits of submission. ] [Sidenote: To secure the laws, the only aim of the Revolution. ] "In clearing up and vindicating the justice of the Revolution, which wasthe second thing proposed, it is far from the intent of the Commons tostate the _limits and bounds_ of the subject's submission to thesovereign. That which the law hath been wisely silent in, the Commonsdesire to be silent in too; nor will they put _any_ case of ajustifiable resistance, but that of the Revolution only: and _theypersuade themselves that the doing right to that resistance will be sofar from promoting popular license or confusion, that it will have acontrary effect, and be a means of settling men's minds in the love ofand veneration for the laws_; to rescue and secure which was the _ONLYaim and intention of those concerned in that resistance_. " * * * * * Dr. Sacheverell's counsel defended him on this principle, namely, --that, whilst he enforced from the pulpit the general doctrine ofnon-resistance, he was not obliged to take notice of the theoreticlimits which ought to modify that doctrine. Sir Joseph Jekyl, in hisreply, whilst he controverts its application to the Doctor's defence, fully admits and even enforces the principle itself, and supports theRevolution of 1688, as he and all the managers had done before, exactlyupon the same grounds on which Mr. Burke has built, in his Reflectionson the French Revolution. * * * * * _Sir Joseph Jekyl. _ [Sidenote: Blamable to state the bounds of non-resistance. ] [Sidenote: Resistance lawful only in _case_ of extreme and obviousnecessity. ] "If the Doctor had pretended to have stated the particular bounds andlimits of non-resistance, and told the people in what cases they mightor might not resist, _he would have been much to blame_; nor was oneword said in the articles, or by the managers, as if that was expectedfrom him; but, _on the contrary, we have insisted that in NO case canresistance be lawful, but in case of EXTREME NECESSITY, and where theConstitution can't otherwise be preserved; and such necessity ought tobe plain and obvious to the sense and judgment of the whole nation: andthis was the case at the Revolution_. " * * * * * The counsel for Doctor Sacheverell, in defending their client, weredriven in reality to abandon the fundamental principles of his doctrine, and to confess that an exception to the general doctrine of passiveobedience and non-resistance did exist in the case of the Revolution. This the managers for the Commons considered as having gained theircause, as their having obtained _the whole_ of what they contended for. They congratulated themselves and the nation on a civil victory asglorious and as honorable as any that had obtained in arms during thatreign of triumphs. Sir Joseph Jekyl, in his reply to Harcourt, and the other great men whoconducted the cause for the Tory side, spoke in the following memorableterms, distinctly stating the whole of what the Whig House of Commonscontended for, in the name of all their constituents. * * * * * _Sir Joseph Jekyl. _ [Sidenote: Necessity creates an exception, and the Revolution a case ofnecessity, the utmost extent of the demand of the Commons. ] "My Lords, the concessions" (the concessions of Sacheverell's counsel)"are these: That _necessity_ creates an _exception_ to the general ruleof submission to the prince; that such exception is understood orimplied in the laws that require such submission; and that _the case ofthe Revolution was a case of necessity. _ "These are concessions _so ample_, and do so _fully_ answer the drift ofthe Commons in this article, and are to _the utmost extent of theirmeaning in it_, that I can't forbear congratulating them upon thissuccess of their impeachment, --that in full Parliament, this erroneousdoctrine of _unlimited_ non-resistance is given up and disclaimed. Andmay it not, in after ages, be an addition to the glories of this brightreign, that so many of those who are honored with being in her Majesty'sservice have been at your Lordships' bar thus successfully contendingfor the _national_ rights of her people, and proving they are notprecarious or remediless? "But to return to these concessions: I must appeal to your Lordships, whether they are not a _total departure_ from the Doctor's answer. " * * * * * I now proceed to show that the Whig managers for the Commons meant topreserve the government on a firm foundation, by asserting the perpetualvalidity of the settlement then made, and its coercive power uponposterity. I mean to show that they gave no sort of countenance to anydoctrine tending to impress the _people_ (taken separately from thelegislature, which includes the crown) with an idea that _they_ hadacquired a moral or civil competence to alter, without breach of theoriginal compact on the part of the king, the succession to the crown, at their pleasure, --much less that they had acquired any right, in thecase of such an event as caused the Revolution, to set up any new formof government. The author of the Reflections, I believe, thought that noman of common understanding could oppose to this doctrine the ordinarysovereign power as declared in the act of Queen Anne: that is, that thekings or queens of the realm, with the consent of Parliament, arecompetent to regulate and to settle the succession of the crown. Thispower is and ever was inherent in the supreme sovereignty, and was not, as the political divines vainly talk, acquired by the Revolution. It isdeclared in the old statute of Queen Elizabeth. Such a power must residein the complete sovereignty of every kingdom; and it is in factexercised in all of them. But this right of _competence_ in thelegislature, not in the people, is by the legislature itself to beexercised with _sound discretion_: that is to say, it is to be exercisedor not, in conformity to the fundamental principles of this government, to the rules of moral obligation, and to the faith of pacts, eithercontained in the nature of the transaction or entered into by the bodycorporate of the kingdom, --which body in juridical construction neverdies, and in fact never loses its members at once by death. Whether this doctrine is reconcilable to the modern philosophy ofgovernment I believe the author neither knows nor cares, as he haslittle respect for any of that sort of philosophy. This may be becausehis capacity and knowledge do not reach to it. If such be the case, hecannot be blamed, if he acts on the sense of that incapacity; he cannotbe blamed, if, in the most arduous and critical questions which canpossibly arise, and which affect to the quick the vital parts of ourConstitution, he takes the side which leans most to safety andsettlement; that he is resolved not "to be wise beyond what is written"in the legislative record and practice; that, when doubts arise on them, he endeavors to interpret one statute by another, and to reconcile themall to established, recognized morals, and to the general, ancient, known policy of the laws of England. Two things are equally evident: thefirst is, that the legislature possesses the power of regulating thesuccession of the crown; the second, that in the exercise of that rightit has uniformly acted as if under the _restraints_ which the author hasstated. That author makes what the ancients call _mos majorum_ notindeed his sole, but certainly his principal rule of policy, to guidehis judgment in whatever regards our laws. Uniformity and analogy can bepreserved in them by this process only. That point being fixed, andlaying fast hold of a strong bottom, our speculations may swing in alldirections without public detriment, because they will ride with sureanchorage. In this manner these things have been always considered by ourancestors. There are some, indeed, who have the art of turning the veryacts of Parliament which were made for securing the hereditarysuccession in the present royal family, by rendering it penal to doubtof the validity of those acts of Parliament, into an instrument fordefeating all their ends and purposes, --but upon grounds so very foolishthat it is not worth while to take further notice of such sophistry. To prevent any unnecessary subdivision, I shall here put together whatmay be necessary to show the perfect agreement of the Whigs with Mr. Burke in his assertions, that the Revolution made no "essential changein the constitution of the monarchy, or in any of its ancient, sound, and legal principles; that the succession was settled in the Hanoverfamily, upon the idea and in the mode of an hereditary successionqualified with Protestantism; that it was not settled upon _elective_principles, in any sense of the word _elective_, or under anymodification or description of _election_ whatsoever; but, on thecontrary, that the nation, after the Revolution, renewed by a freshcompact the spirit of the original compact of the state, binding itself, _both in its existing members and all its posterity_, to adhere to thesettlement of an hereditary succession in the Protestant line, drawnfrom James the First, as the stock of inheritance. " * * * * * _Sir John Hawles_. [Sidenote: Necessity of settling the right of the crown, and submissionto the settlement. ] "If he [Dr. Sacheverell] is of the opinion he pretends, I can't imaginehow it comes to pass that he that pays that deference to the supremepower has preached so directly contrary to the determinations of thesupreme power in this government, he very well knowing that thelawfulness of the Revolution, and of the means whereby it was broughtabout, has already been determined by the aforesaid acts ofParliament, --and do it in the worst manner that he could invent. _Forquestioning the right to the crown here in England has procured theshedding of more blood and caused more slaughter than all the othermatters tending to disturbances in the government put together. _ If, therefore, the doctrine which the Apostles had laid down was only tocontinue the peace of the world, as thinking the death of some fewparticular persons better to be borne with than a civil war, sure it isthe highest breach of that law to question the first principles of thisgovernment. " "If the Doctor had been contented with the liberty he took of preachingup the duty of passive obedience in the most extensive manner he hadthought fit, and would have stopped there, your Lordships would not havehad the trouble in relation to him that you now have; but it is plainthat he preached up his absolute and unconditional obedience, not _tocontinue the peace and tranquillity of this nation, but to set thesubjects at strife, and to raise a war in the bowels of this nation_:and it is for _this_ that he is now prosecuted; though he would fainhave it believed that the prosecution was for preaching the peaceabledoctrine of absolute obedience. " * * * * * _Sir Joseph Jekyl_. [Sidenote: Whole frame of government restored unhurt, on theRevolution. ] "The whole tenor of the administration then in being was agreed to byall to be a _total departure from the Constitution_. The nation was atthat time united in that opinion, all but the criminal part of it. Andas the nation joined in the judgment of their disease, so they did inthe remedy. _They saw there was no remedy left but the last;_ and whenthat remedy took place, _the whole frame of the government was restoredentire and unhurt_. [17] This showed the excellent temper the nation wasin at that time, that, after such provocations from an abuse of theregal power, and such a convulsion, _no one part of the Constitution wasaltered, or suffered the least damage; but, on the contrary, the wholereceived new life and vigor_. " * * * * * The Tory counsel for Dr. Sacheverell having insinuated that a great andessential alteration in the Constitution had been wrought by theRevolution, Sir Joseph Jekyl is so strong on this point, that he takesfire even at the insinuation of his being of such an opinion. * * * * * _Sir Joseph Jekyl. _ [Sidenote: No innovation at the Revolution. ] "If the Doctor instructed his counsel to insinuate that there was _anyinnovation in the Constitution wrought by the Revolution, it is anaddition to his crime. The Revolution did not introduce any innovation;it was a restoration of the ancient fundamental Constitution of thekingdom_, and giving it its proper force and energy. " * * * * * The Solicitor-General, Sir Robert Eyre, distinguishes expressly the caseof the Revolution, and its principles, from a proceeding at pleasure, onthe part of the people, to change their ancient Constitution, and toframe a new government for themselves. He distinguishes it with the samecare from the principles of regicide and republicanism, and the sorts ofresistance condemned by the doctrines of the Church of England, andwhich ought to be condemned by the doctrines of all churches professingChristianity. * * * * * _Mr. Solicitor-General, Sir Robert Eyre. _ [Sidenote: Revolution no precedent for voluntary cancelling allegiance. ] [Sidenote: Revolution not like the case of Charles the First. ] "The resistance at the Revolution, which was founded in _unavoidablenecessity_, could be no defence to a man that was attacked _forasserting that the people might cancel their allegiance at pleasure, ordethrone and murder their sovereign by a judiciary sentence_. For it cannever be inferred, from the lawfulness of resistance at a time when _atotal subversion of the government both in Church and State wasintended_, that a people may take up arms and _call their sovereign toaccount at pleasure_; and therefore, since _the Revolution could be ofno service in giving the least color for asserting any such wickedprinciple_, the Doctor could never intend to put it into the mouths ofthose new preachers and new politicians for a defence, --unless it be hisopinion that the resistance at the Revolution can bear any parallel with_the execrable murder of the royal martyr, so justly detested by thewhole nation_. " [Sidenote: Sacheverell's doctrine intended to bring an odium on theRevolution. ] [Sidenote: True defence of the Revolution an absolute necessity. ] "'Tis plain that the Doctor is not impeached for preaching a generaldoctrine, and enforcing the general duty of obedience, but for preachingagainst an _excepted case after he has stated the exception_. He is notimpeached for preaching the general doctrine of obedience, and the utterillegality of resistance upon any pretence whatsoever, but because, having first laid down the general doctrine as true, without anyexception, _he states the excepted case_, the Revolution, in expressterms, as an objection, and then assumes the consideration of thatexcepted case, denies there was any resistance in the Revolution, andasserts that to impute resistance to the Revolution would cast black andodious colors upon it. This, my Lords, is not preaching the doctrine ofnon-resistance in the _general_ terms used by the Homilies and thefathers of the Church, where cases of necessity may be _understood to beexcepted by a tacit implication, as the counsel have allowed_, --but ispreaching directly against the resistance at the Revolution, which, inthe course of this debate, has been all along admitted to _be necessaryand just_, and can have no other meaning than to bring a dishonor uponthe Revolution, and an odium upon those great and illustrious persons, _those friends to the monarchy and the Church, that assisted in bringingit about_. For had the Doctor intended anything else, he would havetreated the case of the Revolution in a different manner, and havegiven _it the true and fair answer_: he would have said that theresistance at the Revolution was _of absolute necessity, and the onlymeans left to revive the Constitution, and must be therefore taken as anexcepted case_, and could never come within the reach or intention ofthe general doctrine of the Church. " "Your Lordships take notice on what grounds the Doctor continues toassert the same position in his answer. But is it not most evident thatthe general exhortations to be met with in the Homilies of the Church ofEngland, and such like declarations in the statutes of the kingdom, aremeant only as rules for the civil obedience of the subject to the legaladministration of the supreme power in _ordinary cases_? And it isequally absurd to construe any words in a positive law to authorize thedestruction of the whole, as to expect that King, Lords, and Commonsshould, in express terms of law, declare _such an ultimate resort as theright of resistance, at a time when the case supposes that the force ofall law is ceased_. "[18] [Sidenote: Commons abhor whatever shakes the submission of posterity tothe settlement of the crown. ] "The Commons must always resent, with the utmost detestation andabhorrence, every position that may shake the authority of that act ofParliament whereby the crown is settled upon her Majesty, _and wherebythe Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons do, in the name of all thepeople of England, most humbly and faithfully submit themselves, theirheirs and posterities, to her Majesty_, which this general principle ofabsolute non-resistance must certainly shake. "For, if the resistance at the Revolution was illegal, the Revolutionsettled in usurpation, and this act can have no greater force andauthority than an act passed under a usurper. "And the Commons take leave to observe, that the authority of thisParliamentary settlement is a matter of the greatest consequence tomaintain, in a case where the hereditary right to the crown iscontested. " "It appears by the several instances mentioned in the act declaring therights and liberties of the subject and settling the succession of thecrown, that at the time of the Revolution there was _a total subversionof the constitution of government both in Church and State, which is acase that the laws of England could never suppose, provide for, or havein view. _" * * * * * Sir Joseph Jekyl, so often quoted, considered the preservation of themonarchy, and of the rights and prerogatives of the crown, as essentialobjects with all sound Whigs, and that they were bound not only tomaintain them, when injured or invaded, but to exert themselves as muchfor their reëstablishment, if they should happen to be overthrown bypopular fury, as any of their own more immediate and popular rights andprivileges, if the latter should be at any time subverted by the crown. For this reason he puts the cases of the _Revolution_, and the_Restoration_ exactly upon the same footing. He plainly marks, that itwas the object of all honest men not to sacrifice one part of theConstitution to another, and much more, not to sacrifice any of them tovisionary theories of the rights of man, but to preserve our wholeinheritance in the Constitution, in all its members and all itsrelations, entire and unimpaired, from generation to generation. In thisMr. Burke exactly agrees with him. * * * * * _Sir Joseph Jekyl. _ [Sidenote: What are the rights of the people. ] [Sidenote: Restoration and Revolution. ] [Sidenote: People have an equal interest in the legal rights of thecrown and of their own. ] "Nothing is plainer than that the people have a right to the laws andthe Constitution. This right the nation hath asserted, and recovered outof the hands of those who had dispossessed them of it at several times. There are of this _two famous instances_ in the knowledge of the presentage: I mean that of the _Restoration_, and that of the _Revolution_: inboth these great events were the _regal power_ and the _rights of thepeople_ recovered. And it is _hard to say in which the people have thegreatest interest; for the Commons are sensible that there it not onelegal power belonging to the crown, but they have an interest in it; andI doubt not but they will always be as careful to support the rights ofthe crown as their own privileges_. " * * * * * The other Whig managers regarded (as he did) the overturning of themonarchy by a republican faction with the very same horror anddetestation with which they regarded the destruction of the privilegesof the people by an arbitrary monarch. * * * * * _Mr. Lechmere_, [Sidenote: Constitution recovered at the Restoration and Revolution. ] Speaking of our Constitution, states it as "a Constitution which happilyrecovered itself, at the Restoration, from the confusions and disorderswhich _the horrid and detestable proceedings of faction and usurpationhad thrown it into_, and which after many convulsions and struggles wasprovidentially saved at the late happy Revolution, and by the many goodlaws passed since that time stands now upon a firmer foundation, together with the most comfortable prospect of _security to allposterity_ by the settlement of the crown in the Protestant line. " * * * * * I mean now to show that the Whigs (if Sir Joseph Jekyl was one, and ifhe spoke in conformity to the sense of the Whig House of Commons, andthe Whig ministry who employed him) did carefully guard against anypresumption that might arise from the repeal of the non-resistance oathof Charles the Second, as if at the Revolution the ancient principles ofour government were at all changed, or that republican doctrines werecountenanced, or any sanction given to seditious proceedings upongeneral undefined ideas of misconduct, or for changing the form ofgovernment, or for resistance upon any other ground than the _necessity_so often mentioned for the purpose of self-preservation. It will showstill more clearly the equal care of the then Whigs to prevent eitherthe regal power from being swallowed up on pretence of popular rights, or the popular rights from being destroyed on pretence of regalprerogatives. * * * * * _Sir Joseph Jekyl_. [Sidenote: Mischief of broaching antimonarchical principles. ] [Sidenote: Two cases of resistance: one to preserve the crown, the otherthe rights of the subject. ] "Further, I desire it may be considered, these legislators" (thelegislators who framed the non-resistance oath of Charles the Second)"were guarding against the consequences of those _pernicious andantimonarchical principles which had been broached a little before inthis nation_, and those large declarations in favor of _non-resistance_were made to encounter or obviate the _mischief_ of thoseprinciples, --as appears by the preamble to the fullest of those acts, which is the _Militia Act_, in the 13th and 14th of King Charles theSecond. The words of that act are these: _And during the late usurpedgovernments, many evil and rebellious principles have been instilledinto the minds of the people of this kingdom, which may break forth, unless prevented, to the disturbance of the peace and quiet thereof: Beit therefore enacted_, &c. Here your Lordships may see the reason thatinclined those legislators to express themselves in such a manneragainst resistance. _They had seen the regal rights swallowed up underthe pretence of popular ones_: and it is no imputation on them, thatthey did not then foresee a _quite different case_, as was that of theRevolution, where, under the pretence of regal authority, a totalsubversion of the rights of the subject was advanced, and in a mannereffected. And this may serve to show that it was not the design of thoselegislators to condemn resistance, in a case _of absolute necessity, forpreserving the Constitution_, when they were guarding against principleswhich had so lately destroyed it. " [Sidenote: Non-resistance oath not repealed because (with therestriction of necessity) it was false, but to prevent falseinterpretations. ] "As to the truth of the doctrine in this declaration which was repealed, _I'll admit it to be as true as the Doctor's counsel assert it, --thatis, with an exception of cases of necessity_: and it was not repealedbecause it was false, _understanding it with that restriction_; but itwas repealed because it might be interpreted in _an unconfined sense, and exclusive of that restriction_, and, being so understood, wouldreflect on the justice of the Revolution: and this the legislature hadat heart, and were very jealous of, and by this repeal of thatdeclaration gave a Parliamentary or legislative admonition againstasserting this doctrine of non-resistance _in an unlimited sense_. " [Sidenote: General doctrine of non-resistance godly and wholesome; notbound to state _explicitly_ the exceptions. ] "Though the general doctrine of non-resistance, the doctrine of theChurch of England, as stated in her Homilies, or elsewhere delivered, bywhich the general duty of subjects to the higher powers is taught, beowned to be, as unquestionably it is, _a godly and wholesomedoctrine_, --though this general doctrine has been constantly inculcatedby the reverend fathers of the Church, dead and living, and preached bythem as a preservative against the Popish doctrine of deposing princes, and as the ordinary rule of obedience, --and though the same doctrine hasbeen preached, maintained, and avowed by our most orthodox and abledivines from the time of the Reformation, --and how _innocent a man_soever Dr. Sacheverell had been, if, _with an honest and well-meant_zeal, he had preached the same doctrine in the same general terms inwhich he found it delivered by the Apostles of Christ, as taught by theHomilies and the reverend fathers of our Church, and, in imitation ofthose great examples, had only pressed the general duty of obedience, and the illegality of resistance, without taking notice of anyexception, " &c. * * * * * Another of the managers for the House of Commons, Sir John Holland, wasnot less careful in guarding against a confusion of the principles ofthe Revolution with any loose, general doctrines of a right in theindividual, or even in the people, to undertake for themselves, on anyprevalent, temporary opinions of convenience or improvement, anyfundamental change in the Constitution, or to fabricate a newgovernment for themselves, and thereby to disturb the public peace, andto unsettle the ancient Constitution of this kingdom. * * * * * _Sir John Holland_. [Sidenote: Submission to the sovereign a conscientious duty, except incases of necessity. ] "The Commons would not be understood as if they were pleading for alicentious resistance, as if _subjects_ were left to _their_ good-willand pleasure when they are to _obey_ and when to _resist_. No, my Lords, they know they are _obliged by all the ties of social creatures andChristians, for wrath and conscience' sake, to submit to theirsovereign_. The Commons do not abet _humorsome, factious arms_: theyaver them to be _rebellions_. But yet they maintain that that resistanceat the Revolution, which was so _necessary, was lawful and just fromthat necessity_. " [Sidenote: Right of resistance how to be understood. ] "These general rules of obedience may, upon a _real necessity, _ admit alawful _exception_; and such a _necessary exception_ we assert theRevolution to be. "'Tis with this view of _necessity_, only _absolute necessity_ ofpreserving our laws, liberties, and religion, --'tis with _thislimitation_, that we desire to be understood, when any of us speak ofresistance in general. The _necessity_ of the resistance at theRevolution was at that time obvious to every man. " * * * * * I shall conclude these extracts with a reference to the Prince ofOrange's Declaration, in which he gives the nation the fullest assurancethat in his enterprise he was far from the intention of introducing anychange whatever in the fundamental law and Constitution of the state. Heconsidered the object of his enterprise not to be a precedent forfurther revolutions, but that it was the great end of his expedition tomake such revolutions, so far as human power and wisdom could provide, unnecessary. * * * * * _Extracts from the Prince of Orange's Declaration_. "_All magistrates, who have been_ unjustly turned out, shall _forthwithresume their former_ employments; as well as all the boroughs of Englandshall return again to _their ancient prescriptions and charters_, and, more particularly, that _the ancient_ charter of the great and famouscity of London shall again be in force; and that the writs for themembers of Parliament shall be addressed to the _proper officers, according to law and custom_. " "And for the doing of all other things which the two Houses ofParliament shall find necessary for the peace, honor, and safety of thenation, so that there may _be no more danger of the nation's falling, atany time hereafter, under arbitrary government_. " * * * * * _Extract from the Prince of Oranges Additional Declaration_. [Sidenote: Principal nobility and gentry well affected to the Church andcrown, security against the design of innovation. ] "We are confident that no persons can have _such hard thoughts of us_ asto imagine that we have any other design in this undertaking than toprocure a settlement of the _religion and of the liberties andproperties of the subjects upon so sure a foundation that there may beno danger of the nation's relapsing into the like miseries at any timehereafter_. And as the forces that we have brought along with us areutterly disproportioned to that wicked design of conquering the nation, if we were capable of intending it, _so the great numbers of theprincipal nobility and gentry, that are men of eminent quality andestates, and persons of known integrity and zeal, both for the religionand government of England, many of them, also being distinguished bytheir constant fidelity to the crown_, who do both accompany us in thisexpedition and have earnestly solicited us to it, will cover us from allsuch malicious insinuations. " * * * * * In the spirit, and, upon one occasion, in the words, [19] of thisDeclaration, the statutes passed in that reign made such provisions forpreventing these dangers, that scarcely anything short of combination ofKing, Lords, and Commons, for the destruction of the liberties of thenation, can in any probability make us liable to similar perils. In thatdreadful, and, I hope, not to be looked-for case, any opinion of a rightto make revolutions, grounded on this precedent, would be but a poorresource. Dreadful, indeed, would be our situation! * * * * * These are the doctrines held by _the Whigs of the Revolution_, deliveredwith as much solemnity, and as authentically at least, as any politicaldogmas were ever promulgated from the beginning of the world. If therebe any difference between their tenets and those of Mr. Burke, it is, that the old Whigs oppose themselves still more strongly than he doesagainst the doctrines which are now propagated with so much industry bythose who would be thought their successors. It will be said, perhaps, that the old Whigs, in order to guardthemselves against popular odium, pretended to assert tenets contraryto those which they secretly held. This, if true, would prove, what Mr. Burke has uniformly asserted, that the extravagant doctrines which hemeant to expose were disagreeable to the body of the people, --who, though they perfectly abhor a despotic government, certainly approachedmore nearly to the love of mitigated monarchy than to anything whichbears the appearance even of the best republic. But if these old Whigsdeceived the people, their conduct was unaccountable indeed. Theyexposed their power, as every one conversant in history knows, to thegreatest peril, for the propagation of opinions which, on thishypothesis, they did not hold. It is a new kind of martyrdom. Thissupposition does as little credit to their integrity as their wisdom: itmakes them at once hypocrites and fools. I think of those great men verydifferently. I hold them to have been, what the world thought them, menof deep understanding, open sincerity, and clear honor. However, be thatmatter as it may, what these old Whigs pretended to be Mr. Burke is. This is enough for him. I do, indeed, admit, that, though Mr. Burke has proved that his opinionswere those of the old Whig party, solemnly declared by one House, ineffect and substance by both Houses of Parliament, this testimonystanding by itself will form no proper defence for his opinions, if heand the old Whigs were both of them in the wrong. But it is his presentconcern, not to vindicate these old Whigs, but to show his agreementwith them. He appeals to them as judges: he does not vindicate them asculprits. It is current that these old politicians knew little of therights of men, --that they lost their way by groping about in the dark, and fumbling among rotten parchments and musty records. Great lights, they say, are lately obtained in the world; and Mr. Burke, instead ofshrouding himself in exploded ignorance, ought to have taken advantageof the blaze of illumination which has been spread about him. It may beso. The enthusiasts of this time, it seems, like their predecessors inanother faction of fanaticism, deal in lights. Hudibras pleasantly saysof them, they "Have _lights_, where better eyes are blind, -- As pigs are said to see the wind. " The author of the Reflections has _heard_ a great deal concerning themodern lights, but he has not yet had the good fortune to _see_ much ofthem. He has read more than he can justify to anything but the spirit ofcuriosity, of the works of these illuminators of the world. He haslearned nothing from the far greater number of them than a fullcertainty of their shallowness, levity, pride, petulance, presumption, and ignorance. Where the old authors whom he has read, and the old menwhom he has conversed with, have left him in the dark, he is in the darkstill. If others, however, have obtained any of this extraordinarylight, they will use it to guide them in their researches and theirconduct. I have only to wish that the nation may be as happy and asprosperous under the influence of the new light as it has been in thesober shade of the old obscurity. As to the rest, it will be difficultfor the author of the Reflections to conform to the principles of theavowed leaders of the party, until they appear otherwise thannegatively. All we can gather from them is this, --that their principlesare diametrically opposite to his. This is all that we know fromauthority. Their negative declaration obliges me to have recourse tothe books which contain positive doctrines. They are, indeed, to thoseMr. Burke holds diametrically opposite; and if it be true (as theoracles of the party have said, I hope hastily) that their opinionsdiffer so widely, it should seem they are the most likely to form thecreed of the modern Whigs. * * * * * I have stated what were the avowed sentiments of the old Whigs, not inthe way of argument, but narratively. It is but fair to set before thereader, in the same simple manner, the sentiments of the modern, towhich they spare neither pains nor expense to make proselytes. I choosethem from the books upon which most of that industry and expenditure incirculation have been employed; I choose them, not from those who speakwith a politic obscurity, not from those who only controvert theopinions of the old Whigs, without advancing any of their own, but fromthose who speak plainly and affirmatively. The Whig reader may make hischoice between the two doctrines. The doctrine, then, propagated by these societies, which gentlemen thinkthey ought to be very tender in discouraging, as nearly as possible intheir own words, is as follows: That in Great Britain we are not onlywithout a good Constitution, but that we have "no Constitution";--that, "though it is much talked about, no such thing as a Constitution existsor ever did exist, and consequently that _the people have a Constitutionyet to form_;--that since William the Conqueror the country has neveryet _regenerated itself_, and is therefore without a Constitution;--thatwhere it cannot be produced in a visible form there is none;--that aConstitution is a thing antecedent to government; and that theConstitution of a country is not the act of its government, but of apeople constituting a government;--that _everything_ in the Englishgovernment is the reverse of what it ought to be, and what it is said tobe in England;--that the right of war and peace resides in a metaphorshown at the Tower for sixpence or a shilling apiece;--that it signifiesnot where the right resides, whether in the crown or in Parliament; waris the common harvest of those who participate in the division andexpenditure of public money;--that the portion of liberty enjoyed inEngland is just enough to enslave a country more productively than bydespotism. " So far as to the general state of the British Constitution. --As to ourHouse of Lords, the chief virtual representative of our aristocracy, thegreat ground and pillar of security to the landed interest, and thatmain link by which it is connected with the law and the crown, theseworthy societies are pleased to tell us, that, "whether we viewaristocracy before, or behind, or sideways, or any way else, domestically or publicly, it is still a _monster_;--that aristocracy inFrance had one feature less in its countenance than what it has in someother countries: it did not compose a body of hereditary legislators; itwas not _a corporation of aristocracy_" (for such, it seems, thatprofound legislator, M. De La Fayette, describes the House ofPeers);--"that it is kept up by family tyranny and injustice;--thatthere is an unnatural unfitness in aristocracy to be legislators for anation;--that their ideas of distributive justice are corrupted at thevery source; they begin life by trampling on all their younger brothersand sisters, and relations of every kind, and are taught and educatedso to do;--that the idea of an hereditary legislator is as absurd as anhereditary mathematician;--that a body holding themselves unaccountableto anybody ought to be trusted by nobody;--that it is continuing theuncivilized principles of governments founded in conquest, and the baseidea of man having a property in man, and governing him by a personalright;--that aristocracy has a tendency to degenerate the humanspecies, " &c. , &c. As to our law of primogeniture, which with few and inconsiderableexceptions is the standing law of all our landed inheritance, and whichwithout question has a tendency, and I think a most happy tendency, topreserve a character of consequence, weight, and prevalent influenceover others in the whole body of the landed interest, they call loudlyfor its destruction. They do this for political reasons that are verymanifest. They have the confidence to say, "that it is a law againstevery law of Nature, and Nature herself calls for its destruction. Establish family justice, and aristocracy falls. By the aristocraticallaw of primogenitureship, in a family of six children, five are exposed. Aristocracy has never but _one_ child. The rest are begotten to bedevoured. They are thrown to the cannibal for prey, and the naturalparent prepares the unnatural repast. " As to the House of Commons, they treat it far worse than the House ofLords or the crown have been ever treated. Perhaps they thought they hada greater right to take this amicable freedom with those of their ownfamily. For many years it has been the perpetual theme of theirinvectives. "Mockery, insult, usurpation, " are amongst the best namesthey bestow upon it. They damn it in the mass, by declaring "that itdoes not arise out of the inherent rights of the people, as the NationalAssembly does in France, and whose name designates its original. " Of the charters and corporations, to whose rights a few years ago thesegentlemen were so tremblingly alive, they say, "that, when the people ofEngland come to reflect upon them, they will, like France, annihilatethose badges of oppression, those traces of a conquered nation. " As to our monarchy, they had formerly been more tender of that branch ofthe Constitution, and for a good reason. The laws had guarded againstall seditious attacks upon it with a greater degree of strictness andseverity. The tone of these gentlemen is totally altered since theFrench Revolution. They now declaim as vehemently against the monarchyas on former occasions they treacherously flattered and soothed it. "When we survey the wretched condition of man under the monarchical andhereditary systems of government, dragged from his home by one power, ordriven by another, and impoverished by taxes more than by enemies, itbecomes evident that those systems are bad, and that a generalrevolution in the principle and construction of governments isnecessary. "What is government more than the management of the affairs of a nation?It is not, and from its nature cannot be, the property of any particularman or family, but of the whole community, at whose expense it issupported; and though by force or contrivance it has been usurped intoan inheritance, the usurpation cannot alter the right of things. Sovereignty, as a matter of right, appertains to the nation only, andnot to any individual; and a nation has at all times an inherentindefeasible right to abolish any form of government it findsinconvenient, and establish such as accords with its interest, disposition, and happiness. The romantic and barbarous distinction ofmen into kings and subjects, though it may suit the condition ofcourtiers, cannot that of citizens, and is exploded by the principleupon which governments are now founded. Every citizen is a member of thesovereignty, and, as such, can acknowledge no personal subjection, andhis obedience can be only to the laws. " Warmly recommending to us the example of Prance, where they havedestroyed monarchy, they say, -- "Monarchical sovereignty, the enemy of mankind, and the source ofmisery, is abolished; and sovereignty itself is restored to its naturaland original place, the nation. Were this the case throughout Europe, the cause of wars would be taken away. " "But, after all, what is this metaphor called a crown? or rather, whatis monarchy? Is it a thing, or is it a name, or is it a fraud? Is it 'acontrivance of human wisdom, ' or of human craft, to obtain money from anation under specious pretences? Is it a thing necessary to a nation? Ifit is, in what does that necessity consist, what services does itperform, what is its business, and what are its merits? Doth the virtueconsist in the metaphor or in the man? Doth the goldsmith that makes thecrown make the virtue also? Doth it operate like Fortunatus'swishing-cap or Harlequin's wooden sword? Doth it make a man a conjurer?In fine, what is it? It appears to be a something going much out offashion, falling into ridicule, and rejected in some countries both asunnecessary and expensive. In America it is considered as an absurdity;and in France it has so far declined, that the goodness of the man andthe respect for his personal character are the only things that preservethe appearance of its existence. " "Mr. Burke talks about what he calls an hereditary crown, as if it weresome production of Nature, --or as if, like time, it had a power tooperate, not only independently, but in spite of man, --or as if it werea thing or a subject universally consented to. Alas! it has none ofthose properties, but is the reverse of them all. It is a thing inimagination, the propriety of which is more than doubted, and thelegality of which in a few years will be denied. " "If I ask the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, anddown through all the occupations of life to the common laborer, whatservice monarchy is to him, he can give me no answer. If I ask him whatmonarchy is, he believes it is something like a sinecure. " "The French Constitution says, that the right of war and peace is in thenation. Where else should it reside, but in those who are to pay theexpense? "In England, this right is said to reside in a _metaphor_, shown at theTower for sixpence or a shilling apiece: so are the lions; and it wouldbe a step nearer to reason to say it resided in them, for any inanimatemetaphor is no more than a hat or a cap. We can all see the absurdity ofworshipping Aaron's molten calf, or Nebuchadnezzar's golden image; butwhy do men continue to practise themselves the absurdities they despisein others?" The Revolution and Hanover succession had been objects of the highestveneration to the old Whigs. They thought them not only proofs of thesober and steady spirit of liberty which guided their ancestors, but oftheir wisdom and provident care of posterity. The modern Whigs havequite other notions of these events and actions. They do not deny thatMr. Burke has given truly the words of the acts of Parliament whichsecured the succession, and the just sense of them. They attack not him, but the law. "Mr Burke" (say they) "has done some service, not to his cause, but tohis country, by bringing those clauses into public view. They serve todemonstrate how necessary it is at all times to watch against theattempted encroachment of power, and to prevent its running to excess. It is somewhat extraordinary, that the offence for which James theSecond was expelled, that of setting up power by _assumption_, should bere-acted, under another shape and form, by the Parliament that expelledhim. It shows that the rights of man were but imperfectly understood atthe Revolution; for certain it is, that the right which that Parliamentset up by _assumption_ (for by delegation it had it not, and could nothave it, because none could give it) over the persons and freedom ofposterity forever, was of the same tyrannical unfounded kind which Jamesattempted to set up over the Parliament and the nation, and for which hewas expelled. The only difference is, (for in principle they differnot, ) that the one was an usurper over the living, and the other overthe unborn; and as the one has no better authority to stand upon thanthe other, both of them must be equally null and void, and of noeffect. " "As the estimation of all things is by comparison, the Revolution of1688, however from circumstances it may have been exalted beyond itsvalue, will find its level. It is already on the wane, eclipsed by theenlarging orb of reason and the luminous Revolutions of America andFrance. In less than another century, it will go, as well as Mr. Burke'slabors, 'to the family vault of all the Capulets. ' _Mankind will thenscarcely believe that a country calling itself free would send toHolland for a man and clothe him with power on purpose to put themselvesin fear of him, and give him almost a million sterling a year for leaveto submit themselves and their posterity like bondmen and bondwomenforever_. " Mr. Burke having said that "the king holds his crown in contempt of thechoice of the Revolution Society, who individually or collectively havenot" (as most certainly they have not) "a vote for a king amongst them, "they take occasion from thence to infer that the king who does not holdhis crown by election despises the people. "'The king of England, ' says he, 'holds _his_ crown' (for it does notbelong to the nation, according to Mr. Burke) 'in _contempt_ of thechoice of the Revolution Society, '" &c. "As to who is king in England or elsewhere, or whether there is any kingat all, or whether the people choose a Cherokee chief or a Hessianhussar for a king, it is not a matter that I trouble myself about, --bethat to themselves; but with respect to the doctrine, so far as itrelates to the rights of men and nations, it is as abominable asanything ever uttered in the most enslaved country under heaven. Whetherit sounds worse to my ear, by not being accustomed to hear suchdespotism, than what it does to the ear of another person, I am not sowell a judge of; but of its abominable principle I am at no loss tojudge. " These societies of modern Whigs push their insolence as far as it cango. In order to prepare the minds of the people for treason andrebellion, they represent the king as tainted with principles ofdespotism, from the circumstance of his having dominions in Germany. Indirect defiance of the most notorious truth, they describe hisgovernment there to be a despotism; whereas it is a free Constitution, in which the states of the Electorate have their part in the government:and this privilege has never been infringed by the king, or, that I haveheard of, by any of his predecessors. The Constitution of the Electoraldominions has, indeed, a double control, both from the laws of theEmpire and from the privileges of the country. Whatever rights the kingenjoys as Elector have been always parentally exercised, and thecalumnies of these scandalous societies have not been authorized by asingle complaint of oppression. "When Mr. Burke says that 'his Majesty's heirs and successors, each intheir time and order, will come to the crown with the _same contempt_ oftheir choice with which his Majesty has succeeded to that he wears, ' itis saying too much even to the humblest individual in the country, partof whose daily labor goes towards making up the million sterling a yearwhich the country gives the person it styles a king. Government withinsolence is despotism; but when contempt is added, it becomes worse;and to pay for contempt is the excess of slavery. This species ofgovernment comes from Germany, and reminds me of what one of theBrunswick soldiers told me, who was taken prisoner by the Americans inthe late war. 'Ah!' said he, 'America is a fine free country: it isworth the people's fighting for. I know the difference by knowing myown: in my country, _if the prince says, "Eat straw" we eat straw_. ' Godhelp that country, thought I, be it England, or elsewhere, whoseliberties are to be protected by _German principles of government andprinces of Brunswick_!" "It is somewhat curious to observe, that, although the people of Englandhave been in the habit of talking about kings, it is always a foreignhouse of kings, --hating foreigners, yet governed by them. It is now theHouse of Brunswick, one of the petty tribes of Germany. " "If government be what Mr. Burke describes it, 'a contrivance of humanwisdom, ' I might ask him if wisdom was at such a low ebb in England thatit was become necessary to import it from Holland and from Hanover? ButI will do the country the justice to say, that was not the case; andeven if it was, it mistook the cargo. The wisdom of every country, whenproperly exerted, is sufficient for all its purposes; _and there couldexist no more real occasion in England to have sent for a DutchStadtholder or a German Elector_ than there was in America to have donea similar thing. If a country does not understand its own affairs, howis a foreigner to understand them, who knows neither its laws, itsmanners, nor its language? If there existed a man so transcendently wiseabove all others that his wisdom was necessary to instruct a nation, some reason might be offered for monarchy; but when we cast our eyesabout a country, and observe how every part understands its ownaffairs, and when we look around the world, and see, that, of all men init, the race of kings are the most insignificant in capacity, our reasoncannot fail to ask us, What are those men kept for?"[20] * * * * * These are the notions which, under the idea of Whig principles, severalpersons, and among them persons of no mean mark, have associatedthemselves to propagate. I will not attempt in the smallest degree torefute them. This will probably be done (if such writings shall bethought to deserve any other than the refutation of criminal justice) byothers, who may think with Mr. Burke. He has performed his part. I do not wish to enter very much at large into the discussions whichdiverge and ramify in all ways from this productive subject. But thereis one topic upon which I hope I shall be excused in going a littlebeyond my design. The factions now so busy amongst us, in order todivest men of all love for their country, and to remove from their mindsall duty with regard to the state, endeavor to propagate an opinion, that the _people_, in forming their commonwealth, have by no meansparted with their power over it. This is an impregnable citadel, towhich these gentlemen retreat, whenever they are pushed by the batteryof laws and usages and positive conventions. Indeed, it is such, and ofso great force, that all they have done in defending their outworks isso much time and labor thrown away. Discuss any of their schemes, theiranswer is, It is the act of the _people_, and that is sufficient. Arewe to deny to a _majority_ of the people the right of altering even thewhole frame of their society, if such should be their pleasure? They maychange it, say they, from a monarchy to a republic to-day, and to-morrowback again from a republic to a monarchy; and so backward and forward asoften as they like. They are masters of the commonwealth, because insubstance they are themselves the commonwealth. The French Revolution, say they, was the act of the majority of the people; and if the majorityof any other people, the people of England, for instance, wish to makethe same change, they have the same right. Just the same, undoubtedly. That is, none at all. Neither the few northe many have a right to act merely by their will, in any matterconnected with duty, trust, engagement, or obligation. The Constitutionof a country being once settled upon some compact, tacit or expressed, there is no power existing of force to alter it, without the breach ofthe covenant, or the consent of all the parties. Such is the nature of acontract. And the votes of a majority of the people, whatever theirinfamous flatterers may teach in order to corrupt their minds, cannotalter the moral any more than they can alter the physical essence ofthings. The people are not to be taught to think lightly of theirengagements to their governors; else they teach governors to thinklightly of their engagements towards them. In that kind of game, in theend, the people are sure to be losers. To flatter them into a contemptof faith, truth, and justice is to ruin them; for in these virtuesconsists their whole safety. To flatter any man, or any part of mankind, in any description, by asserting that in engagements he or they arefree, whilst any other human creature is bound, is ultimately to vestthe rule of morality in the pleasure of those who ought to be rigidlysubmitted to it, --to subject the sovereign reason of the world to thecaprices of weak and giddy men. But, as no one of us men can dispense with public or private faith, orwith any other tie of moral obligation, so neither can any number of us. The number engaged in crimes, instead of turning them into laudableacts, only augments the quantity and intensity of the guilt. I am wellaware that men love to hear of their power, but have an extremedisrelish to be told of their duty. This is of course; because everyduty is a limitation of some power. Indeed, arbitrary power is so muchto the depraved taste of the vulgar, of the vulgar of every description, that almost all the dissensions which lacerate the commonwealth are notconcerning the manner in which it is to be exercised, but concerning thehands in which it is to be placed. Somewhere they are resolved to haveit. Whether they desire it to be vested in the many or the few dependswith most men upon the chance which they imagine they themselves mayhave of partaking in the exercise of that arbitrary sway, in the onemode or in the other. It is not necessary to teach men to thirst after power. But it is veryexpedient that by moral instruction they should be taught, and by theircivil constitutions they should be compelled, to put many restrictionsupon the immoderate exercise of it, and the inordinate desire. The bestmethod of obtaining these two great points forms the important, but atthe same time the difficult problem to the true statesman. He thinks ofthe place in which political power is to be lodged with no otherattention than as it may render the more or the less practicable itssalutary restraint and its prudent direction. For this reason, nolegislator, at any period of the world, has willingly placed the seat ofactive power in the hands of the multitude; because there it admits ofno control, no regulation, no steady direction whatsoever. The peopleare the natural control on authority; but to exercise and to controltogether is contradictory and impossible. As the exorbitant exercise of power cannot, under popular sway, beeffectually restrained, the other great object of political arrangement, the means of abating an excessive desire of it, is in such a state stillworse provided for. The democratic commonwealth is the foodful nurse ofambition. Under the other forms it meets with many restraints. Whenever, in states which have had a democratic basis, the legislators haveendeavored to put restraints upon ambition, their methods were asviolent as in the end they were ineffectual, --as violent, indeed, as anythe most jealous despotism could invent. The ostracism could not verylong save itself, and much less the state which it was meant to guard, from the attempts of ambition, --one of the natural, inbred, incurabledistempers of a powerful democracy. But to return from this short digression, --which, however, is not whollyforeign to the question of the effect of the will of the majority uponthe form or the existence of their society. I cannot too often recommendit to the serious consideration of all men who think civil society to bewithin the province of moral jurisdiction, that, if we owe to it anyduty, it is not subject to our will. Duties are not voluntary. Duty andwill are even contradictory terms. Now, though civil society might be atfirst a voluntary act, (which in many cases it undoubtedly was, ) itscontinuance is under a permanent standing covenant, coexisting with thesociety; and it attaches upon every individual of that society, withoutany formal act of his own. This is warranted by the general practice, arising out of the general sense of mankind. Men without their choicederive benefits from that association; without their choice they aresubjected to duties in consequence of these benefits; and without theirchoice they enter into a virtual obligation as binding as any that isactual. Look through the whole of life and the whole system of duties. Much the strongest moral obligations are such as were never the resultsof our option. I allow, that, if no Supreme Ruler exists, wise to form, and potent to enforce, the moral law, there is no sanction to anycontract, virtual or even actual, against the will of prevalent power. On that hypothesis, let any set of men be strong enough to set theirduties at defiance, and they cease to be duties any longer. We have butthis one appeal against irresistible power, -- Si genus humanum et mortalia temnitis arma, At sperate Deos memores fandi atque nefandi. Taking it for granted that I do not write to the disciples of theParisian philosophy, I may assume that the awful Author of our being isthe Author of our place in the order of existence, --and that, havingdisposed and marshalled us by a divine tactic, not according to ourwill, but according to His, He has in and by that disposition virtuallysubjected us to act the part which belongs to the place assigned us. Wehave obligations to mankind at large, which are not in consequence ofany special voluntary pact. They arise from the relation of man to man, and the relation of man to God, which relations are not matters ofchoice. On the contrary, the force of all the pacts which we enter intowith any particular person or number of persons amongst mankind dependsupon those prior obligations. In some cases the subordinate relationsare voluntary, in others they are necessary, --but the duties are allcompulsive. When we marry, the choice is voluntary, but the duties arenot matter of choice: they are dictated by the nature of the situation. Dark and inscrutable are the ways by which we come into the world. Theinstincts which give rise to this mysterious process of Nature are notof our making. But out of physical causes, unknown to us, perhapsunknowable, arise moral duties, which, as we are able perfectly tocomprehend, we are bound indispensably to perform. Parents may not beconsenting to their moral relation; but, consenting or not, they arebound to a long train of burdensome duties towards those with whom theyhave never made a convention of any sort. Children are not consenting totheir relation; but their relation, without their actual consent, bindsthem to its duties, --or rather it implies their consent, because thepresumed consent of every rational creature is in unison with thepredisposed order of things. Men come in that manner into a communitywith the social state of their parents, endowed with all the benefits, loaded with all the duties of their situation. If the social ties andligaments, spun out of those physical relations which are the elementsof the commonwealth, in most cases begin, and always continue, independently of our will, so, without any stipulation on our own part, are we bound by that relation called our country, which comprehends (asit has been well said) "all the charities of all. "[21] Nor are we leftwithout powerful instincts to make this duty as dear and grateful to usas it is awful and coercive. Our country is not a thing of mere physicallocality. It consists, in a great measure, in the ancient order intowhich we are born. We may have the same geographical situation, butanother country; as we may have the same country in another soil. Theplace that determines our duty to our country is a social, civilrelation. These are the opinions of the author whose cause I defend. I lay themdown, not to enforce them upon others by disputation, but as an accountof his proceedings. On them he acts; and from them he is convinced thatneither he, nor any man, or number of men, have a right (except whatnecessity, which is out of and above all rule, rather imposes thanbestows) to free themselves from that primary engagement into whichevery man born into a community as much contracts by his being born intoit as he contracts an obligation to certain parents by his having beenderived from their bodies. The place of every man determines his duty. If you ask, _Quem te Deus esse jussit_? you will be answered when youresolve this other question, _Humana qua parte locatus es in re_?[22] I admit, indeed, that in morals, as in all things else, difficultieswill sometimes occur. Duties will sometimes cross one another. Thenquestions will arise, which of them is to be placed in subordination?which of them may be entirely superseded? These doubts give rise to thatpart of moral science called _casuistry_, which though necessary to bewell studied by those who would become expert in that learning, who aimat becoming what I think Cicero somewhere calls _artifices officiorum_, it requires a very solid and discriminating judgment, great modesty andcaution, and much sobriety of mind in the handling; else there is adanger that it may totally subvert those offices which it is its objectonly to methodize and reconcile. Duties, at their extreme bounds, aredrawn very fine, so as to become almost evanescent. In that state someshade of doubt will always rest on these questions, when they arepursued with great subtilty. But the very habit of stating these extremecases is not very laudable or safe; because, in general, it is not rightto turn our duties into doubts. They are imposed to govern our conduct, not to exercise our ingenuity; and therefore our opinions about themought not to be in a state of fluctuation, but steady, sure, andresolved. Amongst these nice, and therefore dangerous points of casuistry, may bereckoned the question so much agitated in the present hour, --Whether, after the people have discharged themselves of their original power byan habitual delegation, no occasion can possibly occur which mayjustify the resumption of it? This question, in this latitude, is veryhard to affirm or deny: but I am satisfied that no occasion can justifysuch a resumption, which would not equally authorize a dispensation withany other moral duty, perhaps with all of them together. However, if ingeneral it be not easy to determine concerning the lawfulness of suchdevious proceedings, which must be ever on the edge of crimes, it is farfrom difficult to foresee the perilous consequences of the resuscitationof such a power in the people. The practical consequences of anypolitical tenet go a great way in deciding upon its value. Politicalproblems do not primarily concern truth or falsehood. They relate togood or evil. What in the result is likely to produce evil ispolitically false; that which is productive of good, politically true. Believing it, therefore, a question at least arduous in the theory, andin the practice very critical, it would become us to ascertain as wellas we can what form it is that our incantations are about to call upfrom darkness and the sleep of ages. When the supreme authority of thepeople is in question, before we attempt to extend or to confine it, weought to fix in our minds, with some degree of distinctness, an idea ofwhat it is we mean, when we say, the PEOPLE. In a state of _rude_ Nature there is no such thing as a people. A numberof men in themselves have no collective capacity. The idea of a peopleis the idea of a corporation. It is wholly artificial, and made, likeall other legal fictions, by common agreement. What the particularnature of that agreement was is collected from the form into which theparticular society has been cast. Any other is not _their_ covenant. When men, therefore, break up the original compact or agreement whichgives its corporate form and capacity to a state, they are no longer apeople, --they have no longer a corporate existence, --they have no longera legal coactive force to bind within, nor a claim to be recognizedabroad. They are a number of vague, loose individuals, and nothing more. With them all is to begin again. Alas! they little know how many a wearystep is to be taken before they can form themselves into a mass whichhas a true politic personality. We hear much, from men who have not acquired their hardiness ofassertion from the profundity of their thinking, about the omnipotenceof a _majority_, in such a dissolution of an ancient society as hathtaken place in France. But amongst men so disbanded there can be no suchthing as majority or minority, or power in any one person to bindanother. The power of acting by a majority, which the gentlementheorists seem to assume so readily, after they have violated thecontract out of which it has arisen, (if at all it existed, ) must begrounded on two assumptions: first, that of an incorporation produced byunanimity; and secondly, an unanimous agreement that the act of a meremajority (say of one) shall pass with them and with others as the act ofthe whole. We are so little affected by things which are habitual, that we considerthis idea of the decision of a _majority_ as if it were a law of ouroriginal nature. But such constructive whole, residing in a part only, is one of the most violent fictions of positive law that ever has beenor can be made on the principles of artificial incorporation. Out ofcivil society Nature knows nothing of it; nor are men, even whenarranged according to civil order, otherwise than by very long training, brought at all to submit to it. The mind is brought far more easily toacquiesce in the proceedings of one man, or a few, who act under ageneral procuration for the state, than in the vote of a victoriousmajority in councils in which every man has his share in thedeliberation. For there the beaten party are exasperated and soured bythe previous contention, and mortified by the conclusive defeat. Thismode of decision, where wills may be so nearly equal, where, accordingto circumstances, the smaller number may be the stronger force, andwhere apparent reason may be all upon one side, and on the other littleelse than impetuous appetite, --all this must be the result of a veryparticular and special convention, confirmed afterwards by long habitsof obedience, by a sort of discipline in society, and by a strong hand, vested with stationary, permanent power to enforce this sort ofconstructive general will. What organ it is that shall declare thecorporate mind is so much a matter of positive arrangement, that severalstates, for the validity of several of their acts, have required aproportion of voices much greater than that of a mere majority. Theseproportions are so entirely governed by convention that in some casesthe minority decides. The laws in many countries to _condemn_ requiremore than a mere majority; less than an equal number to _acquit_. In ourjudicial trials we require unanimity either to condemn or to absolve. Insome incorporations one man speaks for the whole; in others, a few. Until the other day, in the Constitution of Poland unanimity wasrequired to give validity to any act of their great national council ordiet. This approaches much more nearly to rude Nature than theinstitutions of any other country. Such, indeed, every commonwealth mustbe, without a positive law to recognize in a certain number the will ofthe entire body. If men dissolve their ancient incorporation in order to regenerate theircommunity, in that state of things each man has a right, if he pleases, to remain an individual. Any number of individuals, who can agree uponit, have an undoubted right to form themselves into a state apart andwholly independent. If any of these is forced into the fellowship ofanother, this is conquest and not compact. On every principle whichsupposes society to be in virtue of a free covenant, this compulsiveincorporation must be null and void. As a people can have no right to a corporate capacity without universalconsent, so neither have they a right to hold exclusively any lands inthe name and title of a corporation. On the scheme of the present rulersin our neighboring country, regenerated as they are, they have no moreright to the territory called France than I have. I have a right topitch my tent in any unoccupied place I can find for it; and I may applyto my own maintenance any part of their unoccupied soil. I may purchasethe house or vineyard of any individual proprietor who refuses hisconsent (and most proprietors have, as far as they dared, refused it) tothe new incorporation. I stand in his independent place. Who are theseinsolent men, calling themselves the French nation, that wouldmonopolize this fair domain of Nature? Is it because they speak acertain jargon? Is it their mode of chattering, to me unintelligible, that forms their title to my land? Who are they who claim byprescription and descent from certain gangs of banditti called Franks, and Burgundians, and Visigoths, of whom I may have never heard, andninety-nine out of an hundred of themselves certainly never have heard, whilst at the very time they tell me that prescription and longpossession form no title to property? Who are they that presume toassert that the land which I purchased of the individual, a naturalperson, and not a fiction of state, belongs to them, who in the verycapacity in which they make their claim can exist only as an imaginarybeing, and in virtue of the very prescription which they reject anddisown? This mode of arguing might be pushed into all the detail, so asto leave no sort of doubt, that, on their principles, and on the sort offooting on which they have thought proper to place themselves, the crowdof men, on the other side of the Channel, who have the impudence to callthemselves a people, can never be the lawful, exclusive possessors ofthe soil. By what they call reasoning without prejudice, they leave notone stone upon another in the fabric of human society. They subvert allthe authority which they hold, as well as all that which they havedestroyed. As in the abstract it is perfectly clear, that, out of a state of civilsociety, majority and minority are relations which can have noexistence, and that, in civil society, its own specific conventions ineach corporation determine what it is that constitutes the people, so asto make their act the signification of the general will, --to come toparticulars, it is equally clear that neither in France nor in Englandhas the original or any subsequent compact of the state, expressed orimplied, constituted _a majority of men, told by the head_, to be theacting people of their several communities. And I see as little ofpolicy or utility as there is of right, in laying down a principle thata majority of men told by the head are to be considered as the people, and that as such their will is to be law. What policy can there be foundin arrangements made in defiance of every political principle? To enablemen to act with the weight and character of a people, and to answer theends for which they are incorporated into that capacity, we must supposethem (by means immediate or consequential) to be in that state ofhabitual social discipline in which the wiser, the more expert, and themore opulent conduct, and by conducting enlighten and protect, theweaker, the less knowing, and the less provided with the goods offortune. When the multitude are not under this discipline, they canscarcely be said to be in civil society. Give once a certainconstitution of things which produces a variety of conditions andcircumstances in a state, and there is in Nature and reason a principlewhich, for their own benefit, postpones, not the interest, but thejudgment, of those who are _numero plures_, to those who are _virtute ethonore majores_. Numbers in a state (supposing, which is not the case inFrance, that a state does exist) are always of consideration, --but theyare not the whole consideration. It is in things more serious than aplay, that it may be truly said, _Satis est equitem mihi plaudere_. A true natural aristocracy is not a separate interest in the state, orseparable from it. It is an essential integrant part of any large bodyrightly constituted. It is formed out of a class of legitimatepresumptions, which, taken as generalities, must be admitted for actualtruths. To be bred in a place of estimation; to see nothing low andsordid from one's infancy; to be taught to respect one's self; to behabituated to the censorial inspection of the public eye; to look earlyto public opinion; to stand upon such elevated ground as to be enabledto take a large view of the wide-spread and infinitely diversifiedcombinations of men and affairs in a large society; to have leisure toread, to reflect, to converse; to be enabled to draw the court andattention of the wise and learned, wherever they are to be found; to behabituated in armies to command and to obey; to be taught to despisedanger in the pursuit of honor and duty; to be formed to the greatestdegree of vigilance, foresight, and circumspection, in a state of thingsin which no fault is committed with impunity and the slightest mistakesdraw on the most ruinous consequences; to be led to a guarded andregulated conduct, from a sense that you are considered as an instructorof your fellow-citizens in their highest concerns, and that you act as areconciler between God and man; to be employed as an administrator oflaw and justice, and to be thereby amongst the first benefactors tomankind; to be a professor of high science, or of liberal and ingenuousart; to be amongst rich traders, who from their success are presumed tohave sharp and vigorous understandings, and to possess the virtues ofdiligence, order, constancy, and regularity, and to have cultivated anhabitual regard to commutative justice: these are the circumstances ofmen that form what I should call a _natural_ aristocracy, without whichthere is no nation. The state of civil society which necessarily generates this aristocracyis a state of Nature, --and much more truly so than a savage andincoherent mode of life. For man is by nature reasonable; and he isnever perfectly in his natural state, but when he is placed where reasonmay be best cultivated and most predominates. Art is man's nature. Weare as much, at least, in a state of Nature in formed manhood as inimmature and helpless infancy. Men, qualified in the manner I have justdescribed, form in Nature, as she operates in the common modification ofsociety, the leading, guiding, and governing part. It is the soul to thebody, without which the man does not exist. To give, therefore, no moreimportance, in the social order, to such descriptions of men than thatof so many units is a horrible usurpation. When great multitudes act together, under that discipline of Nature, Irecognize the PEOPLE. I acknowledge something that perhaps equals, andought always to guide, the sovereignty of convention. In all things thevoice of this grand chorus of national harmony ought to have a mightyand decisive influence. But when you disturb this harmony, --when youbreak up this beautiful order, this array of truth and Nature, as wellas of habit and prejudice, --when you separate the common sort of menfrom their proper chieftains, so as to form them into an adversearmy, --I no longer know that venerable object called the people in sucha disbanded race of deserters and vagabonds. For a while they may beterrible, indeed, --but in such a manner as wild beasts are terrible. Themind owes to them no sort of submission. They are, as they have alwaysbeen reputed, rebels. They may lawfully be fought with, and broughtunder, whenever an advantage offers. Those who attempt by outrage andviolence to deprive men of any advantage which they hold under thelaws, and to destroy the natural order of life, proclaim war againstthem. We have read in history of that furious insurrection of the commonpeople in France called the _Jacquerie_: for this is not the first timethat the people have been enlightened into treason, murder, and rapine. Its object was to extirpate the gentry. The Captal de Buch, a famoussoldier of those days, dishonored the name of a gentleman and of a manby taking, for their cruelties, a cruel vengeance on these deludedwretches: it was, however, his right and his duty to make war upon them, and afterwards, in moderation, to bring them to punishment for theirrebellion; though in the sense of the French Revolution, and of some ofour clubs, they were the _people_, --and were truly so, if you will callby that appellation _any majority of men told by the head_. At a time not very remote from the same period (for these humors neverhave affected one of the nations without some influence on the other)happened several risings of the lower commons in England. Theseinsurgents were certainly the majority of the inhabitants of thecounties in which they resided; and Cade, Ket, and Straw, at the head oftheir national guards, and fomented by certain traitors of high rank, did no more than exert, according to the doctrines of ours and theParisian societies, the sovereign power inherent in the majority. We call the time of those events a dark age. Indeed, we are tooindulgent to our own proficiency. The Abbé John Ball understood therights of man as well as the Abbé Grégoire. That reverend patriarch ofsedition, and prototype of our modern preachers, was of opinion, withthe National Assembly, that all the evils which have fallen upon men hadbeen caused by an ignorance of their "having been born and continuedequal as to their rights. " Had the populace been able to repeat thatprofound maxim, all would have gone perfectly well with them. Notyranny, no vexation, no oppression, no care, no sorrow, could haveexisted in the world. This would have cured them like a charm for thetooth-ache. But the lowest wretches, in their most ignorant state, wereable at all times to talk such stuff; and yet at all times have theysuffered many evils and many oppressions, both before and since therepublication by the National Assembly of this spell of healing potencyand virtue. The enlightened Dr. Ball, when he wished to rekindle thelights and fires of his audience on this point, chose for the test thefollowing couplet:-- When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman? Of this sapient maxim, however, I do not give him for the inventor. Itseems to have been handed down by tradition, and had certainly becomeproverbial; but whether then composed or only applied, thus much must beadmitted, that in learning, sense, energy, and comprehensiveness, it isfully equal to all the modern dissertations on the equality of mankind:and it has one advantage over them, --that it is in rhyme. [23] There is no doubt but that this great teacher of the rights of mandecorated his discourse on this valuable text with lemmas, theorems, scholia, corollaries, and all the apparatus of science, which wasfurnished in as great plenty and perfection out of the dogmatic andpolemic magazines, the old horse-armory of the Schoolmen, among whom theRev. Dr. Ball was bred, as they can be supplied from the new arsenal atHackney. It was, no doubt, disposed with all the adjutancy ofdefinition and division, in which (I speak it with submission) the oldmarshals were as able as the modern martinets. Neither can we deny thatthe philosophic auditory, when they had once obtained this knowledge, could never return to their former ignorance, or after so instructive alecture be in the same state of mind as if they had never heard it. [24]But these poor people, who were not to be envied for their knowledge, but pitied for their delusion, were not reasoned, (that was impossible, )but beaten, out of their lights. With their teacher they were deliveredover to the lawyers, who wrote in their blood the statutes of the land, as harshly, and in the same sort of ink, as they and their teachers hadwritten the rights of man. Our doctors of the day are not so fond of quoting the opinions of thisancient sage as they are of imitating his conduct: first, because itmight appear that they are not as great inventors as they would bethought; and next, because, unfortunately for his fame, he was notsuccessful. It is a remark liable to as few exceptions as any generalitycan be, that they who applaud prosperous folly and adore triumphantguilt have never been known to succor or even to pity human weakness oroffence, when they become subject to human vicissitude, and meet withpunishment instead of obtaining power. Abating for their want ofsensibility to the sufferings of their associates, they are not so muchin the wrong; for madness and wickedness are things foul and deformed inthemselves, and stand in need of all the coverings and trappings offortune to recommend them to the multitude. Nothing can be moreloathsome in their naked nature. Aberrations like these, whether ancient or modern, unsuccessful orprosperous, are things of passage. They furnish no argument forsupposing _a multitude told by the head to be the people_. Such amultitude can have no sort of title to alter the seat of power in thesociety, in which it ever ought to be the obedient, and not the rulingor presiding part. What power may belong to the whole mass, in whichmass the natural _aristocracy_, or what by convention is appointed torepresent and strengthen it, acts in its proper place, with its properweight, and without being subjected to violence, is a deeper question. But in that case, and with that concurrence, I should have much doubtwhether any rash or desperate changes in the state, such as we have seenin France, could ever be effected. I have said that in all political questions the consequences of anyassumed rights are of great moment in deciding upon their validity. Inthis point of view let us a little scrutinize the effects of a right inthe mere majority of the inhabitants of any country of superseding andaltering their government _at pleasure_. The sum total of every people is composed of its units. Every individualmust have a right to originate what afterwards is to become the act ofthe majority. Whatever he may lawfully originate he may lawfullyendeavor to accomplish. He has a right, therefore, in his ownparticular, to break the ties and engagements which bind him to thecountry in which he lives; and he has a right to make as many convertsto his opinions, and to obtain as many associates in his designs, as hecan procure: for how can you know the dispositions of the majority todestroy their government, but by tampering with some part of the body?You must begin by a secret conspiracy, that you may end with a nationalconfederation. The mere pleasure of the beginner must be the sole guide;since the mere pleasure of others must be the sole ultimate sanction, aswell as the sole actuating principle in every part of the progress. Thus, arbitrary will (the last corruption of ruling power) step by steppoisons the heart of every citizen. If the undertaker fails, he has themisfortune of a rebel, but not the guilt. By such doctrines, all love toour country, all pious veneration and attachment to its laws andcustoms, are obliterated from our minds; and nothing can result fromthis opinion, when grown into a principle, and animated by discontent, ambition, or enthusiasm, but a series of conspiracies and seditions, sometimes ruinous to their authors, always noxious to the state. Nosense of duty can prevent any man from being a leader or a follower insuch enterprises. Nothing restrains the tempter; nothing guards thetempted. Nor is the new state, fabricated by such arts, safer than theold. What can prevent the mere will of any person, who hopes to unitethe wills of others to his own, from an attempt wholly to overturn it?It wants nothing but a disposition to trouble the established order, togive a title to the enterprise. When you combine this principle of the right to change a fixed andtolerable constitution of things at pleasure with the theory andpractice of the French Assembly, the political, civil, and moralirregularity are, if possible, aggravated. The Assembly have foundanother road, and a far more commodious, to the destruction of an oldgovernment, and the legitimate formation of a new one, than through theprevious will of the majority of what they call the people. Get, saythey, the possession of power by any means you can into your hands; andthen, a subsequent consent (what they call an _address of adhesion_)makes your authority as much the act of the people as if they hadconferred upon you originally that kind and degree of power whichwithout their permission you had seized upon. This is to give a directsanction to fraud, hypocrisy, perjury, and the breach of the most sacredtrusts that can exist between man and man. What can sound with suchhorrid discordance in the moral ear as this position, --that a delegatewith limited powers may break his sworn engagements to his constituent, assume an authority, never committed to him, to alter all things at hispleasure, and then, if he can persuade a large number of men to flatterhim in the power he has usurped, that he is absolved in his ownconscience, and ought to stand acquitted in the eyes of mankind? On thisscheme, the maker of the experiment must begin with a determinedperjury. That point is certain. He must take his chance for theexpiatory addresses. This is to make the success of villany thestandard of innocence. Without drawing on, therefore, very shocking consequences, neither byprevious consent, nor by subsequent ratification of a _mere reckonedmajority_, can any set of men attempt to dissolve the state at theirpleasure. To apply this to our present subject. When the several orders, in their several bailliages, had met in the year 1789, (such of them, Imean, as had met peaceably and constitutionally, ) to choose and toinstruct their representatives, so organized and so acting, (becausethey were organized and were acting according to the conventions whichmade them a people, ) they were the _people_ of France. They had a legaland a natural capacity to be considered as that people. But observe, whilst they were in this state, that is, whilst they were a people, inno one of their instructions did they charge or even hint at any ofthose things which have drawn upon the usurping Assembly and theiradherents the detestation of the rational and thinking part of mankind. I will venture to affirm, without the least apprehension of beingcontradicted by any person who knows the then state of France, that, ifany one of the changes were proposed, which form the fundamental partsof their Revolution, and compose its most distinguishing acts, it wouldnot have had one vote in twenty thousand in any order. Theirinstructions purported the direct contrary to all those famousproceedings which are defended as the acts of the people. Had suchproceedings been expected, the great probability is, that the peoplewould then have risen, as to a man, to prevent them. The wholeorganization of the Assembly was altered, the whole frame of thekingdom was changed, before these things could be done. It is long totell, by what evil arts of the conspirators, and by what extremeweakness and want of steadiness in the lawful government, this equalusurpation on the rights of the prince and people, having first cheated, and then offered violence to both, has been able to triumph, and toemploy with success the forged signature of an imprisoned sovereign, andthe spurious voice of dictated addresses, to a subsequent ratificationof things that had never received any previous sanction, general orparticular, expressed or implied, from the nation, (in whatever sensethat word is taken, ) or from any part of it. After the weighty and respectable part of the people had been murdered, or driven by the menaces of murder from their houses, or were dispersedin exile into every country in Europe, --after the soldiery had beendebauched from their officers, --after property had lost its weight andconsideration, along with its security, --after voluntary clubs andassociations of factious and unprincipled men were substituted in theplace of all the legal corporations of the kingdom arbitrarilydissolved, --after freedom had been banished from those popularmeetings[25] whose sole recommendation is freedom, --after it had come tothat pass that no dissent dared to appear in any of them, but at thecertain price of life, --after even dissent had been anticipated, andassassination became as quick as suspicion, --such pretended ratificationby addresses could be no act of what any lover of the people wouldchoose to call by their name. It is that voice which every successfulusurpation, as well as this before us, may easily procure, even withoutmaking (as these tyrants have made) donatives from the spoil of one partof the citizens to corrupt the other. The pretended _rights of man_, which have made this havoc, cannot be therights of the people. For to be a people, and to have these rights, arethings incompatible. The one supposes the presence, the other theabsence, of a state of civil society. The very foundation of the Frenchcommonwealth is false and self-destructive; nor can its principles beadopted in any country, without the certainty of bringing it to the verysame condition in which France is found. Attempts are made to introducethem into every nation in Europe. This nation, as possessing thegreatest influence, they wish most to corrupt, as by that means they areassured the contagion must become general. I hope, therefore, I shall beexcused, if I endeavor to show, as shortly as the matter will admit, thedanger of giving to them, either avowedly or tacitly, the smallestcountenance. There are times and circumstances in which not to speak out is at leastto connive. Many think it enough for them, that the principlespropagated by these clubs and societies, enemies to their country andits Constitution, are not owned by the _modern Whigs in Parliament_, whoare so warm in condemnation of Mr. Burke and his book, and of course ofall the principles of the ancient, constitutional Whigs of this kingdom. Certainly they are not owned. But are they condemned with the same zealas Mr. Burke and his book are condemned? Are they condemned at all? Arethey rejected or discountenanced in any way whatsoever? Is any man whowould fairly examine into the demeanor and principles of thosesocieties, and that too very moderately, and in the way rather ofadmonition than of punishment, is such a man even decently treated? Ishe not reproached as if in condemning such principles he had belied theconduct of his whole life, suggesting that his life had been governed byprinciples similar to those which he now reprobates? The French systemis in the mean time, by many active agents out of doors, rapturouslypraised; the British Constitution is coldly tolerated. But theseConstitutions are different both in the foundation and in the wholesuperstructure; and it is plain that you cannot build up the one but onthe ruins of the other. After all, if the French be a superior system ofliberty, why should we not adopt it? To what end are our praises? Isexcellence held out to us only that we should not copy after it? Andwhat is there in the manners of the people, or in the climate of France, which renders that species of republic fitted for them, and unsuitableto us? A strong and marked difference between the two nations ought tobe shown, before we can admit a constant, affected panegyric, astanding, annual commemoration, to be without any tendency to anexample. But the leaders of party will not go the length of the doctrines taughtby the seditious clubs. I am sure they do not mean to do so. God forbid!Perhaps even those who are directly carrying on the work of thispernicious foreign faction do not all of them intend to produce all themischiefs which must inevitably follow from their having any success intheir proceedings. As to leaders in parties, nothing is more common thanto see them blindly led. The world is governed by go-betweens. Thesego-betweens influence the persons with whom they carry on theintercourse, by stating their own sense to each of them as the sense ofthe other; and thus they reciprocally master both sides. It is firstbuzzed about the ears of leaders, "that their friends without doors arevery eager for some measure, or very warm about some opinion, --that youmust not be too rigid with them. They are useful persons, and zealous inthe cause. They may be a little wrong, but the spirit of liberty mustnot be damped; and by the influence you obtain from some degree ofconcurrence with them at present, you may be enabled to set them righthereafter. " Thus the leaders are at first drawn to a connivance with sentiments andproceedings often totally different from their serious and deliberatenotions. But their acquiescence answers every purpose. With no better than such powers, the go-betweens assume a newrepresentative character. What at best was but an acquiescence ismagnified into an authority, and thence into a desire on the part of theleaders; and it is carried down as such to the subordinate members ofparties. By this artifice they in their turn are led into measures whichat first, perhaps, few of them wished at all, or at least did not desirevehemently or systematically. There is in all parties, between the principal leaders in Parliament andthe lowest followers out of doors, a middle sort of men, a sort ofequestrian order, who, by the spirit of that middle situation, are thefittest for preventing things from running to excess. But indecision, though a vice of a totally different character, is the naturalaccomplice of violence. The irresolution and timidity of those whocompose this middle order often prevents the effect of theircontrolling situation. The fear of differing with the authority ofleaders on the one hand, and of contradicting the desires of themultitude on the other, induces them to give a careless and passiveassent to measures in which they never were consulted; and thus thingsproceed, by a sort of activity of inertness, until whole bodies, leaders, middle-men, and followers, are all hurried, with everyappearance and with many of the effects of unanimity, into schemes ofpolitics, in the substance of which no two of them were ever fullyagreed, and the origin and authors of which, in this circular mode ofcommunication, none of them find it possible to trace. In my experience, I have seen much of this in affairs which, though trifling in comparisonto the present, were yet of some importance to parties; and I have knownthem suffer by it. The sober part give their sanction, at first throughinattention and levity; at last they give it through necessity. Aviolent spirit is raised, which the presiding minds after a time find itimpracticable to stop at their pleasure, to control, to regulate, oreven to direct. This shows, in my opinion, how very quick and awakened all men ought tobe, who are looked up to by the public, and who deserve that confidence, to prevent a surprise on their opinions, when dogmas are spread andprojects pursued by which the foundations of society may be affected. Before they listen even to moderate alterations in the government oftheir country, they ought to take care that principles are notpropagated for that purpose which are too big for their object. Doctrines limited in their present application, and wide in theirgeneral principles, are never meant to be confined to what they atfirst pretend. If I were to form a prognostic of the effect of thepresent machinations on the people from their sense of any grievancethey suffer under this Constitution, my mind would be at ease. But thereis a wide difference between the multitude, when they act against theirgovernment from a sense of grievance or from zeal for some opinions. When men are thoroughly possessed with that zeal, it is difficult tocalculate its force. It is certain that its power is by no means inexact proportion to its reasonableness. It must always have beendiscoverable by persons of reflection, but it is now obvious to theworld, that a theory concerning government may become as much a cause offanaticism as a dogma in religion. There is a boundary to men'spassions, when they act from feeling; none when they are under theinfluence of imagination. Remove a grievance, and, when men act fromfeeling, you go a great way towards quieting a commotion. But the goodor bad conduct of a government, the protection men have enjoyed or theoppression they have suffered under it, are of no sort of moment, when afaction, proceeding upon speculative grounds, is thoroughly heatedagainst its form. When a man is from system furious against monarchy orepiscopacy, the good conduct of the monarch or the bishop has no othereffect than further to irritate the adversary. He is provoked at it asfurnishing a plea for preserving the thing which he wishes to destroy. His mind will be heated as much by the sight of a sceptre, a mace, or averge, as if he had been daily bruised and wounded by these symbols ofauthority. Mere spectacles, mere names, will become sufficient causes tostimulate the people to war and tumult. Some gentlemen are not terrified by the facility with which governmenthas been overturned in France. "The people of France, " they say, "hadnothing to lose in the destruction of a bad Constitution; but, thoughnot the best possible, we have still a good stake in ours, which willhinder us from desperate risks. " Is this any security at all againstthose who seem to persuade themselves, and who labor to persuade others, that our Constitution is an usurpation in its origin, unwise in itscontrivance, mischievous in its effects, contrary to the rights of man, and in all its parts a perfect nuisance? What motive has any rationalman, who thinks in that manner, to spill his blood, or even to risk ashilling of his fortune, or to waste a moment of his leisure, topreserve it? If he has any duty relative to it, his duty is to destroyit. A Constitution on sufferance is a Constitution condemned. Sentenceis already passed upon it. The execution is only delayed. On theprinciples of these gentlemen, it neither has nor ought to have anysecurity. So far as regards them, it is left naked, without friends, partisans, assertors, or protectors. Let us examine into the value of this security upon the principles ofthose who are more sober, --of those who think, indeed, the FrenchConstitution better, or at least as good as the British, without goingto all the lengths of the warmer politicians in reprobating their own. Their security amounts in reality to nothing more than this, --that thedifference between their republican system and the British limitedmonarchy is not worth a civil war. This opinion, I admit, will preventpeople not very enterprising in their nature from an active undertakingagainst the British Constitution. But it is the poorest defensiveprinciple that ever was infused into the mind of man against theattempts of those who will enterprise. It will tend totally to removefrom their minds that very terror of a civil war which is held out asour sole security. They who think so well of the French Constitutioncertainly will not be the persons to carry on a war to prevent theirobtaining a great benefit, or at worst a fair exchange. They will not goto battle in favor of a cause in which their defeat might be moreadvantageous to the public than their victory. They must at leasttacitly abet those who endeavor to make converts to a sound opinion;they must discountenance those who would oppose its propagation. Inproportion as by these means the enterprising party is strengthened, thedread of a struggle is lessened. See what an encouragement this is tothe enemies of the Constitution! A few assassinations and a very greatdestruction of property we know they consider as no real obstacles inthe way of a grand political change. And they will hope, that here, ifantimonarchical opinions gain ground as they have done in France, theymay, as in France, accomplish a revolution without a war. They who think so well of the French Constitution cannot be seriouslyalarmed by any progress made by its partisans. Provisions for securityare not to be received from those who think that there is no danger. No!there is no plan of security to be listened to but from those whoentertain the same fears with ourselves, --from those who think that thething to be secured is a great blessing, and the thing against which wewould secure it a great mischief. Every person of a different opinionmust be careless about security. I believe the author of the Reflections, whether he fears the designs ofthat set of people with reason or not, cannot prevail on himself todespise them. He cannot despise them for their numbers, which, thoughsmall, compared with the sound part of the community, are notinconsiderable: he cannot look with contempt on their influence, theiractivity, or the kind of talents and tempers which they possess, exactlycalculated for the work they have in hand and the minds they chieflyapply to. Do we not see their most considerable and accreditedministers, and several of their party of weight and importance, activein spreading mischievous opinions, in giving sanction to seditiouswritings, in promoting seditious anniversaries? and what part of theirdescription has disowned them or their proceedings? When men, circumstanced as these are, publicly declare such admiration of aforeign Constitution, and such contempt of our own, it would be, in theauthor of the Reflections, thinking as he does of the FrenchConstitution, infamously to cheat the rest of the nation to their ruinto say there is no danger. In estimating danger, we are obliged to take into our calculation thecharacter and disposition of the enemy into whose hands we may chance tofall. The genius of this faction is easily discerned, by observing withwhat a very different eye they have viewed the late foreign revolutions. Two have passed before them: that of France, and that of Poland. Thestate of Poland was such, that there could scarcely exist two opinions, but that a reformation of its Constitution, even at some expense ofblood, might be seen without much disapprobation. No confusion could befeared in such an enterprise; because the establishment to be reformedwas itself a state of confusion. A king without authority; nobleswithout union or subordination; a people without arts, industry, commerce, or liberty; no order within, no defence without; no effectivepublic force, but a foreign force, which entered, a naked country atwill, and disposed of everything at pleasure. Here was a state of thingswhich seemed to invite, and might perhaps justify, bold enterprise anddesperate experiment. But in what manner was this chaos brought intoorder? The means were as striking to the imagination as satisfactory tothe reason and soothing to the moral sentiments. In contemplating thatchange, humanity has everything to rejoice and to glory in, --nothing tobe ashamed of, nothing to suffer. So far as it has gone, it probably isthe most pure and defecated public good which ever has been conferred onmankind. We have seen anarchy and servitude at once removed; a thronestrengthened for the protection of the people, without trenching ontheir liberties; all foreign cabal banished, by changing the crown fromelective to hereditary; and what was a matter of pleasing wonder, wehave seen a reigning king, from an heroic love to his country, exertinghimself with all the toil, the dexterity, the management, the intrigue, in favor of a family of strangers, with which ambitious men labor forthe aggrandizement of their own. Ten millions of men in a way of beingfreed gradually, and therefore safely to themselves and the state, notfrom civil or political chains, which, bad as they are, only fetter themind, but from substantial personal bondage. Inhabitants of cities, before without privileges, placed in the consideration which belongs tothat improved and connecting situation of social life. One of the mostproud, numerous, and fierce bodies of nobility and gentry ever known inthe world arranged only in the foremost rank of free and generouscitizens. Not one man incurred loss or suffered degradation. All, fromthe king to the day-laborer, were improved in their condition. Everything was kept in its place and order; but in that place and ordereverything was bettered. To add to this happy wonder, this unheard-ofconjunction of wisdom and fortune, not one drop of blood was spilled; notreachery; no outrage; no system of slander more cruel than the sword;no studied insults on religion, morals, or manners; no spoil; noconfiscation; no citizen beggared; none imprisoned; none exiled: thewhole was effected with a policy, a discretion, an unanimity andsecrecy, such as have never been before known on any occasion; but suchwonderful conduct was reserved for this glorious conspiracy in favor ofthe true and genuine rights and interests of men. Happy people, if theyknow to proceed as they have begun! Happy prince, worthy to begin withsplendor or to close with glory a race of patriots and of kings, and toleave A name, which every wind to heaven would bear, Which men to speak, and angels joy to hear! To finish all, --this great good, as in the instant it is, contains in itthe seeds of all further improvement, and may be considered as in aregular progress, because founded on similar principles, towards thestable excellence of a British Constitution. Here was a matter for congratulation and for festive remembrance throughages. Here moralists and divines might indeed relax in their temperance, to exhilarate their humanity. But mark the character of our faction. All their enthusiasm is kept for the French Revolution. They cannotpretend that France had stood so much in need of a change as Poland. They cannot pretend that Poland has not obtained a better system ofliberty or of government than it enjoyed before. They cannot assert thatthe Polish Revolution cost more dearly than that of France to theinterests and feelings of multitudes of men. But the cold andsubordinate light in which they look upon the one, and the pains theytake to preach up the other of these Revolutions, leave us no choice infixing on their motives. Both Revolutions profess liberty as theirobject; but in obtaining this object the one proceeds from anarchy toorder, the other from order to anarchy. The first secures its liberty byestablishing its throne; the other builds its freedom on the subversionof its monarchy. In the one, their means are unstained by crimes, andtheir settlement favors morality; in the other, vice and confusion arein the very essence of their pursuit, and of their enjoyment. Thecircumstances in which these two events differ must cause the differencewe make in their comparative estimation. These turn the scale with thesocieties in favor of France. _Ferrum est quod amant_. The frauds, theviolences, the sacrileges, the havoc and ruin of families, thedispersion and exile of the pride and flower of a great country, thedisorder, the confusion, the anarchy, the violation of property, thecruel murders, the inhuman confiscations, and in the end the insolentdomination of bloody, ferocious, and senseless clubs, --these are thethings which they love and admire. What men admire and love they wouldsurely act. Let us see what is done in France; and then let usundervalue any the slightest danger of falling into the hands of such amerciless and savage faction! "But the leaders of the factious societies are too wild to succeed inthis their undertaking. " I hope so. But supposing them wild and absurd, is there no danger but from wise and reflecting men? Perhaps thegreatest mischiefs that have happened in the world have happened frompersons as wild as those we think the wildest. In truth, they are thefittest beginners of all great changes. Why encourage men in amischievous proceeding, because their absurdity may disappoint theirmalice?--"But noticing them may give them consequence. " Certainly. Butthey are noticed; and they are noticed, not with reproof, but with thatkind of countenance which is given by an _apparent_ concurrence (not a_real_ one, I am convinced) of a great party in the praises of theobject which they hold out to imitation. But I hear a language still more extraordinary, and indeed of such anature as must suppose or leave us at their mercy. It is this:--"Youknow their promptitude in writing, and their diligence in caballing; towrite, speak, or act against them will only stimulate them to newefforts. " This way of considering the principle of their conduct paysbut a poor compliment to these gentlemen. They pretend that theirdoctrines are infinitely beneficial to mankind; but it seems they wouldkeep them to themselves, if they were not greatly provoked. They arebenevolent from spite. Their oracles are like those of Proteus, (whomsome people think they resemble in many particulars, ) who never wouldgive his responses, unless you used him as ill as possible. These cats, it seems, would not give out their electrical light without havingtheir backs well rubbed. But this is not to do them perfect justice. They are sufficiently communicative. Had they been quiet, the proprietyof any agitation of topics on the origin and primary rights ofgovernment, in opposition to their private sentiments, might possibly bedoubted. But, as it is notorious that they were proceeding as fast andas far as time and circumstances would admit, both in their discussionsand cabals, --as it is not to be denied that they had opened acorrespondence with a foreign faction the most wicked the world eversaw, and established anniversaries to commemorate the most monstrous, cruel, and perfidious of all the proceedings of that faction, --thequestion is, whether their conduct was to be regarded in silence, lestour interference should render them outrageous. Then let them deal asthey please with the Constitution. Let the lady be passive, lest theravisher should be driven to force. Resistance will only increase hisdesires. Yes, truly, if the resistance be feigned and feeble. But theywho are wedded to the Constitution will not act the part of wittols. They will drive such seducers from the house on the first appearance oftheir love-letters and offered assignations. But if the author of theReflections, though a vigilant, was not a discreet guardian of theConstitution, let them who have the same regard to it show themselves asvigilant and more skilful in repelling the attacks of seduction orviolence. Their freedom from jealousy is equivocal, and may arise aswell from indifference to the object as from confidence in her virtue. On their principle, it is the resistance, and not the assault, whichproduces the danger. I admit, indeed, that, if we estimated the dangerby the value of the writings, it would be little worthy of ourattention: contemptible these writings are in every sense. But they arenot the cause, they are the disgusting symptoms of a frightfuldistemper. They are not otherwise of consequence than as they show theevil habit of the bodies from whence they come. In that light themeanest of them is a serious thing. If, however, I should underratethem, and if the truth is, that they are not the result, but the cause, of the disorders I speak of, surely those who circulate operativepoisons, and give to whatever force they have by their nature thefurther operation of their authority and adoption, are to be censured, watched, and, if possible, repressed. At what distance the direct danger from such factions may be it is noteasy to fix. An adaptation of circumstances to designs and principles isnecessary. But these cannot be wanting for any long time, in theordinary course of sublunary affairs. Great discontents frequently arisein the best constituted governments from causes which no human wisdomcan foresee and no human power can prevent. They occur at uncertainperiods, but at periods which are not commonly far asunder. Governmentsof all kinds are administered only by men; and great mistakes, tendingto inflame these discontents, may concur. The indecision of those whohappen to rule at the critical time, their supine neglect, or theirprecipitate and ill-judged attention, may aggravate the publicmisfortunes. In such a state of things, the principles, now only sown, will shoot out and vegetate in full luxuriance. In such circumstancesthe minds of the people become sore and ulcerated. They are put out ofhumor with all public men and all public parties; they are fatiguedwith their dissensions; they are irritated at their coalitions; they aremade easily to believe (what much pains are taken to make them believe)that all oppositions are factious, and all courtiers base and servile. From their disgust at men, they are soon led to quarrel with their frameof government, which they presume gives nourishment to the vices, realor supposed, of those who administer in it. Mistaking malignity forsagacity, they are soon led to cast off all hope from a goodadministration of affairs, and come to think that all reformationdepends, not on a change of actors, but upon an alteration in themachinery. Then will be felt the full effect of encouraging doctrineswhich tend to make the citizens despise their Constitution. Then will befelt the plenitude of the mischief of teaching the people to believethat all ancient institutions are the results of ignorance, and that allprescriptive government is in its nature usurpation. Then will be felt, in all its energy, the danger of encouraging a spirit of litigation inpersons of that immature and imperfect state of knowledge which servesto render them susceptible of doubts, but incapable of their solution. Then will be felt, in all its aggravation, the pernicious consequence ofdestroying all docility in the minds of those who are not formed forfinding their own way in the labyrinths of political theory, and aremade to reject the clew and to disdain the guide. Then will be felt, andtoo late will be acknowledged, the ruin which follows the disjoining ofreligion from the state, the separation of morality from policy, and thegiving conscience no concern and no coactive or coercive force in themost material of all the social ties, the principle of our obligationsto government. I know, too, that, besides this vain, contradictory, andself-destructive security which some men derive from the habitualattachment of the people to this Constitution, whilst they suffer itwith a sort of sportive acquiescence to be brought into contempt beforetheir faces, they have other grounds for removing all apprehension fromtheir minds. They are of opinion that there are too many men of greathereditary estates and influence in the kingdom to suffer theestablishment of the levelling system which has taken place in France. This is very true, if, in order to guide the power which now attendstheir property, these men possess the wisdom which is involved in earlyfear. But if, through a supine security, to which such fortunes arepeculiarly liable, they neglect the use of their influence in the seasonof their power, on the first derangement of society the nerves of theirstrength will be cut. Their estates, instead of being the means of theirsecurity, will become the very causes of their danger. Instead ofbestowing influence, they will excite rapacity. They will be looked toas a prey. Such will be the impotent condition of those men of great hereditaryestates, who indeed dislike the designs that are carried on, but whosedislike is rather that of spectators than of parties that may beconcerned in the catastrophe of the piece. But riches do not in allcases secure even an inert and passive resistance. There are always inthat description men whose fortunes, when their minds are once vitiatedby passion or by evil principle, are by no means a security from theiractually taking their part against the public tranquillity. We see towhat low and despicable passions of all kinds many men in that classare ready to sacrifice the patrimonial estates which might beperpetuated in their families with splendor, and with the fame ofhereditary benefactors to mankind, from generation to generation. Do wenot see how lightly people treat their fortunes, when under theinfluence of the passion of gaming? The game of ambition or resentmentwill be played by many of the rich and great as desperately, and with asmuch blindness to the consequences, as any other game. Was he a man ofno rank or fortune who first set on foot the disturbances which haveruined France? Passion blinded him to the consequences, so far as theyconcerned himself; and as to the consequences with regard to others, they were no part of his consideration, --nor ever will be with those whobear any resemblance to that virtuous patriot and lover of the rights ofman. There is also a time of insecurity, when interests of all sorts becomeobjects of speculation. Then it is that their very attachment to wealthand importance will induce several persons of opulence to listthemselves and even to take a lead with the party which they think mostlikely to prevail, in order to obtain to themselves consideration insome new order or disorder of things. They may be led to act in thismanner, that they may secure some portion of their own property, andperhaps to become partakers of the spoil of their own order. Those whospeculate on change always make a great number among people of rank andfortune, as well as amongst the low and the indigent. What security against all this?--All human securities are liable touncertainty. But if anything bids fair for the prevention of so great acalamity, it must consist in the use of the ordinary means of justinfluence in society, whilst those means continue unimpaired. The publicjudgment ought to receive a proper direction. All weighty men may havetheir share in so good a work. As yet, notwithstanding the strutting andlying independence of a braggart philosophy, Nature maintains herrights, and great names have great prevalence. Two such men as Mr. Pittand Mr. Fox, adding to their authority in a point in which they concureven by their disunion in everything else, might frown these wickedopinions out of the kingdom. But if the influence of either of them, orthe influence of men like them, should, against their seriousintentions, be otherwise perverted, they may countenance opinions which(as I have said before, and could wish over and over again to press)they may in vain attempt to control. In their theory, these doctrinesadmit no limit, no qualification whatsoever. No man can say how far hewill go, who joins with those who are avowedly going to the utmostextremities. What security is there for stopping short at all in thesewild conceits? Why, neither more nor less than this, --that the moralsentiments of some few amongst them do put some check on their savagetheories. But let us take care. The moral sentiments, so nearlyconnected with early prejudice as to be almost one and the same thing, will assuredly not live long under a discipline which has for its basisthe destruction of all prejudices, and the making the mind proof againstall dread of consequences flowing from the pretended truths that aretaught by their philosophy. In this school the moral sentiments must grow weaker and weaker everyday. The more cautious of these teachers, in laying down their maxims, draw as much of the conclusion as suits, not with their premises, butwith their policy. They trust the rest to the sagacity of their pupils. Others, and these are the most vaunted for their spirit, not only laydown the same premises, but boldly draw the conclusions, to thedestruction of our whole Constitution in Church and State. But are theseconclusions truly drawn? Yes, most certainly. Their principles are wildand wicked; but let justice be done even to frenzy and villany. Theseteachers are perfectly systematic. No man who assumes their grounds cantolerate the British Constitution in Church or State. These teachersprofess to scorn all mediocrity, --to engage for perfection, --to proceedby the simplest and shortest course. They build their politics, not onconvenience, but on truth; and they profess to conduct men to certainhappiness by the assertion of their undoubted rights. With them there isno compromise. All other governments are usurpations, which justify andeven demand resistance. Their principles always go to the extreme. They who go with theprinciples of the ancient Whigs, which are those contained in Mr. Burke's book, never can go too far. They may, indeed, stop short of somehazardous and ambiguous excellence, which they will be taught topostpone to any reasonable degree of good they may actually possess. Theopinions maintained in that book never can lead to an extreme, becausetheir foundation is laid in an opposition to extremes. The foundation ofgovernment is there laid, not in imaginary rights of men, (which at bestis a confusion of judicial with civil principles, ) but in politicalconvenience, and in human nature, --either as that nature is universal, or as it is modified by local habits and social aptitudes. Thefoundation of government (those who have read that book will recollect)is laid in a provision for our wants and in a conformity to our duties:it is to purvey for the one, it is to enforce the other. These doctrinesdo of themselves gravitate to a middle point, or to some point near amiddle. They suppose, indeed, a certain portion of liberty to beessential to all good government; but they infer that this liberty is tobe blended into the government, to harmonize with its forms and itsrules, and to be made subordinate to its end. Those who are not withthat book are with its opposite; for there is no medium besides themedium itself. That medium is not such because it is found there, but itis found there because it is conformable to truth and Nature. In this wedo not follow the author, but we and the author travel together upon thesame safe and middle path. The theory contained in his book is not to furnish principles for makinga new Constitution, but for illustrating the principles of aConstitution already made. It is a theory drawn from the _fact_ of ourgovernment. They who oppose it are bound to show that his theorymilitates with that fact; otherwise, their quarrel is not with his book, but with the Constitution of their country. The whole scheme of ourmixed Constitution is to prevent any one of its principles from beingcarried as far as, taken by itself, and theoretically, it would go. Allow that to be the true policy of the British system, then most of thefaults with which that system stands charged will appear to be, notimperfections into which it has inadvertently fallen, but excellencieswhich it has studiously sought. To avoid the perfections of extreme, all its several parts are so constituted as not alone to answer theirown several ends, but also each to limit and control the others;insomuch that, take which of the principles you please, you will findits operation checked and stopped at a certain point. The whole movementstands still rather than that any part should proceed beyond itsboundary. From thence it results that in the British Constitution thereis a perpetual treaty and compromise going on, sometimes openly, sometimes with less observation. To him who contemplates the BritishConstitution, as to him who contemplates the subordinate material world, it will always be a matter of his most curious investigation to discoverthe secret of this mutual limitation. _Finita_ potestas denique _cuique_ Quanam sit ratione, atque alte terminus hærens? They who have acted, as in France they have done, upon a scheme whollydifferent, and who aim at the abstract and unlimited perfection of powerin the popular part, can be of no service to us in any of our politicalarrangements. They who in their headlong career have overpassed the goalcan furnish no example to those who aim to go no further. The temerityof such speculators is no more an example than the timidity of others. The one sort scorns the right; the other fears it; both miss it. Butthose who by violence go beyond the barrier are without question themost mischievous; because, to go beyond it, they overturn and destroyit. To say they have spirit is to say nothing in their praise. Theuntempered spirit of madness, blindness, immorality, and impietydeserves no commendation. He that sets his house on fire because hisfingers are frost-bitten can never be a fit instructor in the method ofproviding our habitations with a cheerful and salutary warmth. We wantno foreign examples to rekindle in us the flame of liberty. The exampleof our own ancestors is abundantly sufficient to maintain the spirit offreedom in its full vigor, and to qualify it in all its exertions. Theexample of a wise, moral, well-natured, and well-tempered spirit offreedom is that alone which can be useful to us, or in the least degreereputable or safe. Our fabric is so constituted, one part of it bears somuch on the other, the parts are so made for one another, and fornothing else, that to introduce any foreign matter into it is to destroyit. What has been said of the Roman Empire is at least as true of theBritish Constitution:--"_Octingentorum annorum fortuna disciplinaquecompages hæc coaluit; quæ convelli sine convellentium exitio nonpotest_. " This British Constitution has not been struck out at an heatby a set of presumptuous men, like the Assembly of pettifoggers run madin Paris. "'Tis not the hasty product of a day, But the well-ripened fruit of wise delay. " It is the result of the thoughts of many minds in many ages. It is nosimple, no superficial thing, nor to be estimated by superficialunderstandings. An ignorant man, who is not fool enough to meddle withhis clock, is, however, sufficiently confident to think he can safelytake to pieces and put together, at his pleasure, a moral machine ofanother guise, importance, and complexity, composed of far other wheelsand springs and balances and counteracting and coöperating powers. Menlittle think how immorally they act in rashly meddling with what theydo not understand. Their delusive good intention is no sort of excusefor their presumption. They who truly mean well must be fearful ofacting ill. The British Constitution may have its advantages pointed outto wise and reflecting minds, but it is of too high an order ofexcellence to be adapted to those which are common. It takes in too manyviews, it makes too many combinations, to be so much as comprehended byshallow and superficial understandings. Profound thinkers will know itin its reason and spirit. The less inquiring will recognize it in theirfeelings and their experience. They will thank God they have a standard, which, in the most essential point of this great concern, will put themon a par with the most wise and knowing. If we do not take to our aid the foregone studies of men reputedintelligent and learned, we shall be always beginners. But men mustlearn somewhere; and the new teachers mean no more than what theyeffect, as far as they succeed, --that is, to deprive men of the benefitof the collected wisdom of mankind, and to make them blind disciples oftheir own particular presumption. Talk to these deluded creatures (allthe disciples and most of the masters) who are taught to thinkthemselves so newly fitted up and furnished, and you will find nothingin their houses but the refuse of _Knaves' Acre_, --nothing but therotten stuff, worn out in the service of delusion and sedition in allages, and which, being newly furbished up, patched, and varnished, serves well enough for those who, being unacquainted with the conflictwhich has always been maintained between the sense and the nonsense ofmankind, know nothing of the former existence and the ancientrefutation of the same follies. It is near two thousand years since ithas been observed that these devices of ambition, avarice, andturbulence were antiquated. They are, indeed, the most ancient of allcommonplaces: commonplaces sometimes of good and necessary causes; morefrequently of the worst, but which decide upon neither. _Eadem sempercausa, libido et avaritia, et mutandarum rerum amor. Ceterum libertas etspeciosa nomina pretexuntur; nec quisquam alienum servitium, etdominationem sibi concupivit, ut non eadem ista vocabula usurparet_. Rational and experienced men tolerably well know, and have always known, how to distinguish between true and false liberty, and between thegenuine adherence and the false pretence to what is true. But none, except those who are profoundly studied, can comprehend the elaboratecontrivance of a fabric fitted to unite private and public liberty withpublic force, with order, with peace, with justice, and, above all, withthe institutions formed for bestowing permanence and stability, throughages, upon this invaluable whole. Place, for instance, before your eyes such a man as Montesquieu. Thinkof a genius not born in every country or every time: a man gifted byNature with a penetrating, aquiline eye, --with a judgment prepared withthe most extensive erudition, --with an Herculean robustness of mind, andnerves not to be broken with labor, --a man who could spend twenty yearsin one pursuit. Think of a man like the universal patriarch in Milton(who had drawn up before him in his prophetic vision the whole series ofthe generations which were to issue from his loins): a man capable ofplacing in review, after having brought together from the East, theWest, the North, and the South, from the coarseness of the rudestbarbarism to the most refined and subtle civilization, all the schemesof government which had ever prevailed amongst mankind, weighing, measuring, collating, and comparing them all, joining fact with theory, and calling into council, upon all this infinite assemblage of things, all the speculations which have fatigued the understandings of profoundreasoners in all times. Let us then consider, that all these were but somany preparatory steps to qualify a man, and such a man, tinctured withno national prejudice, with no domestic affection, to admire, and tohold out to the admiration of mankind, the Constitution of England. Andshall we Englishmen revoke to such a suit? Shall we, when so much morethan he has produced remains still to be understood and admired, insteadof keeping ourselves in the schools of real science, choose for ourteachers men incapable of being taught, --whose only claim to know is, that they have never doubted, --from whom we can learn nothing but theirown indocility, --who would teach us to scorn what in the silence of ourhearts we ought to adore? Different from them are all the great critics. They have taught us oneessential rule. I think the excellent and philosophic artist, a truejudge, as well as a perfect follower of Nature, Sir Joshua Reynolds, hassomewhere applied it, or something like it, in his own profession. It isthis: that, if ever we should find ourselves disposed not to admirethose writers or artists (Livy and Virgil, for instance, Raphael orMichael Angelo) whom all the learned had admired, not to follow our ownfancies, but to study them, until we know how and what we ought toadmire; and if we cannot arrive at this combination of admiration withknowledge, rather to believe that we are dull than that the rest of theworld has been imposed on. It is as good a rule, at least, with regardto this admired Constitution. We ought to understand it according to ourmeasure, and to venerate where we are not able presently to comprehend. Such admirers were our fathers, to whom we owe this splendidinheritance. Let us improve it with zeal, but with fear. Let us followour ancestors, men not without a rational, though without an exclusiveconfidence in themselves, --who, by respecting the reason of others, who, by looking backward as well as forward, by the modesty as well as by theenergy of their minds, went on insensibly drawing this Constitutionnearer and nearer to its perfection, by never departing from itsfundamental principles, nor introducing any amendment which had not asubsisting root in the laws, Constitution, and usages of the kingdom. Let those who have the trust of political or of natural authority everkeep watch against the desperate enterprises of innovation: let eventheir benevolence be fortified and armed. They have before their eyesthe example of a monarch insulted, degraded, confined, deposed; hisfamily dispersed, scattered, imprisoned; his wife insulted to his face, like the vilest of the sex, by the vilest of all populace; himself threetimes dragged by these wretches in an infamous triumph; his childrentorn from him, in violation of the first right of Nature, and given intothe tuition of the most desperate and impious of the leaders ofdesperate and impious clubs; his revenues dilapidated and plundered;his magistrates murdered; his clergy proscribed, persecuted, famished;his nobility degraded in their rank, undone in their fortunes, fugitivesin their persons; his armies corrupted and ruined; his whole peopleimpoverished, disunited, dissolved; whilst through the bars of hisprison, and amidst the bayonets of his keepers, he hears the tumult oftwo conflicting factions, equally wicked and abandoned, who agree inprinciples, in dispositions, and in objects, but who tear each other topieces about the most effectual means of obtaining their common end: theone contending to preserve for a while his name, and his person, themore easily to destroy the royal authority, --the other clamoring to cutoff the name, the person, and the monarchy together, by one sacrilegiousexecution. All this accumulation of calamity, the greatest that everfell upon one man, has fallen upon his head, because he had left hisvirtues unguarded by caution, --because he was not taught, that, wherepower is concerned, he who will confer benefits must take securityagainst ingratitude. I have stated the calamities which have fallen upon a great prince andnation, because they were not alarmed at the approach of danger, andbecause, what commonly happens to men surprised, they lost all resourcewhen they were caught in it. When I speak of danger, I certainly mean toaddress myself to those who consider the prevalence of the new Whigdoctrines as an evil. The Whigs of this day have before them, in this Appeal, theirconstitutional ancestors; they have the doctors of the modern school. They will choose for themselves. The author of the Reflections haschosen for himself. If a new order is coming on, and all the politicalopinions must pass away as dreams, which our ancestors have worshippedas revelations, I say for him, that he would rather be the last (ascertainly he is the least) of that race of men than the first andgreatest of those who have coined to themselves Whig principles from aFrench die, unknown to the impress of our fathers in the Constitution. FOOTNOTES: [6] Newspaper intelligence ought always to be received with some degreeof caution. I do not know that the following paragraph is founded on anyauthority; but it comes with an air of authority. The paper isprofessedly in the interest of the modern Whigs, and under theirdirection. The paragraph is not disclaimed on their part. It professesto be the decision of those whom its author calls "the great and firmbody of the Whigs of England. " Who are the Whigs of a differentcomposition, which the promulgator of the sentence considers as composedof fleeting and unsettled particles, I know not, nor whether there beany of that description. The definitive sentence of "the great and firmbody of the Whigs of England" (as this paper gives it out) is asfollows:-- "The great and firm body of the Whigs of England, true to theirprinciples, have decided on the dispute between Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke;and the former is declared to have maintained the pure doctrines bywhich they are bound together, and upon which they have invariablyacted. The consequence is, that Mr. Burke retires fromParliament. "--_Morning Chronicle_, May 12, 1791. [7] Reflections, &c. , 1st ed. , London, J. Dodsley, 1790. --Works, Vol. III. P. 343, in the present edition. [8] To explain this, it will be necessary to advert to a paragraph whichappeared in a paper in the minority interest some time before thisdebate. "A very dark intrigue has lately been discovered, the authors ofwhich are well known to us; but until the glorious day shall come whenit will not be a LIBEL to tell the TRUTH, we must not be so regardlessof our own safety as to publish their names. We will, however, state thefact, leaving it to the ingenuity of our readers to discover what wedare not publish. "Since the business of the armament against Russia has been underdiscussion, a great personage has been heard to say, 'that he was not sowedded to Mr. PITT as not to be very willing to give his confidence toMr. FOX, if the latter should be able, in a crisis like the present, toconduct the government of the country with greater advantage to thepublic. ' "This patriotic declaration immediately alarmed the swarm of courtlyinsects that live only in the sunshine of ministerial favor. It wasthought to be the forerunner of the dismission of Mr. Pitt, and everyengine was set at work for the purpose of preventing such an event. Theprincipal engine employed on this occasion was CALUMNY. It was whisperedin the ear of a great personage, that Mr. Fox was the last man inEngland to be trusted by a KING, because he was by PRINCIPLE aREPUBLICAN, and consequently an enemy to MONARCHY. "In the discussion of the Quebec Bill which stood for yesterday, it wasthe intention of some persons to connect with this subject the FrenchRevolution, in hopes that Mr. Fox would be warmed by a collision withMr. Burke, and induced to defend that Revolution, in which so much powerwas taken from, and so little left in the crown. "Had Mr. Fox fallen into the snare, his speech on the occasion wouldhave been laid before a great personage, as a proof that a man who coulddefend such a revolution might be a very good republican, but could notpossibly be a friend to monarchy. "But those who laid the snare were disappointed; for Mr. Fox, in theshort conversation which took place yesterday in the House of Commons, said, that he confessedly had thought favorably of the FrenchRevolution, but that most certainly he never had, either in Parliamentor out of Parliament, professed or defended republicanprinciples. "--_Argus_, April 22d, 1791. Mr. Burke cannot answer for the truth nor prove the falsehood of thestory given by the friends of the party in this paper. He only knowsthat an opinion of its being well or ill authenticated had no influenceon his conduct. He meant only, to the best of his power, to guard thepublic against the ill designs of factions out of doors. What Mr. Burkedid in Parliament could hardly have been intended to draw Mr. Fox intoany declarations unfavorable to his principles, since (by the account ofthose who are his friends) he had long before effectually prevented thesuccess of any such scandalous designs. Mr. Fox's friends havethemselves done away that imputation on Mr. Burke. [9] See his speech on American Taxation, the 19th of April, 1774. [10] Lord Lansdowne. [11] Mr. Windham. [12] July 17th, 1765. [13] Works, Vol. III. Pp. 251-276, present edition. [14] State Trials, Vol. V. P. 651. [15] Page 676. [16] The words necessary to the completion of the sentence are wantingin the printed trial--but the construction of the sentence, as well asthe foregoing part of the speech, justify the insertion of some suchsupplemental words as the above. [17] "What we did was, in truth and substance, and in a constitutionallight, a revolution, not made, but prevented. We took solid securities;we settled doubtful questions; we corrected anomalies in our law. In thestable, fundamental parts of our Constitution we made norevolution, --no, nor any alteration at all. We did not impair themonarchy. Perhaps it might be shown that we strengthened it veryconsiderably. The nation kept the same ranks, the same orders, the sameprivileges, the same franchises, the same rules for property, the samesubordinations, the same order in the law, in the revenue, and in themagistracy, --the same lords, the same commons, the same corporations, the same electors. "--_Mr. Burke's Speech in the House of Commons, 9thFebruary, 1790. _--It appears how exactly he coincides in everything withSir Joseph Jekyl. [18] See Reflections, pp. 42, 43. --Works, Vol. III. P. 270, presentedition. [19] Declaration of Right. [20] Vindication of the Rights of Man, recommended by the severalsocieties. [21] "Omnes omnium charitates patria una complectitur. "--Cic. [22] A few lines in Persius contain a good summary of all the objects ofmoral investigation, and hint the result of our inquiry: There humanwill has no place. Quid _sumus_? et quidnam _victuri gignimur_? ordo Quis _datus_? et _metæ_ quis mollis flexus, et unde? Quis modus argento? Quid _fas optare_? Quid asper Utile nummus habet? _Patriæ charisque propinquis_ Quantum elargiri _debet_? Quem te Deus esse _Jussit_? et humana qua parte _locatus es_ in re? [23] It is no small loss to the world, that the whole of thisenlightened and philosophic sermon, preached to _two hundred thousand_national guards assembled at Blackheath (a number probably equal to thesublime and majestic _Fédération_ of the 14th of July, 1790, in theChamp de Mars) is not preserved. A short abstract is, however, to befound in Walsingham. I have added it here for the edification of themodern Whigs, who may possibly except this precious little fragment fromtheir general contempt of ancient learning. "Ut suâ doctrinâ plures inficeret, ad le Blackheth (ubi ducenta milliahominum communium fuere simul congregata) hujuscemodi sermonem estexorsus. "Whan Adam dalfe and Eve span, Who was than a gentleman? Continuansque sermonem inceptum, nitebatur per verba proverbii, quod prothemate sumpserat, introducere et probare, _ab initio omnes parescreatos a naturâ_, servitutem per injustam oppressionem nequam hominumintroductam contra Dei voluntatem, quia si Deo placuisset servoscreâsse, utique in principio mundi constituisset, quis servus, quisvedominus futurus fuisset. Considerarent igitur jam tempus a Deo datumeis, in quo (deposito servitutis jugo diutius) possent, si vellent, libertate diu concupitâ gaudere. Quapropter monuit ut essent viricordati, et amore boni patrisfamilias excolentis agrum suum, etextirpantis ac resecantis noxia gramina quæ fruges solent opprimere, etipsi in præsenti facere festinarent. Primò _majores regni dominosoccidendo. Deinde juridicos, justiciarios, et juratores patriæperimendo. _ Postremò quoscunque scirent _in posterum communitatinocivos_ tollerent de terrâ suâ, sic demum et _pacem_ sibimet _parerentet securitatem_ in futurum. _Si sublatis majoribus esset inter eos æqualibertas, eadem nobilitas, par dignitas, similisque potestas. _" Here is displayed at once the whole of the grand _arcanum_ pretended tobe found out by the National Assembly, for securing future happiness, peace, and tranquillity. There seems, however, to be some doubt whetherthis venerable protomartyr of philosophy was inclined to carry his owndeclaration of the rights of men more rigidly into practice than theNational Assembly themselves. He was, like them, only preachinglicentiousness to the populace to obtain power for himself, if we maybelieve what is subjoined by the historian. "Cumque hæc et _plura alia deliramenta_" (think of this old fool'scalling all the wise maxims of the French Academy _deliramenta_!)"prædicâsset, commune vulgus cum tanto favore prosequitur, ut_exclamarent eum archiepiscopum futurum, et regni cancellarium_. "Whether he would have taken these situations under these names, or wouldhave changed the whole nomenclature of the State and Church, to beunderstood in the sense of the Revolution, is not so certain. It isprobable that he would have changed the names and kept the substance ofpower. We find, too, that they had in those days their _society forconstitutional information_, of which the Reverend John Ball was aconspicuous member, sometimes under his own name, sometimes under thefeigned name of John Schep. Besides him it consisted (as Knyghton tellsus) of persons who went by the real or fictitious names of Jack Mylner, Tom Baker, Jack Straw, Jack Trewman, Jack Carter, and probably of manymore. Some of the choicest flowers of the publications charitablywritten and circulated by them gratis are upon record in Walsingham andKnyghton: and I am inclined to prefer the pithy and sententious brevityof these _bulletins_ of ancient rebellion before the loose and confusedprolixity of the modern advertisements of constitutional information. They contain more good morality and less bad politics, they had muchmore foundation in real oppression, and they have the recommendation ofbeing much better adapted to the capacities of those for whoseinstruction they were intended. Whatever laudable pains the teachers ofthe present day appear to take, I cannot compliment them so far as toallow that they have succeeded in writing down to the level of theirpupils, _the members of the sovereign_, with half the ability of JackCarter and the Reverend John Ball. That my readers may judge forthemselves, I shall give them, one or two specimens. The first is an address from the Reverend John Ball, under his _nom deguerre_ of John Schep. I know not against what particular "guyle inborough" the writer means to caution the people; it may have been only ageneral cry against "_rotten boroughs_, " which it was thoughtconvenient, then as now, to make the first pretext, and place at thehead of the list of grievances. JOHN SCHEP. "Iohn Schep sometime seint Mary priest of Yorke, and now of Colchester, greeteth well Iohn Namelesse, and Iohn the Miller, and Iohn Carter, and_biddeth them that they beware of guyle in borough_, and stand togetherin Gods name, and biddeth Piers Ploweman goe to his werke, and chastisewell _Hob the robber_, [probably the king, ] and take with you IohnTrewman, and all his fellows, and no moe. "Iohn the Miller hath yground smal, small, small: The kings sonne of heauen shal pay for all. Beware or ye be woe, Know your frende fro your foe, Haue ynough, and say hoe: And do wel and better, & flee sinne, _And seeke peace and holde you therin, _ & so biddeth Iohn Trewman & all his fellowes. " The reader has perceived, from the last lines of this curiousstate-paper, how well the National Assembly has copied its union of theprofession of universal peace with the practice of murder and confusion, and the blast of the trumpet of sedition in all nations. He will in thefollowing constitutional paper observe how well, in their enigmaticalstyle, like the Assembly and their abettors, the old philosophersproscribe all hereditary distinction, and bestow it only on virtue andwisdom, according to their estimation of both. Yet these people aresupposed never to have heard of "the rights of man"! JACK MYLNER. "Jakke Mylner asket help to turne his mylne aright. "He hath grounden smal smal, The Kings sone of heven he schal pay for alle. Loke thy mylne go a rygt, with the fours sayles, and the post stande insteadfastnesse. "With rygt and with mygt, With skyl and with wylle, Lat mygt helpe rygt, And skyl go before wille, And rygt before mygt: Than goth oure mylne aryght. And if mygt go before ryght, And wylle before skylle; Than is oure mylne mys a dygt. " JACK CARTER understood perfectly the doctrine of looking to the _end_, with an indifference to the _means_, and the probability of much goodarising from great evil. "Jakke Carter pryes yowe alle that ye make a gode _ende_ of that ye hanebegunnen, and doth wele and ay bettur and bettur: for at the even menheryth the day. _For if the ende be wele, than is alle wele. _ Lat Peresthe Plowman my brother duelle at home and dygt us corne, and I will gowith yowe and helpe that y may to dygte youre mete and youre drynke, that ye none fayle: lokke that Hobbe robbyoure be wele chastysed forlesyng of youre grace: for ye have gret nede to take God with yowe inalle yours dedes. For nowe is tyme to be war. " [24] See the wise remark on this subject in the Defence of Rights ofMan, circulated by the societies. [25] The primary assemblies. A LETTER TO A PEER OF IRELAND ON THE PENAL LAWS AGAINST IRISH CATHOLICS, PREVIOUS TO THE LATE REPEAL OF A PART THEREOF IN THE SESSION OF THE IRISHPARLIAMENT, HELD A. D. 1782. CHARLES STREET, LONDON, Feb. 21, 1782 My Lord, --I am obliged to your Lordship for your communication of theheads of Mr. Gardiner's bill. I had received it, in an earlier stage ofits progress, from Mr. Braughall; and I am still in that gentleman'sdebt, as I have not made him the proper return for the favor he has doneme. Business, to which I was more immediately called, and in which mysentiments had the weight of one vote, occupied me every moment since Ireceived his letter. This first morning which I can call my own I givewith great cheerfulness to the subject on which your Lordship has doneme the honor of desiring my opinion. I have read the heads of the bill, with the amendments. Your Lordship istoo well acquainted with men, and with affairs, to imagine that any truejudgment can be formed on the value of a great measure of policy fromthe perusal of a piece of paper. At present I am much in the dark withregard to the state of the country which the intended law is to beapplied to. It is not easy for me to determine whether or no it was wise(for the sake of expunging the black letter of laws which, menacing asthey were in the language, were every day fading into disuse) solemnlyto reaffirm the principles and to reenact the provisions of a code ofstatutes by which you are totally excluded from THE PRIVILEGES OF THECOMMONWEALTH, from the highest to the lowest, from the most material ofthe civil professions, from the army, and even from education, wherealone education is to be had. [26] Whether this scheme of indulgence, grounded at once on contempt andjealousy, has a tendency gradually to produce something better and moreliberal, I cannot tell, for want of having the actual map of thecountry. If this should be the case, it was right in you to accept it, such as it is. But if this should be one of the experiments which havesometimes been made before the temper of the nation was ripe for a realreformation, I think it may possibly have ill effects, by disposing thepenal matter in a more systematic order, and thereby fixing a permanentbar against any relief that is truly substantial. The whole merit ordemerit of the measure depends upon the plans and dispositions of thoseby whom the act was made, concurring with the general temper of theProtestants of Ireland, and their aptitude to admit in time of some partof that equality without which you never can be FELLOW-CITIZENS. Of allthis I am wholly ignorant. All my correspondence with men of publicimportance in Ireland has for some time totally ceased. On the firstbill for the relief of the ROMAN CATHOLICS of Ireland, I was, withoutany call of mine, consulted both on your side of the water and on this. On the present occasion, I have not heard a word from any man in office, and know as little of the intentions of the British government as Iknow of the temper of the Irish Parliament. I do not find that anyopposition was made by the principal persons of the minority in theHouse of Commons, or that any is apprehended from them in the House ofLords. The whole of the difficulty seems to lie with the principal menin government, under whose protection this bill is supposed to bebrought in. This violent opposition and cordial support, coming from oneand the same quarter, appears to me something mysterious, and hinders mefrom being able to make any clear judgment of the merit of the presentmeasure, as compared with the actual state of the country and thegeneral views of government, without which one can say nothing that maynot be very erroneous. To look at the bill in the abstract, it is neither more nor less than arenewed act of UNIVERSAL, UNMITIGATED, INDISPENSABLE, EXCEPTIONLESSDISQUALIFICATION. One would imagine that a bill inflicting such a multitude ofincapacities had followed on the heels of a conquest made by a veryfierce enemy, under the impression of recent animosity and resentment. No man, on reading that bill, could imagine he was reading an act ofamnesty and indulgence, following a recital of the good behavior ofthose who are the objects of it, --which recital stood at the head of thebill, as it was first introduced, but, I suppose for its incongruitywith the body of the piece, was afterwards omitted. This I say onmemory. It, however, still recites the oath, and that Catholics ought tobe considered as good and loyal subjects to his Majesty, his crown andgovernment. Then follows an universal exclusion of those GOOD and LOYALsubjects from every (even the lowest) office of trust and profit, --fromany vote at an election, --from any privilege in a town corporate, --frombeing even a freeman of such a corporation, --from serving on grandjuries, --from a vote at a vestry, --from having a gun in his house, --frombeing a barrister, attorney, or solicitor, &c. , &c. , &c. This has surely much more the air of a table of proscription than an actof grace. What must we suppose the laws concerning those _good_ subjectsto have been, of which this is a relaxation? I know well that there is acant language current, about the difference between an exclusion fromemployments, even to the most rigorous extent, and an exclusion from thenatural benefits arising from a man's own industry. I allow, that, undersome circumstances, the difference is very material in point of justice, and that there are considerations which may render it advisable for awise government to keep the leading parts of every branch of civil andmilitary administration in hands of the best trust; but a totalexclusion from the commonwealth is a very different thing. When agovernment subsists (as governments formerly did) on an estate of itsown, with but few and inconsiderable revenues drawn from the subject, then the few officers which existed in such establishments werenaturally at the disposal of that government, which paid the salariesout of its own coffers: there an exclusive preference could hardly meritthe name of proscription. Almost the whole produce of a man's industryat that time remained in his own purse to maintain his family. But timesalter, and the _whole_ estate of government is from privatecontribution. When a very great portion of the labor of individualsgoes to the state, and is by the state again refunded to individuals, through the medium of offices, and in this circuitous progress from theprivate to the public, and from the public again to the private fund, the families from whom the revenue is taken are indemnified, and anequitable balance between the government and the subject is established. But if a great body of the people who contribute to this state lotteryare excluded from all the prizes, the stopping the circulation withregard to them may be a most cruel hardship, amounting in effect tobeing double and treble taxed; and it will be felt as such to the veryquick, by all the families, high and low, of those hundreds of thousandswho are denied their chance in the returned fruits of their ownindustry. This is the thing meant by those who look upon the publicrevenue only as a spoil, and will naturally wish to have as few aspossible concerned in the division of the booty. If a state should be sounhappy as to think it cannot subsist without such a barbarousproscription, the persons so proscribed ought to be indemnified by theremission of a large part of their taxes, by an immunity from theoffices of public burden, and by an exemption from being pressed intoany military or naval service. Common sense and common justice dictate this at least, as some sort ofcompensation to a people for their slavery. How many families areincapable of existing, if the little offices of the revenue and littlemilitary commissions are denied them! To deny them at home, and to makethe happiness of acquiring some of them somewhere else felony or hightreason, is a piece of cruelty, in which, till very lately, I did notsuppose this age capable of persisting. Formerly a similarity ofreligion made a sort of country for a man in some quarter or other. Arefugee for religion was a protected character. Now the reception iscold indeed; and therefore, as the asylum abroad is destroyed, thehardship at home is doubled. This hardship is the more intolerablebecause the professions are shut up. The Church is so of course. Much isto be said on that subject, in regard to them, and to the ProtestantDissenters. But that is a chapter by itself. I am sure I wish well tothat Church, and think its ministers among the very best citizens ofyour country. However, such as it is, a great walk in life is forbiddenground to seventeen hundred thousand of the inhabitants of Ireland. Whyare they excluded from the law? Do not they expend money in their suits?Why may not they indemnify themselves, by profiting, in the persons ofsome, for the losses incurred by others? Why may not they have personsof confidence, whom they may, if they please, employ in the agency oftheir affairs? The exclusion from the law, from grand juries, fromsheriffships and under-sheriffships, as well as from freedom in anycorporation, may subject them to dreadful hardships, as it may excludethem wholly from all that is beneficial and expose them to all that ismischievous in a trial by jury. This was manifestly within my ownobservation, for I was three times in Ireland from the year 1760 to theyear 1767, where I had sufficient means of information concerning theinhuman proceedings (among which were many cruel murders, besides aninfinity of outrages and oppressions unknown before in a civilized age)which prevailed during that period, in consequence of a pretendedconspiracy among _Roman Catholics_ against the king's government. Icould dilate upon the mischiefs that may happen, from those which havehappened, upon this head of disqualification, if it were at allnecessary. The head of exclusion from votes for members of Parliament is closelyconnected with the former. When you cast your eye on the statute-book, you will see that no _Catholic_, even in the ferocious acts of QueenAnne, was disabled from voting on account of his religion. The onlyconditions required for that privilege were the oaths of allegiance andabjuration, --both oaths relative to a civil concern. Parliament hassince added another oath of the same kind; and yet a House of Commons, adding to the securities of government in proportion as its danger isconfessedly lessened, and professing both confidence and indulgence, ineffect takes away the privilege left by an act full of jealousy andprofessing persecution. The taking away of a vote is the taking away the shield which thesubject has, not only against the oppression of power, but that worst ofall oppressions, the persecution of private society and private manners. No candidate for Parliamentary influence is obliged to the leastattention towards them, either in cities or counties. On the contrary, if they should become obnoxious to any bigoted or malignant peopleamongst whom they live, it will become the interest of those who courtpopular favor to use the numberless means which always reside inmagistracy and influence to oppress them. The proceedings in a certaincounty in Munster, during the unfortunate period I have mentioned, reada strong lecture on the cruelty of depriving men of that shield onaccount of their speculative opinions. The Protestants of Ireland feelwell and naturally on the hardship of being bound by laws in theenacting of which they do not directly or indirectly vote. The bounds ofthese matters are nice, and hard to be settled in theory, and perhapsthey have been pushed too far. But how they can avoid the necessaryapplication of the principles they use in their disputes with others totheir disputes with their fellow-citizens, I know not. It is true, the words of this act do not create a disability; but theyclearly and evidently suppose it. There are few _Catholic_ freeholdersto take the benefit of the privilege, if they were permitted to partakeit; but the manner in which this very right in freeholders at large isdefended is not on the idea that the freeholders do really and trulyrepresent the people, but that, all people being capable of obtainingfreeholds, all those who by their industry and sobriety merit thisprivilege have the means of arriving at votes. It is the same with thecorporations. The laws against foreign education are clearly the very worst part ofthe old code. Besides your laity, you have the succession of about fourthousand clergymen to provide for. These, having no lucrative objects inprospect, are taken very much out of the lower orders of the people. Athome they have no means whatsoever provided for their attaining aclerical education, or indeed any education at all. When I was in Paris, about seven years ago, I looked at everything, and lived with every kindof people, as well as my time admitted. I saw there the Irish college ofthe Lombard, which seemed to me a very good place of education, underexcellent orders and regulations, and under the government of a veryprudent and learned man (the late Dr. Kelly). This college was possessedof an annual fixed revenue of more than a thousand pound a year, thegreatest part of which had arisen from the legacies and benefactions ofpersons educated in that college, and who had obtained promotions inFrance, from the emolument of which promotions they made this gratefulreturn. One in particular I remember, to the amount of ten thousandlivres annually, as it is recorded on the donor's monument in theirchapel. It has been the custom of poor persons in Ireland to pick up suchknowledge of the Latin tongue as, under the general discouragements, andoccasional pursuits of magistracy, they were able to acquire; andreceiving orders at home, were sent abroad to obtain a clericaleducation. By officiating in petty chaplainships, and performing now andthen certain offices of religion for small gratuities, they received themeans of maintaining themselves until they were able to complete theireducation. Through such difficulties and discouragements, many of themhave arrived at a very considerable proficiency, so as to be marked anddistinguished abroad. These persons afterwards, by being sunk in themost abject poverty, despised and ill-treated by the higher orders amongProtestants, and not much better esteemed or treated even by the fewpersons of fortune of their own persuasion, and contracting the habitsand ways of thinking of the poor and uneducated, among whom they wereobliged to live, in a few years retained little or no traces of thetalents and acquirements which distinguished them in the early periodsof their lives. Can we with justice cut them off from the use of placesof education founded for the greater part from the economy of povertyand exile, without providing something that is equivalent at home? Whilst this restraint of foreign and domestic education was part of anhorrible and impious system of servitude, the members were well fittedto the body. To render men patient under a deprivation of all the rightsof human nature, everything which could give them a knowledge or feelingof those rights was rationally forbidden. To render humanity fit to beinsulted, it was fit that it should be degraded. But when we profess torestore men to the capacity for property, it is equally irrational andunjust to deny them the power of improving their minds as well as theirfortunes. Indeed, I have ever thought the prohibition of the means ofimproving our rational nature to be the worst species of tyranny thatthe insolence and perverseness of mankind ever dared to exercise. Thisgoes to all men, in all situations, to whom education can be denied. Your Lordship mentions a proposal which came from my friend, theProvost, whose benevolence and enlarged spirit I am perfectly convincedof, --which is, the proposal of erecting a few sizarships in the college, for the education (I suppose) of Roman Catholic clergymen. [27] Hecertainly meant it well; but, coming from such a man as he is, it is astrong instance of the danger of suffering any description of men tofall into entire contempt. The charities intended for them are notperceived to be fresh insults; and the true nature of their wants andnecessities being unknown, remedies wholly unsuitable to the nature oftheir complaint are provided for them. It is to feed a sick Gentoo withbeef broth, and to foment his wounds with brandy. If the other parts ofthe university were open to them, as well on the foundation asotherwise, the offering of sizarships would be a proportioned part of a_general_ kindness. But when everything _liberal_ is withheld, and onlythat which is _servile_ is permitted, it is easy to conceive upon whatfooting they must be in such a place. Mr. Hutchinson must well know the regard and honor I have for him; andhe cannot think my dissenting from him in this particular arises from adisregard of his opinion: it only shows that I think he has lived inIreland. To have any respect for the character and person of a Popishpriest there--oh, 'tis an uphill work indeed! But until we come torespect what stands in a respectable light with others, we are verydeficient in the temper which qualifies us to make any laws andregulations about them: it even disqualifies us from being charitable tothem with any effect or judgment. When we are to provide for the education of any body of men, we oughtseriously to consider the particular functions they are to perform inlife. A Roman Catholic clergyman is the minister of a very ritualreligion, and by his profession subject to many restraints. His life isa life full of strict observances; and his duties are of a laboriousnature towards himself, and of the highest possible trust towardsothers. The duty of confession alone is sufficient to set in thestrongest light the necessity of his having an appropriated mode ofeducation. The theological opinions and peculiar rites of one religionnever can be properly taught in universities founded for the purposesand on the principles of another which in many points are directlyopposite. If a Roman Catholic clergyman, intended for celibacy and thefunction of confession, is not strictly bred in a seminary where thesethings are respected, inculcated, and enforced, as sacred, and not madethe subject of derision and obloquy, he will be ill fitted for theformer, and the latter will be indeed in his hands a terribleinstrument. There is a great resemblance between, the whole frame and constitutionof the Greek and Latin Churches. The secular clergy in the former, bybeing married, living under little restraint, and having no particulareducation suited to their function, are universally fallen into suchcontempt that they are never permitted to aspire to the dignities oftheir own Church. It is not held respectful to call them _Papas_, theirtrue and ancient appellation, but those who wish to address them withcivility always call them _Hieromonachi_. In consequence of thisdisrespect, which I venture to say, in such a Church, must be theconsequence of a secular life, a very great degeneracy from reputableChristian manners has taken place throughout almost the whole of thatgreat member of the Christian Church. It was so with the Latin Church, before the restraint on marriage. Eventhat restraint gave rise to the greatest disorders before the Council ofTrent, which, together with the emulation raised and the good examplesgiven by the Reformed churches, wherever they were in view of eachother, has brought on that happy amendment which we see in the Latincommunion, both at home and abroad. The Council of Trent has wisely introduced the discipline of seminaries, by which priests are not trusted for a clerical institution even to thesevere discipline of their colleges, but, after they pass through them, are frequently, if not for the greater part, obliged to pass throughpeculiar methods, having their particular ritual function in view. It isin a great measure to this, and to similar methods used in foreigneducation, that the Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland, miserably providedfor, living among low and ill-regulated people, without any disciplineof sufficient force to secure good manners, have been prevented frombecoming an intolerable nuisance to the country, instead of being, as Iconceive they generally are, a very great service to it. The ministers of Protestant churches require a different mode ofeducation, more liberal, and more fit for the ordinary intercourse oflife. That religion having little hold on the minds of people byexternal ceremonies and extraordinary observances, or separate habits ofliving, the clergy make up the deficiency by cultivating their mindswith all kinds of ornamental learning, which the liberal provision madein England and Ireland for the parochial clergy, (to say nothing of theample Church preferments, with little or no duties annexed, ) and thecomparative lightness of parochial duties, enables the greater part ofthem in some considerable degree to accomplish. This learning, which I believe to be pretty general, together with anhigher situation, and more chastened by the opinion of mankind, forms asufficient security for the morals of the established clergy, and fortheir sustaining their clerical character with dignity. It is notnecessary to observe, that all these things are, however, collateral totheir function, and that, except in preaching, which may be and issupplied, and often best supplied, out of printed books, little else isnecessary for a Protestant minister than to be able to read the Englishlanguage, --I mean for the exercise of his function, not to thequalification of his admission to it. But a Popish parson in Ireland maydo very well without any considerable classical erudition, or anyproficiency in pure or mixed mathematics, or any knowledge of civilhistory. Even if the Catholic clergy should possess those acquisitions, as at first many of them do, they soon lose them in the painful courseof professional and parochial duties: but they must have all theknowledge, and, what is to them more important than the knowledge, thediscipline, necessary to those duties. All modes of education conductedby those whose minds are cast in another mould, as I may say, and whoseoriginal ways of thinking are formed upon the reverse pattern, must beto them not only useless, but mischievous. Just as I should suppose theeducation in a Popish ecclesiastical seminary would be ill fitted for aProtestant clergyman. To educate a Catholic priest in a Protestantseminary would be much worse. The Protestant educated amongst Catholicshas only something to reject: what he keeps may be useful. But aCatholic parish priest learns little for his peculiar purpose and dutyin a Protestant college. All this, my Lord, I know very well, will pass for nothing with thosewho wish that the Popish clergy should be illiterate, and in a situationto produce contempt and detestation. Their minds are wholly taken upwith party squabbles, and I have neither leisure nor inclination toapply any part of what I have to say to those who never think ofreligion or of the commonwealth in any other light than as they tend tothe prevalence of some faction in either. I speak on a supposition thatthere is a disposition _to take the state in the condition in which itis found_, and to improve it _in that state_ to the best advantage. Hitherto the plan for the government of Ireland has been to sacrificethe civil prosperity of the nation to its religious improvement. But ifpeople in power there are at length come to entertain other ideas, theywill consider the good order, decorum, virtue, and morality of everydescription of men among them as of infinitely greater importance thanthe struggle (for it is nothing better) to change those descriptions bymeans which put to hazard objects which, in my poor opinion, are of moreimportance to religion and to the state than all the polemical matterwhich has been agitated among men from the beginning of the world tothis hour. On this idea, an education fitted _to each order and division of men, such as they are found_, will be thought an affair rather to beencouraged than discountenanced; and until institutions at home, suitable to the occasions and necessities of the people, areestablished, and which are armed, as they are abroad, with authority tocoerce the young men to be formed in them by a strict and severediscipline, the means they have at present of a cheap and effectualeducation in other countries should not continue to be prohibited bypenalties and modes of inquisition not fit to be mentioned to ears thatare organized to the chaste sounds of equity and justice. Before I had written thus far, I heard of a scheme of giving to theCastle the patronage of the presiding members of the Catholic clergy. Atfirst I could scarcely credit it; for I believe it is the first timethat the presentation to other people's alms has been desired in anycountry. If the state provides a suitable maintenance and temporalityfor the governing members of the Irish Roman Catholic Church, and forthe clergy under them, I should think the project, however improper inother respects, to be by no means unjust. But to deprive a poor people, who maintain a second set of clergy, out of the miserable remains ofwhat is left after taxing and tithing, to deprive them of thedisposition of their own charities among their own communion, would, inmy opinion, be an intolerable hardship. Never were the members of onereligious sect fit to appoint the pastors to another. Those who have noregard for their welfare, reputation, or internal quiet will not appointsuch as are proper. The seraglio of Constantinople is as equitable as weare, whether Catholics or Protestants, --and where their own sect isconcerned, full as religious. But the sport which they make of themiserable dignities of the Greek Church, the little factions of theharem to which they make them subservient, the continual sale to whichthey expose and reëxpose the same dignity, and by which they squeeze allthe inferior orders of the clergy, is (for I have had particular meansof being acquainted with it) nearly equal to all the other oppressionstogether, exercised by Mussulmen over the unhappy members of theOriental Church. It is a great deal to suppose that even the presentCastle would nominate bishops for the Roman Church of Ireland with areligious regard for its welfare. Perhaps they cannot, perhaps they darenot do it. But suppose them to be as well inclined as I know that I am to do theCatholics all kind of justice, I declare I would not, if it were in mypower, take that patronage on myself. I know I ought not to do it. Ibelong to another community, and it would be intolerable usurpation forme to affect such authority, where I conferred no benefit, or even if Idid confer (as in some degree the seraglio does) temporal advantages. But allowing that the _present_ Castle finds itself fit to administerthe government of a church which they solemnly forswear, and forswearwith very hard words and many evil epithets, and that as often as theyqualify themselves for the power which is to give this very patronage, or to give anything else that they desire, --yet they cannot insurethemselves that a man like the late Lord Chesterfield will not succeedto them. This man, while he was duping the credulity of Papists withfine words in private, and commending their good behavior during arebellion in Great Britain, (as it well deserved to be commended andrewarded, ) was capable of urging penal laws against them in a speechfrom the throne, and of stimulating with provocatives the wearied andhalf-exhausted bigotry of the then Parliament of Ireland. They set towork, but they were at a loss what to do; for they had already almostgone through every contrivance which could _waste the vigor_ of theircountry: but, after much struggle, they produced a child of their oldage, the shocking and unnatural act about marriages, which tended tofinish the scheme for making the people not only two distinct partiesforever, but keeping them as two distinct species in the same land. Mr. Gardiner's humanity was shocked at it, as one of the worst parts of thattruly barbarous system, if one could well settle the preference, wherealmost all the parts were outrages on the rights of humanity and thelaws of Nature. Suppose an atheist, playing the part of a bigot, should be in poweragain in that country, do you believe that he would faithfully andreligiously administer the trust of appointing pastors to a churchwhich, wanting every other support, stands in tenfold need of ministerswho will be dear to the people committed to their charge, and who willexercise a really paternal authority amongst them? But if the superiorpower was always in a disposition to dispense conscientiously, and likean upright trustee and guardian of these rights which he holds for thosewith whom he is at variance, has he the capacity and means of doing it?How can the Lord-Lieutenant form the least judgment of their merits, soas to discern which of the Popish priests is fit to be made a bishop? Itcannot be: the idea is ridiculous. He will hand them over tolords-lieutenant of counties, justices of the peace, and other persons, who, for the purpose of vexing and turning to derision this miserablepeople, will pick out the worst and most obnoxious they can find amongstthe clergy to set over the rest. Whoever is complained against by hisbrother will be considered as persecuted; whoever is censured by hissuperior will be looked upon as oppressed; whoever is careless in hisopinions and loose in his morals will be called a liberal man, and willbe supposed to have incurred hatred because he was not a bigot. Informers, tale-bearers, perverse and obstinate men, flatterers, whoturn their back upon their flock and court the Protestant gentlemen ofthe country, will be the objects of preferment. And then I run no riskin foretelling that whatever order, quiet, and morality you have in thecountry will be lost. A Popish clergy who are not restrained by the mostaustere subordination will become a nuisance, a real public grievance ofthe heaviest kind, in any country that entertains them; and instead ofthe great benefit which Ireland does and has long derived from them, ifthey are educated without any idea of discipline and obedience, and thenput under bishops who do not owe their station to their good opinion, and whom they cannot respect, that nation will see disorders, of which, bad as things are, it has yet no idea. I do not say this, as thinkingthe leading men in Ireland would exercise this trust worse than others. Not at all. No man, no set of men living are fit to administer theaffairs or regulate the interior economy of a church to which they areenemies. As to government, if I might recommend a prudent caution to them, itwould be, to innovate as little as possible, upon speculation, inestablishments from which, as they stand, they experience no materialinconvenience to the repose of the country, --_quieta non movere_. I could say a great deal more; but I am tired, and am afraid yourLordship is tired too. I have not sat to this letter a single quarter ofan hour without interruption. It has grown long, and probably containsmany repetitions, from my total want of leisure to digest andconsolidate my thoughts; and as to my expressions, I could wish to beable perhaps to measure them more exactly. But my intentions are fair, and I certainly mean to offend nobody. * * * * * Thinking over this matter more maturely, I see no reason for altering myopinion in any part. The act, as far as it goes, is good undoubtedly. Itamounts, I think, very nearly to a _toleration_, with respect toreligious ceremonies; but it puts a new bolt on civil rights, and rivetsit to the old one in such a manner, that neither, I fear, will be easilyloosened. What I could have wished would be, to see the civil advantagestake the lead; the other, of a religious toleration, I conceive, wouldfollow, (in a manner, ) of course. From what I have observed, it ispride, arrogance, and a spirit of domination, and not a bigoted spiritof religion, that has caused and kept up those oppressive statutes. I amsure I have known those who have oppressed Papists in their civil rightsexceedingly indulgent to them in their religious ceremonies, and whoreally wished them to continue Catholics, in order to furnish pretencesfor oppression. These persons never saw a man (by converting) escape outof their power, but with grudging and regret. I have known men to whom Iam not uncharitable in saying (though they are dead) that they wouldhave become Papists in order to oppress Protestants, if, beingProtestants, it was not in their power to oppress Papists. It isinjustice, and not a mistaken conscience, that has been the principle ofpersecution, --at least, as far as it has fallen under myobservation. --However, as I began, so I end. I do not know the map ofthe country. Mr. Gardiner, who conducts this great and difficult work, and those who support him, are better judges of the business than I canpretend to be, who have not set my foot in Ireland these sixteen years. I have been given to understand that I am not considered as a friend tothat country; and I know that pains have been taken to lessen the creditthat I might have had there. * * * * * I am so convinced of the weakness of interfering in any business, without the opinion of the people in whose business I interfere, that Ido not know how to acquit myself of what I have now done. I have the honor to be, with high regard and esteem, my Lord, Your Lordship's most obedient And humble servant, &c. EDMUND BURKE. FOOTNOTES: [26] The sketch of the bill sent to Mr. Burke, along with the repeal ofsome acts, reaffirmed many others in the penal code. It was alteredafterwards, and the clauses reaffirming the incapacities left out; butthey all still exist, and are in full force. [27] It appears that Mr. Hutchinson meant this only as one of the meansfor their relief in point of education. A LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE, BART. , M. P. , ON THE SUBJECT OF THE ROMAN CATHOLICS OF IRELAND, THE PROPRIETY OF ADMITTING THEM TO THE ELECTIVE FRANCHISE, CONSISTENTLYWITH THE PRINCIPLES OF THE CONSTITUTION, AS ESTABLISHED AT THEREVOLUTION. 1792. My Dear Sir, --Your remembrance of me, with sentiments of so muchkindness, has given me the most sincere satisfaction. It perfectlyagrees with the friendly and hospitable reception which my son and Ireceived from you some time since, when, after an absence of twenty-twoyears, I had the happiness of embracing you, among my few survivingfriends. I really imagined that I should not again interest myself in any publicbusiness. I had, to the best of my moderate faculties, paid my club tothe society which I was born in some way or other to serve; and Ithought I had a right to put on my night-gown and slippers, and wish acheerful evening to the good company I must leave behind. But if ourresolutions of vigor and exertion are so often broken or procrastinatedin the execution, I think we may be excused, if we are not very punctualin fulfilling our engagements to indolence and inactivity. I have, indeed, no power of action, and am almost a cripple even with regard tothinking; but you descend with force into the stagnant pool, and youcause such a fermentation as to cure at least one impotent creature ofhis lameness, though it cannot enable him either to run or to wrestle. You see by the paper[28] I take that I am likely to be long, with maliceprepense. You have brought under my view a subject always difficult, atpresent critical. It has filled my thoughts, which I wish to lay open toyou with the clearness and simplicity which your friendship demands fromme. I thank you for the communication of your ideas. I should be stillmore pleased, if they had been more your own. What you hint I believe tobe 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 didwhen we used to confer on the same subject so many years ago. If I stillpersevere in my old opinions, it is no small comfort to me that it isnot with regard to doctrines properly yours that I discover myindocility. The case upon which your letter of the 10th of December turns is hardlybefore me with precision enough to enable me to form any very certainjudgment upon it. It seems to be some plan of further indulgenceproposed for the Catholics of Ireland. You observe, that your "generalprinciples are not changed, but that _times and circumstances arealtered_. " I perfectly agree with you, that times and circumstances, considered with reference to the public, ought very much to govern ourconduct, --though I am far from slighting, when applied with discretionto those circumstances, general principles and maxims of policy. Icannot help observing, however, that you have said rather less upon theinapplicability of your own old principles to the _circumstances_ thatare likely to influence your conduct against these principles than ofthe _general_ maxims of state, which I can very readily believe not tohave great weight with you personally. In my present state of imperfect information, you will pardon theerrors into which I may easily fall. The principles you lay down are, "that the Roman Catholics should enjoy everything _under_ the state, butshould not be _the state itself_. " And you add, "that, when you excludethem from being _a part of the state_, you rather conform to the spiritof the age than to any abstract doctrine"; but you consider theConstitution as already established, --that our state is Protestant. "Itwas declared so at the Revolution. It was so provided in the acts forsettling the succession of the crown:--the king's coronation oath wasenjoined in order to keep it so. The king, as first magistrate of thestate, is obliged to take the oath of abjuration, [29] and to subscribethe Declaration; and by laws subsequent, every other magistrate andmember of the state, legislative and executive, are bound under the sameobligation. " As to the plan to which these maxims are applied, I cannot speak, as Itold you, positively about it: because neither from your letter, norfrom any in formation I have been able to collect, do I find anythingsettled, either on the part of the Roman Catholics themselves, or onthat of any persons who may wish to conduct their affairs in Parliament. But if I have leave to conjecture, something is in agitation towardsadmitting them, under _certain qualifications_, to have _some share_ inthe election of members of Parliament. This I understand is the schemeof those who are entitled to come within your description of persons ofconsideration, property, and character, --and firmly attached to the kingand Constitution, as by "law established, with a grateful sense of yourformer concessions, and a patient reliance on the benignity ofParliament for the further mitigation of the laws that still affectthem. "--As to the low, thoughtless, wild, and profligate, who havejoined themselves with those of other professions, but of the samecharacter, you are not to imagine that for a moment I can suppose themto be met with anything else than the manly and enlightened energy of afirm government, supported by the united efforts of all virtuous men, ifever their proceedings should become so considerable as to demand itsnotice. I really think that such associations should be crushed in theirvery commencement. Setting, therefore, this case out of the question, it becomes an objectof very serious consideration, whether, because wicked men of _various_descriptions are engaged in seditious courses, the rational, sober, andvaluable part of _one_ description should not be indulged in their soberand rational expectations. You, who have looked deeply into the spiritof the Popery laws, must be perfectly sensible that a great part of thepresent mischief which we abhor in common (if it at all exists) hasarisen from them. Their declared object was, to reduce the Catholics ofIreland 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 amongstthem, of all sort of influence or authority over the rest. They dividedthe nation into two distinct bodies, without common interest, sympathy, or connection. One of these bodies was to possess _all_ the franchises, _all_ the property, _all_ the education: the other was to be composed ofdrawers of water and cutters of turf for them. Are we to be astonished, when, by the efforts of so much violence in conquest, and so much policyin 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, orforesight? Surely it might be just now a matter of temperate discussion, whether you ought not to apply a remedy to the real cause of the evil. If the disorder you speak of be real and considerable, you ought toraise an aristocratic interest, that is, an interest of property andeducation, amongst them, --and to strengthen, by every prudent means, theauthority and influence of men of that description. It will deserve yourbest thoughts, to examine whether this can be done without giving suchpersons the means of demonstrating to the rest that something more is tobe got by their temperate conduct than can be expected from the wild andsenseless projects of those who do not belong to their body, who have nointerest in their well-being, and only wish to make them the dupes oftheir turbulent ambition. If the absurd persons you mention find no way of providing for liberty, but by overturning this happy Constitution, and introducing a franticdemocracy, let us take care how we prevent better people from anyrational expectations of partaking in the benefits of that Constitution_as it stands_. The maxims you establish cut the matter short. They haveno sort of connection with the good or the ill behavior of the personswho seek relief, or with the proper or improper means by which they seekit. They form a perpetual bar to all pleas and to all expectations. You begin by asserting, that "the Catholics ought to enjoy all things_under_ the state, but that they ought not to _be the state_": aposition which, I believe, in the latter part of it, and in the latitudethere expressed, no man of common sense has ever thought proper todispute; because the contrary implies that the state ought to be in them_exclusively_. But before you have finished the line, you expressyourself as if the other member of your proposition, namely, that "theyought not to be a _part_ of the state, " were necessarily included in thefirst, --whereas I conceive it to be as different as a part is from thewhole, that is, just as different as possible. I know, indeed, that itis common with those who talk very differently from you, that is, withheat and animosity, to confound those things, and to argue the admissionof the Catholics into any, however minute and subordinate, parts of thestate, as a surrender into their hands of the whole government of thekingdom. To them I have nothing at all to say. Wishing to proceed with a deliberative spirit and temper in so veryserious a question, I shall attempt to analyze, as well as I can, theprinciples you lay down, in order to fit them for the grasp of anunderstanding so little comprehensive asmine. --"State, "--"Protestant, "--"Revolution. " These are terms which, ifnot well explained, may lead us into many errors. In the word _State_ Iconceive there is much ambiguity. The state is sometimes used to signify_the whole commonwealth_, comprehending all its orders, with the severalprivileges belonging to each. Sometimes it signifies only _the higherand ruling part_ of the commonwealth, which we commonly call _theGovernment_. In the first sense, to be under the state, but not thestate itself, _nor any part of it_, that is, to be nothing at all in thecommonwealth, is a situation perfectly intelligible, --but to those whofill that situation, not very pleasant, when it is understood. It is astate of _civil servitude_, by the very force of the definition. _Servorum non est respublica_ is a very old and a very true maxim. Thisservitude, which makes men _subject_ to a state without being_citizens_, may be more or less tolerable from many circumstances; butthese circumstances, more or less favorable, do not alter the nature ofthe thing. The mildness by which absolute masters exercise theirdominion leaves them masters still. We may talk a little presently ofthe manner in which the majority of the people of Ireland (theCatholics) are affected by this situation, which at present undoubtedlyis theirs, and which you are of opinion ought so to continue forever. In the other sense of the word _State_, by which is understood the_Supreme Government_ only, I must observe this upon the question: thatto exclude whole classes of men entirely from this _part_ of governmentcannot be considered as _absolute slavery_. It only implies a lower anddegraded state of citizenship: such is (with more or less strictness)the condition of all countries in which an hereditary nobility possessthe exclusive rule. This may be no bad mode of government, --providedthat the personal authority of individual nobles be kept in due bounds, that their cabals and factions are guarded against with a severevigilance, and that the people (who have no share in granting their ownmoney) are subjected to but light impositions, and are otherwise treatedwith attention, and with indulgence to their humors and prejudices. The republic of Venice is one of those which strictly confines all thegreat functions and offices, such as are truly _stale_ functions and_state_ offices, to those who by hereditary right or admission are nobleVenetians. But there are many offices, and some of them not mean norunprofitable, (that of Chancellor is one, ) which are reserved for the_cittadini_. Of these all citizens of Venice are capable. Theinhabitants 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, " arenot, however, subjects in so very rigorous a sense as not to be capableof numberless subordinate employments. It is, indeed, one of theadvantages attending the narrow bottom of their aristocracy, (narrow ascompared with their acquired dominions, otherwise broad enough, ) that anexclusion from such employments cannot possibly be made amongst theirsubjects. There are, besides, advantages in states so constituted, bywhich those who are considered as of an inferior race are indemnifiedfor their exclusion from the government, and from nobler employments. Inall these countries, either by express law, or by usage more operative, the noble castes are almost universally, in their turn, excluded fromcommerce, manufacture, farming of land, and in general from alllucrative civil professions. The nobles have the monopoly of honor; theplebeians a monopoly of all the means of acquiring wealth. Thus somesort of a balance is formed among conditions; a sort of compensation isfurnished to those who, in a _limited sense_, are excluded from thegovernment 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 oftemperaments, upon which prudence may give full scope to its exertions. For you know that the decisions of prudence (contrary to the system ofthe insane reasoners) differ from those of judicature; and that almostall the former are determined on the more or the less, the earlier orthe later, and on a balance of advantage and inconvenience, of good andevil. In all considerations which turn upon the question of vesting orcontinuing the state solely and exclusively in some one description ofcitizens, prudent legislators will consider how far _the general formand principles of their commonwealth render it fit to be cast into anoligarchical shape, or to remain always in it_. We know that thegovernment of Ireland (the same as the British) is not in itsconstitution _wholly_ aristocratical; and as it is not such in its form, so neither is it in its spirit. If it had been inveteratelyaristocratical, exclusions might be more patiently submitted to. The lotof one plebeian would be the lot of all; and an habitual reverence andadmiration of certain families might make the people content to seegovernment wholly in hands to whom it seemed naturally to belong. Butour Constitution has _a plebeian member_, which forms an essentialintegrant part of it. A plebeian oligarchy is a monster; and no people, not absolutely domestic or predial slaves, will long endure it. TheProtestants of Ireland are not _alone_ sufficiently the people to form ademocracy; and they are _too numerous_ to answer the ends and purposesof _an aristocracy_. Admiration, that first source of obedience, can beonly the claim or the imposture of the few. I hold it to be absolutelyimpossible for two millions of plebeians, composing certainly a veryclear and decided majority in that class, to become so far in love withsix or seven hundred thousand of their fellow-citizens (to all outwardappearance plebeians like themselves, and many of them tradesmen, servants, and otherwise inferior to some of them) as to see withsatisfaction, or even with patience, an exclusive power vested in them, by which _constitutionally_ they become the absolute masters, and, bythe _manners_ derived from their circumstances, must be capable ofexercising upon them, daily and hourly, an insulting and vexatioussuperiority. Neither are the majority of the Irish indemnified (as insome aristocracies) for this state of humiliating vassalage (ofteninverting the nature of things and relations) by having the lower walksof industry wholly abandoned to them. They are rivalled, to say theleast of the matter, in every laborious and lucrative course of life;while every franchise, every honor, every trust, every place, down tothe very lowest and least confidential, (besides whole professions, ) isreserved for the master caste. Our Constitution is not made for great, general, and proscriptiveexclusions; sooner or later it will destroy them, or they will destroythe Constitution. In our Constitution there has always been a differencebetween _a franchise_ and _an office_, and between the capacity for theone and for the other. Franchises were supposed to belong to the_subject_, as _a subject_, and not as _a member of the governing part ofthe state_. The policy of government has considered them as things verydifferent; for, whilst Parliament excluded by the test acts (and for awhile these test acts were not a dead letter, as now they are inEngland) Protestant Dissenters from all civil and military employments, they _never touched their right of voting for members of Parliament orsitting in either House_: a point I state, not as approving orcondemning, with regard to them, the measure of exclusion fromemployments, but to prove that the distinction has been admitted inlegislature, as, in truth, it is founded in reason. I will not here examine whether the principles of the British [theIrish] Constitution be wise or not. I must assume that they are, andthat those who partake the franchises which make it partake of abenefit. They who are excluded from votes (under proper qualificationsinherent in the Constitution that gives them) are excluded, not from_the state_, but from _the British Constitution_. They cannot by anypossibility, whilst they hear its praises continually rung in theirears, and are present at the declaration which is so generally and sobravely made by those who possess the privilege, that the best blood intheir veins ought to be shed to preserve their share in it, --they, thedisfranchised part, cannot, I say, think themselves in an _happy_ state, to be utterly excluded from all its direct and all its consequentialadvantages. The popular part of the Constitution must be to them by farthe most odious part of it. To them it is not an _actual_, and, ifpossible, still less a _virtual_ representation. It is, indeed, thedirect contrary. It is power unlimited placed in the hands of _anadverse_ description _because it is an adverse description_. And if theywho compose the privileged body have not an interest, they must but toofrequently have motives of pride, passion, petulance, peevish jealousy, or tyrannic suspicion, to urge them to treat the excluded people withcontempt and rigor. This is not a mere theory; though, whilst men are men, it is a theorythat cannot be false. I do not desire to revive all the particulars inmy memory; I wish them to sleep forever; but it is impossible I shouldwholly forget what happened in some parts of Ireland, with very few andshort intermissions, from the year 1761 to the year 1766, bothinclusive. In a country of miserable police, passing from the extremesof laxity to the extremes of rigor, among a neglected and thereforedisorderly populace, if any disturbance or sedition, from any grievancereal or imaginary, happened to arise, it was presently perverted fromits true nature, often criminal enough in itself to draw upon it asevere, appropriate punishment: it was metamorphosed into a conspiracyagainst the state, and prosecuted as such. Amongst the Catholics, asbeing by far the most numerous and the most wretched, all sorts ofoffenders against the laws must commonly be found. The punishment of lowpeople for the offences usual among low people would warrant noinference against any descriptions of religion or of politics. Men ofconsideration from their age, their profession, or their character, menof proprietary landed estates, substantial renters, opulent merchants, physicians, and titular bishops, could not easily be suspected of riotin open day, or of nocturnal assemblies for the purpose of pulling downhedges, making breaches in park-walls, firing barns, maiming cattle, andoutrages of a similar nature, which characterize the disorders of anoppressed or a licentious populace. But when the evidence given on thetrial for such misdemeanors qualified them as overt acts of hightreason, and when witnesses were found (such witnesses as they were) todepose to the taking of oaths of allegiance by the rioters to the kingof France, to their being paid by his money, and embodied and exercisedunder his officers, to overturn the state for the purposes of thatpotentate, --in that case, the rioters might (if the witness wasbelieved) be supposed only the troops, and persons more reputable theleaders and commanders, in such a rebellion. All classes in theobnoxious description, who could not be suspected of the lower crime ofriot, might be involved in the odium, in the suspicion, and sometimes inthe punishment, of a higher and far more criminal species of offence. These proceedings did not arise from any one of the Popery laws sincerepealed, but from this circumstance, that, when it answered thepurposes of an election party or a malevolent person of influence toforge such plots, the people had no protection. The people of thatdescription have no hold on the gentlemen who aspire to be popularrepresentatives. The candidates neither love nor respect nor fear them, individually or collectively. I do not think this evil (an evil amongsta thousand others) at this day entirely over; for I conceive I havelately seen some indication of a disposition perfectly similar to theold one, --that is, a disposition to carry the imputation of crimes frompersons to descriptions, and wholly to alter the character and qualityof the offences themselves. This universal exclusion seems to me a serious evil, --because manycollateral oppressions, besides what I have just now stated, have arisenfrom it. In things of this nature it would not be either easy or properto quote chapter and verse; but I have great reason to believe, particularly since the Octennial Act, that several have refused at allto let their lands to Roman Catholics, because it would so far disablethem from promoting such interests in counties as they were inclined tofavor. They who consider also the state of all sorts of tradesmen, shopkeepers, and particularly publicans in towns, must soon discern thedisadvantages under which those labor who have no votes. It cannot beotherwise, whilst the spirit of elections and the tendencies of humannature continue as they are. If property be artificially separated fromfranchise, the franchise must in some way or other, and in someproportion, naturally attract property to it. Many are the collateraldisadvantages, amongst a _privileged_ people, which must attend on thosewho have _no_ privileges. Among the rich, each individual, with or without a franchise, is ofimportance; the poor and the middling are no otherwise so than as theyobtain some collective capacity, and can be aggregated to some corps. Iflegal ways are not found, illegal will be resorted to; and seditiousclubs and confederacies, such as no man living holds in greater horrorthan I do, will grow and flourish, in spite, I am afraid, of anythingwhich can be done to prevent the evil. Lawful enjoyment is the surestmethod to prevent unlawful gratification. Where there is property, therewill be less theft; where there is marriage, there will always be lessfornication. I have said enough of the question of state, _as it affects the peoplemerely as such_. But it is complicated with a political questionrelative to religion, to which it is very necessary I should saysomething, --because the term _Protestant_, which you apply, is toogeneral for the conclusions which one of your accurate understandingwould wish to draw from it, and because a great deal of argument willdepend on the use that is made of that term. It is _not_ a fundamental part of the settlement at the Revolution thatthe 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. Ourpredecessors in legislation were not so irrational (not to say impious)as to form an operose ecclesiastical establishment, and even to renderthe state itself in some degree subservient to it, when their religion(if such it might be called) was nothing but a mere _negation_ of someother, --without any positive idea, either of doctrine, discipline, worship, or morals, in the scheme which they professed themselves, andwhich 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 itto the conscience or caprice of the individual; they make no provisionfor it whatsoever, but leave every club to make, or not, a voluntarycontribution towards its support, according to their fancies. This wouldbe consistent. The other always appeared to me to be a monster ofcontradiction and absurdity. It was for that reason, that, some yearsago, I strenuously opposed the clergy who petitioned, to the number ofabout three hundred, to be freed from the subscription to theThirty-Nine Articles, without proposing to substitute any other in theirplace. There never has been a religion of the state (the few years ofthe Parliament only excepted) but that of _the Episcopal Church ofEngland_: the Episcopal Church of England, before the Reformation, connected with the see of Rome; since then, disconnected, and protestingagainst some of her doctrines, and against the whole of her authority, as binding in our national church: nor did the fundamental laws of thiskingdom (in Ireland it has been the same) ever know, at any period, anyother church _as an object of establishment_, --or, in that light, anyother Protestant religion. Nay, our Protestant _toleration_ itself, atthe Revolution, and until within a few years, required a signature ofthirty-six, and a part of the thirty-seventh, out of the Thirty-NineArticles. So little idea had they at the Revolution of _establishing_Protestantism indefinitely, that they did not indefinitely _tolerate_ itunder that name. I do not mean to praise that strictness, where nothingmore than merely religious toleration is concerned. Toleration, being apart of moral and political prudence, ought to be tender and large. Atolerant government ought not to be too scrupulous in itsinvestigations, but may bear without blame, not only very ill-groundeddoctrines, but even many things that are positively vices, where theyare _adulta et prævalida_. The good of the commonwealth is the rulewhich rides over the rest; and to this every other must completelysubmit. The Church of Scotland knows as little of Protestantism _undefined_ asthe Church of England and Ireland do. She has by the articles of unionsecured to herself the perpetual establishment of _the Confession ofFaith_, and the _Presbyterian_ Church government. In England, evenduring the troubled interregnum, it was not thought fit to establish a_negative_ religion; but the Parliament settled the _Presbyterian_ asthe Church _discipline_, the _Directory_ as the rule of public_worship_, and the _Westminster Catechism_ as the institute of _faith_. This is to show that at no time was the Protestant religion, _undefined_, established here or anywhere else, as I believe. I am sure, that, when the three religions were established in Germany, they wereexpressly characterized and declared to be the _Evangelic_, the_Reformed_, and the _Catholic_; each of which has its confession offaith and its settled discipline: so that you always may know the bestand the worst of them, to enable you to make the most of what is good, and to correct or to qualify or to guard against whatever may seem evilor dangerous. As to the coronation oath, to which you allude, as opposite to admittinga Roman Catholic to the use of any franchise whatsoever, I cannot thinkthat the king would be perjured, if he gave his assent to any regulationwhich Parliament might think fit to make with regard to that affair. Theking is bound by law, as clearly specified in several acts ofParliament, to be in communion with the Church of England. It is a partof the tenure by which he holds his crown; and though no provision wasmade till the Revolution, which could be called positive and valid inlaw, to ascertain this great principle, I have always considered it asin fact fundamental, that the king of England should be of the Christianreligion, according to the national legal church for the time being. Iconceive it was so before the Reformation. Since the Reformation itbecame doubly necessary; because the king is the head of that church, insome sort an ecclesiastical person, --and it would be incongruous andabsurd to have the head of the Church of one faith, and the members ofanother. The king may _inherit_ the crown as a _Protestant_; but hecannot _hold it_, according to law, without being a Protestant _of theChurch of England_. Before we take it for granted that the king is bound by his coronationoath not to admit any of his Catholic subjects to the rights andliberties which ought to belong to them as Englishmen, (not asreligionists, ) or to settle the conditions or proportions of suchadmission by an act of Parliament, I wish you to place before your eyesthat oath itself, as it is settled in the act of William and Mary. "Will you to the utmost of your power maintain 1 2 3the laws of God, the true profession of the Gospel, 4and the Protestant Reformed Religion _established by_ 5_law_? And will you preserve unto the _bishops_ and clergy of thisrealm, and to the churches committed to _their_ charge, all such rightsand privileges as by law do or shall appertain unto them, or any ofthem?--All this I promise to do. " Here are the coronation engagements of the king. In them I do not findone word to preclude his Majesty from consenting to any arrangementwhich Parliament may make with regard to the civil privileges of anypart of his subjects. It may not be amiss, on account of the light which it will throw on thisdiscussion, to look a little more narrowly into the matter of thatoath, --in order to discover how far it has hitherto operated, or how farin future it ought to operate, as a bar to any proceedings of the crownand Parliament in favor of those against whom it may be supposed thatthe king has engaged to support the Protestant Church of England in thetwo kingdoms in which it is established by law. First, the king swearshe will maintain to the utmost of his power "the laws of God. " I supposeit means the natural moral laws. --Secondly, he swears to maintain "thetrue 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 ofsupposition or conjecture; for that Protestant reformed religion isdefined and described by the subsequent words, "established by law"; andin this instance, to define it beyond all possibility of doubt, heswears to maintain the "bishops and clergy, and the churches committedto their charge, " in their rights present and future. The oath as effectually prevents the king from doing anything to theprejudice of the Church, in favor of sectaries, Jews, Mahometans, orplain avowed infidels, as if he should do the same thing in favor of theCatholics. You will see that it is the same Protestant Church, sodescribed, that the king is to maintain and communicate with, accordingto the Act of Settlement of the 12th and 13th of William the Third. Theact of the 5th of Anne, made in prospect of the Union, is entitled, "Anact for securing the Church of England as by law established. " It meantto guard the Church implicitly against any other mode of Protestantreligion which might creep in by means of the Union. It proves beyondall doubt, that the legislature did not mean to guard the Church on onepart only, and to leave it defenceless and exposed upon every other. This church, in that act, is declared to be "fundamental and essential"forever, in the Constitution of the United Kingdom, so far as England isconcerned; and I suppose, as the law stands, even since theindependence, it is so in Ireland. All this shows that the religion which the king is bound to maintain hasa positive part in it, as well as a negative, --and that the positivepart of it (in which we are in perfect agreement with the Catholics andwith the Church of Scotland) is infinitely the most valuable andessential. Such an agreement we had with Protestant Dissenters inEngland, of those descriptions who came under the Toleration Act of KingWilliam and Queen Mary: an act coeval with the Revolution; and whichought, on the principles of the gentlemen who oppose the relief to theCatholics, to have been held sacred and unalterable. Whether we agreewith the present Protestant Dissenters in the points at the Revolutionheld essential and fundamental among Christians, or in any otherfundamental, at present it is impossible for us to know: because, attheir own very earnest desire, we have repealed the Toleration Act ofWilliam and Mary, and discharged them from the signature required bythat act; and because, for the far greater part, they publicly declareagainst all manner of confessions of faith, even the _Consensus_. For reasons forcible enough at all times, but at this time particularlyforcible with me, I dwell a little the longer upon this matter, and takethe more pains, to put us both in mind that it was not settled at theRevolution that the state should be Protestant, in the latitude of theterm, but in a defined and limited sense only, and that in that senseonly the king is sworn to maintain it. To suppose that the king hassworn with his utmost power to maintain what it is wholly out of hispower to discover, or which, if he could discover, he might discover toconsist of things directly contradictory to each other, some of themperhaps impious, blasphemous, and seditious upon principle, would be notonly a gross, but a most mischievous absurdity. If mere dissent from theChurch of Rome be a merit, he that dissents the most perfectly is themost meritorious. In many points we hold strongly with that church. Hethat dissents throughout with that church will dissent with the Churchof England, and then it will be a part of his merit that he dissentswith ourselves: a whimsical species of merit for any set of men toestablish. We quarrel to extremity with those who we know agree with usin many things; but we are to be so malicious even in the principle ofour friendships, that we are to cherish in our bosom those who accordwith us in nothing, because, whilst they despise ourselves, they abhor, even more than we do, those with whom we have some disagreement. A manis certainly the most perfect Protestant who protests against the wholeChristian religion. Whether a person's having no Christian religion be atitle to favor, in exclusion to the largest description of Christians, who hold all the doctrines of Christianity, though holding along withthem some errors and some superfluities, is rather more than any man, who has not become recreant and apostate from his baptism, will, Ibelieve, choose to affirm. The countenance given from a spirit ofcontroversy to that negative religion may by degrees encourage light andunthinking people to a total indifference to everything positive inmatters of doctrine, and, in the end, of practice too. If continued, itwould play the game of that sort of active, proselytizing, andpersecuting atheism which is the disgrace and calamity of our time, andwhich we see to be as capable of subverting a government as any mode canbe of misguided zeal for better things. Now let us fairly see what course has been taken relative to thoseagainst 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 givea toleration to Protestant Dissenters _whose doctrines theyascertained_. As to the mere civil privileges which the Dissenters heldas subjects before the Revolution, these were not touched at all. Thelaws have fully permitted, in a qualification for all offices, to suchDissenters, _an occasional conformity_: a thing I believe singular, where tests are admitted. The act, called the Test Act, itself, is, withregard to them, grown to be hardly anything more than a dead letter. Whenever the Dissenters cease by their conduct to give any alarm to thegovernment, in Church and State, I think it very probable that even thismatter, rather disgustful than inconvenient to them, may be removed, orat least so modified as to distinguish the qualification to thoseoffices which really _guide the state_ from those which are _merelyinstrumental_, or that some other and better tests may be put in theirplace. So far as to England. In Ireland you have outran us. Without waiting foran English example, you have totally, and without any modificationwhatsoever, repealed the test as to Protestant Dissenters. Not havingthe repealing act by me, I ought not to say positively that there is noexception in it; but if it be what I suppose it is, you know very wellthat a Jew in religion, or a Mahometan, or even _a public, declaredatheist_ and blasphemer, is perfectly qualified to be Lord-Lieutenant, alord-justice, or even keeper of the king's conscience, and by virtue ofhis office (if with you it be as it is with us) administrator to a greatpart of the ecclesiastical patronage of the crown. Now let us deal a little fairly. We must admit that Protestant Dissentwas one of the quarters from which danger was apprehended at theRevolution, and against which a part of the coronation oath waspeculiarly directed. By this unqualified repeal you certainly did notmean to deny that it was the duty of the crown to preserve the Churchagainst Protestant Dissenters; or taking this to be the true sense ofthe two Revolution acts of King William, and of the previous andsubsequent Union acts of Queen Anne, you did not declare by this mostunqualified repeal, by which you broke down all the barriers, notinvented, indeed, but carefully preserved, at the Revolution, --you didnot then and by that proceeding declare that you had advised the king toperjury towards God and perfidy towards the Church. No! far, very farfrom it! You never would have done it, if you did not think it could bedone with perfect repose to the royal conscience, and perfect safety tothe national established religion. You did this upon a fullconsideration of the circumstances of your country. Now, ifcircumstances required it, why should it be contrary to the king's oath, his Parliament judging on those circumstances, to restore to hisCatholic people, in such measure and with such modifications as thepublic wisdom shall think proper to add, _some part_ in these franchiseswhich they formerly had held without any limitation at all, and which, upon no sort of urgent reason at the time, they were deprived of? Ifsuch means can with any probability be shown, from circumstances, ratherto add strength to our mixed ecclesiastical and secular Constitutionthan to weaken it, surely they are means infinitely to be preferred topenalties, incapacities, and proscriptions, continued from generation togeneration. They are perfectly consistent with the other parts of thecoronation oath, in which the king swears to maintain "the laws of Godand the true profession of the Gospel, and to govern the peopleaccording to the statutes in Parliament agreed upon, and the laws andcustoms of the realm. " In consenting to such a statute, the crown wouldact at least as agreeable to the laws of God, and to the true professionof the Gospel, and to the laws and customs of the kingdom, as George theFirst did, when he passed the statute which took from the body of thepeople everything which to that hour, and even after the monstrous actsof the 2nd and 8th of Anne, (the objects of our common hatred, ) theystill enjoyed inviolate. It is hard to distinguish with the last degree of accuracy what laws arefundamental, and what not. However, there is a distinction between them, authorized by the writers on jurisprudence, and recognized in some ofour statutes. I admit the acts of King William and Queen Anne to befundamental, but they are not the only fundamental laws. The law called_Magna Charta_, by which it is provided that "no man shall be disseisedof his liberties and free customs but by the judgment of his peers orthe laws of the land, " (meaning clearly, for some proved crime tried andadjudged, ) I take to be _a fundamental law. _ Now, although this MagnaCharta, or some of the statutes establishing it, provide that that lawshall be perpetual, and all statutes contrary to it shall be void, yet Icannot go so far as to deny the authority of statutes made in defianceof Magna Charta and all its principles. This, however, I will say, --thatit is a very venerable law, made by very wise and learned men, and thatthe legislature, in their attempt to perpetuate it, even against theauthority of future Parliaments, have shown their judgment that it is_fundamental_, on the same grounds and in the same manner that the actof the fifth of Anne has considered and declared the establishment ofthe Church of England to be fundamental. Magna Charta, which securedthese franchises to the subjects, regarded the rights of freeholders incounties to be as much a fundamental part of the Constitution as theestablishment 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 thematerial interest of which they were the natural guardians. It is thefirst article of Magna Charta, "that the Church of England shall befree, " &c, &c. But at that period, churchmen and barons and knights tookcare of the franchises and free customs of the people, too. Thosefranchises are part of the Constitution itself, and inseparable from it. It would be a very strange thing, if there should not only existanomalies in our laws, a thing not easy to prevent, but that thefundamental parts of the Constitution should be perpetually andirreconcilably at variance with each other. I cannot persuade myselfthat the lovers of our church are not as able to find effectual ways ofreconciling its safety with the franchises of the people as theecclesiastics of the thirteenth century were able to do; I cannotconceive how anything worse can be said of the Protestant religion ofthe Church of England than this, --that, wherever it is judged proper togive it a legal establishment, it becomes necessary to deprive the bodyof the people, if they adhere to their old opinions, of "their libertiesand 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 itdown as a fundamental of the Constitution, that the Church of Englandshould be united and even identified with it; but, allowing this, Icannot allow that all _laws of regulation_, made from time to time, insupport of that fundamental law, are of course equally fundamental andequally unchangeable. This would be to confound all the branches oflegislation and of jurisprudence. The _crown_ and the personal safety ofthe monarch are _fundamentals_ in our Constitution: yet I hope that noman regrets that the rabble of statutes got together during the reign ofHenry the Eighth, by which treasons are multiplied with so prolific anenergy, have been all repealed in a body; although they were all, ormost of them, made in support of things truly fundamental in ourConstitution. So were several of the acts by which the crown exercisedits supremacy: such as the act of Elizabeth for making the _highcommission courts_, and the like; as well as things made treason in thetime of Charles the Second. None of this species of _secondary andsubsidiary laws_ have been held fundamental. They have yielded tocircumstances; particularly where they were thought, even in theirconsequences, or obliquely, to affect other fundamentals. How much more, certainly, ought they to give way, when, as in our case, they affect, not here and there, in some particular point, or in their consequence, but universally, collectively, and directly, the fundamental franchisesof a people equal to the whole inhabitants of several respectablekingdoms and states: equal to the subjects of the kings of Sardinia orof Denmark; equal to those of the United Netherlands; and more than areto be found in all the states of Switzerland. This way of proscribingmen by whole nations, as it were, from all the benefits of theConstitution to which they were born, I never can believe to be politicor expedient, much less necessary for the existence of any state orchurch in the world. Whenever I shall be convinced, which will be lateand reluctantly, that the safety of the Church is utterly inconsistentwith all the civil rights whatsoever of the far larger part of theinhabitants of our country, I shall be extremely sorry for it; because Ishall think the Church to be truly in danger. It is putting things intothe position of an ugly alternative, into which I hope in God they neverwill 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 shallconclude the observations which I wished to submit to you on this pointby assuring you that I think you the most remote that can be conceivedfrom the metaphysicians of our times, who are the most foolish of men, and who, dealing in universals and essences, see no difference betweenmore and less, --and who of course would think that the reason of the lawwhich obliged the king to be a communicant of the Church of Englandwould be as valid to exclude a Catholic from being an exciseman, or todeprive a man who has five hundred a year, under that description, fromvoting on a par with a factitious Protestant Dissenting freeholder offorty shillings. Recollect, my dear friend, that it was a fundamental principle in theFrench monarchy, whilst it stood, that the state should be Catholic; yetthe Edict of Nantes gave, not a full ecclesiastical, but a completecivil _establishment_, with places of which only they were capable, tothe Calvinists of France, --and there were very few employments, indeed, of which they were not capable. The world praised the Cardinal deRichelieu, who took the first opportunity to strip them of theirfortified places and cautionary towns. The same world held and does holdin execration (so far as that business is concerned) the memory of Louisthe Fourteenth, for the total repeal of that favorable edict; though thetalk of "fundamental laws, established religion, religion of the prince, safety to the state, " &c. , &c. , was then as largely held, and with asbitter a revival of the animosities of the civil confusions during thestruggles between the parties, as now they can be in Ireland. Perhaps there are persons who think that the same reason does not hold, when the religious relation of the sovereign and subject is changed; butthey who have their shop full of false weights and measures, and whoimagine that the adding or taking away the name of Protestant orPapist, 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, tocome to what seems to be a serious consideration in your mind: I meanthe dread you express of "reviewing, for the purpose of altering, the_principles of the Revolution_. " This is an interesting topic, on whichI will, as fully as your leisure and mine permits, lay before you theideas I have formed. First, I cannot possibly confound in my mind all the things which weredone at the Revolution with the _principles_ of the Revolution. As inmost great changes, many things were done from the necessities of thetime, well or ill understood, from passion or from vengeance, which werenot only not perfectly agreeable to its principles, but in the mostdirect contradiction to them. I shall not think that the _deprivation ofsome millions of people of all the rights of citizens, and all interestin the Constitution, in and to which they were born_, was a thingconformable to the _declared principles_ of the Revolution. This I amsure is true relatively to England (where the operation of these_anti-principles_ comparatively were of little extent); and some of ourlate laws, in repealing acts made immediately after the Revolution, admit that some things then done were not done in the true spirit of theRevolution. But the Revolution operated differently in England andIreland, in many, and these essential particulars. Supposing theprinciples to have been altogether the same in both kingdoms, by theapplication of those principles to very different objects the wholespirit of the system was changed, not to say reversed. In England itwas the struggle of the _great body_ of the people for the establishmentof their liberties, against the efforts of a very _small faction_, whowould have oppressed them. In Ireland it was the establishment of thepower of the smaller number, at the expense of the civil liberties andproperties of the far greater part, and at the expense of the politicalliberties of the whole. It was, to say the truth, not a revolution, buta conquest: which is not to say a great deal in its favor. To insist oneverything done in Ireland at the Revolution would be to insist on thesevere and jealous policy of a conqueror, in the crude settlement of hisnew acquisition, as _a permanent_ rule for its future government. Thisno power, in no country that ever I heard of, has done or professed todo, --except in Ireland; where it is done, and possibly by some peoplewill be professed. Time has, by degrees, in all other places andperiods, blended and coalited the conquered with the conquerors. So, after some time, and after one of the most rigid conquests that we readof in history, the Normans softened into the English. I wish you to turnyour recollection to the fine speech of Cerealis to the Gauls, made todissuade them from revolt. Speaking of the Romans, --"_Nos_ quamvistoties lacessiti, jure victoriæ id solum vobis addidimus, quo pacemtueremur: nam neque quies gentium sine armis, neque arma sinestipendiis, neque stipendia sine tributis haberi queant. _Caetera incommuni sita sunt_: ipsi plerumque nostris exercitibus _praesidetis_:ipsi has aliasque provincias _regitis: nil separatum clausumve_. Proindepacem et urbem, quam _victores victique eodem jure obtinemus_, amate, colite. " You will consider whether the arguments used by that Roman tothese Gauls would apply to the case in Ireland, --and whether you coulduse so plausible a preamble to any severe warning you might think itproper to hold out to those who should resort to sedition, instead ofsupplication, to obtain any object that they may pursue with thegoverning power. For a much longer period than that which had sufficed to blend theRomans with the nation to which of all others they were the mostadverse, the Protestants settled in Ireland considered themselves in noother light than that of a sort of a colonial garrison, to keep thenatives in subjection to the other state of Great Britain. The wholespirit of the Revolution in Ireland was that of not the mildestconqueror. In truth, the spirit of those proceedings did not commence atthat era, nor was religion of any kind their primary object. What wasdone was not in the spirit of a contest between two religious factions, but between two adverse nations. The statutes of Kilkenny show that thespirit of the Popery laws, and some even of their actual provisions, asapplied between Englishry and Irishry, had existed in that harassedcountry before the words _Protestant_ and _Papist_ were heard of in theworld. If we read Baron Finglas, Spenser, and Sir John Davies, we cannotmiss the true genius and policy of the English government there beforethe Revolution, as well as during the whole reign of Queen Elizabeth. Sir John Davies boasts of the benefits received by the natives, byextending to them the English law, and turning the whole kingdom intoshire ground. But the appearance of things alone was changed. Theoriginal scheme was never deviated from for a single hour. Unheard-ofconfiscations were made in the northern parts, upon grounds of plots andconspiracies, never proved upon their supposed authors. The war ofchicane succeeded to the war of arms and of hostile statutes; and aregular series of operations was carried on, particularly fromChichester's time, in the ordinary courts of justice, and by specialcommissions and inquisitions, --first under pretence of tenures, and thenof titles in the crown, for the purpose of the total extirpation of theinterest of the natives in their own soil, --until this species of subtleravage, being carried to the last excess of oppression and insolenceunder Lord Strafford, it kindled the flames of that rebellion whichbroke out in 1641. By the issue of that war, by the turn which the Earlof Clarendon gave to things at the Restoration, and by the totalreduction of the kingdom of Ireland in 1691, the ruin of the nativeIrish, and, in a great measure, too, of the first races of the English, was completely accomplished. The new English interest was settled withas solid a stability as anything in human affairs can look for. All thepenal laws of that unparalleled code of oppression, which were madeafter the last event, were manifestly the effects of national hatred andscorn towards a conquered people, whom the victors delighted to trampleupon and were not at all afraid to provoke. They were not the effect oftheir fears, but of their security. They who carried on this systemlooked to the irresistible force of Great Britain for their support intheir acts of power. They were quite certain that no complaints of thenatives would be heard on this side of the water with any othersentiments than those of contempt and indignation. Their cries servedonly to augment their torture. Machines which could answer theirpurposes so well must be of an excellent contrivance. Indeed, inEngland, the double name of the complainants, Irish and Papists, (itwould be hard to say which singly was the most odious, ) shut up thehearts of every one against them. Whilst that temper prevailed, (and itprevailed in all its force to a time within our memory, ) every measurewas pleasing and popular just in proportion as it tended to harass andruin a set of people who were looked upon as enemies to God and man, and, indeed, as a race of bigoted savages who were a disgrace to humannature itself. However, as the English in Ireland began to be domiciliated, they beganalso to recollect that they had a country. The _English interest_, atfirst by faint and almost insensible degrees, but at length openly andavowedly, became an _independent Irish interest_, --full as independentas it could ever have been if it had continued in the persons of thenative Irish; and it was maintained with more skill and more consistencythan probably it would have been in theirs. With their views, the_Anglo-Irish_ changed their maxims: it was necessary to demonstrate tothe whole people that there was something, at least, of a commoninterest, combined with the independency, which was to become the objectof common exertions. The mildness of government produced the firstrelaxation towards the Irish; the necessities, and, in part, too, thetemper that predominated at this great change, produced the second andthe most important of these relaxations. English government and Irishlegislature felt jointly the propriety of this measure. The IrishParliament and nation became independent. The true revolution to you, that which most intrinsically andsubstantially resembled the English Revolution of 1688, was the IrishRevolution of 1782. The Irish Parliament of 1782 bore little resemblanceto that which sat in that kingdom after the period of the first of theserevolutions. It bore a much nearer resemblance to that which sat underKing James. The change of the Parliament in 1782 from the character ofthe Parliament which, as a token of its indignation, had burned all thejournals indiscriminately of the former Parliament in theCouncil-Chamber, was very visible. The address of King William'sParliament, the Parliament which assembled after the Revolution, amongstother causes of complaint (many of them sufficiently just) complains ofthe repeal by their predecessors of Poynings's law, --no absolute idolwith the Parliament of 1782. Great Britain, finding the Anglo-Irish highly animated with a spiritwhich had indeed shown itself before, though with little energy and manyinterruptions, and therefore suffered a multitude of uniform precedentsto be established against it, acted, in my opinion, with the greatesttemperance and wisdom. She saw that the disposition of the _leadingpart_ of the nation would not permit them to act any longer the part ofa _garrison_. She saw that true policy did not require that they evershould 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 herrace were resolved to build their Constitution and their politics uponanother bottom. With those things under her view, she instantly compliedwith the whole of your demands, without any reservation whatsoever. Shesurrendered that boundless superiority, for the preservation of which, and the acquisition, she had supported the English colonies in Irelandfor so long a time, and at so vast an expense (according to the standardof those ages) of her blood and treasure. When we bring before us the matter which history affords for ourselection, it is not improper to examine the spirit of the severalprecedents which are candidates for our choice. Might it not be as wellfor your statesmen, on the other side of the water, to take an examplefrom this latter and surely more conciliatory revolution, as a patternfor your conduct towards your own fellow-citizens, than from that of1688, when a paramount sovereignty over both you and them was moreloftily claimed and more sternly exerted than at any former or at anysubsequent period? Great Britain in 1782 rose above the vulgar ideas ofpolicy, the ordinary jealousies of state, and all the sentiments ofnational pride and national ambition. If she had been more disposed(than, I thank God for it, she was) to listen to the suggestions ofpassion than to the dictates of prudence, she might have urged theprinciples, the maxims, the policy, the practice of the Revolution, against the demands of the leading description in Ireland, with full asmuch plausibility and full as good a grace as any amongst them canpossibly do against the supplications of so vast and extensive adescription of their own people. A good deal, too, if the spirit of domination and exclusion hadprevailed in England, might have been excepted against some of the meansthen employed in Ireland, whilst her claims were in agitation. Theywere at least as much out of ordinary course as those which are nowobjected against admitting your people to any of the benefits of anEnglish Constitution. Most certainly, neither with you nor here was anyone ignorant of what was at that time said, written, and done. But onall sides we separated the means from the end: and we separated thecause of the moderate and rational from the ill-intentioned andseditious, which on such occasions are so frequently apt to marchtogether. At that time, on your part, you were not afraid to review whatwas done at the Revolution of 1688, and what had been continued duringthe subsequent flourishing period of the British empire. The change thenmade was a great and fundamental alteration. In the execution, it was anoperose business on both sides of the water. It required the repeal ofseveral laws, the modification of many, and a new course to be given toan infinite number of legislative, judicial, and official practices andusages in both kingdoms. This did not frighten any of us. You are nowasked to give, in some moderate measure, to your fellow-citizens, whatGreat Britain gave to you without any measure at all. Yet, notwithstanding all the difficulties at the time, and the apprehensionswhich some very well-meaning people entertained, through the admirabletemper in which this revolution (or restoration in the nature of arevolution) was conducted in both kingdoms, it has hitherto produced noinconvenience to either; and I trust, with the continuance of the sametemper, that it never will. I think that this small, inconsiderablechange, (relative to an exclusive statute not made at the Revolution, )for restoring the people to the benefits from which the green sorenessof a civil war had not excluded them, will be productive of no sort ofmischief whatsoever. Compare what was done in 1782 with what is wishedin 1792; consider the spirit of what has been done at the severalperiods of reformation; and weigh maturely whether it be exactly truethat conciliatory concessions are of good policy only in discussionsbetween nations, but that among descriptions in the same nation theymust always be irrational and dangerous. What have you suffered in yourpeace, 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 thatpeople under the protection of the _laws_? What reasons have you todread the consequences of admitting the people possessing that propertyto some share in the protection of the _Constitution_? I do not mean to trouble you with anything to remove the objections, Iwill not call them arguments, against this measure, taken from aferocious hatred to all that numerous description of Christians. Itwould be to pay a poor compliment to your understanding or your heart. Neither _your_ religion nor _your_ politics consist "in odd, perverseantipathies. " You are not resolved to persevere in proscribing from theConstitution so many millions of your countrymen, because, incontradiction to experience and to common sense, you think proper toimagine that their principles are subversive of common human society. Tothat I shall only say, that whoever has a temper which can be gratifiedby indulging himself in these good-natured fancies ought to do a greatdeal more. For an exclusion from the privileges of British subjects isnot a cure for so terrible a distemper of the human mind as they arepleased to suppose in their countrymen. I rather conceive aparticipation in those privileges to be itself a remedy for some mentaldisorders. As little shall I detain you with matters that can as little obtainadmission 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 GreatBritain, you may be conquered by the Pope; or that this commodiousbugbear (who is of infinitely more use to those who pretend to fear thanto those who love him) will absolve his Majesty's subjects from theirallegiance, and send over the Cardinal of York to rule you as hisviceroy; or that, by the plenitude of his power, he will take thatfierce tyrant, the king of the French, out of his jail, and arm thatnation (which on all occasions treats his Holiness so very politely)with his bulls and pardons, to invade poor old Ireland, to reduce you toPopery and slavery, and to force the free-born, naked feet of yourpeople into the wooden shoes of that arbitrary monarch. I do not believethat discourses of this kind are held, or that anything like them willbe held, by any who walk about without a keeper. Yet I confess, that, onoccasions of this nature, I am the most afraid of the weakestreasonings, because they discover the strongest passions. These thingswill never be brought out in definite propositions. They would notprevent pity towards any persons; they would only cause it for those whowere capable of talking in such a strain. But I know, and am sure, thatsuch ideas as no man will distinctly produce to another, or hardlyventure to bring in any plain shape to his own mind, he will utter inobscure, ill-explained doubts, jealousies, surmises, fears, andapprehensions, and that in such a fog they will appear to have a gooddeal of size, and will make an impression, when, if they were clearlybrought forth and defined, they would meet with nothing but scorn andderision. There is another way of taking an objection to this concession, which Iadmit to be something more plausible, and worthy of a more attentiveexamination. It is, that this numerous class of people is mutinous, disorderly, prone to sedition, and easy to be wrought upon by theinsidious arts of wicked and designing men; that, conscious of this, thesober, rational, and wealthy part of that body, who are totally ofanother character, do by no means desire any participation forthemselves, or for any one else of their description, in the franchisesof the British Constitution. I have great doubt of the exactness of any part of this observation. Butlet us admit that the body of the Catholics are prone to sedition, (ofwhich, as I have said, I entertain much doubt, ) is it possible that anyfair observer or fair reasoner can think of confining this descriptionto them only? I believe it to be possible for men to be mutinous andseditious who feel no grievance, but I believe no man will assertseriously, that, when people are of a turbulent spirit, the best way tokeep them in order is to furnish them with something substantial tocomplain of. You separate, very properly, the sober, rational, and substantial partof their description from the rest. You give, as you ought to do, weightonly to the former. What I have always thought of the matter isthis, --that the most poor, illiterate, and uninformed creatures uponearth 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 anover-lively sensibility, they are the best judges of it. But for _thereal cause_, or _the appropriate remedy_, they ought never to be calledinto council about the one or the other. They ought to be totally shutout: because their reason is weak; because, when once roused, theirpassions are ungoverned; because they want information; because thesmallness of the property which individually they possess renders themless attentive to the consequence of the measures they adopt in affairsof moment. When I find a great cry amongst the people who speculatelittle, I think myself called seriously to examine into it, and toseparate the real cause from the ill effects of the passion it mayexcite, and the bad use which artful men may make of an irritation ofthe popular mind. Here we must be aided by persons of a contrarycharacter; we must not listen to the desperate or the furious: but it istherefore necessary for us to distinguish who are the _really_ indigentand the _really_ intemperate. As to the persons who desire this part inthe Constitution, I have no reason to imagine that they are men who havenothing to lose and much to look for in public confusion. The popularmeeting from which apprehensions have been entertained has assembled. Ihave accidentally had conversation with two friends of mine who knowsomething of the gentleman who was put into the chair upon thatoccasion: 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 aman of some property: but you must be the best judge of this, who byyour office are likely to know his transactions. Many of the others arecertainly 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 shownin the discussion of their interests. What such men think it for theiradvantage to acquire ought not, _prima facie_, to be considered as rashor heady or incompatible with the public safety or welfare. I admit, that men of the best fortunes and reputations, and of the besttalents and education too, may by accident show themselves furious andintemperate in their desires. This is a great misfortune, when ithappens; for the first presumptions are undoubtedly in their favor. Wehave two standards of judging, in this case, of the sanity and sobrietyof any proceedings, --of unequal certainty, indeed, but neither of themto be neglected: the first is by the value of the object sought; thenext is by the means through which it is pursued. The object pursued by the Catholics is, I understand, and have all alongreasoned as if it were so, in some degree or measure to be againadmitted to the franchises of the Constitution. Men are considered asunder some derangement of their intellects, when they see good and evilin a different light from other men, --when they choose nauseous andunwholesome food, and reject such as to the rest of the world seemspleasant and is known to be nutritive. I have always considered theBritish Constitution not to be a thing in itself so vicious as that nonebut men of deranged understanding and turbulent tempers could desire ashare in it: on the contrary, I should think very indifferently of theunderstanding and temper of any body of men who did not wish to partakeof this great and acknowledged benefit. I cannot think quite sofavorably either of the sense or temper of those, if any such there are, who would voluntarily persuade their brethren that the object is not fitfor them, or they for the object. Whatever may be my thoughts concerningthem, I am quite sure that they who hold such language must forfeit allcredit with the rest. This is infallible, --if they conceive any opinionof their judgment, they cannot possibly think them their friends. Thereis, indeed, one supposition which would reconcile the conduct of suchgentlemen to sound reason, and to the purest affection towards theirfellow-sufferers: it is, that they act under the impression of awell-grounded fear for the general interest. If they should be told, andshould believe the story, that, if they dare attempt to make theircondition better, they will infallibly make it worse, --that, if they aimat obtaining liberty, they will have their slavery doubled, --that theirendeavor to put themselves upon anything which approaches towards anequitable footing with their fellow-subjects will be considered as anindication of a seditious and rebellious disposition, --such a view ofthings ought perfectly to restore the gentlemen, who so anxiouslydissuade their countrymen from wishing a participation with theprivileged part of the people, to the good opinion of their fellows. Butwhat is to _them_ a very full justification is not quite so honorable tothat power from whose maxims and temper so good a ground of rationalterror is furnished. I think arguments of this kind will never be usedby the friends of a government which I greatly respect, or by any of theleaders of an opposition whom I have the honor to know and the sense toadmire. I remember Polybius tells us, that, during his captivity inItaly as a Peloponnesian hostage, he solicited old Cato to intercedewith the Senate for his release, and that of his countrymen: this oldpolitician told him that he had better continue in his presentcondition, however irksome, than apply again to that formidableauthority for their relief; that he ought to imitate the wisdom of hiscountryman 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 conceivetoo high an opinion of the Irish legislature to think that they are totheir fellow-citizens what the grand oppressors of mankind were to apeople whom the fortune of war had subjected to their power. For thoughCato could use such a parallel with regard to his Senate, I shouldreally think it nothing short of impious to compare an Irish Parliamentto a den of Cyclops. I hope the people, both here and with you, willalways apply to the House of Commons with becoming modesty, but at thesame time with minds unembarrassed with any sort of terror. As to the means which the Catholics employ to obtain this object, soworthy of sober and rational minds, I do admit that such means may beused in the pursuit of it as may make it proper for the legislature, inthis case, to defer their compliance until the demandants are brought toa proper sense of their duty. A concession in which the governing powerof our country loses its dignity is dearly bought even by him whoobtains his object. All the people have a deep interest in the dignityof Parliament. But as the refusal of franchises which are drawn out ofthe first vital stamina of the British Constitution is a very seriousthing, we ought to be very sure that the manner and spirit of theapplication is offensive and dangerous indeed, before we ultimatelyreject all applications of this nature. The mode of application, I hear, is by petition. It is the manner in which all the sovereign powers ofthe world are approached; and I never heard (except in the case of Jamesthe Second) that any prince considered this manner of supplication to becontrary to the humility of a subject or to the respect due to theperson or authority of the sovereign. This rule, and a correspondentpractice, are observed from the Grand Seignior down to the most pettyprince or republic in Europe. You have sent me several papers, some in print, some in manuscript. Ithink I had seen all of them, except the formula of association. Iconfess they appear to me to contain matter mischievous, and capable ofgiving alarm, if the spirit in which they are written should be found tomake any considerable progress. But I am at a loss to know how to applythem as objections to the case now before us. When I find that _theGeneral Committee_ which acts for the Roman Catholics in Dublin prefersthe association proposed in the written draught you have sent me to arespectful application in Parliament, I shall think the persons who signsuch a paper to be unworthy of any privilege which may be thought fit tobe granted, and that such men ought, _by name_, to be excepted from anybenefit under the Constitution to which they offer this violence. But Ido not find that this form of a seditious league has been signed by anyperson whatsoever, either on the part of the supposed projectors, or onthe part of those whom it is calculated to seduce. I do not find, oninquiry, that such a thing was mentioned, or even remotely alluded to, in the general meeting of the Catholics from which so much violence wasapprehended. I have considered the other publications, signed byindividuals on the part of certain societies, --I may mistake, for I havenot the honor 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 equallydislike, appears to be written by persons of that persuasion. Now, if, whilst a man is dutifully soliciting a favor from Parliament, any personshould choose in an improper manner to show his inclination towards thecause depending, and if that _must_ destroy the cause of the petitioner, then, not only the petitioner, but the legislature itself, is in thepower of any weak friend or artful enemy that the supplicant or that theParliament may have. A man must be judged by his own actions only. Certain Protestant Dissenters make seditious propositions to theCatholics, which it does not appear that they have yet accepted. Itwould be strange that the tempter should escape all punishment, and thathe 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 moversin this vile scheme of altering the principles of election to a right ofvoting by the head, you are not able (if you ought even to wish such athing) to deprive them of any part of the franchises and privilegeswhich they hold on a footing of perfect equality with yourselves. _They_may do what they please with constitutional impunity; but the otherscannot even listen with civility to an invitation from them to anill-judged scheme of liberty, without forfeiting forever all hopes ofany 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 ofour excluded countrymen have not adopted the wild ideas and wilderengagements which have been held out to them, but have rather chosen tohope small and safe concessions from the legal power than boundlessobjects from trouble and confusion. This mode of action seems to me tomark men of sobriety, and to distinguish them from those who areintemperate, from circumstance or from nature. But why do they notinstantly disclaim and disavow those who make such advances to them? Inthis, too, in my opinion, they show themselves no less sober andcircumspect. In the present moment nothing short of insanity couldinduce them to take such a step. Pray consider the circumstances. Disclaim, says somebody, all union with the Dissenters;--right. --Butwhen this your injunction is obeyed, shall I obtain the object which Isolicit from _you_?--Oh, no, nothing at all like it!--But, in punishingus, by an exclusion from the Constitution through the great gate, forhaving been invited to enter into it by a postern, will you punish bydeprivation of their privileges, or mulet in any other way, those whohave 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 nofellowship. We can bear with patience their enmity to ourselves; buttheir friendship with you we will not endure. But mark it well! All ourquarrels with _them_ are always to be revenged upon _you_. Formerly, itis notorious that we should have resented with the highest indignationyour presuming to show any ill-will to them. You must not suffer them, now, to show any good-will to you. Know--and take it once for all--thatit is, and ever has been, and ever will be, a fundamental maxim in ourpolitics, that you are not to have any part or shadow or name ofinterest whatever in our state; that we look upon you as under anirreversible outlawry from our Constitution, --as perpetual andunalliable aliens. Such, my dear Sir, is the plain nature of the argument drawn from theRevolution maxims, enforced by a supposed disposition in the Catholicsto unite with the Dissenters. Such it is, though it were clothed innever such bland and civil forms, and wrapped up, as a poet says, in athousand "artful folds of sacred lawn. " For my own part, I do not knowin what manner to shape such arguments, so as to obtain admission forthem into a rational understanding. Everything of this kind is to bereduced at last to threats of power. I cannot say, _Væ victis_! and thenthrow the sword into the scale. I have no sword; and if I had, in thiscase, most certainly, I would not use it as a makeweight in politicalreasoning. Observe, on these principles, the difference between the procedure ofthe Parliament and the Dissenters towards the people in question. Oneemploys courtship, the other force. The Dissenters offer bribes, theParliament nothing but the _front négatif_ of a stern and forbiddingauthority. A man may be very wrong in his ideas of what is good forhim. But no man affronts me, nor can therefore justify my affrontinghim, by offering to make me as happy as himself, according to his ownideas of happiness. This the Dissenters do to the Catholics. You are onthe different extremes. The Dissenters offer, with regard toconstitutional rights and civil advantages of all sorts, _everything_;you refuse _everything_. With them, there is boundless, though not veryassured hope; with you, a very sure and very unqualified despair. Theterms of alliance from the Dissenters offer a representation of thecommons, chosen out of the people by the head. This is absurdly anddangerously large, in my opinion; and that scheme of election is knownto have been at all times perfectly odious to me. But I cannot think itright of course to punish the Irish Roman Catholics by an universalexclusion, because others, whom you would not punish at all, propose anuniversal admission. I cannot dissemble to myself, that, in this verykingdom, many persons who are not in the situation of the IrishCatholics, but who, on the contrary, enjoy the full benefit of theConstitution as it stands, and some of whom, from the effect of theirfortunes, enjoy it in a large measure, had some years ago associated toprocure great and undefined changes (they considered them as reforms) inthe popular part of the Constitution. Our friend, the late Mr. Flood, (no slight man, ) proposed in his place, and in my hearing, arepresentation not much less extensive than this, for England, --in whichevery house was to be inhabited by a voter, _in addition_ to all theactual votes by other titles (some of the corporate) which we know donot require a house or a shed. Can I forget that a person of the veryhighest rank, of very large fortune, and of the first class of ability, brought a bill into the House of Lords, in the head-quarters ofaristocracy, containing identically the same project for the supposedadoption of which by a club or two it is thought right to extinguish allhopes in the Roman Catholics of Ireland? I cannot say it was veryeagerly embraced or very warmly pursued. But the Lords neither diddisavow the bill, nor treat it with any disregard, nor express any sortof disapprobation of its noble author, who has never lost, with king orpeople, the least degree of the respect and consideration which sojustly belongs to him. I am not at all enamored, as I have told you, with this plan ofrepresentation; as little do I relish any bandings or associations forprocuring it. But if the question was to be put to you andme, --_Universal_ popular representation, or _none at all for us andours_, --we should find ourselves in a very awkward position. I do notlike 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 shakesthese liberties, --since the oldest and one of the best monuments of theConstitution demands for the Irish the privilege which theysupplicate, --since the principles of the Revolution coincide with thedeclarations of the Great Charter, --since the practice of theRevolution, in this point, did not contradict its principles, --since, from that event, twenty-five years had elapsed, before a domineeringparty, on a party principle, had ventured to disfranchise, without anyproof whatsoever of abuse, the greater part of the community, --since theking's coronation oath does not stand in his way to the performance ofhis duty to all his subjects, --since you have given to all otherDissenters these privileges without limit which are hitherto withheldwithout any limitation whatsoever from the Catholics, --since no nationin the world has ever been known to exclude so great a body of men (notborn slaves) from the civil state, and all the benefits of itsConstitution, --the whole question comes before Parliament as a matterfor its prudence. I do not put the thing on a question of right. Thatdiscretion, which in judicature is well said by Lord Coke to be acrooked cord, in legislature is a golden rule. Supplicants ought not toappear too much in the character of litigants. If the subject thinks sohighly and reverently of the sovereign authority as not to claimanything of right, so that it may seem to be independent of the powerand free choice of its government, --and if the sovereign, on his part, considers the advantages of the subjects as their right, and all theirreasonable wishes as so many claims, --in the fortunate conjunction ofthese mutual dispositions are laid the foundations of a happy andprosperous commonwealth. For my own part, desiring of all things thatthe authority of the legislature under which I was born, and which Icherish, not only with a dutiful awe, but with a partial and cordialaffection, to be maintained in the utmost possible respect, I never willsuffer myself to suppose that at bottom their discretion will be foundto be at variance with their justice. The whole being at discretion, I beg leave just to suggest some mattersfor your consideration:--Whether the government in Church or State islikely to be more secure by continuing causes of grounded discontent toa very great number (say two millions) of the subjects? or whether theConstitution, combined and balanced as it is, will be rendered moresolid by depriving so large a part of the people of all concern orinterest or share in its representation, actual or _virtual_? I heremean to lay an emphasis on the word _virtual_. Virtual representation isthat in which there is a communion of interests and a sympathy infeelings and desires between those who act in the name of anydescription of people and the people in whose name they act, though thetrustees are not actually chosen by them. This is virtualrepresentation. Such a representation I think to be in many cases evenbetter than the actual. It possesses most of its advantages, and is freefrom many of its inconveniences; it corrects the irregularities in theliteral representation, when the shifting current of human affairs orthe acting of public interests in different ways carry it obliquely fromits first line of direction. The people may err in their choice; butcommon interest and common sentiment are rarely mistaken. But this sortof virtual representation cannot have a long or sure existence, if ithas not a substratum in the actual. The member must have some relationto the constituent. As things stand, the Catholic, as a Catholic, andbelonging to a description, has no _virtual_ relation to therepresentative, --but the _contrary_. There is a relation in mutualobligation. Gratitude may not always have a very lasting power; but thefrequent recurrence of an application for favors will revive and refreshit, and will necessarily produce some degree of mutual attention. Itwill produce, at least, acquaintance. The several descriptions of peoplewill not be kept so much apart as they now are, as if they were notonly separate nations, but separate species. The stigma and reproach, the hideous mask will be taken off, and men will see each other as theyare. Sure I am that there have been thousands in Ireland who have neverconversed with a Roman Catholic in their whole lives, unless theyhappened to talk to their gardener's workmen, or to ask their way, whenthey had lost it in their sports, --or, at best, who had known them onlyas footmen, or other domestics, of the second and third order: and soaverse were they, some time ago, to have them near their persons, thatthey would not employ even those who could never find their way beyondthe 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 bea Protestant. It is impossible that such a state of things, thoughnatural goodness in many persons will undoubtedly make exceptions, mustnot produce alienation on the one side and pride and insolence on theother. Reduced to a question of discretion, and that discretion exercisedsolely upon what will appear best for the conservation of the state onits present basis, I should recommend it to your serious thoughts, whether the narrowing of the foundation is always the best way to securethe building? The body of disfranchised men will not be perfectlysatisfied to remain always in that state. If they are not satisfied, youhave two millions of subjects in your bosom full of uneasiness: not thatthey cannot overturn the Act of Settlement, and put themselves and youunder an arbitrary master; or that they are not permitted to spawn ahydra of wild republics, on principles of a pretended natural equalityin man; but because you will not suffer them to enjoy the ancient, fundamental, tried advantages of a British Constitution, --that you willnot permit them to profit of the protection of a common father or thefreedom of common citizens, and that the only reason which can beassigned for this disfranchisement has a tendency more deeply toulcerate their minds than the act of exclusion itself. What theconsequence of such feelings must be it is for you to look to. To warnis not to menace. I am far from asserting that men will not excite disturbances withoutjust cause. I know that such an assertion is not true. But neither is ittrue that disturbances have never just complaints for their origin. I amsure that it is hardly prudent to furnish them with such causes ofcomplaint as every man who thinks the British Constitution a benefit maythink at least colorable and plausible. Several are in dread of the manœuvres of certain persons among theDissenters, who turn this ill humor to their own ill purposes. You know, better than I can, how much these proceedings of certain among theDissenters are to be feared. You are to weigh, with the temper which isnatural to you, whether it may be for the safety of our establishmentthat the Catholics should be ultimately persuaded that they have no hopeto enter into the Constitution but through the Dissenters. Think whether this be the way to prevent or dissolve factiouscombinations against the Church or the State. Reflect seriously on thepossible consequences of keeping in the heart of your country a bank ofdiscontent, every hour accumulating, upon which every description ofseditious men may draw at pleasure. They whose principles of factionwill dispose them to the establishment of an arbitrary monarchy willfind a nation of men who have no sort of interest in freedom, but whowill have an interest in that equality of justice or favor with which awise despot must view all his subjects who do not attack the foundationsof his power. Love of liberty itself may, in such men, become the meansof establishing an arbitrary domination. On the other hand, they whowish for a democratic republic will find a set of men who have no choicebetween civil servitude and the entire ruin of a mixed Constitution. Suppose the people of Ireland divided into three parts. Of these, (Ispeak within compass, ) two are Catholic; of the remaining third, onehalf is composed of Dissenters. There is no natural union between thosedescriptions. It may be produced. If the two parts Catholic be driveninto a close confederacy with half the third part of Protestants, with aview to a change in the Constitution in Church or State or both, and yourest the whole of their security on a handful of gentlemen, clergy, andtheir dependents, --compute the strength _you have in Ireland_, to opposeto 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, andthat it is often said, that, rather than submit to such persons, havinga share in their franchises, they would throw up their independence, andprecipitate an union with Great Britain. I have heard a discussionconcerning such an union amongst all sorts of men ever since I rememberanything. For my own part, I have never been able to bring my mind toanything clear and decisive upon the subject. There cannot be a morearduous question. As far as I can form an opinion, it would not be forthe mutual advantage of the two kingdoms. Persons, however, more ablethan I am think otherwise. But whatever the merits of this union may be, to make it a _menace_, it must be shown to be an _evil_, and an evilmore particularly to those who are threatened with it than to those whohold it out as a terror. I really do not see how this threat of an unioncan operate, or that the Catholics are more likely to be losers by thatmeasure than the churchmen. The humors of the people, and of politicians too, are so variable inthemselves, and are so much under the occasional influence of someleading men, that it is impossible to know what turn the public mindhere would take on such an event. There is but one thing certainconcerning it. Great divisions and vehement passions would precede thisunion, 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 principalpart in the discussion; and in the temper in which some gentlemen seeminclined to throw themselves, by a sort of high, indignant passion, intothe scheme, those points would not be deliberated with all possiblecalmness. From my best observation, I should greatly doubt, whether, in the end, these gentlemen would obtain their object, so as to make the exclusionof two millions of their countrymen a fundamental article in the union. The demand would be of a nature quite unprecedented. You might obtainthe union; and yet a gentleman, who, under the new union establishment, would aspire to the honor of representing his county, might possibly beas much obliged, as he may fear to be under the old separateestablishment, to the unsupportable mortification of asking hisneighbors, who have a different opinion concerning the elements in thesacrament, for their votes. I believe, nay, I am sure, that the people of Great Britain, with orwithout an union, might be depended upon, in oases of any real danger, to aid the government of Ireland, with the same cordiality as they wouldsupport their own, against any wicked attempts to shake the security ofthe happy Constitution in Church and State. But before Great Britainengages in any quarrel, the _cause of the dispute_ would certainly be apart of her consideration. If confusions should arise in that kingdomfrom too steady an attachment to a proscriptive, monopolizing system, and from the resolution of regarding the franchise, and in it thesecurity of the subject, as belonging rather to religious opinions thanto civil qualification and civil conduct, I doubt whether you mightquite certainly reckon on obtaining an aid of force from hence for thesupport of that system. We might extend your distractions to thiscountry 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 adecisive proof of her sentiments of justice and moderation. She will notbe fond of making another American war in Ireland. The principles ofsuch a war would but too much resemble the former one. The well-disposedand the ill-disposed in England would (for different reasons perhaps)be equally averse to such an enterprise. The confiscations, the publicauctions, 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 someof them to the American, can have no existence in the case that wesuppose. Let us form a supposition, (no foolish or ungrounded supposition, ) that, in an age when men are infinitely more disposed to heat themselves withpolitical than religious controversies, the former should entirelyprevail, as we see that in some places they have prevailed, over thelatter, --and that the Catholics of Ireland, from the courtship paid themon the one hand, and the high tone of refusal on the other, should, inorder to enter into all the rights of subjects, all become ProtestantDissenters, and, as the others do, take all your oaths. They would allobtain their civil objects; and the change, for anything I know to thecontrary, (in the dark as I am about the Protestant Dissenting tenets, )might be of use to the health of their souls. But what security ourConstitution, in Church or State, could derive from that event, I cannotpossibly 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 willgo to that where the dogmas are fewest, --where they are the mostuncertain, --where they lead them the least to a consideration of whatthey have abandoned. They will go to that uniformly democratic system towhose first movements they owed their emancipation. I recommend youseriously to turn this in your mind. Believe that it requires your bestand 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 spiritof domination, and with the strong theological hatred which she oncecherished for that description of her fellow-Christians andfellow-subjects, I am yet convinced, that, after the fullest success ina ruinous struggle, you would be obliged to abandon that monopoly. Wewere obliged to do this, even when everything promised success, in theAmerican business. If you should make this experiment at last, under thepressure of any necessity, you never can do it well. But if, instead offalling into a passion, the leading gentlemen of the country themselvesshould undertake the business cheerfully, and with hearty affectiontowards it, great advantages would follow. What is forced cannot bemodified: but here you may measure your concessions. It is a consideration of great moment, that you make the desiredadmission without altering the system of your representation in thesmallest degree or in any part. You may leave that deliberation of aParliamentary change or reform, if ever you should think fit to engagein it, uncomplicated and unembarrassed with the other question. Whereas, if they are mixed and confounded, as some people attempt to mix andconfound them, no one can answer for the effects on the Constitutionitself. There is another advantage in taking up this business singly and by anarrangement for the single object. It is that you may proceed by_degrees_. We must all obey the great law of change. It is the mostpowerful law of Nature, and the means perhaps of its conservation. Allwe can do, and that human wisdom can do, is to provide that the changeshall proceed by insensible degrees. This has all the benefits which maybe in change, without any of the inconveniences of mutation. Everythingis provided for as it arrives. This mode will, on the one hand, preventthe _unfixing old interests at once_: a thing which is apt to breed ablack and sullen discontent in those who are at once dispossessed of alltheir influence and consideration. This gradual course, on the otherside, will prevent men long under depression from being intoxicated witha large draught of new power, which they always abuse with a licentiousinsolence. 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 thanrestriction. It is one excellence of our Constitution, that all our rights ofprovincial election regard rather property than person. It is another, that the rights which approach more nearly to the personal are most ofthem corporate, and suppose a restrained and strict education of sevenyears in some useful occupation. In both cases the practice may haveslid from the principle. The standard of qualification in both cases maybe so low, or not so judiciously chosen, as in some degree to frustratethe end. But all this is for your prudence in the case before you. Youmay rise a step or two the qualification of the Catholic voters. But ifyou were to-morrow to put the Catholic freeholder on the footing of themost favored forty-shilling Protestant Dissenter, you know, that, suchis the actual state of Ireland, this would not make a sensiblealteration in almost any _one_ election in the kingdom. The effect intheir favor, even defensively, would be infinitely slow. But it would behealing; it would be satisfactory and protecting. The stigma would beremoved. By admitting settled, permanent substance in lieu of thenumbers, you would avoid the great danger of our time, that of settingup number against property. The numbers ought never to be neglected, because (besides what is due to them as men) collectively, though notindividually, they have great property: they ought to have, therefore, protection; they ought to have security; they ought to have evenconsideration: but they ought not to predominate. My dear Sir, I have nearly done. I meant to write you a long letter: Ihave written a long dissertation. I might have done it earlier andbetter. I might have been more forcible and more clear, if I had notbeen interrupted as I have been; and this obliges me not to write to youin my own hand. Though my hand but signs it, my heart goes with what Ihave 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 mindas they are now. A letter of mine to Lord Kenmare, though not by mydesire, and full of lesser mistakes, has been printed in Dublin. It waswritten ten or twelve years ago, at the time when I began theemployment, which I have not yet finished, in favor of anotherdistressed people, injured by those who have vanquished them, or stolena dominion over them. It contained my sentiments then: you will see howfar they accord with my sentiments now. Time has more and more confirmedme in them all. The present circumstances fix them deeper in my mind. I voted last session, if a particular vote could be distinguished inunanimity, for an establishment of the Church of England _conjointly_with the establishment, which was made some years before by act ofParliament, of the Roman Catholic, in the French conquered country ofCanada. At the time of making this English ecclesiastical establishment, we did not think it necessary for its safety to destroy the formerGallican Church settlement. In our first act we settled a governmentaltogether monarchical, or nearly so. In that system, the CanadianCatholics were far from being deprived of the advantages ordistinctions, of any kind, which they enjoyed under their formermonarchy. It is true that some people, and amongst them one eminentdivine, predicted at that time that by this step we should lose ourdominions in America. He foretold that the Pope would send hisindulgences hither; that the Canadians would fall in with France, woulddeclare independence, and draw or force our colonies into the samedesign. The independence happened according to his prediction; but indirectly the reverse order. All our English Protestant coloniesrevolted. They joined themselves to France; and it so happened thatPopish Canada was the only place which preserved its fidelity, the onlyplace in which France got no footing, the only peopled colony which nowremains to Great Britain. Vain are all the prognostics taken from ideasand passions, which survive the state of things which gave rise to them. When last year we gave a popular representation to the same Canada bythe choice of the landholders, and an aristocratic representation at thechoice of the crown, neither was the choice of the crown nor theelection of the landholders limited by a consideration of religion. Wehad no dread for the Protestant Church which we settled there, becausewe permitted the French Catholics, in the utmost latitude of thedescription, to be free subjects. They are good subjects, I have nodoubt; but I will not allow that any French Canadian Catholics arebetter men or better citizens than the Irish of the same communion. Passing from the extremity of the West to the extremity almost of theEast, I have been many years (now entering into the twelfth) employed insupporting the rights, privileges, laws, and immunities of a very remotepeople. I have not as yet been able to finish my task. I have struggledthrough much discouragement and much opposition, much obloquy, muchcalumny, for a people with whom I have no tie but the common bond ofmankind. In this I have not been left alone. We did not fly from ourundertaking because the people are Mahometans or Pagans, and that agreat majority of the Christians amongst them are Papists. Somegentlemen in Ireland, I dare say, have good reasons for what they maydo, which do not occur to me. I do not presume to condemn them; but, thinking and acting as I have done towards those remote nations, Ishould not know how to show my face, here or in Ireland, if I should saythat all the Pagans, all the Mussulmen, and even all the Papists, (sincethey must form the highest stage in the climax of evil, ) are worthy of aliberal and honorable condition, except those of one of thedescriptions, which forms the majority of the inhabitants of thecountry in which you and I were born. If such are the Catholics ofIreland, ill-natured and unjust people, from our own data, may beinclined not to think better of the Protestants of a soil which issupposed to infuse into its sects a kind of venom unknown in otherplaces. You hated the old system as early as I did. Your first juvenile lancewas broken against that giant. I think you were even the first whoattacked the grim phantom. You have an exceedingly good understanding, very good humor, and the best heart in the world. The dictates of thattemper and that heart, as well as the policy pointed out by thatunderstanding, 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 completesystem, full of coherence and consistency, well digested and wellcomposed in all its parts. It was a machine of wise and elaboratecontrivance, and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, anddegradation of a people, and the debasement, in them, of human natureitself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man. It is athing humiliating enough, that we are doubtful of the effect of themedicines we compound, --we are sure of our poisons. My opinion ever was, (in which I heartily agree with those that admired the old code, ) thatit was so constructed, that, if there was once a breach in any essentialpart of it, the ruin of the whole, or nearly of the whole, was, at sometime or other, a certainty. For that reason I honor and shall foreverhonor and love you, and those who first caused it to stagger, crack, andgape. Others may finish; the beginners have the glory; and, take whatpart you please at this hour, (I think you will take the best, ) yourfirst 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 ourcountry I honor. There never was so much ability, nor, I believe, virtuein it. They have a task worthy of both. I doubt not they will performit, for the stability of the Church and State, and for the union and theseparation of the people: for the union of the honest and peaceable ofall sects; for their separation from all that is ill-intentioned andseditious in any of them. BEACONSFIELD, JANUARY 3, 1792. FOOTNOTES: [28] The letter is written on folio sheets. [29] A small error of fact as to the abjuration oath, but of noimportance in the argument. HINTS FOR A MEMORIAL TO BE DELIVERED TO MONSIEUR DE M. M. WRITTEN IN THE EARLY PART OF 1791 The King, my master, from his sincere desire of keeping up a goodcorrespondence with his Most Christian Majesty and the French nation, has for some time beheld with concern the condition into which thatsovereign and nation have fallen. Notwithstanding the reality and the warmth of those sentiments, hisBritannic Majesty has hitherto forborne in any manner to take part intheir affairs, in hopes that the common interest of king and subjectswould render all parties sensible of the necessity of settling theirgovernment and their freedom upon principles of moderation, as the onlymeans of securing permanence to both those blessings, as well asinternal and external tranquillity to the kingdom of France, and to allEurope. His Britannic Majesty finds, to his great regret, that his hopes havenot been realized. He finds that confusions and disorders have ratherincreased than diminished, and that they now threaten to proceed todangerous extremities. In this situation of things, the same regard to a neighboring sovereignliving in friendship with Great Britain, the same spirit of good-will tothe kingdom of France, the same regard to the general tranquillity, which have caused him to view with concern the growth and continuance ofthe present disorders, have induced the King of Great Britain tointerpose his good offices towards a reconcilement of those unhappydifferences. This his Majesty does with the most cordial regard to thegood of all descriptions concerned, and with the most perfect sincerity, wholly removing from his royal mind all memory of every circumstancewhich might impede him in the execution of a plan of benevolence whichhe has so much at heart. His Majesty, having always thought it his greatest glory that he rulesover a people perfectly and solidly, because soberly, rationally, andlegally free, can never be supposed to proceed in offering thus hisroyal mediation, but with an unaffected desire and full resolution toconsider the settlement of a free constitution in France as the verybasis of any agreement between the sovereign and those of his subjectswho are unhappily at variance with him, --to guaranty it to them, if itshould be desired, in the most solemn and authentic manner, and to doall that in him lies to procure the like guaranty from other powers. His Britannic Majesty, in the same manner, assures the Most ChristianKing that he knows too well and values too highly what is due to thedignity and rights of crowned heads, and to the implied faith oftreaties which have always been made with the _crown_ of France, ever tolisten to any proposition by which that monarchy shall be despoiled ofall its rights, so essential for the support of the consideration of theprince and the concord and welfare of the people. If, unfortunately, a due attention should not be paid to these hisMajesty's benevolent and neighborly offers, or if any circumstancesshould prevent the Most Christian King from acceding (as his Majestyhas no doubt he is well disposed to do) to this healing mediation infavor of himself and all his subjects, his Majesty has commanded me totake leave of this court, as not conceiving it to be suitable to thedignity of his crown, and to what he owes to his faithful people, anylonger to keep a public minister at the court of a sovereign who is notin possession of his own liberty. THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS, ETC. , ETC. WRITTEN IN DECEMBER, 1791. THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS. In all our transactions with France, and at all periods, we have treatedwith that state on the footing of a monarchy. Monarchy was considered inall the external relations of that kingdom with every power in Europe asits legal and constitutional government, and that in which alone itsfederal capacity was vested. [Sidenote: Montmorin's Letter. ] It is not yet a year since Monsieur de Montmorin formally, and with aslittle respect as can be imagined to the king, and to all crowned heads, announced a total Revolution in that country. He has informed theBritish ministry that its frame of government is wholly altered, --thathe is one of the ministers of the new system, --and, in effect, that theking is no longer his master, (nor does he even call him such, ) but the"_first of the ministers_, " in the new system. [Sidenote: Acceptance of the Constitution ratified. ] The second notification was that of the king's acceptance of the newConstitution, accompanied with fanfaronades in the modern style of theFrench bureaus: things which have much more the air and character of thesaucy declamations of their clubs than the tone of regular office. It has not been very usual to notify to foreign courts anythingconcerning the internal arrangements of any state. In the present case, the circumstance of these two notifications, with the observations withwhich they are attended, does not leave it in the choice of thesovereigns of Christendom to appear ignorant either of this FrenchRevolution or (what is more important) of its principles. We know, that, very soon after this manifesto of Monsieur de Montmorin, the king of France, in whose name it was made, found himself obliged tofly, with his whole family, --leaving behind him a declaration in whichhe disavows and annuls that Constitution, as having been the effect offorce on his person and usurpation on his authority. It is equallynotorious, that this unfortunate prince was, with many circumstances ofinsult and outrage, brought back prisoner by a deputation of thepretended National Assembly, and afterwards suspended by their authorityfrom his government. Under equally notorious constraint, and undermenaces of total deposition, he has been compelled to accept what theycall a Constitution, and to agree to whatever else the usurped powerwhich holds him in confinement thinks proper to impose. His nest brother, who had fled with him, and his third brother, who hadfled before him, all the princes of his blood who remained faithful tohim, and the flower of his magistracy, his clergy, and his nobility, continue in foreign countries, protesting against all acts done by himin his present situation, on the grounds upon which he had himselfprotested against them at the time of his flight, --with this addition, that they deny his very competence (as on good grounds they may) toabrogate the royalty, or the ancient constitutional orders of thekingdom. In this protest they are joined by three hundred of the lateAssembly itself, and, in effect, by a great part of the French nation. The new government (so far as the people dare to disclose theirsentiments) is disdained, I am persuaded, by the greater number, --who, as M. De La Fayette complains, and as the truth is, have declined totake any share in the new elections to the National Assembly, either ascandidates or electors. In this state of things, (that is, in the case of a _divided_ kingdom, )by the law of nations, [30] Great Britain, like every other power, isfree to take any part she pleases. She may decline, with more or lessformality, according to her discretion, to acknowledge this new system;or she may recognize it as a government _de facto_, setting aside alldiscussion of its original legality, and considering the ancientmonarchy as at an end. The law of nations leaves our court open to itschoice. We have no direction but what is found in the well-understoodpolicy of the king and kingdom. This declaration of a _new species_ of government, on new principles, (such it professes itself to be, ) is a real crisis in the politics ofEurope. The conduct which prudence ought to dictate to Great Britainwill not depend (as hitherto our connection or quarrel with other stateshas for some time depended) upon merely _external_ relations, but in agreat measure also upon the system which we may think it right to adoptfor the internal government of our own country. If it be our policy to assimilate our government to that of France, weought to prepare for this change by encouraging the schemes of authorityestablished there. We ought to wink at the captivity and deposition ofa prince with whom, if not in close alliance, we were in friendship. Weought to fall in with the ideas of Monsieur Montmorin's circularmanifesto, and to do business of course with the functionaries who actunder the new power by which that king to whom his Majesty's ministerhas been sent to reside has been deposed and imprisoned. On that idea weought also to withhold all sorts of direct or indirect countenance fromthose who are treating in Germany for the reëstablishment of the Frenchmonarchy and the ancient orders of that state. This conduct is suitableto this policy. The question is, whether this policy be suitable to the interests of thecrown and subjects of Great Britain. Let us, therefore, a littleconsider the true nature and probable effects of the Revolution which, in such a very unusual manner, has been twice diplomatically announcedto his Majesty. [Sidenote: Difference between this Revolution and others. ] There have been many internal revolutions in the government ofcountries, both as to persons and forms, in which the neighboring stateshave had little or no concern. Whatever the government might be withrespect to those persons and those forms, the stationary interests ofthe nation concerned have most commonly influenced the new governmentsin the same manner in which they influenced the old; and the revolution, turning on matter of local grievance or of local accommodation, did notextend beyond its territory. [Sidenote: Nature of the French Revolution. ] The present Revolution in France seems to me to be quite of anothercharacter and description, and to bear little resemblance or analogy toany of those which have been brought about in Europe, upon principlesmerely political. _It is a Revolution of doctrine and theoretic dogma_. It has a much greater resemblance to those changes which have been madeupon religious grounds, in which a spirit of proselytism makes anessential part. The last revolution of doctrine and theory which has happened in Europeis the Reformation. It is not for my purpose to take any notice here ofthe merits of that revolution, but to state one only of its effects. [Sidenote: Its effects. ] That effect was, _to introduce other interests into all countries thanthose which arose from their locality and natural circumstances_. Theprinciple of the Reformation was such as, by its essence, could not belocal or confined to the country in which it had its origin. Forinstance, the doctrine of "Justification by Faith or by Works, " whichwas the original basis of the Reformation, could not have one of itsalternatives true as to Germany and false as to every other country. Neither are questions of theoretic truth and falsehood governed bycircumstances any more than by places. On that occasion, therefore, thespirit of proselytism expanded itself with great elasticity upon allsides: and great divisions were everywhere the result. These divisions, however in appearance merely dogmatic, soon becamemixed with the political; and their effects were rendered much moreintense from this combination. Europe was for a long time divided intotwo great factions, under the name of Catholic and Protestant, which notonly often alienated state from state, but also divided almost everystate within itself. The warm parties in each state were moreaffectionately attached to those of their own doctrinal interest insome other country than to their fellow-citizens or to their naturalgovernment, when they or either of them happened to be of a differentpersuasion. These factions, wherever they prevailed, if they did notabsolutely destroy, at least weakened and distracted the locality ofpatriotism. The public affections came to have other motives and otherties. It would be to repeat the history of the two last centuries to exemplifythe effects of this revolution. Although the principles to which it gave rise did not operate with aperfect regularity and constancy, they never wholly ceased to operate. Few wars were made, and few treaties were entered into, in which theydid not come in for some part. They gave a color, a character, anddirection to all the politics of Europe. [Sidenote: New system of politics. ] These principles of internal as well as external division and coalitionare but just now extinguished. But they who will examine into the truecharacter and genius of some late events must be satisfied that othersources of faction, combining parties among the inhabitants of differentcountries into one connection, are opened, and that from these sourcesare likely to arise effects full as important as those which hadformerly arisen from the jarring interests of the religious sects. Theintention of the several actors in the change in France is not a matterof doubt. It is very openly professed. In the modern world, before this time, there has been no instance ofthis spirit of general political faction, separated from religion, pervading several countries, and forming a principle of union betweenthe partisans in each. But the thing is not less in human nature. Theancient world has furnished a strong and striking instance of such aground for faction, full as powerful and full as mischievous as ourspirit of religions system had ever been, exciting in all the states ofGreece (European and Asiatic) the most violent animosities and the mostcruel and bloody persecutions and proscriptions. These ancient factionsin each commonwealth of Greece connected themselves with those of thesame description in some other states; and secret cabals and publicalliances were carried on and made, not upon a conformity of generalpolitical interests, but for the support and aggrandizement of the twoleading states which headed the aristocratic and democratic factions. For as, in later times, the king of Spain was at the head of a Catholic, and the king of Sweden of a Protestant interest, (France, thoughCatholic, acting subordinately to the latter, ) in the like manner theLacedemonians were everywhere at the head of the aristocratic interests, and the Athenians of the democratic. The two leading powers kept alive aconstant cabal and conspiracy in every state, and the political dogmasconcerning the constitution of a republic were the great instruments bywhich these leading states chose to aggrandize themselves. Their choicewas not unwise; because the interest in opinions, (merely as opinions, and without any experimental reference to their effects, ) when once theytake strong hold of the mind, become the most operative of allinterests, and indeed very often supersede every other. I might further exemplify the possibility of a political sentimentrunning through various states, and combining factions in them, from thehistory of the Middle Ages in the Guelfs and Ghibellines. These werepolitical factions originally in favor of the Emperor and the Pope, withno mixture of religious dogmas: or if anything religiously doctrinalthey had in them originally, it very soon disappeared; as their firstpolitical objects disappeared also, though the spirit remained. Theybecame no more than names to distinguish factions: but they were not theless powerful in their operation, when they had no direct point ofdoctrine, either religious or civil, to assert. For a long time, however, those factions gave no small degree of influence to the foreignchiefs in every commonwealth in which they existed. I do not mean topursue further the track of these parties. I allude to this part ofhistory only as it furnishes an instance of that species of factionwhich broke the locality of public affections, and united descriptionsof citizens more with strangers than with their countrymen of differentopinions. [Sidenote: French fundamental principle. ] The political dogma, which, upon the new French system, is to unite thefactions of different nations, is this: "That the majority, told by thehead, of the taxable people in every country, is the perpetual, natural, unceasing, indefeasible sovereign; that this majority is perfectlymaster of the form as well as the administration of the state, and thatthe magistrates, under whatever names they are called, are onlyfunctionaries to obey the orders (general as laws or particular asdecrees) which that majority may make; that this is the only naturalgovernment; that all others are tyranny and usurpation. " [Sidenote: Practical project. ] In order to reduce this dogma into practice, the republicans in France, and their associates in other countries, make it always their business, and often their public profession, to destroy all traces of ancientestablishments, and to form a new commonwealth in each country, upon thebasis of the French _Rights of Man_. On the principle of these rights, they mean to institute in every country, and as it were the germ of thewhole, parochial governments, for the purpose of what they call equalrepresentation. From them is to grow, by some media, a general counciland representative of all the parochial governments. In thatrepresentative is to be vested the whole national power, --totallyabolishing hereditary name and office, levelling all conditions of men, (except where money _must_ make a difference, ) breaking all connectionbetween territory and dignity, and abolishing every species of nobility, gentry, and Church establishments: all their priests and all theirmagistrates being only creatures of election and pensioners at will. Knowing how opposite a permanent landed interest is to that scheme, theyhave resolved, and it is the great drift of all their regulations, toreduce that description of men to a mere peasantry for the sustenance ofthe towns, and to place the true effective government in cities, amongthe tradesmen, bankers, and voluntary clubs of bold, presuming youngpersons, --advocates, attorneys, notaries, managers of newspapers, andthose cabals of literary men called academies. Their republic is to havea first functionary, (as they call him, ) under the name of King, or not, as they think fit. This officer, when such an officer is permitted, is, however, neither in fact nor name to be considered as sovereign, nor thepeople as his subjects. The very use of these appellations is offensiveto their ears. [Sidenote: Partisans of the French system. ] This system, as it has first been realized, dogmatically as well aspractically, in France, makes France the natural head of all factionsformed on a similar principle, wherever they may prevail, as much asAthens was the head and settled ally of all democratic factions, wherever they existed. The other system has no head. This system has very many partisans in every country in Europe, butparticularly in England, where they are already formed into a body, comprehending most of the Dissenters of the three leading denominations. To these are readily aggregated all who are Dissenters in character, temper, and disposition, though not belonging to any of theircongregations: that is, all the restless people who resemble them, ofall ranks and all parties, --Whigs, and even Tories; the whole race ofhalf-bred speculators; all the Atheists, Deists, and Socinians; allthose who hate the clergy and envy the nobility; a good many among themoneyed people; the East Indians almost to a man, who cannot bear tofind that their present importance does not bear a proportion to theirwealth. These latter have united themselves into one great, and, in myopinion, formidable club, [31] which, though now quiet, may be broughtinto action with considerable unanimity and force. Formerly, few, except the ambitious great or the desperate and indigent, were to be feared as instruments in revolutions. What has happened inFrance teaches us, with many other things, that there are more causesthan have commonly been taken into our consideration, by whichgovernment may be subverted. The moneyed men, merchants, principaltradesmen, and men of letters (hitherto generally thought the peaceableand even timid part of society) are the chief actors in the FrenchRevolution. But the fact is, that, as money increases and circulates, and as the circulation of news in politics and letters becomes more andmore diffused, the persons who diffuse this money and this intelligencebecome more and more important. This was not long undiscovered. Views ofambition were in France, for the first time, presented to these classesof men: objects in the state, in the army, in the system of civiloffices of every kind. Their eyes were dazzled with this new prospect. They were, as it were, electrified, and made to lose the natural spiritof their situation. A bribe, great without example in the history of theworld, was held out to them, --the whole government of a very largekingdom. [Sidenote: Grounds of security supposed for England. ] [Sidenote: Literary Interest. ] [Sidenote: Moneyed interest. ] There are several who are persuaded that the same thing cannot happen inEngland, because here (they say) the occupations of merchants, tradesmen, and manufacturers are not held as degrading situations. Ionce thought that the low estimation in which commerce was held inFrance might be reckoned among the causes of the late Revolution; and Iam still of opinion that the exclusive spirit of the French nobility didirritate the wealthy of other classes. But I found long since, thatpersons in trade and business were by no means despised in France in themanner I had been taught to believe. As to men of letters, they were sofar from being despised or neglected, that there was no country, perhaps, in the universe, in which they were so highly esteemed, courted, caressed, and even feared: tradesmen naturally were not so muchsought in society, (as not furnishing so largely to the fund ofconversation as they do to the revenues of the state, ) but the latterdescription got forward every day. M. Bailly, who made himself thepopular mayor on the rebellion of the Bastile, and is a principal actorin the revolt, before the change possessed a pension or office under thecrown of six hundred pound English a year, --for that country, nocontemptible provision; and this he obtained solely as a man of letters, and on no other title. As to the moneyed men, whilst the monarchycontinued, there is no doubt, that, merely as such, they did not enjoythe _privileges_ of nobility; but nobility was of so easy anacquisition, that it was the fault or neglect of all of that descriptionwho did not obtain its privileges, for their lives at least, in virtueof office. It attached under the royal government to an innumerablemultitude of places, real and nominal, that were vendible; and suchnobility were as capable of everything as their degree of influence orinterest could make them, --that is, as nobility of no considerable rankor consequence. M. Necker, so far from being a French gentleman, was notso much as a Frenchman born, and yet we all know the rank in which hestood on the day of the meeting of the States. [Sidenote: Mercantile interest. ] As to the mere matter of estimation of the mercantile or any otherclass, this is regulated by opinion and prejudice. In England, asecurity against the envy of men in these classes is not so verycomplete as we may imagine. We must not impose upon ourselves. Whatinstitutions and manners together had done in France manners alone dohere. It is the natural operation of things, where there exists a crown, a court, splendid orders of knighthood, and an hereditarynobility, --where there exists a fixed, permanent, landed gentry, continued in greatness and opulence by the law of primogeniture, and bya protection given to family settlements, --where there exists a standingarmy and navy, --where there exists a Church establishment, which bestowson learning and parts an interest combined with that of religion and thestate;--in a country where such things exist, wealth, new in itsacquisition, and precarious in its duration, can never rank first, oreven near the first: though wealth has its natural weight further thanas it is balanced and even preponderated amongst us, as amongst othernations, by artificial institutions and opinions growing out of them. Atno period in the history of England have so few peers been taken out oftrade or from families newly created by commerce. In no period has sosmall a number of noble families entered into the counting-house. I cancall to mind but one in all England, and his is of near fifty years'standing. Be that as it may, it appears plain to me, from my bestobservation, that envy and ambition may, by art, management, anddisposition, be as much excited amongst these descriptions of men inEngland as in any other country, and that they are just as capable ofacting a part in any great change. [Sidenote: Progress of the French spirit. --Its course. ] What direction the French spirit of proselytism is likely to take, andin what order it is likely to prevail in the several parts of Europe, itis not easy to determine. The seeds are sown almost everywhere, chieflyby newspaper circulations, infinitely more efficacious and extensivethan ever they were. And they are a more important instrument thangenerally is imagined. They are a part of the reading of all; they arethe whole of the reading of the far greater number. There are thirty ofthem in Paris alone. The language diffuses them more widely than theEnglish, --though the English, too, are much read. The writers of thesepapers, indeed, for the greater part, are either unknown or in contempt, but they are like a battery, in which the stroke of any one ballproduces no great effect, but the amount of continual repetition isdecisive. Let us only suffer any person to tell us his story, morningand evening, but for one twelvemonth, and he will become our master. All those countries in which several states are comprehended under somegeneral geographical description, and loosely united by some federalconstitution, --countries of which the members are small, and greatlydiversified in their forms of government, and in the titles by whichthey are held, --these countries, as it might be well expected, are theprincipal objects of their hopes and machinations. Of these, the chiefare Germany and Switzerland; after them, Italy has its place, as incircumstances somewhat similar. [Sidenote: Germany. ] As to Germany, (in which, from their relation to the Emperor, Icomprehend the Belgic Provinces, ) it appears to me to be, from severalcircumstances, internal and external, in a very critical situation; andthe laws and liberties of the Empire are by no means secure from thecontagion of the French doctrines and the effect of French intrigues, orfrom the use which two of the greater German powers may make of ageneral derangement to the general detriment. I do not say that theFrench do not mean to bestow on these German states liberties, and lawstoo, after their mode; but those are not what have hitherto beenunderstood as the laws and liberties of the Empire. These exist and havealways existed under the principles of feodal tenure and succession, under imperial constitutions, grants and concessions of sovereigns, family compacts, and public treaties, made under the sanction, and someof them guarantied by the sovereign powers of other nations, andparticularly the old government of France, the author and naturalsupport of the Treaty of Westphalia. [Sidenote: Ecclesiastical state. ] In short, the Germanic body is a vast mass of heterogeneous states, heldtogether by that heterogeneous body of old principles which formed thepublic law positive and doctrinal. The modern laws and liberties, whichthe new power in France proposes to introduce into Germany, and tosupport with all its force of intrigue and of arms, is of a verydifferent nature, utterly irreconcilable with the first, and indeedfundamentally the reverse of it: I mean the _rights and liberties of theman_, the _droit de l'homme_. That this doctrine has made an amazingprogress in Germany there cannot be a shadow of doubt. They are infectedby it along the whole course of the Rhine, the Maese, the Moselle, andin the greater part of Suabia and Franconia. It is particularlyprevalent amongst all the lower people, churchmen and laity, in thedominions of the Ecclesiastical Electors. It is not easy to find or toconceive governments more mild and indulgent than these Churchsovereignties; but good government is as nothing, when the rights ofman take possession of the mind. Indeed, the loose rein held over thepeople in these provinces must be considered as one cause of thefacility with which they lend themselves to any schemes of innovation, by inducing them to think lightly of their governments, and to judge ofgrievances, not by feeling, but by imagination. [Sidenote: Balance of Germany. ] It is in these Electorates that the first impressions of France arelikely to be made; and if they succeed, it is over with the Germanicbody, as it stands at present. A great revolution is preparing inGermany, and a revolution, in my opinion, likely to be more decisiveupon the general fate of nations than that of France itself, --other thanas in France is to be found the first source of all the principles whichare in any way likely to distinguish the troubles and convulsions of ourage. If Europe does not conceive the independence and the equilibrium ofthe Empire to be in the very essence of the system of balanced power inEurope, and if the scheme of public law, or mass of laws, upon whichthat independence and equilibrium are founded, be of no leadingconsequence as they are preserved or destroyed, all the politics ofEurope for more than two centuries have been miserably erroneous. [Sidenote: Prussia and Emperor. ] If the two great leading powers of Germany do not regard this danger (asapparently they do not) in the light in which it presents itself sonaturally, it is because they are powers too great to have a socialinterest. That sort of interest belongs only to those whose state ofweakness or mediocrity is such as to give them greater cause ofapprehension from what may destroy them than of hope from anything bywhich they may be aggrandized. As long as those two princes are at variance, so long the liberties ofGermany are safe. But if ever they should so far understand one anotheras to be persuaded that they have a more direct and more certainlydefined interest in a proportioned mutual aggrandizement than in areciprocal reduction, that is, if they come to think that they are morelikely to be enriched by a division of spoil than to be rendered secureby keeping to the old policy of preventing others from being spoiled byeither of them, from that moment the liberties of Germany are no more. That a junction of two in such a scheme is neither impossible norimprobable is evident from the partition of Poland in 1773, which waseffected by such a junction as made the interposition of other nationsto prevent it not easy. Their circumstances at that time hindered anyother three states, or indeed any two, from taking measures in common toprevent it, though France was at that time an existing power, and hadnot yet learned to act upon a system of politics of her own invention. The geographical position of Poland was a great obstacle to anymovements of France in opposition to this, at that time, unparalleledleague. To my certain knowledge, if Great Britain had at that time beenwilling to concur in preventing the execution of a project so dangerousin the example, even exhausted as France then was by the preceding war, and under a lazy and unenterprising prince, she would have at every risktaken an active part in this business. But a languor with regard to soremote an interest, and the principles and passions which were thenstrongly at work at home, were the causes why Great Britain would notgive France any encouragement in such an enterprise. At that time, however, and with regard to that object, in my opinion, Great Britainand France had a common interest. [Sidenote: Possible project of the Emperor and king of Prussia. ] But the position of Germany is not like that of Poland, with regard toFrance, either for good or for evil. If a conjunction between Prussiaand the Emperor should be formed for the purpose of secularizing andrendering hereditary the Ecclesiastical Electorates and the Bishopric ofMünster, for settling two of them on the children of the Emperor, anduniting Cologne and Münster to the dominions of the king of Prussia onthe Rhine, or if any other project of mutual aggrandizement should be inprospect, and that, to facilitate such a scheme, the modern Frenchshould be permitted and encouraged to shake the internal and externalsecurity of these Ecclesiastical Electorates, Great Britain is sosituated that she could not with any effect set herself in opposition tosuch a design. Her principal arm, her marine, could here be of no sortof use. [Sidenote: To be resisted only by France. ] France, the author of the Treaty of Westphalia, is the natural guardianof the independence and balance of Germany. Great Britain (to saynothing of the king's concern as one of that august body) has a seriousinterest in preserving it; but, except through the power of France, _acting upon the common old principles of state policy_, in the case wehave supposed, she has no sort of means of supporting that interest. Itis always the interest of Great Britain that the power of France shouldbe kept within the bounds of moderation. It is not her interest thatthat power should be wholly annihilated in the system of Europe. Thoughat one time through France the independence of Europe was endangered, itis, and ever was, through her alone that the common liberty of Germanycan be secured against the single or the combined ambition of any otherpower. In truth, within this century the aggrandizement of othersovereign houses has been such that there has been a great change in thewhole state of Europe; and other nations as well as France may becomeobjects of jealousy and apprehension. [Sidenote: New principles of alliance. ] In this state of things, a new principle of alliances and wars isopened. The Treaty of Westphalia is, with France, an antiquated fable. The rights and liberties she was bound to maintain are now a system ofwrong and tyranny which she is bound to destroy. Her good and illdispositions are shown by the same means. _To communicate peaceably_ therights of men is the true mode of her showing her _friendship_; to forcesovereigns to _submit_ to those rights is her mode of _hostility_. Sothat, either as friend or foe, her whole scheme has been, and is, tothrow the Empire into confusion; and those statesmen who follow the oldroutine of politics may see in this general confusion, and in the dangerof the _lesser_ princes, an occasion, as protectors or enemies, ofconnecting their territories to one or the other of the _two great_German powers. They do not take into consideration that the means whichthey encourage, as leading to the event they desire, will with certaintynot only ravage and destroy the Empire, but, if they should for a momentseem to aggrandize the two great houses, will also establish principlesand confirm tempers amongst the people which will preclude the twosovereigns from the possibility of holding what they acquire, or eventhe dominions which they have inherited. It is on the side of theEcclesiastical Electorates that the dikes raised to support the Germanliberty first will give way. [Sidenote: Geneva. ] [Sidenote: Savoy. ] The French have begun their general operations by seizing upon thoseterritories of the Pope the situation of which was the most inviting tothe enterprise. Their method of doing it was by exciting sedition andspreading massacre and desolation through these unfortunate places, andthen, under an idea of kindness and protection, bringing forward anantiquated title of the crown of France, and annexing Avignon and thetwo cities of the Comtat, with their territory, to the French republic. They have made an attempt on Geneva, in which they very narrowly failedof success. It is known that they hold out from time to time the idea ofuniting all the other provinces of which Gaul was anciently composed, including Savoy on the other side, and on this side bounding themselvesby the Rhine. [Sidenote: Switzerland. ] [Sidenote: Old French maxims the security of its independence. ] As to Switzerland, it is a country whose long union, rather than itspossible division, is the matter of wonder. Here I know they entertainvery sanguine hopes. The aggregation to France of the democratic Swissrepublics appears to them to be a work half done by their very form; andit might seem to them rather an increase of importance to these littlecommonwealths than a derogation from their independency or a change inthe manner of their government. Upon any quarrel amongst the Cantons, nothing is more likely than such an event. As to the aristocraticrepublics, the general clamor and hatred which the French excite againstthe very name, (and with more facility and success than againstmonarchs, ) and the utter impossibility of their government making anysort of resistance against an insurrection, where they have no troops, and the people are all armed and trained, render their hopes in thatquarter far indeed from unfounded. It is certain that the republic ofBern thinks itself obliged to a vigilance next to hostile, and toimprison or expel all the French whom it finds in its territories. But, indeed, those aristocracies, which comprehend whatever is considerable, wealthy, and valuable in Switzerland, do now so wholly depend uponopinion, and the humor of their multitude, that the lightest puff ofwind is sufficient to blow them down. If France, under its ancientregimen, and upon the ancient principles of policy, was the support ofthe Germanic Constitution, it was much more so of that of Switzerland, which almost from the very origin of that confederacy rested upon thecloseness of its connection with France, on which the Swiss Cantonswholly reposed themselves for the preservation of the parts of theirbody in their respective rights and permanent forms, as well as for themaintenance of all in their general independency. Switzerland and Germany are the first objects of the new Frenchpoliticians. When I contemplate what they have done at home, which is, in effect, little less than an amazing conquest, wrought by a change ofopinion, in a great part (to be sure far from altogether) very sudden, Icannot help letting my thoughts run along with their designs, and, without attending to geographical order, to consider the other states ofEurope, so far as they may be any way affected by this astonishingRevolution. If early steps are not taken in some way or other to preventthe spreading of this influence, I scarcely think any of them perfectlysecure. [Sidenote: Italy. ] [Sidenote: Lombardy. ] Italy is divided, as Germany and Switzerland are, into many smallerstates, and with some considerable diversity as to forms of government;but as these divisions and varieties in Italy are not so considerable, so neither do I think the danger altogether so imminent there as inGermany and Switzerland. Savoy I know that the French consider as in avery hopeful way, and I believe not at all without reason. They view itas an old member of the kingdom of France, which may be easily reunitedin the manner and on the principles of the reunion of Avignon. Thiscountry communicates with Piedmont; and as the king of Sardinia'sdominions were long the key of Italy, and as such long regarded byFrance, whilst France acted on her old maxims, and with views onItaly, --so, in this new French empire of sedition, if once she gets thatkey into her hands, she can easily lay open the barrier which hindersthe entrance of her present politics into that inviting region. Milan, Iam sure, nourishes great disquiets; and if Milan should stir, no part ofLombardy is secure to the present possessors, --whether the Venetian orthe Austrian. Genoa is closely connected with France. [Sidenote: Bourbon princes in Italy. ] The first prince of the House of Bourbon has been obliged to givehimself up entirely to the new system, and to pretend even to propagateit with all zeal: at least, that club of intriguers who assemble at theFeuillants, and whose cabinet meets at Madame de Staël's, and makes anddirects all the ministers, is the real executive government of France. The Emperor is perfectly in concert, and they will not long suffer anyprince of the House of Bourbon to keep by force the French emissariesout of their dominions; nor whilst France has a commerce with them, especially through Marseilles, (the hottest focus of sedition inFrance, ) will it be long possible to prevent the intercourse or theeffects. Naples has an old, inveterate disposition to republicanism, and (howeverfor some time past quiet) is as liable to explosion as its own Vesuvius. Sicily, I think, has these dispositions in full as strong a degree. Inneither of these countries exists anything which very well deserves thename of government or exact police. [Sidenote: Ecclesiastical State. ] In the States of the Church, notwithstanding their strictness inbanishing the French out of that country, there are not wanting theseeds of a revolution. The spirit of nepotism prevails there nearly asstrong as ever. Every Pope of course is to give origin or restoration toa great family by the means of large donations. The foreign revenueshave long been gradually on the decline, and seem now in a manner driedup. To supply this defect, the resource of vexatious and impoliticjobbing at home, if anything, is rather increased than lessened. Variouswell-intended, but ill-understood practices, some of them existing, intheir spirit at least, from the time of the old Roman Empire, stillprevail; and that government is as blindly attached to old abusivecustoms as others are wildly disposed to all sorts of innovations andexperiments. These abuses were less felt whilst the Pontificate drewriches from abroad, which in some measure counterbalanced the evils oftheir remiss and jobbish government at home. But now it can subsistonly on the resources of domestic management; and abuses in thatmanagement of course will be more intimately and more severely felt. In the midst of the apparently torpid languor of the EcclesiasticalState, those who have had opportunity of a near observation have seen alittle rippling in that smooth water, which indicates something aliveunder it. There is in the Ecclesiastical State a personage who seemscapable of acting (but with more force and steadiness) the part of thetribune Rienzi. The people, once inflamed, will not be destitute of aleader. They have such an one already in the Cardinal or ArchbishopBoncompagni. He is, of all men, if I am not ill-informed, the mostturbulent, seditious, intriguing, bold, and desperate. He is not at allmade for a Roman of the present day. I think he lately held the firstoffice of their state, that of Great Chamberlain, which is equivalent toHigh Treasurer. At present he is out of employment, and in disgrace. Ifhe should be elected Pope, or even come to have any weight with a newPope, he will infallibly conjure up a democratic spirit in that country. He may, indeed, be able to effect it without these advantages. The nestinterregnum will probably show more of him. There may be others of thesame character, who have not come to my knowledge. This much iscertain, --that the Roman people, if once the blind reverence they bearto the sanctity of the Pope, which is their only bridle, should relax, are naturally turbulent, ferocious, and headlong, whilst the police isdefective, and the government feeble and resourceless beyond allimagination. [Sidenote: Spain] As to Spain, it is a nerveless country. It does not possess the use, itonly suffers the abuse, of a nobility. For some time, and even beforethe settlement of the Bourbon dynasty, that body has been systematicallylowered, and rendered incapable by exclusion, and for incapacityexcluded from affairs. In this circle the body is in a mannerannihilated; and so little means have they of any weighty exertioneither to control or to support the crown, that, if they at allinterfere, it is only by abetting desperate and mobbish insurrections, like that at Madrid, which drove Squillace from his place. FloridaBlanca is a creature of office, and has little connection and nosympathy with that body. As to the clergy, they are the only thing in Spain that looks like anindependent order; and they are kept in some respect by the Inquisition, the sole, but unhappy resource of public tranquillity and order nowremaining in Spain. As in Venice, it is become mostly an engine ofstate, --which, indeed, to a degree, it has always been in Spain. It warsno longer with Jews and heretics: it has no such war to carry on. Itsgreat object is, to keep atheistic and republican doctrines from makingtheir way in that kingdom. No French book upon any subject can enterthere which does not contain such matter. In Spain, the clergy are ofmoment from their influence, but at the same time with the envy andjealousy that attend great riches and power. Though the crown has bymanagement with the Pope got a very great share of the ecclesiasticalrevenues into its own hands, much still remains to them. There willalways be about that court those who look out to a farther division ofthe Church property as a resource, and to be obtained by shortermethods than those of negotiations with the clergy and their chief. Butat present I think it likely that they will stop, lest the businessshould be taken out of their hands, --and lest that body, in whichremains the only life that exists in Spain, and is not a fever, may withtheir property lose all the influence necessary to preserve themonarchy, or, being poor and desperate, may employ whatever influenceremains to them as active agents in its destruction. [Sidenote: Castile different from Catalonia and Aragon. ] The Castilians have still remaining a good deal of their old character, their _gravedad, lealtad_, and _el temor de Dios_; but that characterneither is, nor ever was, exactly true, except of the Castilians only. The several kingdoms which compose Spain have, perhaps, some featureswhich run through the whole; but they are in many particulars asdifferent as nations who go by different names: the Catalans, forinstance, and the Aragonians too, in a great measure, have the spirit ofthe Miquelets, and much more of republicanism than of an attachment toroyalty. They are more in the way of trade and intercourse with France, and, upon the least internal movement, will disclose and probably letloose a spirit that may throw the whole Spanish monarchy intoconvulsions. It is a melancholy reflection, that the spirit of melioration which hasbeen going on in that part of Europe, more or less, during this century, and the various schemes very lately on foot for further advancement, areall put a stop to at once. Reformation certainly is nearly connectedwith innovation; and where that latter comes in for too large a share, those who undertake to improve their country may risk their own safety. In times where the correction, which includes the confession, of anabuse, is turned to criminate the authority which has long suffered it, rather than to honor those who would amend it, (which is the spirit ofthis malignant French distemper, ) every step out of the common coursebecomes critical, and renders it a task full of peril for princes ofmoderate talents to engage in great undertakings. At present the onlysafety of Spain is the old national hatred to the French. How far thatcan be depended upon, if any great ferments should be excited, it isimpossible to say. As to Portugal, she is out of the high-road of these politics. I shall, therefore, not divert my thoughts that way, but return again to theNorth of Europe, which at present seems the part most interested, andthere it appears to me that the French speculation on the Northerncountries may be valued in the following or some such manner. [Sidenote: Denmark. ] [Sidenote: Sweden. ] Denmark and Norway do not appear to furnish any of the materials of ademocratic revolution, or the dispositions to it. Denmark can only be_consequentially_ affected by anything done in Prance; but of Sweden Ithink quite otherwise. The present power in Sweden is too new a system, and too green and too sore from its late Revolution, to be considered asperfectly assured. The king, by his astonishing activity, his boldness, his decision, his ready versatility, and by rousing and employing theold military spirit of Sweden, keeps up the top with continual agitationand lashing. The moment it ceases to spin, the royalty is a dead bit ofbox. Whenever Sweden is quiet externally for some time, there is greatdanger that all the republican elements she contains will be animatedby the new French spirit, and of this I believe the king is verysensible. [Sidenote: Russia. ] The Russian government is of all others the most liable to be subvertedby military seditions, by court conspiracies, and sometimes by headlongrebellions of the people, such as the turbinating movement of Pugatchef. It is not quite so probable that in any of these changes the spirit ofsystem may mingle, in the manner it has done in France. The Muscovitesare no great speculators; but I should not much rely on theiruninquisitive disposition, if any of their ordinary motives to seditionshould arise. The little catechism of the Rights of Men is soon learned;and the inferences are in the passions. [Sidenote: Poland. ] [Sidenote: Saxony. ] Poland, from one cause or other, is always unquiet. The new Constitutiononly serves to supply that restless people with new means, at least newmodes, of cherishing their turbulent disposition. The bottom of thecharacter is the same. It is a great question, whether the joining thatcrown with the Electorate of Saxony will contribute most to strengthenthe royal authority of Poland or to shake the ducal in Saxony. TheElector is a Catholic; the people of Saxony are, six sevenths at thevery least, Protestants. He _must_ continue a Catholic, according to thePolish law, if he accepts that crown. The pride of the Saxons, formerlyflattered by having a crown in the house of their prince, though anhonor which cost them dear, --the German probity, fidelity, andloyalty, --the weight of the Constitution of the Empire under the Treatyof Westphalia, --the good temper and good-nature of the princes of theHouse of Saxony, had formerly removed from the people all apprehensionwith regard to their religion, and kept them perfectly quiet, obedient, and even affectionate. The Seven Years' War made some change in theminds of the Saxons. They did not, I believe, regret the loss of whatmight be considered almost as the succession to the crown of Poland, thepossession of which, by annexing them to a foreign interest, had oftenobliged them to act an arduous part, towards the support of which thatforeign interest afforded no proportionable strength. In this verydelicate situation of their political interests, the speculations of theFrench and German _Economists_, and the cabals, and the secret, as wellas public doctrines of the _Illuminatenorden_, and _Freemasons_, havemade a considerable progress in that country; and a turbulent spirit, under color of religion, but in reality arising from the French rightsof man, has already shown itself, and is ready on every occasion toblaze out. The present Elector is a prince of a safe and quiet temper, of greatprudence and goodness. He knows, that, in the actual state of things, not the power and respect belonging to sovereigns, but their veryexistence, depends on a reasonable frugality. It is very certain thatnot one sovereign in Europe can either promise for the continuance ofhis authority in a state of indigence and insolvency, or dares toventure on a new imposition to relieve himself. Without abandoningwholly the ancient magnificence of his court, the Elector has conductedhis affairs with infinitely more economy than any of his predecessors, so as to restore his finances beyond what was thought possible from thestate in which the Seven Years' War had left Saxony. Saxony, during thewhole of that dreadful period, having been in the hands of anexasperated enemy, rigorous by resentment, by nature, and by necessity, was obliged to bear in a manner the whole burden of the war; in theintervals when their allies prevailed, the inhabitants of that countrywere not better treated. The moderation and prudence of the present Elector, in my opinion, rather, perhaps, respites the troubles than secures the peace of theElectorate. The offer of the succession to the crown of Poland is trulycritical, whether he accepts or whether he declines it. If the Stateswill consent to his acceptance, it will add to the difficulties, alreadygreat, of his situation between the king of Prussia and theEmperor. --But these thoughts lead me too far, when I mean to speak onlyof the interior condition of these princes. It has always, however, somenecessary connection with their foreign politics. [Sidenote: Holland. ] With regard to Holland, and the ruling party there, I do not think it atall tainted, or likely to be so, except by fear, --or that it is likelyto be misled, unless indirectly and circuitously. But the predominantparty in Holland is not Holland. The suppressed faction, thoughsuppressed, exists. Under the ashes, the embers of the late commotionsare still warm. The anti-Orange party has from the day of its originbeen French, though alienated in some degree for some time, through thepride and folly of Louis the Fourteenth. It will ever hanker after aFrench connection; and now that the internal government in France hasbeen assimilated in so considerable a degree to that which theimmoderate republicans began so very lately to introduce into Holland, their connection, as still more natural, will be more desired. I do notwell understand the present exterior politics of the Stadtholder, northe treaty into which the newspapers say he has entered for the Stateswith the Emperor. But the Emperor's own politics with regard to theNetherlands seem to me to be exactly calculated to answer the purpose ofthe French Revolutionists. He endeavors to crush the aristocratic party, and to nourish one in avowed connection with the most furiousdemocratists in France. These Provinces in which the French game is so well played they consideras part of the old French Empire: certainly they were amongst the oldestparts of it. These they think very well situated, as their party is welldisposed to a reunion. As to the greater nations, they do not aim atmaking a direct conquest of them, but, by disturbing them through apropagation of their principles, they hope to weaken, as they willweaken them, and to keep them in perpetual alarm and agitation, and thusrender all their efforts against them utterly impracticable, whilst theyextend the dominion of their sovereign anarchy on all sides. [Sidenote: England. ] As to England, there may be some apprehension from vicinity, fromconstant communication, and from the very name of liberty, which, as itought to be very dear to us, in its worst abuses carries somethingseductive. It is the abuse of the first and best of the objects which wecherish. I know that many, who sufficiently dislike the system ofFrance, have yet no apprehensions of its prevalence here. I say nothingto the ground of this security in the attachment of the people to theirConstitution, and their satisfaction in the discreet portion of libertywhich it measures out to them. Upon this I have said all I have to say, in the Appeal I have published. That security is something, and notinconsiderable; but if a storm arises, I should not much rely upon it. [Sidenote: Objection to the stability of the French system. ] There are other views of things which may be used to give us a perfect(though in my opinion a delusive) assurance of our own security. Thefirst of these is from the weakness and rickety nature of the new systemin the place of its first formation. It is thought that the monster of acommonwealth cannot possibly live, --that at any rate the ill contrivanceof their fabric will make it fall in pieces of itself, --that theAssembly must be bankrupt, --and that this bankruptcy will totallydestroy that system from the contagion of which apprehensions areentertained. For my part I have long thought that one great cause of the stability ofthis wretched scheme of things in France was an opinion that it couldnot stand, and therefore that all external measures to destroy it werewholly useless. [Sidenote: Bankruptcy. ] As to the bankruptcy, that event has happened long ago, as much as it isever likely to happen. As soon as a nation compels a creditor to takepaper currency in discharge of his debt, there is a bankruptcy. Thecompulsory paper has in some degree answered, --not because there was asurplus from Church lands, but because faith has not been kept with theclergy. As to the holders of the old funds, to them the payments will bedilatory, but they will be made; and whatever may be the discount onpaper, whilst paper is taken, paper will be issued. [Sidenote: Resources. ] As to the rest, they have shot out three branches of revenue to supplyall those which they have destroyed: that is, _the Universal Register ofall Transactions_, the heavy and universal _Stamp Duty_, and the new_Territorial Impost_, levied chiefly on the reduced estates of thegentlemen. These branches of the revenue, especially as they takeassignats in payment, answer their purpose in a considerable degree, andkeep up the credit of their paper: for, as they receive it in theirtreasury, it is in reality funded upon all their taxes and futureresources of all kinds, as well as upon the Church estates. As thispaper is become in a manner the only visible maintenance of the wholepeople, the dread of a bankruptcy is more apparently connected with thedelay of a counter-revolution than with the duration of this republic;because the interest of the new republic manifestly leans upon it, and, in my opinion, the counter-revolution cannot exist along with it. Theabove three projects ruined some ministers under the old government, merely for having conceived them. They are the salvation of the presentrulers. As the Assembly has laid a most unsparing and cruel hand on all men whohave lived by the bounty, the justice, or the abuses of the oldgovernment, they have lessened many expenses. The royal establishment, though excessively and ridiculously great for _their_ scheme of things, is reduced at least one half; the estates of the king's brothers, whichunder the ancient government had been in truth royal revenues, go to thegeneral stock of the confiscation; and as to the crown lands, thoughunder the monarchy they never yielded two hundred and fifty thousand ayear, by many they are thought at least worth three times as much. As to the ecclesiastical charge, whether as a compensation for losses, or a provision for religion, of which they made at first a great parade, and entered into a solemn engagement in favor of it, it was estimated ata much larger sum than they could expect from the Church property, movable or immovable: they are completely bankrupt as to that article. It is just what they wish; and it is not productive of any seriousinconvenience. The non-payment produces discontent and occasionalsedition; but is only by fits and spasms, and amongst the countrypeople, who are of no consequence. These seditions furnish new pretextsfor non-payment to the Church establishment, and help the Assemblywholly to get rid of the clergy, and indeed of any form of religion, which is not only their real, but avowed object. [Sidenote: Want of money how supplied. ] They are embarrassed, indeed, in the highest degree, but not whollyresourceless. They are without the species of money. Circulation ofmoney is a great convenience, but a substitute for it may be found. Whilst the great objects of production and consumption, corn, cattle, wine, and the like, exist in a country, the means of giving themcirculation, with more or less convenience, cannot be _wholly_ wanting. The great confiscation of the Church and of the crown lands, and of theappanages of the princes, for the purchase of all which their paper isalways received at par, gives means of continually destroying andcontinually creating; and this perpetual destruction and renovationfeeds the speculative market, and prevents, and will prevent, till thatfund of confiscation begins to fail, a _total_ depreciation. [Sidenote: Moneyed interest not necessary to them. ] But all consideration of public credit in France is of little avail atpresent. The action, indeed, of the moneyed interest was of absolutenecessity at the beginning of this Revolution; but the French republiccan stand without any assistance from that description of men, which, asthings are now circumstanced, rather stands in need of assistance itselffrom the power which alone substantially exists in France: I mean theseveral districts and municipal republics, and the several clubs whichdirect all their affairs and appoint all their magistrates. This is thepower now paramount to everything, even to the Assembly itself calledNational and that to which tribunals, priesthood, laws, finances, andboth descriptions of military power are wholly subservient, so far asthe military power of either description yields obedience to any name ofauthority. The world of contingency and political combination is much larger thanwe are apt to imagine. We never can say what may or may not happen, without a view to all the actual circumstances. Experience, upon otherdata than those, is of all things the most delusive. Prudence in newcases can do nothing on grounds of retrospect. A constant vigilance andattention to the train of things as they successively emerge, and to acton what they direct, are the only sure courses. The physician that letblood, and by blood-letting cured one kind of plague, in the next addedto its ravages. That power goes with property is not universally true, and the idea that the operation of it is certain and invariable maymislead us very fatally. [Sidenote: Power separated from property. ] Whoever will take an accurate view of the state of those republics, andof the composition of the present Assembly deputed by them, (in whichAssembly there are not quite fifty persons possessed of an incomeamounting to 100_l. _ sterling yearly, ) must discern clearly, _that thepolitical and civil power of France is wholly separated from itsproperty of every description_, and of course that neither the landednor the moneyed interest possesses the smallest weight or considerationin the direction of any public concern. The whole kingdom is directed by_the refuse of its chicane_, with the aid of the bustling, presumptuousyoung clerks of counting-houses and shops, and some intermixture ofyoung gentlemen of the same character in the several towns. The richpeasants are bribed with Church lands; and the poorer of thatdescription are, and can be, counted for nothing. They may rise inferocious, ill-directed tumults, --but they can only disgrace themselvesand signalize the triumph of their adversaries. [Sidenote: Effects of the rota. ] The _truly_ active citizens, that is, the above descriptions, are allconcerned in intrigue respecting the various objects in their local ortheir general government. The rota, which the French have establishedfor their National Assembly, holds out the highest objects of ambitionto such vast multitudes as in an unexampled measure to widen the bottomof a new species of interest merely political, and wholly unconnectedwith birth or property. This scheme of a rota, though it enfeebles thestate, considered as one solid body, and indeed wholly disables it fromacting as such, gives a great, an equal, and a diffusive strength to thedemocratic scheme. Seven hundred and fifty people, every two yearsraised to the supreme power, has already produced at least fifteenhundred bold, acting politicians: a great number for even so great acountry as France. These men never will quietly settle in ordinaryoccupations, nor submit to any scheme which must reduce them to anentirely private condition, or to the exercise of a steady, peaceful, but obscure and unimportant industry. Whilst they sit in the Assembly, they are denied offices of trust and profit, --but their short durationmakes this no restraint: during their probation and apprenticeship theyare all salaried with an income to the greatest part of them immense;and after they have passed the novitiate, those who take any sort oflead are placed in very lucrative offices, according to their influenceand credit, or appoint those who divide their profits with them. This supply of recruits to the corps of the highest civil ambition goeson with a regular progression. In very few years it must amount to manythousands. These, however, will be as nothing in comparison to themultitude of municipal officers, and officers of district anddepartment, of all sorts, who have tasted of power and profit, and whohunger for the periodical return of the meal. To these needy agitators, the glory of the state, the general wealth and prosperity of the nation, and the rise or fall of public credit are as dreams; nor have argumentsdeduced from these topics any sort of weight with them. The indifferencewith which the Assembly regards the state of their colonies, the onlyvaluable part of the French commerce, is a full proof how little theyare likely to be affected by anything but the selfish game of their ownambition, now universally diffused. [Sidenote: Impracticability of resistance. ] It is true, amidst all these turbulent means of security to theirsystem, very great discontents everywhere prevail. But they only producemisery to those who nurse them at home, or exile, beggary, and in theend confiscation, to those who are so impatient as to remove from them. Each municipal republic has a _Committee_, or something in the nature ofa _Committee of Research_. In these petty republics the tyranny is sonear its object that it becomes instantly acquainted with every act ofevery man. It stifles conspiracy in its very first movements. Theirpower is absolute and uncontrollable. No stand can be made against it. These republics are besides so disconnected, that very littleintelligence of what happens in them is to be obtained beyond their ownbounds, except by the means of their clubs, who keep up a constantcorrespondence, and who give what color they please to such facts asthey choose to communicate out of the track of their correspondence. They all have some sort of communication, just as much or as little asthey please, with the centre. By this confinement of all communicationto the ruling faction, any combination, grounded on the abuses anddiscontents in one, scarcely can reach the other. There is not one man, in any one place, to head them. The old government had so muchabstracted the nobility from the cultivation of provincial interest, that no man in France exists, whose power, credit, or consequenceextends to two districts, or who is capable of uniting them in anydesign, even if any man could assemble ten men together without beingsure of a speedy lodging in a prison. One must not judge of the state ofFrance by what has been observed elsewhere. It does not in the leastresemble any other country. Analogical reasoning from history or fromrecent experience in other places is wholly delusive. In my opinion, there never was seen so strong a government internally asthat of the French municipalities. If ever any rebellion can ariseagainst the present system, it must begin, where the Revolution whichgave birth to it did, at the capital. Paris is the only place in whichthere is the least freedom of intercourse. But even there, so manyservants as any man has, so many spies and irreconcilable domesticenemies. [Sidenote: Gentlemen are fugitives. ] But that place being the chief seat of the power and intelligence of theruling faction, and the place of occasional resort for their fiercestspirits, even there a revolution is not likely to have anything to feedit. The leaders of the aristocratic party have been drawn out of thekingdom by order of the princes, on the hopes held out by the Emperorand the king of Prussia at Pilnitz; and as to the democratic factions inParis, amongst them there are no leaders possessed of an influence forany other purpose but that of maintaining the present state of things. The moment they are seen to warp, they are reduced to nothing. They haveno attached army, --no party that is at all personal. It is not to be imagined, because a political system is, under certainaspects, very unwise in its contrivance, and very mischievous in itseffects, that it therefore can have no long duration. Its very defectsmay tend to its stability, because they are agreeable to its nature. Thevery faults in the Constitution of Poland made it last; the _veto_ whichdestroyed all its energy preserved its life. What can be conceived somonstrous as the republic of Algiers, and that no less strange republicof the Mamelukes in Egypt? They are of the worst form imaginable, andexercised in the worst manner, yet they have existed as a nuisance onthe earth for several hundred years. [Sidenote: Conclusions. ] From all these considerations, and many more that crowd upon me, threeconclusions have long since arisen in my mind. First, that no counter revolution is to be expected in France frominternal causes solely. Secondly, that, the longer the present system exists, the greater willbe its strength, the greater its power to destroy discontents at home, and to resist all foreign attempts in favor of these discontents. Thirdly, that, as long as it exists in France, it will be the interestof the managers there, and it is in the very essence of their plan, todisturb and distract all other governments, and their endless successionof restless politicians will continually stimulate them to new attempts. [Sidenote: Proceedings of princes; defensive plans. ] Princes are generally sensible that this is their common cause; and twoof them have made a public declaration of their opinion to this effect. Against this common danger, some of them, such as the king of Spain, theking of Sardinia, and the republic of Bern, are very diligent in usingdefensive measures. If they were to guard against an invasion from France, the merits ofthis plan of a merely defensive resistance might be supported byplausible topics; but as the attack does not operate against thesecountries externally, but by an internal corruption, (a sort of dryrot, ) they who pursue this merely defensive plan against a danger whichthe plan itself supposes to be serious cannot possibly escape it. Forit is in the nature of all defensive measures to be sharp and vigorousunder the impressions of the first alarm, and to relax by degrees, untilat length the danger, by not operating instantly, comes to appear as afalse alarm, --so much so, that the next menacing appearance will lookless formidable, and will be less provided against. But to those who areon the offensive it is not necessary to be always alert. Possibly it ismore their interest not to be so. For their unforeseen attackscontribute to their success. [Sidenote: The French party how composed. ] In the mean time a system of French conspiracy is gaining ground inevery country. This system, happening to be founded on principles themost delusive indeed, but the most flattering to the naturalpropensities of the unthinking multitude, and to the speculations of allthose who think, without thinking very profoundly, must daily extend itsinfluence. A predominant inclination towards it appears in all those whohave no religion, when otherwise their disposition leads them to beadvocates even for despotism. Hence Hume, though I cannot say that hedoes not throw out some expressions of disapprobation on the proceedingsof the levellers in the reign of Richard the Second, yet affirms thatthe doctrines of John Ball were "conformable to the ideas of primitiveequality _which are engraven in the hearts of all men_. " Boldness formerly was not the character of atheists as such. They wereeven of a character nearly the reverse; they were formerly like the oldEpicureans, rather an unenterprising race. But of late they are grownactive, designing, turbulent, and seditious. They are sworn enemies tokings, nobility, and priesthood. We have seen all the Academicians atParis, with Condorcet, the friend and correspondent of Priestley, attheir head, the most furious of the extravagant republicans. [Sidenote: Condorcet. ] The late Assembly, after the last captivity of the king, had actuallychosen this Condorcet, by a majority on the ballot, for preceptor to theDauphin, who was to be taken out of the hands and direction of hisparents, and to be delivered over to this fanatic atheist and furiousdemocratic republican. His untractability to these leaders, and hisfigure in the club of Jacobins, which at that time they wished to bringunder, alone prevented that part of the arrangement, and others in thesame style, from being carried into execution. Whilst he was candidatefor this office, he produced his title to it by promulgating thefollowing ideas of the title of his royal pupil to the crown. In a paperwritten by him, and published with his name, against the reëstablishmenteven of the appearance of monarchy under any qualifications, he says:-- [Sidenote: Doctrine of the French. ] "Jusqu'à ce moment, ils [l'Assemblée Nationale] n'ont rien préjugéencore. En se réservant de nommer un gouverneur au Dauphin, ils n'ontpas prononcé _que cet enfant dût régner_, mais seulement qu'il _étaitpossible_ que la Constitution l'y destinât; ils ont voulu quel'éducation effaçât tout ce que _les prestiges du trône_ ont pu luiinspirer de préjugés sur les droits prétendus de sa naissance; qu'ellelui fît connaître de bonne heure et _l'égalité naturelle des hommes etla souveraineté du peuple_; qu'elle lui apprît à ne pas oublier quec'est _du peuple_ qu'il tiendra le titre de Roi, et que _le peuple n'apas même le droit de renoncer à celui de l'en dépouiller_. "Ils ont voulu que cette éducation le rendît également digne, par seslumières et ses vertus, de recevoir _avec résignation_ le fardeaudangereux d'une couronne, ou de la _déposer avec joie_ entre les mainsde ses frères; qu'il sentît que le devoir et la gloire du roi d'unpeuple libre sont de hâter le moment de n'être plus qu'un citoyenordinaire. "Ils ont voulu que _l'inutilité d'un roi_, la nécessité de chercher lesmoyens de remplacer _un pouvoir fondé sur des illusions_, fût une despremières vérités offertes à sa raison; _l'obligation d'y concourirlui-même, un des premiers devoirs de sa morale; et le désir de n'êtreplus affranchi du joug de la loi par une injurieuse inviolabilité, lepremier sentiment de son cœur_. Ils n'ignorent pas que dans ce momentil s'agit bien moins de former un roi que de lui apprendre _à savoir àvouloir ne plus l'être_. "[32] Such are the sentiments of the man who has occasionally filled the chairof the National Assembly, who is their perpetual secretary, their onlystanding officer, and the most important by far. He leads them to peaceor war. He is the great theme of the republican faction in England. These ideas of M. Condorcet are the principles of those to whom kingsare to intrust their successors and the interests of their succession. This man would be ready to plunge the poniard in the heart of his pupil, or to whet the axe for his neck. Of all men, the most dangerous is awarm, hot-headed, zealous atheist. This sort of man aims at dominion, and his means are the words he always has in his mouth, --"_L'égaliténaturelle des hommes, et la souveraineté du peuple_. " All former attempts, grounded on these rights of men, had provedunfortunate. The success of this last makes a mighty difference in theeffect of the doctrine. Here is a principle of a nature to the multitudethe most seductive, always existing before their eyes _as a thingfeasible in practice_. After so many failures, such an enterprise, previous to the French experiment, carried ruin to the contrivers, onthe face of it; and if any enthusiast was so wild as to wish to engagein a scheme of that nature, it was not easy for him to find followers:now there is a party almost in all countries, ready-made, animated withsuccess, with a sure ally in the very centre of Europe. There is nocabal so obscure in any place, that they do not protect, cherish, foster, and endeavor to raise it into importance at home and abroad. From the lowest, this intrigue will creep up to the highest. Ambition, as well as enthusiasm, may find its account in the party and in theprinciple. [Sidenote: Character of ministers. ] The ministers of other kings, like those of the king of France, (not oneof whom was perfectly free from this guilt, and some of whom were verydeep in it, ) may themselves be the persons to foment such a dispositionand such a faction. Hertzberg, the king of Prussia's late minister, isso much of what is called a philosopher, that he was of a faction withthat sort of politicians in everything, and in every place. Even when hedefends himself from the imputation of giving extravagantly into theseprinciples, he still considers the Revolution of France as a greatpublic good, by giving credit to their fraudulent declaration of theiruniversal benevolence and love of peace. Nor are his Prussian Majesty'spresent ministers at all disinclined to the same system. Theirostentatious preamble to certain late edicts demonstrates (if theiractions had not been sufficiently explanatory of their cast of mind)that they are deeply infected with the same distemper of dangerous, because plausible, though trivial and shallow, speculation. Ministers, turning their backs on the reputation which properly belongsto them, aspire at the glory of being speculative writers. The duties ofthese two situations are in general directly opposite to each other. Speculators ought to be neutral. A minister cannot be so. He is tosupport the interest of the public as connected with that of his master. He is his master's trustee, advocate, attorney, and steward, --and he isnot to indulge in any speculation which contradicts that character, oreven detracts from its efficacy. Necker had an extreme thirst for thissort of glory; so had others; and this pursuit of a misplaced andmisunderstood reputation was one of the causes of the ruin of theseministers, and of their unhappy, master. The Prussian ministers inforeign courts have (at least not long since) talked the most democraticlanguage with regard to Prance, and in the most unmanaged terms. [Sidenote: Corps diplomatique. ] The whole _corps diplomatique_, with very few exceptions, leans thatway. What cause produces in them a turn of mind which at first one wouldthink unnatural to their situation it is not impossible to explain. Thediscussion would, however, be somewhat long and somewhat invidious. Thefact itself is indisputable, however they may disguise it to theirseveral courts. This disposition is gone to so very great a length inthat corps, in itself so important, and so important as _furnishing_ theintelligence which sways all cabinets, that, if princes and states donot very speedily attend with a vigorous control to that source ofdirection and information, very serious evils are likely to befall them. [Sidenote: Sovereigns--their dispositions. ] But, indeed, kings are to guard against the same sort of dispositions inthemselves. They are very easily alienated from all the higher orders oftheir subjects, whether civil or military, laic or ecclesiastical. It iswith persons of condition that sovereigns chiefly come into contact. Itis from them that they generally experience opposition to their will. Itis with _their_ pride and impracticability that princes are most hurt. It is with _their_ servility and baseness that they are most commonlydisgusted. It is from their humors and cabals that they find theiraffairs most frequently troubled and distracted. But of the commonpeople, in pure monarchical governments, kings know little or nothing;and therefore being unacquainted with their faults, (which are as manyas those of the great, and much more decisive in their effects, whenaccompanied with power, ) kings generally regard them with tenderness andfavor, and turn their eyes towards that description of their subjects, particularly when hurt by opposition from the higher orders. It was thusthat the king of France (a perpetual example to all sovereigns) wasruined. I have it from very sure information, (and it was, indeed, obvious enough, from the measures which were taken previous to theassembly of the States and afterwards, ) that the king's counsellors hadfilled him with a strong dislike to his nobility, his clergy, and thecorps of his magistracy. They represented to him, that he had tried themall severally, in several ways, and found them all untractable: that hehad twice called an assembly (the Notables) composed of the first men ofthe clergy, the nobility, and the magistrates; that he had himself namedevery one member in those assemblies, and that, though so picked out, hehad not, in this their collective state, found them more disposed to acompliance with his will than they had been separately; that thereremained for him, with the least prospect of advantage to his authorityin the States-General, which were to be composed of the same sorts ofmen, but not chosen by him, only the _Tiers État_: in this alone hecould repose any hope of extricating himself from his difficulties, andof settling him in a clear and permanent authority. They represented, (these are the words of one of my informants, ) "that the royalauthority, compressed with the weight of these aristocratic bodies, fullof ambition and of faction, when once unloaded, would rise of itself, and occupy its natural place without disturbance or control"; that thecommon people would protect, cherish, and support, instead of crushingit. "The people" (it was said) "could entertain no objects of ambition";they were out of the road of intrigue and cabal, and could possibly haveno other view than the support of the mild and parental authority bywhich they were invested, for the first time collectively, with realimportance in the state, and protected in their peaceable and usefulemployments. [Sidenote: King of France. ] This unfortunate king (not without a large share of blame to himself)was deluded to his ruin by a desire to humble and reduce his nobility, clergy, and big corporate magistracy: not that I suppose he meant whollyto eradicate these bodies, in the manner since effected by thedemocratic power; I rather believe that even Necker's designs did not goto that extent. With his own hand, however, Louis the Sixteenth pulleddown the pillars which upheld his throne; and this he did, because hecould not bear the inconveniences which are attached to everythinghuman, --because he found himself cooped up, and in durance, by thoselimits which Nature prescribes to desire and imagination, and was taughtto consider as low and degrading that mutual dependence which Providencehas ordained that all men should have on one another. He is not at thisminute, perhaps, cured of the dread of the power and credit like to beacquired by those who would save and rescue him. He leaves those whosuffer in his cause to their fate, --and hopes, by various mean, delusiveintrigues, in which I am afraid he is encouraged from abroad, to regain, among traitors and regicides, the power he has joined to take from hisown family, whom he quietly sees proscribed before his eyes, and calledto answer to the lowest of his rebels, as the vilest of all criminals. [Sidenote: Emperor. ] It is to be hoped that the Emperor may be taught better things by thisfatal example. But it is sure that he has advisers who endeavor to fillhim with the ideas which have brought his brother-in-law to his presentsituation. Joseph the Second was far gone in this philosophy, and some, if not most, who serve the Emperor, would kindly initiate him into allthe mysteries of this freemasonry. They would persuade him to look onthe National Assembly, not with the hatred of an enemy, but the jealousyof a rival. They would make him desirous of doing, in his own dominions, by a royal despotism, what has been done in France by a democratic. Rather than abandon such enterprises, they would persuade him to astrange alliance between those extremes. Their grand object being now, as in his brother's time, at any rate to destroy the higher orders, theythink he cannot compass this end, as certainly he cannot, withoutelevating the lower. By depressing the one and by raising the other theyhope in the first place to increase his treasures and his army; and withthese common instruments of royal power they flatter him that thedemocracy, which they help in his name to create, will give him butlittle trouble. In defiance of the freshest experience, which might showhim that old impossibilities are become modern probabilities, and thatthe extent to which evil principles may go, when left to their ownoperation, is beyond the power of calculation, they will endeavor topersuade him that such a democracy is a thing which cannot subsist byitself; that in whose ever hands the military command is placed, he mustbe, in the necessary course of affairs, sooner or later the master; andthat, being the master of various unconnected countries, he may keepthem all in order by employing a military force which to each of them isforeign. This maxim, too, however formerly plausible, will not now holdwater. This scheme is full of intricacy, and may cause him everywhere tolose the hearts of his people. These counsellors forget that a corruptedarmy was the very cause of the ruin of his brother-in-law, and that heis himself far from secure from a similar corruption. [Sidenote: Brabant. ] Instead of reconciling himself heartily and _bonâ fide_, according tothe most obvious rules of policy, to the States of Brabant, _as they areconstituted_, and who in _the present state of things_ stand on the samefoundation with the monarchy itself, and who might have been gained withthe greatest facility, they have advised him to the most unkinglyproceeding which, either in a good or in a bad light, has ever beenattempted. Under a pretext taken from the spirit of the lowest chicane, they have counselled him wholly to break the public faith, to annul theamnesty, as well as the other conditions through which he obtained anentrance into the Provinces of the Netherlands under the guaranty ofGreat Britain and Prussia. He is made to declare his adherence to theindemnity in a criminal sense, but he is to keep alive in his own name, and to encourage in others, a _civil_ process in the nature of anaction of damages for what has been suffered during the troubles. Whilst he keeps up this hopeful lawsuit in view of the damages he mayrecover against individuals, he loses the hearts of a whole people, andthe vast subsidies which his ancestors had been used to receive fromthem. [Sidenote: Emperor's conduct with regard to France. ] This design once admitted unriddles the mystery of the whole conduct ofthe Emperor's ministers with regard to France. As soon as they saw thelife of the king and queen of France no longer, as they thought, indanger, they entirely changed their plan with regard to the Frenchnation. I believe that the chiefs of the Revolution (those who led theconstituting Assembly) have contrived, as far as they can do it, to givethe Emperor satisfaction on this head. He keeps a continual tone andposture of menace to secure this his only point. But it must beobserved, that he all along grounds his departure from the engagement atPilnitz to the princes on the will and actions of _the king_ and themajority of the people, without any regard to the natural andconstitutional orders of the state, or to the opinions of the wholeHouse of Bourbon. Though it is manifestly under the constraint ofimprisonment and the fear of death that this unhappy man has been guiltyof all those humilities which have astonished mankind, the advisers ofthe Emperor will consider nothing but the _physical_ person of Louis, which, even in his present degraded and infamous state, they regard asof sufficient authority to give a complete sanction to the persecutionand utter ruin of all his family, and of every person who has shown anydegree of attachment or fidelity to him or to his cause, as well ascompetent to destroy the whole ancient constitution and frame of theFrench monarchy. The present policy, therefore, of the Austrian politicians is, torecover despotism through democracy, --or, at least, at any expense, everywhere to ruin the description of men who are everywhere the objectsof their settled and systematic aversion, but more especially in theNetherlands. Compare this with the Emperor's refusing at first allintercourse with the present powers in France, with his endeavoring toexcite all Europe against them, and then, his not only withdrawing allassistance and all countenance from the fugitives who had been drawn byhis declarations from their houses, situations, and militarycommissions, many even from the means of their very existence, buttreating them with every species of insult and outrage. Combining this unexampled conduct in the Emperor's advisers with thetimidity (operating as perfidy) of the king of France, a fatal exampleis held out to all subjects, tending to show what little support, oreven countenance, they are to expect from those for whom their principleof fidelity may induce them to risk life and fortune. The Emperor'sadvisers would not for the world rescind one of the acts of this or ofthe late French Assembly; nor do they wish anything better at presentfor their master's brother of France than that he should really be, ashe is nominally, at the head of the system of persecution of religionand good order, and of all descriptions of dignity, natural andinstituted: they only wish all this done with a little more respect tothe king's person, and with more appearance of consideration for his newsubordinate office, --in hopes, that, yielding himself for the presentto the persons who have effected these changes, he may be able to gamefor the rest hereafter. On no other principles than these can theconduct of the court of Vienna be accounted for. The subordinate courtof Brussels talks the language of a club of Feuillants and Jacobins. [Sidenote: Moderate party. ] In this state of general rottenness among subjects, and of delusion andfalse politics in princes, comes a new experiment. The king of France isin the hands of the chiefs of the regicide faction, --the Barnaves, Lameths, Fayettes, Périgords, Duports, Robespierres, Camuses, &c. , &c. , &c. They who had imprisoned, suspended, and conditionally deposed himare his confidential counsellors. The next desperate of the desperaterebels call themselves the _moderate_ party. They are the chiefs of thefirst Assembly, who are confederated to support their power during theirsuspension from the present, and to govern the existent body with assovereign a sway as they had done the last. They have, for the greaterpart, succeeded; and they have many advantages towards procuring theirsuccess in future. Just before the close of their regular power, theybestowed some appearance of prerogatives on the king, which in theirfirst plans they had refused to him, --particularly the mischievous, and, in his situation, dreadful prerogative of a _veto_. This prerogative, (which they hold as their bit in the mouth of the National Assembly forthe time being, ) without the direct assistance of their club, it wasimpossible for the king to show even the desire of exerting with thesmallest effect, or even with safety to his person. However, by playing, through this _veto_, the Assembly against the king, and the kingagainst the Assembly, they have made themselves masters of both. In thissituation, having destroyed the old government by their sedition, theywould preserve as much of order as is necessary for the support of theirown usurpation. [Sidenote: French ambassador. ] It is believed that this, by far the worst party of the miscreants ofFrance, has received direct encouragement from the counsellors whobetray the Emperor. Thus strengthened by the possession of the captiveking, (now captive in his mind as well as in body, ) and by a good hopeof the Emperor, they intend to send their ministers to every court inEurope, --having sent before them such a denunciation of terror andsuperiority to every nation without exception as has no example in thediplomatic world. Hitherto the ministers to foreign courts had been ofthe appointment of the sovereign of France _previous to the Revolution_;and, either from inclination, duty, or decorum, most of them werecontented with a merely passive obedience to the new power. At present, the king, being entirely in the hands of his jailors, and his mindbroken to his situation, can send none but the enthusiasts of thesystem, --men framed by the secret committee of the Feuillants, who meetin the house of Madame de Staël, M. Necker's daughter. Such is every manwhom they have talked of sending hither. These ministers will be so manyspies and incendiaries, so many active emissaries of democracy. Theirhouses will become places of rendezvous here, as everywhere else, andcentres of cabal for whatever is mischievous and malignant in thiscountry, particularly among those of rank and fashion. As the ministerof the National Assembly will be admitted at this court, at least withhis usual rank, and as entertainments will be naturally given andreceived by the king's own ministers, any attempt to discountenance theresort of other people to that minister would be ineffectual, and indeedabsurd, and full of contradiction. The women who come with theseambassadors will assist in fomenting factions amongst ours, which cannotfail of extending the evil. Some of them I hear are already arrived. There is no doubt they will do as much mischief as they can. [Sidenote: Connection of clubs. ] Whilst the public ministers are received under the general law of thecommunication between nations, the correspondences between the factiousclubs in France and ours will be, as they now are, kept up; but thispretended embassy will be a closer, more steady, and more effectual linkbetween the partisans of the new system on both sides of the water. I donot mean that these Anglo-Gallic clubs in London, Manchester, &c. , arenot dangerous in a high degree. The appointment of festive anniversarieshas ever in the sense of mankind been held the best method of keepingalive the spirit of any institution. We have one settled in London; andat the last of them, that of the 14th of July, the strong discountenanceof government, the unfavorable time of the year, and the thenuncertainty of the disposition of foreign powers, did not hinder themeeting of at least nine hundred people, with good coats on their backs, who could afford to pay half a guinea a head to show their zeal for thenew principles. They were with great difficulty, and all possibleaddress, hindered from inviting the French ambassador. His realindisposition, besides the fear of offending any party, sent him out oftown. But when our court shall have recognized a government in Francefounded on the principles announced in Montmorin's letter, how can theFrench ambassador be frowned upon for an attendance on those meetingswherein the establishment of the government he represents is celebrated?An event happened a few days ago, which in many particulars was veryridiculous; yet, even from the ridicule and absurdity of theproceedings, it marks the more strongly the spirit of the FrenchAssembly: I mean the reception they have given to the Frith StreetAlliance. This, though the delirium of a low, drunken alehouse club, they have publicly announced as a formal alliance with the people ofEngland, as such ordered it to be presented to their king, and to bepublished in every province in France. This leads, more directly andwith much greater force than any proceeding with a regular and rationalappearance, to two very material considerations. First, it shows thatthey are of opinion that the current opinions of the English have thegreatest influence on the minds of the people in France, and indeed ofall the people in Europe, since they catch with such astonishingeagerness at every the most trifling show of such opinions in theirfavor. Next, and what appears to me to be full as important, it showsthat they are willing publicly to countenance, and even to adopt, everyfactious conspiracy that can be formed in this nation, however low andbase in itself, in order to excite in the most miserable wretches herean idea of their own sovereign importance, and to encourage them to lookup to France, whenever they may be matured into something of more force, for assistance in the subversion of their domestic government. Thisaddress of the alehouse club was actually proposed and accepted by theAssembly as an _alliance_. The procedure was in my opinion a highmisdemeanor in those who acted thus in England, if they were not so verylow and so very base that no acts of theirs can be called high, even asa description of criminality; and the Assembly, in accepting, proclaiming, and publishing this forged alliance, has been guilty of aplain aggression, which would justify our court in demanding a directdisavowal, if our policy should not lead us to wink at it. Whilst I look over this paper to have it copied, I see a manifesto ofthe Assembly, as a preliminary to a declaration of war against theGerman princes on the Rhine. This manifesto contains the whole substanceof the French politics with regard to foreign states. They have orderedit to be circulated amongst the people in every country of Europe, --evenpreviously to its acceptance by the king, and his new privy council, theclub of the Feuillants. Therefore, as a summary of their policy avowedby themselves, let us consider some of the circumstances attending thatpiece, as well as the spirit and temper of the piece itself. [Sidenote: Declaration against the Emperor. ] It was preceded by a speech from Brissot, full of unexampled insolencetowards all the sovereign states of Germany, if not of Europe. TheAssembly, to express their satisfaction in the sentiments which itcontained, ordered it to be printed. This Brissot had been in the lowestand basest employ under the deposed monarchy, --a sort of thief-taker, orspy of police, --in which character he acted after the manner of personsin that description. He had been employed by his master, the_Lieutenant de Police_, for a considerable time in London, in the sameor some such honorable occupation. The Revolution, which has broughtforward all merit of that kind, raised him, with others of a similarclass and disposition, to fame and eminence. On the Revolution he becamea publisher of an infamous newspaper, which he still continues. He ischarged, and I believe justly, as the first mover of the troubles inHispaniola. There is no wickedness, if I am rightly informed, in whichhe is not versed, and of which he is not perfectly capable. His qualityof news-writer, now an employment of the first dignity in France, andhis practices and principles, procured his election into the Assembly, where he is one of the leading members. M. Condorcet produced on thesame day a draught of a declaration to the king, which the Assemblypublished before it was presented. Condorcet (though no marquis, as he styled himself before theRevolution) is a man of another sort of birth, fashion, and occupationfrom Brissot, --but in every principle, and every disposition to thelowest as well as the highest and most determined villanies, fully hisequal. He seconds Brissot in the Assembly, and is at once his coadjutorand his rival in a newspaper, which, in his own name, and as successorto M. Garat, a member also of the Assembly, he has just set up in thatempire of gazettes. Condorcet was chosen to draw the first declarationpresented by the Assembly to the king, as a threat to the Elector ofTreves, and the other princes on the Rhine. In that piece, in which bothFeuillants and Jacobins concurred, they declared publicly, and mostproudly and insolently, the principle on which they mean to proceed intheir future disputes with any of the sovereigns of Europe; for theysay, "that it is not with fire and sword they mean to attack theirterritories, but by what will be _more dreadful_ to them, theintroduction of liberty. "--I have not the paper by me, to give the exactwords, but I believe they are nearly as I state them. --_Dreadful_, indeed, will be their hostility, if they should be able to carry it onaccording to the example of _their_ modes of introducing liberty. Theyhave shown a perfect model of their whole design, very complete, thoughin little. This gang of murderers and savages have wholly laid waste andutterly ruined the beautiful and happy country of the Comtat Venaissinand the city of Avignon. This cruel and treacherous outrage thesovereigns of Europe, in my opinion, with a great mistake of their honorand interest, have permitted, even without a remonstrance, to be carriedto the desired point, on the principles on which they are now themselvesthreatened in their own states; and this, because, according to the poorand narrow spirit now in fashion, their brother sovereign, whosesubjects have been thus traitorously and inhumanly treated in violationof the law of Nature and of nations, has a name somewhat different fromtheirs, and, instead of being styled King, or Duke, or Landgrave, isusually called Pope. [Sidenote: State of the Empire. ] The Electors of Treves and Mentz were frightened with the menace of asimilar mode of war. The Assembly, however, not thinking that theElectors of Treves and Mentz had done enough under their first terror, have again brought forward Condorcet, preceded by Brissot, as I havejust stated. The declaration, which they have ordered now to becirculated in all countries, is in substance the same as the first, butstill more insolent, because more full of detail. There they have theimpudence to state that they aim at no conquest: insinuating that allthe old, lawful powers of the world had each made a constant, openprofession of a design of subduing his neighbors. They add, that, ifthey are provoked, their war will be directed only against those whoassume to be _masters_; but to the _people_ they will bring peace, law, liberty, &c, &c. There is not the least hint that they consider thosewhom they call persons "_assuming to be matters_" to be the lawfulgovernment of their country, or persons to be treated with the leastmanagement or respect. They regard them as usurpers and enslavers of thepeople. If I do not mistake, they are described by the name of tyrantsin Condorcet's first draught. I am sure they are so in Brissot's speech, ordered by the Assembly to be printed at the same time and for the samepurposes. The whole is in the same strain, full of false philosophy andfalse rhetoric, --both, however, calculated to captivate and influencethe vulgar mind, and to excite sedition in the countries in which it isordered to be circulated. Indeed, it is such, that, if any of thelawful, acknowledged sovereigns of Europe had publicly ordered such amanifesto to be circulated in the dominions of another, the ambassadorof that power would instantly be ordered to quit every court without anaudience. [Sidenote: Effect of fear on the sovereign powers. ] The powers of Europe have a pretext for concealing their fears, bysaying that this language is not used by the king; though they well knowthat there is in effect no such person, --that the Assembly is inreality, and by that king is acknowledged to be, _the master_, --thatwhat he does is but matter of formality, --and that he can neither causenor hinder, accelerate nor retard, any measure whatsoever, nor add tonor soften the manifesto which the Assembly has directed to bepublished, with the declared purpose of exciting mutiny and rebellion inthe several countries governed by these powers. By the generality alsoof the menaces contained in this paper, (though infinitely aggravatingthe outrage, ) they hope to remove from each power separately the idea ofa distinct affront. The persons first pointed at by the menace arecertainly the princes of Germany, who harbor the persecuted House ofBourbon and the nobility of France; the declaration, however, isgeneral, and goes to every state with which they may have a cause ofquarrel. But the terror of France has fallen upon all nations. A fewmonths since all sovereigns seemed disposed to unite against her; atpresent they all seem to combine in her favor. At no period has thepower of France ever appeared with so formidable an aspect. Inparticular the liberties of the Empire can have nothing more than anexistence the most tottering and precarious, whilst France exists with agreat power of fomenting rebellion, and the greatest in theweakest, --but with neither power nor disposition to support the smallerstates in their independence against the attempts of the more powerful. I wind up all in a full conviction within my own breast, and thesubstance of which I must repeat over and over again, that the state ofFrance is the first consideration in the politics of Europe, and of eachstate, externally as well as internally considered. Most of the topics I have used are drawn from fear and apprehension. Topics derived from fear or addressed to it are, I well know, ofdoubtful appearance. To be sure, hope is in general the incitement toaction. Alarm some men, --you do not drive them to provide for theirsecurity; you put them to a stand; you induce them, not to take measuresto prevent the approach of danger, but to remove so unpleasant an ideafrom their minds; you persuade them to remain as they are, from a newfear that their activity may bring on the apprehended mischief beforeits time. I confess freely that this evil sometimes happens from anoverdone precaution; but it is when the measures are rash, ill-chosen, or ill-combined, and the effects rather of blind terror than ofenlightened foresight. But the few to whom I wish to submit my thoughtsare of a character which will enable them to see danger withoutastonishment, and to provide against it without perplexity. To what lengths this method of circulating mutinous manifestoes, and ofkeeping emissaries of sedition in every court under the name ofambassadors, to propagate the same principles and to follow thepractices, will go, and how soon they will operate, it is hard to say;but go on it will, more or less rapidly, according to events, and to thehumor of the time. The princes menaced with the revolt of theirsubjects, at the same time that they have obsequiously obeyed thesovereign mandate of the new Roman senate, have received withdistinction, in a public character, ambassadors from those who in thesame act had circulated the manifesto of sedition in their dominions. This was the only thing wanting to the degradation and disgrace of theGermanic body. The ambassadors from the rights of man, and their admission into thediplomatic system, I hold to be a new era in this business. It will bethe most important step yet taken to affect the existence of sovereigns, and the higher classes of life: I do not mean to exclude its effectsupon all classes; but the first blow is aimed at the more prominentparts in the ancient order of things. What is to be done? It would be presumption in me to do more than to make a case. Manythings occur. But as they, like all political measures, depend ondispositions, tempers, means, and external circumstances, for all theireffect, not being well assured of these, I do not know how to let looseany speculations of mine on the subject. The evil is stated, in myopinion, as it exists. The remedy must be where power, wisdom, andinformation, I hope, are more united with good intentions than they canbe with me. I have done with this subject, I believe, forever. It hasgiven me many anxious moments for the two last years. If a great changeis to be made in human affairs, the minds of men will be fitted to it, the general opinions and feelings will draw that way. Every fear, everyhope, will forward it; and then they who persist in opposing this mightycurrent in human affairs will appear rather to resist the decrees ofProvidence itself than the mere designs of men. They will not beresolute and firm, but perverse and obstinate. FOOTNOTES: [30] See Vattel, B. II. C. 4, sect 56, and B. III. C 18, sect. 296. [31] Originally called the Bengal Club; but since opened to persons fromthe other Presidencies, for the purpose of consolidating the wholeIndian interest. [32] "Until now, they [the National Assembly] have prejudged nothing. Reserving to themselves a right to appoint a preceptor to the Dauphin, they did not declare _that this child was to reign_, but only that_possibly_ the Constitution _might_ destine him to it: they willed, that, while education should efface from his mind all the prejudicesarising from _the delusions of the throne_ respecting his pretendedbirthright, it should also teach him not to forget that it is _from thepeople_ he is to receive the title of King, and that _the people do noteven possess the right of giving up their power to take it from him_. "They willed that this education should render him worthy, by hisknowledge and by his virtues, both to receive _with submission_ thedangerous burden of a crown, and _to resign it with pleasure_ into thehands of his brethren; that he should be conscious that the hastening ofthat moment when he is to be only a common citizen constitutes the dutyand the glory of a king of a free people. "They willed that _the uselessness of a king_, the necessity of seekingmeans to establish something in lieu of _a power founded on illusions_, should be one of the first truths offered to his reason; _the obligationof conforming himself to this, the first of his moral duties; and thedesire of no longer being freed from the yoke of the law by an injuriousinviolability, the first and chief sentiment of his heart_. They are notignorant that in the present moment the object is less to form a kingthan to teach him _that he should know how to wish no longer to besuch_. " HEADS FOR CONSIDERATION ON THE PRESENT STATE OF AFFAIRS. WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER, 1792. That France by its mere geographical position, independently of everyother circumstance, must affect every state of Europe: some of themimmediately, all of them through mediums not very remote. That the standing policy of this kingdom ever has been to watch over the_external_ proceedings of France, (whatever form the _interior_government of that kingdom might take, ) and to prevent the extension ofits dominion or its ruling influence over other states. That there is nothing in the present _internal_ state of things inFrance which alters the national policy with regard to the exteriorrelations of that country. That there are, on the contrary, many things in the internalcircumstances of France (and perhaps of this country, too) which tend tofortify the principles of that fundamental policy, and which render theactive assertion of those principles more pressing at this than at anyformer time. That, by a change effected in about three weeks, France has been able topenetrate into the heart of Germany, to make an absolute conquest ofSavoy, to menace an immediate invasion of the Netherlands, and to aweand overbear the whole Helvetic body, which is in a most periloussituation: the great aristocratic Cantons having, perhaps, as much ormore to dread from their own people, whom they arm, but do not chooseor dare to employ, as from the foreign enemy, which against all publicfaith has butchered their troops serving by treaty in France. To thispicture it is hardly necessary to add the means by which Prance has beenenabled to effect all this, --namely, the apparently entire destructionof one of the largest and certainly the highest disciplined and bestappointed army ever seen, headed by the first military sovereign inEurope, with a captain under him of the greatest renown; and thatwithout a blow given or received on any side. This state of things seemsto me, even if it went no further, truly serious. Circumstances have enabled France to do all this by _land_. On the otherelement she has begun to exert herself; and she must succeed in herdesigns, if enemies very different from those she has hitherto had toencounter do not resist her. She has fitted out a naval force, now actually at sea, by which she isenabled to give law to the whole Mediterranean. It is known as a fact, (and if not so known, it is in the nature of things highly probable, )that she proposes the ravage of the Ecclesiastical State and the pillageof Rome, as her first object; that nest she means to bombard Naples, --toawe, to humble, and thus to command, all Italy, --to force it to anominal neutrality, but to a real dependence, --to compel the Italianprinces and republics to admit the free entrance of the French commerce, an open intercourse, and, the sure concomitant of that intercourse, the_affiliated societies_, in a manner similar to those she has establishedat Avignon, the Comtat, Chambéry, London, Manchester, &c, &c. , which areso many colonies planted in all these countries, for extending theinfluence and securing the dominion of the French republic. That there never has been hitherto a period in which this kingdom wouldhave suffered a French fleet to domineer in the Mediterranean, and toforce Italy to submit to such terms as France would think fit toimpose, --to say nothing of what has been done upon land in support ofthe same system. The great object for which we preserved Minorca, whilstwe could keep it, and for which we still retain Gibraltar, both at agreat expense, was, and is, to prevent the predominance of France overthe Mediterranean. Thus far as to the certain and immediate effect of that armament uponthe Italian States. The probable effect which that armament, and theother armaments preparing at Toulon and other ports, may have uponSpain, on the side of the Mediterranean, is worthy of the seriousattention of the British councils. That it is most probable, we may say in a manner certain, that, if thereshould be a rupture between France and Spain, France will not confineher offensive piratical operations against Spain to her efforts in theMediterranean; on which side, however, she may grievously affect Spain, especially if she excites Morocco and Algiers, which undoubtedly shewill, to fall upon that power. That she will fit out armaments upon the ocean, by which the flotaitself may be intercepted, and thus the treasures of all Europe, as wellas the largest and surest resources of the Spanish monarchy, may beconveyed into France, and become powerful instruments for the annoyanceof all her neighbors. That she makes no secret of her designs. That, if the inward and outward bound flota should escape, still Francehas more and better means of dissevering many of the provinces in theWest and East Indies from the state of Spain than Holland had, when shesucceeded in the same attempt. The French marine resembles not a littlethe old armaments of the Flibustiers, which about a century back, inconjunction with pirates of our nation, brought such calamities upon theSpanish colonies. They differ only in this, --that the present piraticalforce is out of all measure and comparison greater: one hundred andfifty ships of the line and frigates being ready-built, most of them ina manner new, and all applicable in different ways to that service. Privateers and Moorish corsairs possess not the best seamanship, andvery little discipline, and indeed can make no figure in regularservice; but in desperate adventures, and animated with a lust ofplunder, they are truly formidable. That the land forces of France are well adapted to concur with theirmarine in conjunct expeditions of this nature. In such expeditions, enterprise supplies the want of discipline, and perhaps more thansupplies it. Both for this, and for other service, (however contemptibletheir military is in other respects, ) one arm is extremely good, theengineering and artillery branch. The old officer corps in both beingcomposed for the greater part of those who were not gentlemen, orgentlemen newly such, few have abandoned the service, and the men areveterans, well enough disciplined, and very expert. In this piraticalway they must make war with good advantage. They must do so, even on theside of Flanders, either offensively or defensively. This shows thedifference between the policy of Louis the Fourteenth, who built a wallof brass about his kingdom, and that of Joseph the Second, whopremeditatedly uncovered his whole frontier. That Spain, from the actual and expected prevalence of French power, isin a most perilous situation, --perfectly dependent on the mercy of thatrepublic. If Austria is broken, or even humbled, she will not dare todispute its mandates. In the present state of things, we have nothing at all to dread from thepower of Spain by sea or by land, or from any rivalry in commerce. That we have much to dread from the connections into which Spain may beforced. From the circumstances of her territorial possessions, of her resources, and the whole of her civil and political state, we may be authorizedsafely and with undoubted confidence to affirm that _Spain is not a substantive power_. That she must lean on France or on England. That it is as much for the interest of Great Britain to prevent thepredominancy of a French interest in that kingdom as if Spain were aprovince of the crown of Great Britain, or a state actually dependent onit, --full as much so as ever Portugal was reputed to be. This is adependency of much greater value; and its destruction, or its beingcarried to any other dependency, of much more serious misfortune. One of these two things must happen: either Spain must submit tocircumstances and take such conditions as France will impose, or shemust engage in hostilities along with the Emperor and the king ofSardinia. If Spain should be forced or awed into a treaty with the republic ofFrance, she must open her ports and her commerce, as well as the landcommunication for the French laborers, who were accustomed annually togather in the harvest in Spain. Indeed, she must grant a freecommunication for travellers and traders through her whole country. Inthat case it is not conjectural, it is certain, the clubs will give lawin the provinces; Bourgoing, or some such miscreant, will give law atMadrid. In this England may acquiesce, if she pleases; and France will concludea triumphant peace with Spain under her absolute dependence, with abroad highway into that, and into every state of Europe. She actuallyinvites Great Britain to divide with her the spoils of the New World, and to make a partition of the Spanish monarchy. Clearly, it is betterto do so than to suffer France to possess those spoils and thatterritory alone; which, without doubt, unresisted by us, she isaltogether as able as she is willing to do. This plan is proposed by the French in the way in which they propose alltheir plans, --and in the only way in which, indeed, they can proposethem, where there is no regular communication between his Majesty andtheir republic. What they propose is _a plan_. It is _a plan_ also to resist theirpredatory project. To remain quiet, and to suffer them to make their ownuse of a naval power before our face, so as to awe and bully Spain intoa submissive peace, or to drive them into a ruinous war, without anymeasure on our part, I fear is no plan at all. However, if the plan of coöperation which France desires, and which heraffiliated societies here ardently wish and are constantly writing up, should not be adopted, and the war between the Emperor and Franceshould continue, I think it not at all likely that Spain should not bedrawn into the quarrel. In that case, the neutrality of England will bea thing absolutely impossible. The time only is the subject ofdeliberation. Then the question will be, whether we are to defer putting ourselvesinto a posture for the common defence, either by armament, ornegotiation, or both, until Spain is actually attacked, --that is, whether our court will take a decided part for Spain, whilst Spain, onher side, is yet in a condition to act with whatever degree of vigor shemay have, whilst that vigor is yet unexhausted, --or whether we shallconnect ourselves with her broken fortunes, after she shall havereceived material blows, and when we shall have the whole slow length ofthat always unwieldy and ill-constructed, and then wounded and crippledbody, to drag after us, rather than to aid us. Whilst our disposition isuncertain, Spain will not dare to put herself in such a state of defenceas will make her hostility formidable or her neutrality respectable. If the decision is such as the solution of this question (I take it tobe the true question) conducts to, no time is to be lost. But themeasures, though prompt, ought not to be rash and indigested. They oughtto be well chosen, well combined, and well pursued. The system must begeneral; but it must be executed, not successively, or withinterruption, but all together, _uno flatu_, in one melting, and onemould. For this purpose we must put Europe before us, which plainly is, justnow, in all its parts, in a state of dismay, derangement, and confusion, and, very possibly amongst all its sovereigns, full of secretheartburning, distrust, and mutual accusation. Perhaps it may laborunder worse evils. There is no vigor anywhere, except the distemperedvigor and energy of France. That country has but too much life in it, when everything around is so disposed to tameness and languor. The veryvices of the French system at home tend to give force to foreignexertions. The generals _must_ join the armies. They must lead them toenterprise, or they are likely to perish by their hands. Thus, withoutlaw or government of her own, France gives law to all the governments inEurope. This great mass of political matter must have been always under the viewof thinkers for the public, whether they act in office or not. Amongstevents, even the late calamitous events were in the book of contingency. Of course they must have been in design, at least, provided for. A planwhich takes in as many as possible of the states concerned will rathertend to facilitate and simplify a rational scheme for preserving Spain(if that were our sole, as I think it ought to be our principal object)than to delay and perplex it. If we should think that a provident policy (perhaps now more thanprovident, urgent and necessary) should lead us to act, we cannot takemeasures as if nothing had been done. We must see the faults, if any, which have conducted to the present misfortunes: not for the sake ofcriticism, military or political, or from the common motives of blamingpersons and counsels which have not been successful, but in order, if wecan, to administer some remedy to these disasters, by the adoption ofplans more bottomed in principle, and built on with more discretion. Mistakes may be lessons. There seem, indeed, to have been several mistakes in the politicalprinciples on which the war was entered into, as well as in the plansupon which it was conducted, --some of them very fundamental, and notonly visibly, but I may say palpably erroneous; and I think him to haveless than the discernment of a very ordinary statesman, who could notforesee, from the very beginning, unpleasant consequences from thoseplans, though not the unparalleled disgraces and disasters which reallydid attend them: for they were, both principles and measures, wholly newand out of the common course, without anything apparently very grand inthe conception to justify this total departure from all rule. For, in the first place, the united sovereigns very much injured theircause by admitting that they had nothing to do with the interiorarrangements of France, --in contradiction to the whole tenor of thepublic law of Europe, and to the correspondent practice of all itsstates, from the time we have any history of them. In this particular, the two German courts seem to have as little consulted the publicists ofGermany as their own true interests, and those of all the sovereigns ofGermany and Europe. This admission of a false principle in the law ofnations brought them into an apparent contradiction, when they insistedon the reëstablishment of the royal authority in France. But thisconfused and contradictory proceeding gave rise to a practical error ofworse consequence. It was derived from one and the same root: namely, that the person of the monarch of France was everything; and themonarchy, and the intermediate orders of the state, by which themonarchy was upheld, were nothing. So that, if the united potentates hadsucceeded so far as to reëstablish the authority of that king, and thathe should be so ill-advised as to confirm all the confiscations, and torecognize as a lawful body and to class himself with that rabble ofmurderers, (and there wanted not persons who would so have advised him, )there was nothing in the principle or in the proceeding of the unitedpowers to prevent such an arrangement. An expedition to free a brother sovereign from prison was undoubtedly agenerous and chivalrous undertaking. But the spirit and generosity wouldnot have been less, if the policy had been more profound and morecomprehensive, --that is, if it had taken in those considerations andthose persons by whom, and, in some measure, for whom, monarchy exists. This would become a bottom for a system of solid and permanent policy, and of operations conformable to that system. The same fruitful error was the cause why nothing was done to impressthe people of France (so far as we can at all consider the inhabitantsof France as a people) with an idea that the government was ever to bereally French, or indeed anything else than the nominal government of amonarch, a monarch absolute as over them, but whose sole support was toarise from foreign potentates, and who was to be kept on his throne byGerman forces, --in short, that the king of France was to be a viceroy tothe Emperor and the king of Prussia. It was the first time that foreign powers, interfering in the concernsof a nation divided into parties, have thought proper to thrust whollyout of their councils, to postpone, to discountenance, to reject, and, in a manner, to disgrace, the party whom those powers came to support. The single person of a king cannot be a party. Woe to the king who ishimself his party! The royal party, with the king or his representativesat its head, is the _royal cause_. Foreign powers have hitherto chosento give to such wars as this the appearance of a civil contest, and notthat of an hostile invasion. When the Spaniards, in the sixteenthcentury, sent aids to the chiefs of the League, they appeared as alliesto that league, and to the imprisoned king (the Cardinal de Bourbon)which that league had set up. When the Germans came to the aid of theProtestant princes, in the same series of civil wars, they came asallies. When the English came to the aid of Henry the Fourth, theyappeared as allies to that prince. So did the French always, when theyintermeddled in the affairs of Germany: they came to aid a party there. When the English and Dutch intermeddled in the succession of Spain, theyappeared as allies to the Emperor, Charles the Sixth. In short, thepolicy has been as uniform as its principles were obvious to an ordinaryeye. According to all the old principles of law and policy, a regency oughtto have been appointed by the French princes of the blood, nobles, andparliaments, and then recognized by the combined powers. Fundamental lawand ancient usage, as well as the clear reason of the thing, have alwaysordained it during an imprisonment of the king of France: as in the caseof John, and of Francis the First. A monarchy ought not to be left amoment without a representative having an interest in the succession. The orders of the state ought also to have been recognized in thoseamongst whom alone they existed in freedom, that is, in the emigrants. Thus, laying down a firm foundation on the recognition of theauthorities of the kingdom of France, according to Nature and to itsfundamental laws, and not according to the novel and inconsiderateprinciples of the usurpation which the united powers were come toextirpate, the king of Prussia and the Emperor, as allies of the ancientkingdom of France, would have proceeded with dignity, first, to free themonarch, if possible, --if not, to secure the monarchy as principal inthe design; and in order to avoid all risks to that great object, (theobject of other ages than the present, and of other countries than thatof France, ) they would of course avoid proceeding with more haste or ina different manner than what the nature of such an object required. Adopting this, the only rational system, the rational mode of proceedingupon it was to commence with an effective siege of Lisle, which theFrench generals must have seen taken before their faces, or be forced tofight. A plentiful country of friends, from whence to draw supplies, would have been behind them; a plentiful country of enemies, from whenceto force supplies, would have been before them. Good towns were alwayswithin reach to deposit their hospitals and magazines. The march fromLisle to Paris is through a less defensible country, and the distance ishardly so great as from Longwy to Paris. If the _old_ politic and military ideas had governed, the advanced guardwould have been formed of those who best knew the country and had someinterest in it, supported by some of the best light troops and lightartillery, whilst the grand solid body of an army disciplined toperfection proceeded leisurely, and in close connection with all itsstores, provisions, and heavy cannon, to support the expedite body incase of misadventure, or to improve and complete its success. The direct contrary of all this was put in practice. In consequence ofthe original sin of this project, the army of the French princes waseverywhere thrown into the rear, and no part of it brought forward tothe last moment, the time of the commencement of the secret negotiation. This naturally made an ill impression on the people, and furnished anoccasion for the rebels at Paris to give out that the faithful subjectsof the king were distrusted, despised, and abhorred by his allies. Themarch was directed through a skirt of Lorraine, and thence into a partof Champagne, the Duke of Brunswick leaving all the strongest placesbehind him, --leaving also behind him the strength of his artillery, --andby this means giving a superiority to the French, in the only way inwhich the present France is able to oppose a German force. In consequence of the adoption of those false politics, which turnedeverything on the king's sole and single person, the whole plan of thewar was reduced to nothing but a _coup de main_, in order to set thatprince at liberty. If that failed, everything was to be given up. The scheme of a _coup de main_ might (under favorable circumstances) bevery fit for a partisan at the head of a light corps, by whose failurenothing material would be deranged. But for a royal army of eightythousand men, headed by a king in person, who was to march an hundredand fifty miles through an enemy's country, --surely, this was a planunheard of. Although this plan was not well chosen, and proceeded upon principlesaltogether ill-judged and impolitic, the superiority of the militaryforce might in a great degree have supplied the defects, and furnished acorrective to the mistakes. The greater probability was, that the Dukeof Brunswick would make his way to Paris over the bellies of the rabbleof drunkards, robbers, assassins, rioters, mutineers, and half-grownboys, under the ill-obeyed command of a theatrical, vaporing, reducedcaptain of cavalry, who opposed that great commander and great army. But--_Diis aliter visum_. He began to treat, --the winds blew and therains beat, --the house fell, because it was built upon sand, --and greatwas the fall thereof. This march was not an exact copy of either of thetwo marches made by the Duke of Parma into France. There is some secret. Sickness and weather may defeat an army pursuing awrong plan: not that I believe the sickness to have been so great as ithas been reported; but there is a great deal of superfluous humiliationin this business, a perfect prodigality of disgrace. Some advantage, real or imaginary, must compensate to a great sovereign and to a greatgeneral for so immense a loss of reputation. Longwy, situated as it is, might (one should think) be evacuated without a capitulation with arepublic just proclaimed by the king of Prussia as an usurping andrebellious body. He was not far from Luxembourg. He might have takenaway the obnoxious French in his flight. It does not appear to have beennecessary that those magistrates who declared for their own king, on thefaith and under the immediate protection of the king of Prussia, shouldbe delivered over to the gallows. It was not necessary that theemigrant nobility and gentry who served with the king of Prussia's army, under his immediate command, should be excluded from the cartel, andgiven up to be hanged as rebels. Never was so gross and so cruel abreach of the public faith, not with an enemy, but with a friend. Dumouriez has dropped very singular hints. Custine has spoken out morebroadly. These accounts have never been contradicted. They tend to makean eternal rupture between the powers. The French have given out, thatthe Duke of Brunswick endeavored to negotiate some name and place forthe captive king, amongst the murderers and proscribers of those whohave lost their all for his cause. Even this has not been denied. It is singular, and, indeed, a thing, under all its circumstances, inconceivable, that everything should by the Emperor be abandoned to theking of Prussia. That monarch was considered as principal. In the natureof things, as well as in his position with regard to the war, he wasonly an ally, and a new ally, with crossing interests in manyparticulars, and of a policy rather uncertain. At best, and supposinghim to act with the greatest fidelity, the Emperor and the Empire to himmust be but secondary objects. Countries out of Germany must affect himin a still more remote manner. France, other than from the fear of itsdoctrinal principles, can to him be no object at all. Accordingly, theRhine, Sardinia, and the Swiss are left to their fate. The king ofPrussia has no _direct_ and immediate concern with France;_consequentially_, to be sure, a great deal: but the Emperor touchesFrance _directly_ in many parts; he is a near neighbor to Sardinia, byhis Milanese territories; he borders on Switzerland; Cologne, possessedby his uncle, is between Mentz, Treves, and the king of Prussia'sterritories on the Lower Rhine. The Emperor is the natural guardian ofItaly and Germany, --the natural balance against the ambition of France, whether republican or monarchical. His ministers and his generals, therefore, ought to have had their full share in every materialconsultation, --which I suspect they had not. If he has no ministercapable of plans of policy which comprehend the superintendency of awar, or no general with the least of a political head, things have beenas they must be. However, in all the parts of this strange proceedingthere must be a secret. It is probably known to ministers. I do not mean to penetrate into it. My speculations on this head must be only conjectural. If the king ofPrussia, under the pretext or on the reality of some informationrelative to ill practice on the part of the court of Vienna, takesadvantage of his being admitted into the heart of the Emperor'sdominions in the character of an ally, afterwards to join the commonenemy, and to enable France to seize the Netherlands, and to reduce andhumble the Empire, I cannot conceive, upon every principle, anythingmore alarming for this country, separately, and as a part of the generalsystem. After all, we may be looking in vain in the regions of politicsfor what is only the operation of temper and character upon accidentalcircumstances. But I never knew accidents to decide the _whole_ of anygreat business; and I never knew temper to act, but that some system ofpolitics agreeable to its peculiar spirit was blended with it, strengthened it, and got strength from it. Therefore the politics canhardly be put out of the question. Great mistakes have been committed: at least I hope so. If there havebeen none, the case in future is desperate. I have endeavored to pointout some of those which have occurred to me, and most of them veryearly. Whatever may be the cause of the present state of things, on a full andmature view and comparison of the historical matter, of the transactionsthat have passed before our eyes, and of the future prospect, I think Iam authorized to form an opinion without the least hesitation. That there never was, nor is, nor ever will be, nor ever can be, theleast rational hope of making an impression on France by any Continentalpowers, if England is not a part, is not the directing part, is not thesoul, of the whole confederacy against it. This, so far as it is an anticipation of future, is grounded on thewhole tenor of former history. In speculation it is to be accounted foron two plain principles. First, That Great Britain is likely to take a more fair and equal partin the alliance than the other powers, as having less of crossinginterest or perplexed discussion with any of them. Secondly, Because France cannot have to deal with any of theseContinental sovereigns, without their feeling that nation, as a maritimepower, greatly superior to them all put together, --a force which is onlyto be kept in check by England. England, except during the eccentric aberration of Charles the Second, has always considered it as her duty and interest to take her place insuch a confederacy. Her chief disputes must ever be with France; and ifEngland shows herself indifferent and unconcerned, when these powers arecombined against the enterprises of France, she is to look withcertainty for the same indifference on the part of these powers, whenshe may be at war with that nation. This will tend totally to disconnectthis kingdom from the system of Europe, in which if she ought not rashlyto meddle, she ought never wholly to withdraw herself from it. If, then, England is put in motion, whether by a consideration of thegeneral safety, or of the influence of France upon Spain, or by theprobable operations of this new system on the Netherlands, it mustembrace in its project the whole as much as possible, and the part ittakes ought to be as much as possible a leading and presiding part. I therefore beg leave to suggest, -- First, That a minister should forthwith be sent to Spain, to encouragethat court to persevere in the measures they have adopted againstFrance, --to make a close alliance and guaranty of possessions, asagainst France, with that power, --and, whilst the formality of thetreaty is pending, to assure them of our protection, postponing anylesser disputes to another occasion. Secondly, To assure the court of Vienna of our desire to enter into ourancient connections with her, and to support her effectually in the warwhich France has declared against her. Thirdly, To animate the Swiss and the king of Sardinia to take a part, as the latter once did on the principles of the Grand Alliance. Fourthly, To put an end to our disputes with Russia, and mutually toforget the past. I believe, if she is satisfied of this oblivion, shewill return to her old sentiments with regard to this court, and willtake a more forward part in this business than any other power. Fifthly, If what has happened to the king of Prussia is only inconsequence of a sort of panic or of levity, and an indisposition topersevere long in one design, the support and concurrence of Russia willtend to steady him, and to give him resolution. If he be ill-disposed, with that power on his back, and without one ally in Europe, I conceivehe will not be easily led to derange the plan. Sixthly, To use the joint influence of our court, and of our then alliedpowers, with Holland, to arm as fully as she can by sea, and to makesome addition by land. Seventhly, To acknowledge the king of France's next brother (assisted bysuch a council and such representatives of the kingdom of France asshall be thought proper) regent of France, and to send that prince asmall supply of money, arms, clothing, and artillery. Eighthly, To give force to these negotiations, an instant naval armamentought to be adopted, --one squadron for the Mediterranean, another forthe Channel. The season is convenient, --most of our trade being, as Itake it, at home. After speaking of a plan formed upon the ancient policy and practice ofGreat Britain and of Europe, to which this is exactly conformable inevery respect, with no deviation whatsoever, and which is, I conceive, much more strongly called for by the present circumstances than by anyformer, I must take notice of another, which I hear, but cannot persuademyself to believe, is in agitation. This plan is grounded upon the verysame view of things which is here stated, --namely, the danger to allsovereigns, and old republics, from the prevalence of French power andinfluence. It is, to form a congress of all the European powers for the purpose ofa general defensive alliance, the objects of which should be, -- First, The recognition of this new republic, (which they well know isformed on the principles and for the declared purpose of the destructionof all kings, ) and, whenever the heads of this new republic shallconsent to release the royal captives, to make peace with them. Secondly, To defend themselves with their joint forces against the openaggressions, or the secret practices, intrigues, and writings, which areused to propagate the French principles. It is easy to discover from whose shop this commodity comes. It is soperfectly absurd, that, if that or anything like it meets with a seriousentertainment in any cabinet, I should think it the effect of what iscalled a judicial blindness, the certain forerunner of the destructionof all crowns and kingdoms. An _offensive_ alliance, in which union is preserved by common effortsin common dangers against a common active enemy, may preserve itsconsistency, and may produce for a given time some considerable effect:though this is not easy, and for any very long period can hardly beexpected. But a _defensive_ alliance, formed of long discordantinterests, with innumerable discussions existing, having no one pointedobject to which it is directed, which is to be held together with anunremitted vigilance, as watchful in peace as in war, is so evidentlyimpossible, is such a chimera, is so contrary to human nature and thecourse of human affairs, that I am persuaded no person in his senses, except those whose country, religion, and sovereign are deposited in theFrench funds, could dream of it. There is not the slightest pettyboundary suit, no difference between a family arrangement, no sort ofmisunderstanding or cross purpose between the pride and etiquette ofcourts, that would not entirely disjoint this sort of alliance, andrender it as futile in its effects as it is feeble in its principle. Butwhen we consider that the main drift of that defensive alliance must beto prevent the operation of intrigue, mischievous doctrine, and evilexample, in the success of unprovoked rebellion, regicide, andsystematic assassination and massacre, the absurdity of such a schemebecomes quite lamentable. Open the communication with France, and therest follows of course. How far the interior circumstances of this country support what is saidwith regard to its foreign polities must be left to bettor judgments. Iam sure the French faction here is infinitely strengthened by thesuccess of the assassins on the other side of the water. This evil inthe heart of Europe must be extirpated from that centre, or no part ofthe circumference can be free from the mischief which radiates from it, and which will spread, circle beyond circle, in spite of all the littledefensive precautions which can be employed against it. I do not put my name to these hints submitted to the consideration ofreflecting men. It is of too little importance to suppose the name ofthe writer could add any weight to the state of things contained in thispaper. That state of things presses irresistibly on my judgment, and itlies, and has long lain, with a heavy weight upon my mind. I cannotthink that what is done in France is beneficial to the human race. If itwere, the English Constitution ought no more to stand against it thanthe ancient Constitution of the kingdom in which the new systemprevails. I thought it the duty of a man not unconcerned for the public, and who is a faithful subject to the king, respectfully to submit thisstate of facts, at this new step in the progress of the French arms andpolitics, to his Majesty, to his confidential servants, and to thosepersons who, though not in office, by their birth, their rank, theirfortune, their character, and their reputation for wisdom, seem to me tohave a large stake in the stability of the ancient order of things. BATH, November 5, 1792. REMARKS ON THE POLICY OF THE ALLIES WITH RESPECT TO FRANCE. BEGUN IN OCTOBER, 1793. ON THE POLICY OF THE ALLIES. As the proposed manifesto is, I understand, to promulgate to the worldthe general idea of a plan for the regulation of a great kingdom, andthrough the regulation of that kingdom probably to decide the fate ofEurope forever, nothing requires a more serious deliberation with regardto the time of making it, the circumstances of those to whom it isaddressed, and the matter it is to contain. As to the time, (with the due diffidence in my own opinion, ) I have somedoubts whether it is not rather unfavorable to the issuing any manifestowith regard to the intended government of France, and for this reason:that it is (upon the principal point of our attack) a time of calamityand defeat. Manifestoes of this nature are commonly made when the armyof some sovereign enters into the enemy's country in great force, andunder the imposing authority of that force employs menaces towards thosewhom he desires to awe, and makes promises to those whom he wishes toengage in his favor. As to a party, what has been done at Toulon leaves no doubt that theparty for which we declare must be that which substantially declares forroyalty as the basis of the government. As to menaces, nothing, in my opinion, can contribute more effectuallyto lower any sovereign in the public estimation, and to turn hisdefeats into disgraces, than to threaten in a moment of impotence. Thesecond manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick appeared, therefore, to theworld to be extremely ill-timed. However, if his menaces in thatmanifesto had been seasonable, they were not without an object. Greatcrimes then apprehended, and great evils then impending, were to beprevented. At this time, every act which early menaces might possiblyhave _prevented_ is done. Punishment and vengeance alone remain, --andGod forbid that they should ever be forgotten! But the punishment ofenormous offenders will not be the less severe, or the less exemplary, when it is not threatened at a moment when we have it not in our powerto execute our threats. On the other side, to pass by proceedings ofsuch a nefarious nature, in all kinds, as have been carried on inFrance, without any signification of resentment, would be in effect toratify them, and thus to become accessaries after the fact in all thoseenormities which it is impossible to repeat or think of without horror. An absolute silence appears to me to be at this time the only safecourse. The second usual matter of manifestoes is composed of _promises_ tothose who cooperate with our designs. These promises depend in a greatmeasure, if not wholly, on the apparent power of the person who makesthem to fulfil his engagements. A time of disaster on the part of thepromiser seems not to add much to the dignity of his person or to theeffect of his offers. One would hardly wish to seduce any unhappypersons to give the last provocation to a merciless tyranny, withoutvery effectual means of protecting them. The time, therefore, seems (as I said) not favorable to a generalmanifesto, on account of the unpleasant situation of our affairs. However, I write in a changing scene, when a measure very imprudentto-day may be very proper to-morrow. Some great victory may alter thewhole state of the question, so far as it regards our _power_ offulfilling any engagement we may think fit to make. But there is another consideration of far greater importance for all thepurposes of this manifesto. The public, and the parties concerned, willlook somewhat to the disposition of the promiser indicated by hisconduct, as well as to his power of fulfilling his engagements. Speaking of this nation as part of a general combination of powers, arewe quite sure that others can believe us to be sincere, or that we canbe even fully assured of our own sincerity, in the protection of thosewho shall risk their lives for the restoration of monarchy in France, when the world sees that those who are the natural, legal, constitutional representatives of that monarchy, if it has any, have nothad their names so much as mentioned in any one public act, that in noway whatever are their persons brought forward, that their rights havenot been expressly or implicitly allowed, and that they have not been inthe least consulted on the important interests they have at stake? Onthe contrary, they are kept in a state of obscurity and contempt, and ina degree of indigence at times bordering on beggary. They are, in fact, little less prisoners in the village of Hanau than the royal captiveswho are locked up in the tower of the Temple. What is this, according tothe common indications which guide the judgment of mankind, but, underthe pretext of protecting the crown of France, in reality to usurp it? I am also very apprehensive that there are other circumstances whichmust tend to weaken the force of our declarations. No partiality to theallied powers can prevent great doubts on the fairness of our intentionsas supporters of the crown of France, or of the true principles oflegitimate government in opposition to Jacobinism, when it is visiblethat the two leading orders of the state of France, who are now thevictims, and who must always be the true and sole supports of monarchyin that country, are, at best, in some of their descriptions, consideredonly as objects of charity, and others are, when employed, employed onlyas mercenary soldiers, --that they are thrown back out of all reputableservice, are in a manner disowned, considered as nothing in their owncause, and never once consulted in the concerns of their king, theircountry, their laws, their religion, and their property. We even affectto be ashamed of them. In all our proceedings we carefully avoid theappearance of being of a party with them. In all our ideas of treaty wedo not regard them as what they are, the two leading orders of thekingdom. If we do not consider them in that light, we must recognize thesavages by whom they have been ruined, and who have declared war uponEurope, whilst they disgrace and persecute human nature, and openly defythe God that made them, as real proprietors of France. I am much afraid, too, that we shall scarcely be believed fairsupporters of lawful monarchy against Jacobinism, so long as we continueto make and to observe cartels with the Jacobins, and on fair termsexchange prisoners with them, whilst the Royalists, invited to ourstandard, and employed under our public faith against the Jacobins, iftaken by that savage faction, are given up to the executioner withoutthe least attempt whatsoever at reprisal. For this we are to look at theking of Prussia's conduct, compared with his manifestoes about atwelvemonth ago. For this we are to look at the capitulations of Mentzand Valenciennes, made in the course of the present campaign. By thosetwo capitulations the Christian Royalists were excluded from anyparticipation in the cause of the combined powers. They were consideredas the outlaws of Europe. Two armies were in effect sent against them. One of those armies (that which surrendered Mentz) was very nearoverpowering the Christians of Poitou, and the other (that whichsurrendered at Valenciennes) has actually crushed the people whomoppression and despair had driven to resistance at Lyons, has massacredseveral thousands of them in cold blood, pillaged the whole substance ofthe place, and pursued their rage to the very houses, condemning thatnoble city to desolation, in the unheard-of manner we have seen itdevoted. It is, then, plain, by a conduct which overturns a thousanddeclarations, that we take the Royalists of France only as an instrumentof some convenience in a temporary hostility with the Jacobins, but thatwe regard those atheistic and murderous barbarians as the _bonâ fide_possessors of the soil of France. It appears, at least, that we considerthem as a fair government _de facto_, if not _de jure_, a resistance towhich, in favor of the king of Prance, by any man who happened to beborn within that country, might equitably be considered by othernations as the crime of treason. For my part, I would sooner put my hand into the fire than sign aninvitation to oppressed men to fight under my standard, and then, onevery sinister event of war, cruelly give them up to be punished as thebasest of traitors, as long as I had one of the common enemy in my handsto be put to death in order to secure those under my protection, and tovindicate the common honor of sovereigns. We hear nothing of this kindof security in favor of those whom we invite to the support of ourcause. Without it, I am not a little apprehensive that the proclamationsof the combined powers might (contrary to their intention, no doubt) belooked upon as frauds, and cruel traps laid for their lives. So far as to the correspondence between our declarations and ourconduct: let the declaration be worded as it will, the conduct is thepractical comment by which, and which alone, it can be understood. Thisconduct, acting on the declaration, leaves a monarchy without a monarch, and without any representative or trustee for the monarch and themonarchy. It supposes a kingdom without states and orders, a territorywithout proprietors, and faithful subjects who are to be left to thefate of rebels and traitors. The affair of the establishment of a government is a very difficultundertaking for foreign powers to act in as _principals_; though as_auxiliaries and mediators_ it has been not at all unusual, and may be ameasure full of policy and humanity and true dignity. The first thing we ought to do, supposing us not giving the law asconquerors, but acting as friendly powers applied to for counsel andassistance in the settlement of a distracted country, is well toconsider the composition, nature, and temper of its objects, andparticularly of those who actually do or who ought to exercise power inthat state. It is material to know who they are, and how constituted, whom we consider as _the people of France_. The next consideration is, through whom our arrangements are to be made, and on what principles the government we propose is to be established. The first question on the people is this: Whether we are to consider theindividuals _now actually in France, numerically taken and arranged intoJacobin clubs_, as the body politic, constituting the nation ofFrance, --or whether we consider the original individual proprietors oflands, expelled since the Revolution, and the states and the bodiespolitic, such as the colleges of justice called Parliaments, thecorporations, noble and not noble, of bailliages and towns and cities, the bishops and the clergy, as the true constituent parts of the nation, and forming the legally organized parts of the people of France. In this serious concern it is very necessary that we should have themost distinct ideas annexed to the terms we employ; because it isevident that an abuse of the term _people_ has been the original, fundamental cause of those evils, the cure of which, by war and policy, is the present object of all the states of Europe. If we consider the acting power in Prance, in any legal construction ofpublic law, as the people, the question is decided in favor of therepublic one and indivisible. But we have decided for monarchy. If so, we have a king and subjects; and that king and subjects have rights andprivileges which ought to be supported at home: for I do not supposethat the government of that kingdom can or ought to be regulated by thearbitrary mandate of a foreign confederacy. As to the faction exercising power, to suppose that monarchy can besupported by principled regicides, religion by professed atheists, orderby clubs of Jacobins, property by committees of proscription, andjurisprudence by revolutionary tribunals, is to be sanguine in a degreeof which I am incapable. On them I decide, for myself, that thesepersons are not the legal corporation of France, and that it is not withthem we can (if we would) settle the government of France. Since, then, we have decided for monarchy in that kingdom, we ought alsoto settle who is to be the monarch, who is to be the guardian of aminor, and how the monarch and monarchy is to be modified and supported;if the monarch is to be elected, who the electors are to be, --ifhereditary, what order is established, corresponding with an hereditarymonarchy, and fitted to maintain it; who are to modify it in itsexercise; who are to restrain its powers, where they ought to belimited, to strengthen them, where they are to be supported, or, toenlarge them, where the object, the time, and the circumstances maydemand their extension. These are things which, in the outline, ought tobe made distinct and clear; for if they are not, (especially with regardto those great points, who are the proprietors of the soil, and what isthe corporation of the kingdom, ) there is nothing to hinder the completeestablishment of a Jacobin republic, (such as that formed in 1790 and1791, ) under the name of a _Démocratie Royale_. Jacobinism does notconsist in the having or not having a certain pageant under the name ofa king, but "in taking the people as equal individuals, without anycorporate name or description, without attention to property, withoutdivision of powers, and forming the government of delegates from anumber of men so constituted, --in destroying or confiscating property, and bribing the public creditors, or the poor, with the spoils, now ofone part of the community, now of another, without regard toprescription or possession. " I hope no one can be so very blind as to imagine that monarchy can beacknowledged and supported in France upon any other basis than that ofits property, _corporate and individual_, --or that it can enjoy amoment's permanence or security upon any scheme of things which setsaside all the ancient corporate capacities and distinctions of thekingdom, and subverts the whole fabric of its ancient laws and usages, political, civil, and religious, to introduce a system founded on thesupposed _rights of man, and the absolute equality of the human race_. Unless, therefore, we declare clearly and distinctly in favor of the_restoration_ of property, and confide to the hereditary property of thekingdom the limitation and qualifications of its hereditary monarchy, the blood and treasure of Europe is wasted for the establishment ofJacobinism in France. There is no doubt that Danton and Robespierre, Chaumette and Barère, that Condorcet, that Thomas Paine, that LaFayette, and the ex-Bishop of Autun, the _Abbé Grégoire_, with all thegang of the Sieyèses, the Henriots, and the Santerres, if they couldsecure themselves in the fruits of their rebellion and robbery, wouldbe perfectly indifferent, whether the most unhappy of all infants, whomby the lessons of the shoemaker, his governor and guardian, they aretraining up studiously and methodically to be an idiot, or, what isworse, the most wicked and base of mankind, continues to receive hiscivic education in the Temple or the Tuileries, whilst they, and such asthey, really govern the kingdom. It cannot be too often and too strongly inculcated, that monarchy andproperty must, in France, go together, or neither can exist. To think ofthe possibility of the existence of a permanent and hereditary royalty, _where nothing else is hereditary or permanent in point either ofpersonal or corporate dignity_, is a ruinous chimera, worthy of the AbbéSieyès, and those wicked fools, his associates, who usurped power by themurders of the 19th of July and the 6th of October, 1789, and whobrought forth the monster which they called _Démocratie Royale_, or theConstitution. I believe that most thinking men would prefer infinitely some sober andsensible form of a republic, in which there was no mention at all of aking, but which held out some reasonable security to property, life, andpersonal freedom, to a scheme of tilings like this _Démocratie Royale, _founded on impiety, immorality, fraudulent currencies, the confiscationof innocent individuals, and the pretended rights of man, --and which, ineffect, excluding the whole body of the nobility, clergy, and landedproperty of a great nation, threw everything into the hands of adesperate set of obscure adventurers, who led to every mischief a blindand bloody band of _sans-culottes. _ At the head, or rather at the tail, of this system was a miserable pageant, as its ostensible instrument, who was to be treated with every species of indignity, till the momentwhen he was conveyed from the palace of contempt to the dungeon ofhorror, and thence led by a brewer of his capital, through the applausesof an hired, frantic, drunken multitude, to lose his head upon ascaffold. This is the Constitution, or _Démocratie Royale_; and this is whatinfallibly would be again set up in France, to run exactly the sameround, if the predominant power should so far be forced to submit as toreceive the name of a king, leaving it to the Jacobins (that is, tothose who have subverted royalty and destroyed property) to modify theone and to distribute the other as spoil. By the Jacobins I meanindiscriminately the Brissotins and the Maratists, knowing no sort ofdifference between them. As to any other party, none exists in thatunhappy country. The Royalists (those in Poitou excepted) are banishedand extinguished; and as to what they call the Constitutionalists, or_Democrates Royaux_, they never had an existence of the smallest degreeof power, consideration, or authority, nor, if they differ at all fromthe rest of the atheistic banditti, (which from their actions andprinciples I have no reason to think, ) were they ever any other than thetemporary tools and instruments of the more determined, able, andsystematic regicides. Several attempts have been made to support thischimerical _Démocratie Royale_: the first was by La Fayette, the last byDumouriez: they tended only to show that this absurd project had noparty to support it. The Girondists under Wimpfen, and at Bordeaux, havemade some struggle. The Constitutionalists never could make any, andfor a very plain reason: they were _leaders in rebellion_. All theirprinciples and their whole scheme of government being republican, theycould never excite the smallest degree of enthusiasm in favor of theunhappy monarch, whom they had rendered contemptible, to make him theexecutive officer in their new commonwealth. They only appeared astraitors to their own Jacobin cause, not as faithful adherents to theking. In an address to France, in an attempt to treat with it, or inconsidering any scheme at all relative to it, it is impossible we shouldmean the geographical, we must always mean the moral and politicalcountry. I believe we shall be in a great error, if we act upon an ideathat there exists in that country any organized body of men who might bewilling to treat on equitable terms for the restoration of theirmonarchy, but who are nice in balancing those terms, and who wouldaccept such as to them appeared reasonable, but who would quietly submitto the predominant power, if they were not gratified in the fashion ofsome constitution which suited with their fancies. [Sidenote: No individual influence, civil or military. ] I take the state of France to be totally different. I know of no suchbody, and of no such party. So far from a combination of twenty men, (always excepting Poitou, ) I never yet heard that _a single man_ couldbe named of sufficient force or influence to answer for another man, much less for the smallest district in the country, or for the mostincomplete company of soldiers in the army. We see every man that theJacobins choose to apprehend taken up in his village or in his house, and conveyed to prison without the least shadow of resistance, --_andthis indifferently_, whether he is suspected of Royalism, or Federalism, Moderantism, Democracy Royal, or any other of the names of faction whichthey start by the hour. What is much more astonishing, (and, if we didnot carefully attend to the genius and circumstances of this Revolution, must indeed appear incredible, ) all their most accredited military men, from a generalissimo to a corporal, may be arrested, (each in the midstof his camp, and covered with the laurels of accumulated victories, )tied neck and heels, thrown into a cart, and sent to Paris to bedisposed of at the pleasure of the Revolutionary tribunals. [Sidenote: No corporations of justice, commerce, or police. ] As no individuals have power and influence, so there are nocorporations, whether of lawyers or burghers, existing. The Assemblycalled Constituent, destroyed all such institutions very early. Theprimary and secondary assemblies, by their original constitution, wereto be dissolved when they answered the purpose of electing themagistrates, and were expressly disqualified from performing anycorporate act whatsoever. The transient magistrates have been almost allremoved before the expiration of their terms, and new have been latelyimposed upon the people without the form or ceremony of an election. These magistrates during their existence are put under, as all theexecutive authorities are from first to last, the popular societies(called Jacobin clubs) of the several countries, and this by an expressorder of the National Convention: it is even made a case of death tooppose or attack those clubs. They, too, have been lately subjected toan expurgatory scrutiny, to drive out from them everything savoring ofwhat they call the crime of _moderantism_, of which offence, however, few were guilty. But as people began to take refuge from theirpersecutions amongst themselves, they have driven them from that lastasylum. The state of France is perfectly simple. It consists of but twodescriptions, --the oppressors and the oppressed. The first has the whole authority of the state in their hands, --all thearms, all the revenues of the public, all the confiscations ofindividuals and corporations. They have taken the lower sort from theiroccupations and have put them into pay, that they may form them into abody of janizaries to overrule and awe property. The heads of thesewretches they never suffer to cool. They supply them with a food forfury varied by the day, --besides the sensual state of intoxication, fromwhich they are rarely free. They have made the priests and peopleformally abjure the Divinity; they have estranged them from every civil, moral, and social, or even natural and instinctive sentiment, habit, andpractice, and have rendered them systematically savages, to make itimpossible for them to be the instruments of any sober and virtuousarrangement, or to be reconciled to any state of order, under any namewhatsoever. The other description--_the oppressed_--are people of some property:they are the small relics of the persecuted landed interest; they arethe burghers and the farmers. By the very circumstance of their being ofsome property, though numerous in some points of view, they cannot bevery considerable as _a number_. In cities the nature of theiroccupations renders them domestic and feeble; in the country itconfines them to their farm for subsistence. The national guards are allchanged and reformed. Everything suspicious in the description of whichthey were composed is rigorously disarmed. Committees, called ofvigilance and safety, are everywhere formed: a most severe andscrutinizing inquisition, far more rigid than anything ever known orimagined. Two persons cannot meet and confer without hazard to theirliberty, and even to their lives. Numbers scarcely credible have beenexecuted, and their property confiscated. At Paris, and in most othertowns, the bread they buy is a daily dole, --which they cannot obtainwithout a daily ticket delivered to them by their masters. Multitudes ofall ages and sexes are actually imprisoned. I have reason to believethat in France there are not, for various state crimes, so few as twentythousand[33] actually in jail, --a large proportion of people of propertyin any state. If a father of a family should show any disposition toresist or to withdraw himself from their power, his wife and childrenare cruelly to answer for it. It is by means of these hostages that theykeep the troops, which they force by masses (as they call it) into thefield, true to their colors. Another of their resources is not to be forgotten. They have latelyfound a way of giving a sort of ubiquity to the supreme sovereignauthority, which no monarch has been able yet to give to anyrepresentation of his. The commissioners of the National Convention, who are the members of theConvention itself, and really exercise all its powers, make continualcircuits through every province, and visits to every army. There theysupersede all the ordinary authorities, civil and military, and changeand alter everything at their pleasure. So that, in effect, nodeliberative capacity exists in any portion of the inhabitants. Toulon, republican in principle, having taken its decision _in a momentunder the guillotine_, and before the arrival of thesecommissioners, --Toulon, being a place regularly fortified, and having inits bosom a navy in part highly discontented, has escaped, though by asort of miracle: and it would not have escaped, if two powerful fleetshad not been at the door, to give them not only strong, but prompt andimmediate succor, especially as neither this nor any other seaport townin France can be depended on, from the peculiarly savage dispositions, manners, and connections among the lower sort of people in those places. This I take to be the true state of things in France, _so far as itregards any existing bodies, whether of legal or voluntary association, capable of acting or of treating in corps_. As to the oppressed _individuals_, they are many, and as discontented asmen must be under the monstrous and complicated tyranny of all sortswith which they are crushed. They want no stimulus to throw off thisdreadful yoke; but they do want, not manifestoes, which they have hadeven to surfeit, but real protection, force, and succor. The disputes and questions of men at their ease do not at all affecttheir minds, or ever can occupy the minds of men in their situation. These theories are long since gone by; they have had their day, and havedone their mischief. The question is not between the rabble of systems, Fayettism, Condorcetism, Monarchism, or Democratism, or Federalism, onthe one side, and the fundamental laws of France on the other, --orbetween all these systems amongst themselves. It is a controversy (weak, indeed, and unequal, on the one part) between the proprietor and therobber, between the prisoner and the jailer, between the neck and theguillotine. Four fifths of the French inhabitants would thankfully takeprotection from the emperor of Morocco, and would never trouble theirheads about the abstract principles of the power by which they weresnatched from imprisonment, robbery, and murder. But then these men cando little or nothing for themselves. They have no arms, nor magazines, nor chiefs, nor union, nor the possibility of these things withinthemselves. On the whole, therefore, I lay it down as a certainty, thatin the Jacobins no change of mind is to be expected, and that no othersin the territory of France have an independent and deliberativeexistence. The truth is, that France is out of itself, --the moral France isseparated from the geographical. The master of the house is expelled, and the robbers are in possession. If we look for the _corporate people_of France, existing as corporate in the eye and intention of public law, (that corporate people, I mean, who are free to deliberate and todecide, and who have a capacity to treat and conclude, ) they are inFlanders, and Germany, in Switzerland, Spain, Italy, and England. Thereare all the princes of the blood, there are all the orders of the state, there are all the parliaments of the kingdom. This being, as I conceive, the true state of France, as it exists_territorially_, and as it exists _morally_, the question will be, withwhom we are to concert our arrangements, and whom we are to use as ourinstruments in the reduction, in the pacification, and in the settlementof France. The work to be done must indicate the workmen. Supposing usto have national objects, we have two principal and one secondary. Thefirst two are so intimately connected as not to be separated even inthought: the reëstablishment of royalty, and the reëstablishment ofproperty. One would think it requires not a great deal of argument toprove that the most serious endeavors to restore royalty will be made byRoyalists. Property will be most energetically restored by the ancientproprietors of that kingdom. When I speak of Royalists, I wish to be understood of those who werealways such from principle. Every arm lifted up for royalty from thebeginning was the arm of a man so principled. I do not think there areten exceptions. The principled Royalists are certainly not of force to effect theseobjects by themselves. If they were, the operations of the present greatcombination would be wholly unnecessary. What I contend for is, thatthey should be consulted with, treated with, and employed; and that noforeigners whatsoever are either in interest so engaged, or in judgmentand local knowledge so competent to answer all these purposes, as thenatural proprietors of the country. Their number, for an exiled party, is also considerable. Almost thewhole body of the landed proprietors of France, ecclesiastical andcivil, have been steadily devoted to the monarchy. This body does notamount to less than seventy thousand, --a very great number in thecomposition of the respectable classes in any society. I am sure, that, if half that number of the same description were taken out of thiscountry, it would leave hardly anything that I should call the people ofEngland. On the faith of the Emperor and the king of Prussia, a body often thousand nobility on horseback, with the king's two brothers attheir head, served with the king of Prussia in the campaign of 1792, andequipped themselves with the last shilling of their ruined fortunes andexhausted credit. [34] It is not now the question, how that great forcecame to be rendered useless and totally dissipated. I state it now, onlyto remark that a great part of the same force exists, and would act, ifit were enabled. I am sure everything has shown us that in this war withFrance one Frenchman is worth twenty foreigners. La Vendée is a proof ofthis. If we wish to make an impression on the minds of any persons in France, or to persuade them to join our standard, it is impossible that theyshould not be more easily led, and more readily formed and disciplined, (civilly and martially disciplined, ) by those who speak their language, who are acquainted with their manners, who are conversant with theirusages and habits of thinking, and who have a local knowledge of theircountry, and some remains of ancient credit and consideration, than witha body congregated from all tongues and tribes. Where none of therespectable native interests are seen in the transaction, it isimpossible that any declarations can convince those that are within, orthose that are without, that anything else than some sort of hostilityin the style of a conqueror is meant. At best, it will appear to suchwavering persons, (if such there are, ) whom we mean to fix with us, achoice whether they are to continue a prey to domestic banditti, or tobe fought for as a carrion carcass and picked to the bone by all thecrows and vultures of the sky. They may take protection, (and theywould, I doubt not, ) but they can have neither alacrity nor zeal in sucha cause. When they see nothing but bands of English, Spaniards, Neapolitans, Sardinians, Prussians, Austrians, Hungarians, Bohemians, Slavonians, Croatians, _acting as principals_, it is impossible theyshould think we come with a beneficent design. Many of those fierce andbarbarous people have already given proofs how little they regard anyFrench party whatsoever. Some of these nations the people of France arejealous of: such are the English and the Spaniards;--others theydespise: such are the Italians;--others they hate and dread: such arethe German and Danubian powers. At best, such interposition of ancientenemies excites apprehension; but in this case, how can they supposethat we come to maintain their legitimate monarchy in a truly paternalFrench government, to protect their privileges, their laws, theirreligion, and their property, when they see us make use of no one personwho has any interest in them, any knowledge of them, or any the leastzeal for them? On the contrary, they see that we do not suffer any ofthose who have shown a zeal in that cause which we seem to make our ownto come freely into any place in which the allies obtain any footing. If we wish to gain upon any people, it is right to see what it is theyexpect. We have had a proposal from the Royalists of Poitou. They arewell entitled, after a bloody war maintained for eight months againstall the powers of anarchy, to speak the sentiments of the Royalists ofFrance. Do they desire us to exclude their princes, their clergy, theirnobility? The direct contrary. They earnestly solicit that men of everyone of these descriptions should be sent to them. They do not call forEnglish, Austrian, or Prussian officers. They call for French emigrantofficers. They call for the exiled priests. They have demanded the Comted'Artois to appear at their head. These are the demands (quite naturaldemands) of those who are ready to follow the standard of monarchy. The great means, therefore, of restoring the monarchy, which we havemade _the main object of the war_, is, to assist the dignity, thereligion, and the property of France to repossess themselves of themeans of their natural influence. This ought to be the primary object ofall our politics and all our military operations. Otherwise everythingwill move in a preposterous order, and nothing but confusion anddestruction will follow. I know that misfortune is not made to win respect from ordinary minds. Iknow that there is a leaning to prosperity, however obtained, and aprejudice in its favor. I know there is a disposition to hope somethingfrom the variety and inconstancy of villany, rather than from thetiresome uniformity of fixed principle. There have been, I admit, situations in which a guiding person or party might be gained over, andthrough him or them the whole body of a nation. For the hope of such aconversion, and of deriving advantage from enemies, it might be politicfor a while to throw your friends into the shade. But examples drawnfrom history in occasions like the present will be found dangerously tomislead us. France has no resemblance to other countries which haveundergone troubles and been purified by them. If France, Jacobinized asit has been for four full years, did contain any bodies of authority anddisposition to treat with you, (most assuredly she does not, ) such isthe levity of those who have expelled everything respectable in theircountry, such their ferocity, their arrogance, their mutinous spirit, their habits of defying everything human and divine, that no engagementwould hold with them for three months; nor, indeed, could they coheretogether for any purpose of civilized society, if left as they now are. There must be a means, not only of breaking their strength withinthemselves, but of _civilizing_ them; and these two things must gotogether, before we can possibly treat with them, not only as a nation, but with any division of them. Descriptions of men of their own race, but better in rank, superior in property and decorum, of honorable, decent, and orderly habits, are absolutely necessary to bring them tosuch a frame as to qualify them so much as to come into contact with acivilized nation. A set of those ferocious savages with arms in theirhands, left to themselves in one part of the country whilst you proceedto another, would break forth into outrages at least as bad as theirformer. They must, as fast as gained, (if ever they are gained, ) be putunder the guide, direction, and government of better Frenchmen thanthemselves, or they will instantly relapse into a fever of aggravatedJacobinism. We must not judge of other parts of France by the temporary submissionof Toulon, with two vast fleets in its harbor, and a garrison far morenumerous than all the inhabitants able to bear arms. If they were leftto themselves, I am quite sure they would not retain their attachment tomonarchy of any name for a single week. To administer the only cure for the unheard-of disorders of that undonecountry, I think it infinitely happy for us that God has given into ourhands more effectual remedies than human contrivance could point out. Wehave in our bosom, and in the bosom of other civilized states, nearerforty than thirty thousand persons, providentially preserved, not onlyfrom the cruelty and violence, but from the contagion of the horridpractices, sentiments, and language of the Jacobins, and even sacredlyguarded from the view of such abominable scenes. If we should obtain, inany considerable district, a footing in France, we possess an immensebody of physicians and magistrates of the mind, whom we now know to bethe most discreet, gentle, well-tempered, conciliatory, virtuous, andpious persons who in any order probably existed in the world. You willhave a missioner of peace and order in every parish. Never was a wisernational economy than in the charity of the English and of othercountries. Never was money better expended than in the maintenance ofthis body of civil troops for reëstablishing order in France, and forthus securing its civilization to Europe. This means, if properly used, is of value inestimable. Nor is this corps of instruments of civilization confined to the firstorder of that state, --I mean the clergy. The allied powers possess alsoan exceedingly numerous, well-informed, sensible, ingenious, high-principled, and spirited body of cavaliers in the expatriatedlanded interest of France, as well qualified, at least, as I (who havebeen taught by time and experience to moderate my calculation of theexpectancy of human abilities) ever expected to see in the body of anylanded gentlemen and soldiers by their birth. France is well winnowedand sifted. Its virtuous men are, I believe, amongst the most virtuous, as its wicked are amongst the most abandoned upon earth. Whatever in theterritory of France may be found to be in the middle between these mustbe attracted to the better part. This will be compassed, when everygentleman, everywhere being restored to his landed estate, each on hispatrimonial ground, may join the clergy in reanimating the loyalty, fidelity, and religion of the people, --that these gentlemen proprietorsof land may sort that people according to the trust they severallymerit, that they may arm the honest and well-affected, and disarm anddisable the factious and ill-disposed. No foreigner can make thisdiscrimination nor these arrangements. The ancient corporations ofburghers according to their several modes should be restored, and placed(as they ought to be) in the hands of men of gravity and property in thecities or bailliages, according to the proper constitutions of thecommons or third estate of France. They will restrain and regulate theseditious rabble there, as the gentlemen will on their own estates. Inthis way, and _in this way alone_, the country (once broken in upon byforeign force well directed) may be gained and settled. It must begained and settled by _itself_, and through the medium of its _own_native dignity and property. It is not honest, it is not decent, stillless is it politic, for foreign powers themselves to attempt anything inthis minute, internal, local detail, in which they could show nothingbut ignorance, imbecility, confusion, and oppression. As to the princewho has a just claim to exercise the regency of France, like other menhe is not without his faults and his defects. But faults or defects(always supposing them faults of common human infirmity) are not what inany country destroy a legal title to government. These princes are keptin a poor, obscure, country town of the king of Prussia's. Theirreputation is entirely at the mercy of every calumniator. They cannotshow themselves, they cannot explain themselves, as princes ought to do. After being well informed as any man here can be, I do not find thatthese blemishes in this eminent person are at all considerable, or thatthey at all affect a character which is full of probity, honor, generosity, and real goodness. In some points he has but too muchresemblance to his unfortunate brother, who, with all his weaknesses, had a good understanding, and many parts of an excellent man and a goodking. But Monsieur, without supposing the other deficient, (as he wasnot, ) excels him in general knowledge, and in a sharp and keenobservation, with something of a better address, and an happier mode ofspeaking and of writing. His conversation is open, agreeable, andinformed; his manners gracious and princely. His brother, the Comted'Artois, sustains still better the representation of his place. He iseloquent, lively, engaging in the highest degree, of a decidedcharacter, full of energy and activity. In a word, he is a brave, honorable, and accomplished cavalier. Their brethren of royalty, if theywere true to their own cause and interest, instead of relegating theseillustrious persons to an obscure town, would bring them forward intheir courts and camps, and exhibit them to (what they would speedilyobtain) the esteem, respect, and affection of mankind. [Sidenote: Objection made to the regent's endeavor to go to Spain. ] As to their knocking at every door, (which seems to give offence, ) cananything be more natural? Abandoned, despised, rendered in a manneroutlaws by all the powers of Europe, who have treated their unfortunatebrethren with all the giddy pride and improvident insolence of blind, unfeeling prosperity, who did not even send them a compliment ofcondolence on the murder of their brother and sister, in such a state isit to be wondered at, or blamed, that they tried every way, likely orunlikely, well or ill chosen, to get out of the horrible pit into whichthey are fallen, and that in particular they tried whether the princesof their own blood might at length be brought to think the cause ofkings, and of kings of their race, wounded in the murder and exile ofthe branch of France, of as much importance as the killing of a brace ofpartridges? If they were absolutely idle, and only eat in sloth theirbread of sorrow and dependence, they would be forgotten, or at bestthought of as wretches unworthy of their pretensions, which they haddone nothing to support. If they err from _our_ interests, what care hasbeen taken to keep them in those interests? or what desire has everbeen shown to employ them in any other way than as instruments of theirown degradation, shame, and ruin? The Parliament of Paris, by whom the title of the regent is to berecognized, (not made, ) according to the laws of the kingdom, is readyto recognize it, and to register it, if a place of meeting was given tothem, which might be within their own jurisdiction, supposing that onlylocality was required for the exercise of their functions: for it is oneof the advantages of monarchy to have no local seat. It may maintain itsrights out of the sphere of its territorial jurisdiction, if otherpowers will suffer it. I am well apprised that the little intriguers, and whisperers, andself-conceited, thoughtless babblers, worse than either, run about todepreciate the fallen virtue of a great nation. But whilst they talk, wemust make our choice, --they or the Jacobins. We have no other option. Asto those who in the pride of a prosperity not obtained by their wisdom, valor, or industry, think so well of themselves, and of their ownabilities and virtues, and so ill of other men, truth obliges me to saythat they are not founded in their presumption concerning themselves, nor in their contempt of the French princes, magistrates, nobility, andclergy. Instead of inspiring me with dislike and distrust of theunfortunate, engaged with us in a common cause against our Jacobinenemy, they take away all my esteem for their own characters, and all mydeference to their judgment. There are some few French gentlemen, indeed, who talk a language notwholly different from this jargon. Those whom I have in my eye I respectas gallant soldiers, as much as any one can do; but on their politicaljudgment and prudence I have not the slightest reliance, nor on theirknowledge of their own country, or of its laws and Constitution. Theyare, if not enemies, at least not friends, to the orders of their ownstate, --not to the princes, the clergy, or the nobility; they possessonly an attachment to the monarchy, or rather to the persons of the lateking and queen. In all other respects their conversation is Jacobin. Iam afraid they, or some of them, go into the closets of ministers, andtell them that the affairs of France will be better arranged by theallied powers than by the landed proprietors of the kingdom, or by theprinces who have a right to govern; and that, if any French are at allto be employed in the settlement of their country, it ought to be onlythose who have never declared any decided opinion, or taken any activepart in the Revolution. [35] I suspect that the authors of this opinion are mere soldiers of fortune, who, though men of integrity and honor, would as gladly receive militaryrank from Russia, or Austria, or Prussia, as from the regent of France. Perhaps their not having as much importance at his court as they couldwish may incline them to this strange imagination. Perhaps, having noproperty in old France, they are more indifferent about its restoration. Their language is certainly flattering to all ministers in all courts. We all are men; we all love to be told of the extent of our own powerand our own faculties. If we love glory, we are jealous of partners, andafraid even of our own instruments. It is of all modes of flattery themost effectual, to be told that you can regulate the affairs of anotherkingdom better than its hereditary proprietors. It is formed to flatterthe principle of conquest so natural to all men. It is this principlewhich is now making the partition of Poland. The powers concerned havebeen told by some perfidious Poles, and perhaps they believe, that theirusurpation is a great benefit to the people, especially to the commonpeople. However this may turn out with regard to Poland, I am quite surethat France could not be so well under a foreign direction as under thatof the representatives of its own king and its own ancient estates. I think I have myself studied France as much as most of those whom theallied courts are likely to employ in such a work. I have likewise ofmyself as partial and as vain an opinion as men commonly have ofthemselves. But if I could command the whole military arm of Europe, Iam sure that a bribe of the best province in that kingdom would nottempt me to intermeddle in their affairs, except in perfect concurrenceand concert with the natural, legal interests of the country, composedof the ecclesiastical, the military, the several corporate bodies ofjustice and of burghership, making under a monarch (I repeat it againand again) _the French nation according to its fundamentalConstitution_. No considerate statesman would undertake to meddle withit upon any other condition. The government of that kingdom is fundamentally monarchical. The publiclaw of Europe has never recognized in it any other form of government. The potentates of Europe have, by that law, a right, an interest, and aduty to know with what government they are to treat, and what they areto admit into the federative society, --or, in other words, into thediplomatic republic of Europe. This right is clear and indisputable. What other and further interference they have a right to in the interiorof the concerns of another people is a matter on which, as on everypolitical subject, no very definite or positive rule can well be laiddown. Our neighbors are men; and who will attempt to dictate the lawsunder which it is allowable or forbidden to take a part in the concernsof men, whether they are considered individually or in a collectivecapacity, whenever charity to them, or a care of my own safety, callsforth my activity? Circumstances perpetually variable, directing a moralprudence and discretion, the _general_ principles of which never vary, must alone prescribe a conduct fitting on such occasions. The latestcasuists of public law are rather of a republican cast, and, in my mind, by no means so averse as they ought to be to a right in the people (aword which, ill defined, is of the most dangerous use) to make changesat their pleasure in the fundamental laws of their country. Thesewriters, however, when a country is divided, leave abundant liberty fora neighbor to support any of the parties according to his choice. [36]This interference must, indeed, always be a right, whilst the privilegeof doing good to others, and of averting from them every sort of evil, is a right: circumstances may render that right a duty. It dependswholly on this, whether it be a _bonâ fide_ charity to a party, and aprudent precaution with regard to yourself, or whether, under thepretence of aiding one of the parties in a nation, you act in such amanner as to aggravate its calamities and accomplish its finaldestruction. In truth, it is not the interfering or keeping aloof, butiniquitous intermeddling, or treacherous inaction, which is praised orblamed by the decision of an equitable judge. It will be a just and irresistible presumption against the fairness ofthe interposing power, that he takes with him no party or description ofmen in the divided state. It is not probable that these parties shouldall, and all alike, be more adverse to the true interests of theircountry, and less capable of forming a judgment upon them, than thosewho are absolute strangers to their affairs, and to the character of theactors in them, and have but a remote, feeble, and secondary sympathywith their interest. Sometimes a calm and healing arbiter may benecessary; but he is to compose differences, not to give laws. It isimpossible that any one should not feel the full force of thatpresumption. Even people, whose politics for the supposed good of theirown country lead them to take advantage of the dissensions of aneighboring nation in order to ruin it, will not directly propose toexclude the natives, but they will take that mode of consulting andemploying them which most nearly approaches to an exclusion. In someparticulars they propose what amounts to that exclusion, in others theydo much worse. They recommend to ministry, "that no Frenchman who hasgiven a decided opinion or acted a decided part in this greatRevolution, for or against it, should be countenanced, brought forward, trusted, or employed, even in the strictest subordination to theministers of the allied powers. " Although one would think that thisadvice would stand condemned on the first proposition, yet, as it hasbeen made popular, and has been proceeded upon practically, I think itright to give it a full consideration. And first, I have asked myself who these Frenchmen are, that, in thestate their own country has been in for these last five years, of allthe people of Europe, have alone not been able to form a decidedopinion, or have been unwilling to act a decided part? Looking over all the names I have heard of in this great revolution inall human affairs, I find no man of any distinction who has remained inthat more than Stoical apathy, but the Prince de Conti. This mean, stupid, selfish, swinish, and cowardly animal, universally known anddespised as such, has indeed, except in one abortive attempt to elope, been perfectly neutral. However, his neutrality, which it seems wouldqualify him for trust, and on a competition must set aside the Prince deCondé, can be of no sort of service. His moderation has not been able tokeep him from a jail. The allied powers must draw him from that jail, before they can have the full advantage of the exertions of this greatneutralist. Except him, I do not recollect a man of rank or talents, who by hisspeeches or his votes, by his pen or by his sword, has not been activeon this scene. The time, indeed, could admit no neutrality in any personworthy of the name of man. There were originally two great divisions inFrance: the one is that which overturned the whole of the government inChurch and State, and erected a republic on the basis of atheism. Theirgrand engine was the Jacobin Club, a sort of secession from which, butexactly on the same principles, begat another short-lived one, calledthe Club of Eighty-Nine, [37] which was chiefly guided by the courtrebels, who, in addition to the crimes of which they were guilty incommon with the others, had the merit of betraying a gracious master anda kind benefactor. Subdivisions of this faction, which since we haveseen, do not in the least differ from each other in their principles, their dispositions, or the means they have employed. Their only quarrelhas been about power: in that quarrel, like wave succeeding wave, onefaction has got the better and expelled the other. Thus, La Fayette fora while got the better of Orléans; and Orléans afterwards prevailed overLa Fayette. Brissot overpowered Orléans; Barère and Robespierre, andtheir faction, mastered them both, and cut off their heads. All who werenot Royalists have been listed in some or other of these divisions. Ifit were of any use to settle a precedence, the elder ought to have hisrank. The first authors, plotters, and contrivers of this monstrousscheme seem to me entitled to the first place in our distrust andabhorrence. I have seen some of those who are thought the best amongstthe original rebels, and I have not neglected the means of beinginformed concerning the others. I can very truly say, that I have notfound, by observation, or inquiry, that any sense of the evils producedby their projects has produced in them, or any _one_ of them, thesmallest degree of repentance. Disappointment and mortificationundoubtedly they feel; but to them repentance is a thing impossible. They are atheists. This wretched opinion, by which they are possessedeven to the height of fanaticism, leading them to exclude from theirideas of a commonwealth the vital principle of the physical, the moral, and the political world engages them in a thousand absurd contrivancesto fill up this dreadful void. Incapable of innoxious repose orhonorable action or wise speculation in the lurking-holes of a foreignland, into which (in a common ruin) they are driven to hide their headsamongst the innocent victims of their madness, they are at this veryhour as busy in the confection of the dirt-pies of their imaginaryconstitutions as if they had not been quite fresh from destroying, bytheir impious and desperate vagaries, the finest country upon earth. It is, however, out of these, or of such as these, guilty andimpenitent, despising the experience of others, and their own, that somepeople talk of choosing their negotiators with those Jacobins who theysuppose may be recovered to a sounder mind. They flatter themselves, itseems, that the friendly habits formed during their original partnershipof iniquity, a similarity of character, and a conformity in thegroundwork of their principles, might facilitate their conversion, andgain them over to some recognition of royalty. But surely this is toread human nature very ill. The several sectaries in this schism of theJacobins are the very last men in the world to trust each other. Fellowship in treason is a bad ground of confidence. The last quarrelsare the sorest; and the injuries received or offered by your ownassociates are ever the most bitterly resented. The people of France, ofevery name and description, would a thousand times sooner listen to thePrince de Condé, or to the Archbishop of Aix, or the Bishop of St. Pol, or to Monsieur de Cazalès, then to La Fayette, or Dumouriez, or theVicomte de Noailles, or the Bishop of Autun, or Necker, or his discipleLally Tollendal. Against the first description they have not thesmallest animosity, beyond that of a merely political dissension. Theothers they regard as traitors. The first description is that of the Christian Royalists, men who asearnestly wished for reformation, as they opposed innovation in thefundamental parts of their Church and State. _Their_ part has been _verydecided_. Accordingly, they are to be set aside in the restoration ofChurch and State. It is an odd kind of disqualification, where therestoration of religion and monarchy is the question. If England should(God forbid it should!) fall into the same misfortune with France, andthat the court of Vienna should undertake the restoration of ourmonarchy, I think it would be extraordinary to object to the admissionof Mr. Pitt or Lord Grenville or Mr. Dundas into any share in themanagement of that business, because in a day of trial they have stoodup firmly and manfully, as I trust they always will do, and withdistinguished powers, for the monarchy and the legitimate Constitutionof their country. I am sure, if I were to suppose myself at Vienna atsuch a time, I should, as a man, as an Englishman, and as a Royalist, protest in that case, as I do in this, against a weak and ruinousprinciple of proceeding, which can have no other tendency than to makethose who wish to support the crown meditate too profoundly on theconsequences of the part they take, and consider whether for their openand forward zeal in the royal cause they may not be thrust out from anysort of confidence and employment, where the interest of crowned headsis concerned. These are the _parties_. I have said, and said truly, that I know of noneutrals. But, as a general observation on this general principle ofchoosing neutrals on such occasions as the present, I have this to say, that it amounts to neither more nor less than this shockingproposition, --that we ought to exclude men of honor and ability fromserving theirs and our cause, and to put the dearest interests ofourselves and our posterity into the hands of men of no decidedcharacter, without judgment to choose and without courage to profess anyprinciple whatsoever. Such men can serve no cause, for this plain reason, --they have no causeat heart. They can, at best, work only as mere mercenaries. They havenot been guilty of great crimes; but it is only because they have notenergy of mind to rise to any height of wickedness. They are not hawksor kites: they are only miserable fowls whose flight is not above theirdunghill or hen-roost. But they tremble before the authors of thesehorrors. They admire them at a safe and respectful distance. There neverwas a mean and abject mind that did not admire an intrepid and dexterousvillain. In the bottom of their hearts they believe such hardymiscreants to be the only men qualified for great affairs. If you setthem to transact with such persons, they are instantly subdued. Theydare not so much as look their antagonist in the face. They are made tobe their subjects, not to be their arbiters or controllers. These men, to be sure, can look at atrocious acts without indignation, and can behold suffering virtue without sympathy. Therefore they areconsidered as sober, dispassionate men. But they have their passions, though of another kind, and which are infinitely more likely to carrythem out of the path of their duty. They are of a tame, timid, languid, inert temper, wherever the welfare of _others_ is concerned. In suchcauses, as they have no motives to action, they never possess any realability, and are totally destitute of all resource. Believe a man who has seen much and observed something. I have seen, inthe course of my life, a great many of that family of men. They aregenerally chosen because they have no opinion of their own; and as faras they can be got in good earnest to embrace any opinion, it is that ofwhoever happens to employ them, (neither longer nor shorter, narrowernor broader, ) with whom they have no discussion or consultation. Theonly thing which occurs to such a man, when he has got a business forothers into his hands, is, how to make his own fortune out of it. Theperson he is to treat with is not, with him, an adversary over whom heis to prevail, but a new friend he is to gain; therefore he alwayssystematically betrays some part of his trust. Instead of thinking howhe shall defend his ground to the last, and, if forced to retreat, howlittle he shall give up, this kind of man considers how much of theinterest of his employer he is to sacrifice to his adversary. Havingnothing but himself in view, he knows, that, in serving his principalwith zeal, he must probably incur some resentment from the oppositeparty. His object is, to obtain the good-will of the person with whom hecontends, that, when an agreement is made, he may join in rewarding him. I would not take one of these as my arbitrator in a dispute for so muchas a fish-pond; for, if he reserved the mud to me, he would be sure togive the water that fed the pool to my adversary. In a great cause, Ishould certainly wish that my agent should possess conciliatingqualities: that he should be of a frank, open, and candid disposition, soft in his nature, and of a temper to soften animosities and to winconfidence. He ought not to be a man odious to the person he treatswith, by personal injury, by violence, or by deceit, or, above all, bythe dereliction of his cause in any former transactions. But I would besure that my negotiator should be _mine_, --that he should be as earnestin the cause as myself, and known to be so, --that he should not belooked upon as a stipendiary advocate, but as a principled partisan. Inall treaty it is a great point that all idea of gaining your agent ishopeless. I would not trust the cause of royalty with a man who, professing neutrality, is half a republican. The enemy has already agreat part of his suit without a struggle, --and he contends withadvantage for all the rest. The common principle allowed between youradversary and your agent gives your adversary the advantage in everydiscussion. Before I shut up this discourse about neutral agency, (which I conceiveis not to be found, or, if found, ought not to be used, ) I have a fewother remarks to make on the cause which I conceive gives rise to it. In all that we do, whether in the struggle or after it, it is necessarythat we should constantly have in our eye the nature and character ofthe enemy we have to contend with. The Jacobin Revolution is carried onby men of no rank, of no consideration, of wild, savage minds, full oflevity, arrogance, and presumption, without morals, without probity, without prudence. What have they, then, to supply their innumerabledefects, and to make them terrible even to the firmest minds? _One_thing, and _one_ thing only, --but that one thing is worth athousand;--they have _energy_. In France, all things being put into anuniversal ferment, in the decomposition of society, no man comes forwardbut by his spirit of enterprise and the vigor of his mind. If we meetthis dreadful and portentous energy, restrained by no consideration ofGod or man, that is always vigilant, always on the attack, that allowsitself no repose, and suffers none to rest an hour with impunity, --if wemeet this energy with poor commonplace proceeding, with trivial maxims, paltry old saws, with doubts, fears, and suspicions, with a languid, uncertain hesitation, with a formal, official spirit, which is turnedaside by every obstacle from its purpose, and which never sees adifficulty but to yield to it, or at best to evade it, --down we go tothe bottom of the abyss, and nothing short of Omnipotence can save us. We must meet a vicious and distempered energy with a manly and rationalvigor. As virtue is limited in its resources, we are doubly bound to useall that in the circle drawn about us by our morals we are able tocommand. I do not contend against the advantages of distrust. In the world welive in it is but too necessary. Some of old called it the very sinewsof discretion. But what signify commonplaces that always run paralleland equal? Distrust is good, or it is bad, according to our position andour purpose. Distrust is a defensive principle. They who have much tolose have much to fear. But in France we hold nothing. We are to breakin upon a power in possession; we are to carry everything by storm, orby surprise, or by intelligence, or by all. Adventure, therefore, andnot caution, is our policy. Here to be too presuming is the bettererror. The world will judge of the spirit of our proceeding in those places ofFrance which may fall into our power by our conduct in those that arealready in our hands. Our wisdom should not be vulgar. Other times, perhaps other measures; but in this awful hour our politics ought to bemade up of nothing but courage, decision, manliness, and rectitude. Weshould have all the magnanimity of good faith. This is a royal andcommanding policy; and as long as we are true to it, we may give thelaw. Never can we assume this command, if we will not risk theconsequences. For which reason we ought to be bottomed enough inprinciple not to be carried away upon the first prospect of any sinisteradvantage. For depend upon it, that, if we once give way to a sinisterdealing, we shall teach others the game, and we shall be outwitted andoverborne; the Spaniards, the Prussians, God knows who, will put usunder contribution at their pleasure; and instead of being at the headof a great confederacy, and the arbiters of Europe, we shall, by ourmistakes, break up a great design into a thousand little selfishquarrels, the enemy will triumph, and we shall sit down under the termsof unsafe and dependent peace, weakened, mortified, and disgraced, whilst all Europe, England included, is left open and defenceless onevery part, to Jacobin principles, intrigues, and arms. In the case ofthe king of France, declared to be our friend and ally, we will still beconsidering ourselves in the contradictory character of an enemy. Thiscontradiction, I am afraid, will, in spite of us, give a color of fraudto all our transactions, or at least will so complicate our politicsthat we shall ourselves be inextricably entangled in them. I have Toulon in my eye. It was with infinite sorrow I heard, that, intaking the king of France's fleet in trust, we instantly unrigged anddismasted the ships, instead of keeping them in a condition to escape incase of disaster, and in order to fulfil our trust, --that is, to holdthem for the use of the owner, and in the mean time to employ them forour common service. These ships are now so circumstanced, that, if weare forced to evacuate Toulon, they must fall into the hands of theenemy or be burnt by ourselves. I know this is by some considered as afine thing for us. But the Athenians ought not to be better than theEnglish, or Mr. Pitt less virtuous than Aristides. Are we, then, so poor in resources that we can do no better witheighteen or twenty ships of the line than to burn them? Had we sent forFrench Royalist naval officers, of which some hundreds are to be had, and made them select such seamen as they could trust, and filled therest with our own and Mediterranean seamen, which are all over Italy tobe had by thousands, and put them under judicious Englishcommanders-in-chief, and with a judicious mixture of our ownsubordinates, the West Indies would at this day have been ours. It maybe said that these French officers would take them for the king ofFrance, and that they would not be in our power. Be it so. The islandswould not be ours, but they would not be Jacobinized. This is, however, a thing impossible. They must in effect and substance be ours. But allis upon that false principle of distrust, which, not confiding instrength, can never have the full use of it. They that pay, and feed, and equip, must direct. But I must speak plain upon this subject. TheFrench islands, if they were all our own, ought not to be all kept. Afair partition only ought to be made of those territories. This is asubject of policy very serious, which has many relations and aspects. Just here I only hint at it as answering an objection, whilst I statethe mischievous consequences which suffer us to be surprised into avirtual breach of faith by confounding our ally with our enemy, becausethey both belong to the same geographical territory. My clear opinion is, that Toulon ought to be made, what we set out with, a royal French city. By the necessity of the case, it must be under theinfluence, civil and military, of the allies. But the only way ofkeeping that jealous and discordant mass from tearing its componentparts to pieces, and hazarding the loss of the whole, is, to put theplace into the nominal government of the regent, his officers beingapproved by us. This, I say, is absolutely necessary for a poise amongstourselves. Otherwise is it to be believed that the Spaniards, who holdthat place with us in a sort of partnership, contrary to our mutualinterest, will see us absolute masters of the Mediterranean, withGibraltar on one side and Toulon on the other, with a quiet and composedmind, whilst we do little less than declare that we are to take thewhole West Indies into our hands, leaving the vast, unwieldy, and feeblebody of the Spanish dominions in that part of the world absolutely atour mercy, without any power to balance us in the smallest degree?Nothing is so fatal to a nation as an extreme of self-partiality, andthe total want of consideration of what others will naturally hope orfear. Spain must think she sees that we are taking advantage of theconfusions which reign in France to disable that country, and of courseevery country, from affording her protection, and in the end to turn theSpanish monarchy into a province. If she saw things in a proper point oflight, to be sure, she would not consider any other plan of politics asof the least moment in comparison of the extinction of Jacobinism. Buther ministers (to say the best of them) are vulgar politicians. It is nowonder that they should postpone this great point, or balance it byconsiderations of the common politics, that is, the questions of powerbetween _state and state_. If we manifestly endeavor to destroy thebalance, especially the maritime and commercial balance, both in Europeand the West Indies, (the latter their sore and vulnerable part, ) fromfear of what France may do for Spain hereafter, is it to be wonderedthat Spain, infinitely weaker than we are, (weaker, indeed, than such amass of empire ever was, ) should feel the same fears from ouruncontrolled power that we give way to ourselves from a supposedresurrection of the ancient power of France under a monarchy? Itsignifies nothing whether we are wrong or right in the abstract; but inrespect to our relation to Spain, with such principles followed up inpractice, it is absolutely impossible that any cordial alliance cansubsist between the two nations. If Spain goes, Naples will speedilyfollow. Prussia is quite certain, and thinks of nothing but making amarket of the present confusions. Italy is broken and divided. Switzerland is Jacobinized, I am afraid, completely. I have long seenwith pain the progress of French principles in that country. Thingscannot go on upon the present bottom. The possession of Toulon, which, well managed, might be of the greatest advantage, will be the greatestmisfortune that ever happened to this nation. The more we multiplytroops there, the more we shall multiply causes and means of quarrelamongst ourselves. I know but one way of avoiding it, which is, to givea greater degree of simplicity to our politics. Our situation doesnecessarily render them a good deal involved. And to this evil, insteadof increasing it, we ought to apply all the remedies in our power. See what is in that place the consequence (to say nothing of everyother) of this complexity. Toulon has, as it were, two gates, --anEnglish and a Spanish. The English gate is by our policy fast barredagainst the entrance of any Royalists. The Spaniards open theirs, Ifear, upon no fixed principle, and with very little judgment. By means, however, of this foolish, mean, and jealous policy on our side, all theRoyalists whom the English might select as most practicable, and mostsubservient to honest views, are totally excluded. Of those admitted theSpaniards are masters. As to the inhabitants, they are a nest ofJacobins, which is delivered into our hands, not from principle, butfrom fear. The inhabitants of Toulon may be described in a few words. Itis _differtum nautis, cauponibus atque malignis_. The rest of theseaports are of the same description. Another thing which I cannot account for is, the sending for the Bishopof Toulon and afterwards forbidding his entrance. This is as directlycontrary to the declaration as it is to the practice of the alliedpowers. The king of Prussia did better. When he took Verdun, he actuallyreinstated the bishop and his chapter. When he thought he should be themaster of Chalons, he called the bishop from Flanders, to put him intopossession. The Austrians have restored the clergy wherever theyobtained possession. We have proposed to restore religion as well asmonarchy; and in Toulon we have restored neither the one nor the other. It is very likely that the Jacobin _sans-culottes_, or some of them, objected to this measure, who rather choose to have the atheisticbuffoons of clergy they have got to sport with, till they are ready tocome forward, with the rest of their worthy brethren, in Paris and otherplaces, to declare that they are a set of impostors, that they neverbelieved in God, and never will preach any sort of religion. If we giveway to our Jacobins in this point, it is fully and fairly putting thegovernment, civil and ecclesiastical, not in the king of France, towhom, as the protector and governor, and in substance the head of theGallican Church, the nomination to the bishoprics belonged, and who madethe Bishop of Toulon, --it does not leave it with him, or even in thehands of the king of England, or the king of Spain, --but in the basestJacobins of a low seaport, to exercise, _pro tempore_, the sovereignty. If this point of religion is thus given up, the grand instrument forreclaiming France is abandoned. We cannot, if we would, delude ourselvesabout the true state of this dreadful contest. _It is a religious war_. It includes in its object, undoubtedly, every other interest of societyas well as this; but this is the principal and leading feature. It isthrough this destruction of religion that our enemies propose theaccomplishment of all their other views. The French Revolution, impiousat once and fanatical, had no other plan for domestic power and foreignempire. Look at all the proceedings of the National Assembly, from thefirst day of declaring itself such, in the year 1789, to this very hour, and you will find full half of their business to be directly on thissubject. In fact, it is the spirit of the whole. The religious system, called the Constitutional Church, was, on the face of the wholeproceeding, set up only as a mere temporary amusement to the people, andso constantly stated in all their conversations, till the time shouldcome when they might with safety cast off the very appearance of allreligion whatsoever, and persecute Christianity throughout Europe withfire and sword. The Constitutional clergy are not the ministers of anyreligion: they are the agents and instruments of this horribleconspiracy against all morals. It was from a sense of this, that, in theEnglish addition to the articles proposed at St. Domingo, tolerating allreligions, we very wisely refused to suffer that kind of traitors andbuffoons. This religious war is not a controversy between sect and sect, asformerly, but a war against all sects and all religions. The question isnot, whether you are to overturn the Catholic, to set up the Protestant. Such an idea, in the present state of the world, is too contemptible. Our business is, to leave to the schools the discussion of thecontroverted points, abating as much as we can the acrimony ofdisputants on all sides. It is for Christian statesmen, as the world isnow circumstanced, to secure their common basis, and not to risk thesubversion of the whole fabric by pursuing these distinctions with anill-timed zeal. We have in the present grand alliance all modes ofgovernment, as well as all modes of religion. In government, we mean torestore that which, notwithstanding our diversity of forms, we are allagreed in as fundamental in government. The same principle ought toguide us in the religious part: conforming the mode, not to ourparticular ideas, (for in that point we have no ideas in common, ) but towhat will best promote the great, general ends of the alliance. Asstatesmen, we are to see which of those modes best suits with theinterests of such a commonwealth as we wish to secure and promote. Therecan be no doubt but that the Catholic religion, which is fundamentallythe religion of France, must go with the monarchy of France. We knowthat the monarchy did not survive the hierarchy, no, not even inappearance, for many months, --in substance, not for a single hour. Aslittle can it exist in future, if that pillar is taken away, or evenshattered and impaired. If it should please God to give to the allies the means of restoringpeace and order in that focus of war and confusion, I would, as I saidin the beginning of this memorial, first replace the whole of the oldclergy; because we have proof more than sufficient, that, whether theyerr or not in the scholastic disputes with us, they are not tainted withatheism, the great political evil of the time. I hope I need notapologize for this phrase, as if I thought religion nothing but policy:it is far from my thoughts, and I hope it is not to be inferred from myexpressions. But in the light of policy alone I am here considering thequestion. I speak of policy, too, in a large light; in which largelight, policy, too, is a sacred thing. There are many, perhaps half a million or more, calling themselvesProtestants, in the South of France, and in other of the provinces. Someraise them to a much greater number; but I think this nearer to themark. I am sorry to say that they have behaved shockingly since the verybeginning of this rebellion, and have been uniformly concerned in itsworst and most atrocious acts. Their clergy are just the same atheistswith those of the Constitutional Catholics, but still more wicked anddaring. Three of their number have met from their republican associatesthe reward of their crimes. As the ancient Catholic religion is to be restored for the body ofFrance, the ancient Calvinistic religion ought to be restored for theProtestants, with every kind of protection and privilege. But not oneminister concerned in this rebellion ought to be suffered amongst them. If they have not clergy of their own, men well recommended, as untaintedwith Jacobinism, by the synods of those places where Calvinism prevailsand French is spoken, ought to be sought. Many such there are. ThePresbyterian discipline ought, in my opinion, to be established in itsvigor, and the people professing it ought to be bound to itsmaintenance. No man, under the false and hypocritical pretence ofliberty of conscience, ought to be suffered to have no conscience atall. The king's commissioner ought also to sit in their synods, asbefore the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. I am conscious that thisdiscipline disposes men to republicanism: but it is still a discipline, and it is a cure (such as it is) for the perverse and undisciplinedhabits which for some time have prevailed. Republicanism repressed mayhave its use in the composition of a state. Inspection may bepracticable, and responsibility in the teachers and elders may beestablished, in such an hierarchy as the Presbyterian. For a time likeours, it is a great point gained, that people should be taught to meet, to combine, and to be classed and arrayed in some other way than inclubs of Jacobins. If it be not the best mode of Protestantism under amonarchy, it is still an orderly Christian church, orthodox in thefundamentals, and, what is to our point, capable enough of rendering menuseful citizens. It was the impolitic abolition of their discipline, which exposed them to the wild opinions and conduct that have prevailedamongst the Huguenots. The toleration in 1787 was owing to the gooddisposition of the late king; but it was modified by the profligatefolly of his atheistic minister, the Cardinal de Loménie. Thismischievous minister did not follow, in the edict of toleration, thewisdom of the Edict of Nantes. But his toleration was granted to_non-Catholics_, --a dangerous word, which might signify anything, andwas but too expressive of a fatal indifference with regard to all piety. I speak for myself: I do not wish any man to be converted from his sect. The distinctions which we have reformed from animosity to emulation maybe even useful to the cause of religion. By some moderate contentionthey keep alive zeal. Whereas people who change, except under strongconviction, (a thing now rather rare, ) the religion of their earlyprejudices, especially if the conversion is brought about by anypolitical machine, are very apt to degenerate into indifference, laxity, and often downright atheism. Another political question arises about the mode of government whichought to be established. I think the proclamation (which I read before Ihad proceeded far in this memorial) puts it on the best footing, bypostponing that arrangement to a time of peace. When our politics lead us to enterprise a great and almost totalpolitical revolution in Europe, we ought to look seriously into theconsequences of what we are about to do. Some eminent persons discoveran apprehension that the monarchy, if restored in France, may berestored in too great strength for the liberty and happiness of thenatives, and for the tranquillity of other states. They are therefore ofopinion that terms ought to be made for the modification of thatmonarchy. They are persons too considerable, from the powers of theirmind, and from their situation, as well as from the real respect I havefor them, who seem to entertain these apprehensions, to let me pass themby unnoticed. As to the power of France as a state, and in its exterior relations, Iconfess my fears are on the part of its extreme reduction. There isundoubtedly something in the vicinity of France, which makes itnaturally and properly an object of our watchfulness and jealousy, whatever form its government may take. But the difference is greatbetween a plan for our own security and a scheme for the utterdestruction of France. If there were no other countries in the politicalmap but these two, I admit that policy might justify a wish to lower ourneighbor to a standard which would even render her in some measure, ifnot wholly, our dependant. But the system of Europe is extensive andextremely complex. However formidable to us, as taken in this onerelation, France is not equally dreadful to all other states. On thecontrary, my clear opinion is, that the liberties of Europe cannotpossibly be preserved but by her remaining a very great andpreponderating power. The design at present evidently pursued by thecombined potentates, or of the two who lead, is totally to destroy heras such a power. For Great Britain resolves that she shall have nocolonies, no commerce, and no marine. Austria means to take away thewhole frontier, from the borders of Switzerland to Dunkirk. It is theirplan also to render the interior government lax and feeble, byprescribing, by force of the arms of rival and jealous nations, andwithout consulting the natural interests of the kingdom, sucharrangements as, in the actual state of Jacobinism in France, and theunsettled state in which property must remain for a long time, willinevitably produce such distraction and debility in government as toreduce it to nothing, or to throw it back into its old confusion. Onecannot conceive so frightful a state of a nation. A maritime countrywithout a marine and without commerce; a continental country without afrontier, and for a thousand miles surrounded with powerful, warlike, and ambitious neighbors! It is possible that she might submit to loseher commerce and her colonies: her security she never can abandon. If, contrary to all expectations, under such a disgraced and impotentgovernment, any energy should remain in that country, she will makeevery effort to recover her security, which will involve Europe for acentury in war and blood. What has it cost to France to make thatfrontier? What will it cost to recover it? Austria thinks that without afrontier she cannot secure the _Netherlands_. But without her frontierFrance cannot secure _herself_. Austria has been, however, secure for anhundred years in those very Netherlands, and has never been dispossessedof them by the chance of war without a moral certainty of receiving themagain on the restoration of peace. Her late dangers have arisen not fromthe power or ambition of the king of France. They arose from her own illpolicy, which dismantled all her towns, and discontented all hersubjects by Jacobinical innovations. She dismantles her own towns, andthen says, "Give me the frontier of France!" But let us depend upon it, whatever tends, under the name of security, to aggrandize Austria, willdiscontent and alarm Prussia. Such a length of frontier on the side ofFrance, separated from itself, and separated from the mass of theAustrian country, will be weak, unless connected at the expense of theElector of Bavaria (the Elector Palatine) and other lesser princes, orby such exchanges as will again convulse the Empire. Take it the other way, and let us suppose that France so broken inspirit as to be content to remain naked and defenceless by sea and byland. Is such a country no prey? Have other nations no views? Is Polandthe only country of which it is worth while to make a partition? Wecannot be so childish as to imagine that ambition is local, and that noothers can be infected with it but those who rule within certainparallels of latitude and longitude. In this way I hold war equallycertain. But I can conceive that both these principles may operate:ambition on the part of Austria to cut more and more from France; andFrench impatience under her degraded and unsafe condition. In such acontest will the other powers stand by? Will not Prussia call forindemnity, as well as Austria and England? Is she satisfied with hergains in Poland? By no means. Germany must pay; or we shall infalliblysee Prussia leagued with France and Spain, and possibly with otherpowers, for the reduction of Austria; and such may be the situation ofthings, that it will not be so easy to decide what part England may takein such a contest. I am well aware how invidious a task it is to oppose anything whichtends to the apparent aggrandizement of our own country. But I think nocountry can be aggrandized whilst France is Jacobinized. This postremoved, it will be a serious question how far her further reductionwill contribute to the general safety, which I always consider asincluded. Among precautions against ambition, it may not be amiss totake one precaution against our _own_. I must fairly say, I dread our_own_ power and our _own_ ambition; I dread our being too much dreaded. It is ridiculous to say we are not men, and that, as men, we shall neverwish to aggrandize ourselves in some way or other. Can we say that evenat this very hour we are not invidiously aggrandized? We are already inpossession of almost all the commerce of the world. Our empire in Indiais an awful thing. If we should come to be in a condition not only tohave all this ascendant in commerce, but to be absolutely able, withoutthe least control, to hold the commerce of all other nations totallydependent upon our good pleasure, we may say that we shall not abusethis astonishing and hitherto unheard-of power. But every other nationwill think we shall abuse it. It is impossible but that, sooner orlater, this state of things must produce a combination against us whichmay end in our ruin. As to France, I must observe that for a long time she has beenstationary. She has, during this whole century, obtained far less byconquest or negotiation than any of the three great Continental powers. Some part of Lorraine excepted, I recollect nothing she has gained, --no, not a village. In truth, this Lorraine acquisition does little more thansecure her barrier. In effect and substance it was her own before. However that may be, I consider these things at present chiefly in onepoint of view, as obstructions to the war on Jacobinism, which _must_stand as long as the powers think its extirpation but a _secondary_object, and think of taking advantage, under the name of _indemnity_ and_security_, to make war upon the whole nation of France, royal andJacobin, for the aggrandizement of the allies, on the ordinaryprinciples of interest, as if no Jacobinism existed in the world. So far is France from being formidable to its neighbors for its domesticstrength, that I conceive it will be as much as all its neighbors cando, by a steady guaranty, to keep that monarchy at all upon its basis. It will be their business to nurse France, not to exhaust it. France, such as it is, is indeed highly formidable: not formidable, however, asa great republic; but as the most dreadful gang of robbers and murderersthat ever was embodied. But this distempered strength of France will bethe cause of proportionable weakness on its recovery. Never was acountry so completely ruined; and they who calculate the resurrection ofher power by former examples have not sufficiently considered what isthe present state of things. Without detailing the inventory of whatorgans of government have been destroyed, together with the verymaterials of which alone they can be recomposed, I wish it to beconsidered what an operose affair the whole system of taxation is in theold states of Europe. It is such as never could be made but in a longcourse of years. In France all taxes are abolished. The present powersresort to the capital, and to the capital in kind. But a savage, undisciplined people suffer a _robbery_ with more patience than an_impost_. The former is in their habits and their dispositions. Theyconsider it as transient, and as what, in their turn, they may exercise. But the terrors of the present power are such as no regular governmentcan possibly employ. They who enter into France do not succeed to_their_ resources. They have not a system to reform, but a system tobegin. The whole estate of government is to be reacquired. What difficulties this will meet with in a country exhausted by thetaking of the capital, and among a people in a manner new-principled, trained, and actually disciplined to anarchy, rebellion, disorder, andimpiety, may be conceived by those who know what Jacobin France is, andwho may have occupied themselves by revolving in their thoughts whatthey were to do, if it fell to their lot to reëstablish the affairs ofFrance. What support or what limitations the restored monarchy must havemay be a doubt, or how it will pitch and settle at last. But one thing Iconceive to be far beyond a doubt: that the settlement cannot beimmediate; but that it must be preceded by some sort of power, equal atleast in vigor, vigilance, promptitude, and decision, to a militarygovernment. For such a _preparatory_ government, no slow-paced, methodical, formal, lawyer-like system, still less that of a showy, superficial, trifling, intriguing court, guided by cabals of ladies, orof men like ladies, least of all a philosophic, theoretic, disputatiousschool of sophistry, --none of these ever will or ever can lay thefoundations of an order that can last. Whoever claims a right by birthto govern there must find in his breast, or must conjure up in it, anenergy not to be expected, perhaps not always to be wished for, inwell-ordered states. The lawful prince must have, in everything butcrime, the character of an usurper. He is gone, if he imagines himselfthe quiet possessor of a throne. He is to contend for it as much afteran apparent conquest as before. His task is, to win it: he must leaveposterity to enjoy and to adorn it. No velvet cushions for him. He is tobe always (I speak nearly to the letter) on horseback. This opinion isthe result of much patient thinking on the subject, which I conceive noevent is likely to alter. A valuable friend of mine, who I hope will conduct these affairs, so faras they fall to his share, with great ability, asked me what I thoughtof acts of general indemnity and oblivion, as a means of settlingFrance, and reconciling it to monarchy. Before I venture upon anyopinion of my own in this matter, I totally disclaim the interference offoreign powers in a business that properly belongs to the governmentwhich we have declared legal. That government is likely to be the bestjudge of what is to be done towards the security of that kingdom, whichit is their duty and their interest to provide for by such measures ofjustice or of lenity as at the time they should find best. But if weweaken it not only by arbitrary limitations of our own, but preservesuch persons in it as are disposed to disturb its future peace, as theyhave its past, I do not know how a more direct declaration can be madeof a disposition to perpetual hostility against a government. Thepersons saved from the justice of the native magistrate by foreignauthority will owe nothing to his clemency. He will, and must, look tothose to whom he is indebted for the power he has of dispensing it. AJacobin faction, constantly fostered with the nourishment of foreignprotection, will be kept alive. This desire of securing the safety of the actors in the present scene isowing to more laudable motives. Ministers have been made to consider thebrothers of the late merciful king, and the nobility of France who havebeen faithful to their honor and duty, as a set of inexorable andremorseless tyrants. How this notion has been infused into them I cannotbe quite certain. I am sure it is not justified by anything they havedone. Never were the two princes guilty, in the day of their power, of asingle hard or ill-natured act. No one instance of cruelty on the partof the gentlemen ever came to my ears. It is true that the _English_Jacobins, (the natives have not thought of it, ) as an excuse for theirinfernal system of murder, have so represented them. It is on thisprinciple that the massacres in the month of September, 1792, werejustified by a writer in the Morning Chronicle. _He_ says, indeed, that"the whole French nation is to be given up to the hands of an irritatedand revengeful noblesse";--and, judging of others by himself and hisbrethren, he says, "Whoever succeeds in a civil war will be cruel. Buthere the emigrants, flying to revenge in the cars of military victory, will almost insatiably call for their victims and their booty; and abody of emigrant traitors were attending the King of Prussia and theDuke of Brunswick, to suggest the most sanguinary counsels. " So saysthis wicked Jacobin; but so cannot say the King of Prussia nor the Dukeof Brunswick, who never did receive any sanguinary counsel; nor did theking's brothers, or that great body of gentlemen who attended thoseprinces, commit one single cruel action, or hurt the person or propertyof one individual. It would be right to quote the instance. It is likethe military luxury attributed to these unfortunate sufferers in ourcommon cause. If these princes had shown a tyrannic disposition, it would be much tobe lamented. We have no others to govern France. If we screened the bodyof murderers from their justice, we should only leave the innocent infuture to the mercy of men of fierce and sanguinary dispositions, ofwhich, in spite of all our intermeddling in their Constitution, we couldnot prevent the effects. But as we have much more reason to fear theirfeeble lenity than any blamable rigor, we ought, in my opinion, to leavethe matter to themselves. If, however, I were asked to give an advice merely as such, here are myideas. I am not for a total indemnity, nor a general punishment. Andfirst, the body and mass of the people never ought to be treated ascriminal. They may become an object of more or less constantwatchfulness and suspicion, as their preservation may best require, butthey can never become an object of punishment. This is one of the fewfundamental and unalterable principles of politics. To punish them capitally would be to make massacres. Massacres onlyincrease the ferocity of men, and teach them to regard their own livesand those of others as of little value; whereas the great policy ofgovernment is, to teach the people to think both of great importance inthe eyes of God and the state, and never to be sacrificed or evenhazarded to gratify their passions, or for anything but the dutiesprescribed by the rules of morality, and under the direction of publiclaw and public authority. To punish them with lesser penalties would beto debilitate the commonwealth, and make the nation miserable, which itis the business of government to render happy and flourishing. As to crimes, too, I would draw a strong line of limitation. For no oneoffence, _politically an offence of rebellion_, by council, contrivance, persuasion, or compulsion, for none properly a _military offence ofrebellion_, or anything done by open hostility in the field, should anyman at all be called in question; because such seems to be the properand natural death of civil dissensions. The offences of war areobliterated by peace. Another class will of course be included in the indemnity, --namely, allthose who by their activity in restoring lawful government shallobliterate their offences. The offence previously known, the acceptanceof service is a pardon for crimes. I fear that this class of men willnot be very numerous. So far as to indemnity. But where are the objects of justice, and ofexample, and of future security to the public peace? They are naturallypointed out, not by their having outraged political and civil laws, northeir having rebelled against the state as a state, but by their havingrebelled against the law of Nature and outraged man as man. In thislist, all the regicides in general, all those who laid sacrilegioushands on the king, who, without anything in their own rebellious missionto the Convention to justify them, brought him to his trial andunanimously voted him guilty, --all those who had a share in the cruelmurder of the queen, and the detestable proceedings with regard to theyoung king and the unhappy princesses, --all those who committedcold-blooded murder anywhere, and particularly in their revolutionarytribunals, where every idea of natural justice and of their own declaredrights of man have been trod under foot with the most insolentmockery, --all men concerned in the burning and demolition of houses orchurches, with audacious and marked acts of sacrilege and scorn offeredto religion, --in general, all the leaders of Jacobin clubs, --not one ofthese should escape a punishment suitable to the nature, quality, anddegree of their offence, by a steady, but a measured justice. In the first place, no man ought to be subject to any penalty, from thehighest to the lowest, but by a trial according to the course of law, carried on with all that caution and deliberation which has been used inthe best times and precedents of the French jurisprudence, the criminallaw of which country, faulty to be sure in some particulars, was highlylaudable and tender of the lives of men. In restoring order and justice, everything like retaliation ought to be religiously avoided; and anexample ought to be set of a total alienation from the Jacobinproceedings in their accursed revolutionary tribunals. Everything likelumping men in masses, and of forming tables of proscription, ought tobe avoided. In all these punishments, anything which can be alleged in mitigation ofthe offence should be fully considered. Mercy is not a thing opposed tojustice. It is an essential part of it, --as necessary in criminal casesas in civil affairs equity is to law. It is only for the Jacobins neverto pardon. They have not done it in a single instance. A council ofmercy ought therefore to be appointed, with powers to report on eachcase, to soften the penalty, or entirely to remit it, according tocircumstances. With these precautions, the very first foundation of settlement must beto call to a strict account those bloody and merciless offenders. Without it, government cannot stand a year. People little consider theutter impossibility of getting those who, having emerged from very low, some from the lowest classes of society, have exercised a power so high, and with such unrelenting and bloody a rage, quietly to fall back intotheir old ranks, and become humble, peaceable, laborious, and usefulmembers of society. It never can be. On the other hand, is it to bebelieved that any worthy and virtuous subject, restored to the ruins ofhis house, will with patience see the cold-blooded murderer of hisfather, mother, wife, or children, or perhaps all of these relations, (such things have been, ) nose him in his own village, and insult himwith the riches acquired from the plunder of his goods, ready again tohead a Jacobin faction to attack his life? He is unworthy of the name ofman who would suffer it. It is unworthy of the name of a government, which, taking justice out of the private hand, will not exercise it forthe injured by the public arm. I know it sounds plausible, and is readily adopted by those who havelittle sympathy with the sufferings of others, to wish to jumble theinnocent and guilty into one mass by a general indemnity. This cruelindifference dignifies itself with the name of humanity. It is extraordinary, that, as the wicked arts of this regicide andtyrannous faction increase in number, variety, and atrocity, the desireof punishing them becomes more and more faint, and the talk of anindemnity towards them every day stronger and stronger. Our ideas ofjustice appear to be fairly conquered and overpowered by guilt, when itis grown gigantic. It is not the point of view in which we are in thehabit of viewing guilt. The crimes we every day punish are really belowthe penalties we inflict. The criminals are obscure and feeble. This isthe view in which we see ordinary crimes and criminals. But when guiltis seen, though but for a time, to be furnished with the arms and to beinvested with the robes of power, it seems to assume another nature, andto get, as it were, out of our jurisdiction. This I fear is the casewith many. But there is another cause full as powerful towards thissecurity to enormous guilt, --the desire which possesses people who haveonce obtained power to enjoy it at their ease. It is not humanity, butlaziness and inertness of mind, which produces the desire of this kindof indemnities. This description of men love general and short methods. If they punish, they make a promiscuous massacre; if they spare, theymake a general act of oblivion. This is a want of disposition to proceedlaboriously according to the cases, and according to the rules andprinciples of justice on each case: a want of disposition to assortcriminals, to discriminate the degrees and modes of guilt, to separateaccomplices from principals, leaders from followers, seducers from theseduced, and then, by following the same principles in the same detail, to class punishments, and to fit them to the nature and kind of thedelinquency. If that were once attempted, we should soon see that thetask was neither infinite nor the execution cruel. There would bedeaths, but, for the number of criminals and the extent of France, notmany. There would be cases of transportation, cases of labor to restorewhat has been wickedly destroyed, cases of imprisonment, and cases ofmere exile. But be this as it may, I am sure, that, if justice is notdone there, there can be neither peace nor justice there, nor in anypart of Europe. History is resorted to for other acts of indemnity in other times. Theprinces are desired to look back to Henry the Fourth. We are desired tolook to the restoration of King Charles. These things, in my opinion, have no resemblance whatsoever. They were cases of a civil war, --inFrance more ferocious, in England more moderate than common. In neithercountry were the orders of society subverted, religion and moralitydestroyed on principle, or property totally annihilated. In England, thegovernment of Cromwell was, to be sure, somewhat rigid, but, for a newpower, no savage tyranny. The country was nearly as well in his hands asin those of Charles the Second, and in some points much better. The lawsin general had their course, and were admirably administered. The kingdid not in reality grant an act of indemnity; the prevailing power, thenin a manner the nation, in effect granted an indemnity to _him_. Theidea of a preceding rebellion was not at all admitted in thatconvention and that Parliament. The regicides were a common enemy, andas such given up. Among the ornaments of their place which eminently distinguish them, fewpeople are better acquainted with the history of their own country thanthe illustrious princes now in exile; but I caution them not to be ledinto error by that which has been supposed to be the guide of life. Iwould give the same caution to all princes. Not that I derogate from theuse of history. It is a great improver of the understanding, by showingboth men and affairs in a great variety of views. From this source muchpolitical wisdom may be learned, --that is, may be learned as habit, notas precept, --and as an exercise to strengthen the mind, as furnishingmaterials to enlarge and enrich it, not as a repertory of cases andprecedents for a lawyer: if it were, a thousand times better would it bethat a statesman had never learned to read, --_vellem nescirent literas_. This method turns their understanding from the object before them, andfrom the present exigencies of the world, to comparisons with formertimes, of which, after all, we can know very little and veryimperfectly; and our guides, the historians, who are to give us theirtrue interpretation, are often prejudiced, often ignorant, often fonderof system than of truth. Whereas, if a man with reasonable good partsand natural sagacity, and not in the leading-strings of any master, willlook steadily on the business before him, without being diverted byretrospect and comparison, he may be capable of forming a reasonablegood judgment of what is to be done. There are some fundamental pointsin which Nature never changes; but they are few and obvious, and belongrather to morals than to politics. But so far as regards politicalmatter, the human mind and human affairs are susceptible of infinitemodifications, and of combinations wholly new and unlooked-for. Veryfew, for instance, could have imagined that property, which has beentaken for natural dominion, should, through the whole of a vast kingdom, lose all its importance, and even its influence. This is what history orbooks of speculation could hardly have taught us. How many could havethought that the most complete and formidable revolution in a greatempire should be made by men of letters, not as subordinate instrumentsand trumpeters of sedition, but as the chief contrivers and managers, and in a short time as the open administrators and sovereign rulers? Whocould have imagined that atheism could produce one of the most violentlyoperative principles of fanaticism? Who could have imagined, that, in acommonwealth in a manner cradled in war, and in an extensive anddreadful war, military commanders should be of little or no account, --that the Convention should not contain one military man of name, --thatadministrative bodies, in a state of the utmost confusion, and of but amomentary duration, and composed of men with not one imposing part ofcharacter, should be able to govern the country and its armies with anauthority which the most settled senates and the most respected monarchsscarcely ever had in the same degree? This, for one, I confess I did notforesee, though all the rest was present to me very early, and not outof my apprehension even for several years. I believe very few were able to enter into the effects of mere _terror_, as a principle not only for the support of power in given hands orforms, but in those things in which the soundest political speculatorswere of opinion that the least appearance of force would be totallydestructive, --such is the market, whether of money, provision, orcommodities of any kind. Yet for four years we have seen loans made, treasuries supplied, and armies levied and maintained, more numerousthan France ever showed in the field, _by the effects of fear alone_. Here is a state of things of which in its totality if history furnishesany examples at all, they are very remote and feeble. I therefore am notso ready as some are to tax with folly or cowardice those who were notprepared to meet an evil of this nature. Even now, after the events, allthe causes may be somewhat difficult to ascertain. Very many are, however, traceable. But these things history and books of speculation(as I have already said) did not teach men to foresee, and of course toresist. Now that they are no longer a matter of sagacity, but ofexperience, of recent experience, of our own experience, it would beunjustifiable to go back to the records of other times to instruct us tomanage what they never enabled us to foresee. FOOTNOTES: [33] Some accounts make them five times as many. [34] Before the Revolution, the French noblesse were so reduced innumbers that they did not much exceed twenty thousand at least offull-grown men. As they have been very cruelly formed into entire corpsof soldiers, it is estimated, that, by the sword, and distempers in thefield, they have not lost less than five thousand men; and if thiscourse is pursued, it is to be feared that the whole body of the Frenchnobility may be extinguished. Several hundreds have also perished byfamine, and various accidents. [35] This was the language of the Ministerialists. [36] Vattel. [37] The first object of this club was the propagation of Jacobinprinciples. APPENDIX. EXTRACTS FROM VATTEL'S LAW OF NATIONS. [The Titles, Marginal Abstracts, and Notes are by Mr. BURKE, exceptingsuch of the Notes as are here distinguished. ] CASES OF INTERFERENCE WITH INDEPENDENT POWERS. "If, then, there is anywhere a nation of a _restless and mischievous_disposition, always ready _to injure others, to traverse their designs, and to raise domestic troubles_[38] it is not to be doubted that allhave a right to join _in order to repress, chastise, and put it everafter out of its power_ to injure them. Such should be the just fruitsof the policy which Machiavel praises in Cæsar Borgia. The conductfollowed by Philip the Second, King of Spain, _was adapted to unite allEurope against him_; and it was from just reasons that Henry the Greatformed the design of humbling a power _formidable by its forces andpernicious by its maxims_. "--Book II. Ch. Iv. § 53. "Let us apply to the unjust what we have said above (§ 53) of amischievous or maleficent nation. If there be any that makes an openprofession _of trampling justice under foot, of despising and violatingthe right of others_, [39] whenever it finds an opportunity, _theinterest of human society will authorize all others to unite in order tohumble and chastise it_. We do not here forget the maxim established inour preliminaries, that it does not belong to nations to usurp the powerof being judges of each other. In particular cases, liable to the leastdoubt, it ought to be supposed that each of the parties may have someright; and the injustice of that which has committed the injury mayproceed from error, and not from a general contempt of justice. _But if, by constant maxims, and by a continued conduct_, one nation shows thatit has evidently this pernicious disposition, and that it considers noright as sacred, the safety of the human race requires that it should besuppressed. To form and support an unjust pretension is to do an injury_not only to him who is interested in this pretension, but to mock atjustice in general, and to injure all nations_. "--Ibid. Ch. V. § 70. [Sidenote: To succor against tyranny. ] [Sidenote: Case of English Revolution. ] [Sidenote: An odious tyrant. ] [Sidenote: Rebellious people. ] [Sidenote: Case of civil war. ] [Sidenote: Sovereign and his people, when distinct powers. ] "If the prince, attacking the fundamental laws, gives his subjects alegal right to resist him, if tyranny, _becoming insupportable_, obligesthe nation to rise in their defence, every foreign power has a right tosuccor an oppressed people who implore their assistance. The Englishjustly complained of James the Second. _The nobility and the mostdistinguished patriots_ resolved to put a check on his enterprises, which manifestly tended to overthrow the Constitution and to destroy theliberties and the religion of the people, _and therefore applied forassistance to the United Provinces_. The authority of the Prince ofOrange had, doubtless, an influence on the deliberations of theStates-General; but it did not make them commit injustice: for when apeople, from good reasons, take up arms against an oppressor, _justiceand generosity require that brave men should be assisted in the defenceof their liberties_. Whenever, therefore, a civil war is kindled in astate, foreign powers may assist that party which appears to them tohave justice on their side. _He who assists an odious tyrant, he whodeclares FOR AN UNJUST AND REBELLIOUS PEOPLE, offends against his duty_. When the bands of the political society are broken, or at leastsuspended between the sovereign and his people, they may then beconsidered as two distinct powers; and since each is independent of allforeign authority, nobody has a right to judge them. Either may be inthe right, and each of those who grant their assistance may believe thathe supports a good cause. It follows, then, in virtue of the voluntarylaw of nations, (see Prelim. § 21, ) that the two parties may act ashaving an equal right, and behave accordingly, till the decision of theaffair. [Sidenote: Not to be pursued to an extreme. ] [Sidenote: Endeavor to persuade subjects to a revolt. ] "But we ought not to abuse this maxim for authorizing odious proceedingsagainst the tranquillity of states. It is a violation of the law ofnations _to persuade those subjects to revolt who actually obey theirsovereign, though they complain of his government_. [Sidenote: Attempt to excite subjects to revolt. ] "The practice of nations is conformable to our maxims. When the GermanProtestants came to the assistance of the Reformed in France, the courtnever undertook to treat them otherwise than as common enemies, andaccording to the laws of war. France at the same time assisted theNetherlands, which took up arms against Spain, and did not pretend thather troops should be considered upon any other footing than asauxiliaries in a regular war. _But no power avoids complaining of anatrocious injury, if any one attempts by his emissaries to excite hissubjects to revolt_. [Sidenote: Tyrants. ] "As to those monsters, who, under the title of sovereigns, renderthemselves the scourges and horror of the human race, --these are savagebeasts, from which every brave man may justly purge the earth. Allantiquity has praised Hercules for delivering the world from an Antæus, a Busiris, and a Diomedes. "--Ibid. Ch. Iv. § 56. After stating that nations have no right to interfere in domesticconcerns, he proceeds, --"But this rule does not preclude them fromespousing the quarrel of a dethroned king, and assisting him, if heappears to have justice on his side. They then declare themselvesenemies of the nation which has acknowledged his rival; as, when two_different nations_ are at war, they are at liberty to assist that whosequarrel they shall think has the fairest appearance. "--Book IV. Ch. Ii. § 14. CASE OF ALLIANCES. [Sidenote: When an alliance to preserve a king takes place. ] [Sidenote: King does not lose his quality by the loss of his kingdom. ] "It is asked if that alliance subsists with the king and the royalfamily when by some revolution they are deprived of their crown. We havelately remarked, (§ 194, ) that a personal alliance expires with thereign of him who contracted it: but that is to be understood of analliance with the state, limited, as to its duration, to the reign ofthe contracting king. This of which we are here speaking is of anothernature. For though it binds the state, since it is bound by all thepublic acts of its sovereign, it is made directly in favor of the kingand his family; it would therefore be absurd for it to terminate _at themoment when they have need of it, and at an event against which it wasmade_. Besides, the king does not lose his quality merely by the loss ofhis kingdom. _If he is stripped of it unjustly by an usurper, or byrebels, he preserves his rights, in the number of which are hisalliances_. [40] [Sidenote: Case wherein aid may be given to a deposed king. ] "But who shall judge if the king be dethroned lawfully or by violence?An independent nation acknowledges no judge. If the body of the nationdeclares the king deprived of his rights by the abuse he has made ofthem, and deposes him, it may justly do it _when its grievances are wellfounded_, and no other power has a right to censure it. The personalally of this king ought not then to assist him against the nation thathas made use of its right in deposing him: if he attempts it, he injuresthat nation. England declared war against Louis the Fourteenth, in theyear 1688, for supporting the interest of James the Second, who wasdeposed in form by the nation. The same country declared war against hima second time, at the beginning of the present century, because thatprince acknowledged the son of the deposed James, under the name ofJames the Third. In doubtful cases, and _when the body of the nation hasnot pronounced, or HAS NOT PRONOUNCED FREELY_, a sovereign may naturallysupport and defend an ally; and it is then that the voluntary law ofnations subsists between different states. The party that has driven outthe king pretends to have right on its side; this unhappy king and hisally flatter themselves with having the same advantage; and as they haveno common judge upon earth, they have no other method to take but toapply to arms to terminate the dispute; they therefore engage in aformal war. [Sidenote: Not obliged to pursue his right beyond a certain point. ] "In short, when the foreign prince has faithfully fulfilled hisengagements towards an unfortunate monarch, when he has done in hisdefence, or to procure his restoration, all he was obliged to perform invirtue of the alliance, if his efforts are ineffectual, the dethronedprince cannot require him to support an endless war in his favor, orexpect that he will eternally remain the enemy of the nation or of thesovereign who has deprived him of the throne. He must think of peace, abandon the ally, and consider him as having himself abandoned his rightthrough necessity. Thus Louis the Fourteenth was obliged to abandonJames the Second, and to acknowledge King William, though he had atfirst treated him as an usurper. [Sidenote: Case of defence against subjects. ] [Sidenote: Case where real alliances may be renounced. ] "The same question presents itself in real alliances, and, in general, in all alliances made with the state, and not in particular with a kingfor the defence of his person. An ally ought, doubtless, to be defendedagainst every invasion, against every foreign violence, _and evenagainst his rebellious subjects: in the same manner a republic ought tobe defended against the enterprises of one who attempts to destroy thepublic liberty_. But it ought to be remembered that an ally of the stateor the nation is not its judge. If the nation has deposed its king inform, --if the people of a republic have driven out their magistrates andset themselves at liberty, or acknowledged the authority of an usurper, either expressly or tacitly, --to oppose these domestic regulations, bydisputing their justice or validity, would be to interfere in thegovernment of the nation, and to do it an injury. (See § 54, andfollowing, of this Book. ) The ally remains the ally of the state, notwithstanding the change that has happened in it. _However, when thischange renders the alliance useless, dangerous, or disagreeable, it mayrenounce it; for it may say, upon a good foundation, that it would nothave entered into an alliance with that nation, had it been under thepresent form of government. _ [Sidenote: Not an eternal war. ] "We may say here, what we have said on a personal alliance: howeverjust the cause of that king may be who is driven from the throne eitherby his subjects or by a foreign usurper, his aides are not obliged tosupport _an eternal war_ in his favor. After having made ineffectualefforts to restore him, they must at length give peace to their people, and come to an accommodation with the usurper, and for that purposetreat with him as with a lawful sovereign. Louis the Fourteenth, exhausted by a bloody and unsuccessful war, offered at Gertruydenberg toabandon his grandson, whom he had placed on the throne of Spain; andwhen affairs had changed their appearance, Charles of Austria, the rivalof Philip, saw himself, in his turn, abandoned by his allies. They grewweary of exhausting their states in order to give him the possession ofa crown which they believed to be his due, but which, to all appearance, they should never be able to procure for him. "--Book II. Ch. Xii. §§196, 197. DANGEROUS POWER. [Sidenote: All nations may join. ] "It is still easier to prove, that, should this formidable power betrayany unjust and ambitious dispositions by doing the least injustice toanother, every nation may avail themselves of the occasion, and jointheir forces to those of the party injured, in order to reduce thatambitious power, and disable it from so easily oppressing its neighbors, or keeping them in continual awe and fear. For an injury gives a nationa right to provide for its future safety by taking away from theviolator the means of oppression. It is lawful, and even praiseworthy, to assist those who are oppressed, or unjustly attacked. "--Book III. Ch. Iii. § 45. SYSTEM OF EUROPE. [Sidenote: Europe a republic to preserve order and liberty. ] "Europe forms a political system, a body where the whole is connected bythe relations and different interests of nations inhabiting this part ofthe world. It is not, as anciently, a confused heap of detached pieces, each of which thought itself very little concerned in the fate ofothers, and seldom regarded things which did not immediately relate toit. The continual attention of sovereigns to what is on the carpet, theconstant residence of ministers, and _the perpetual negotiations, makeEurope a kind of a republic, the members of which, though independent, unite, through the ties of common interest, for the maintenance of orderand liberty_. Hence arose that famous scheme of the politicalequilibrium, or balance of power, by which is understood such adisposition of things as no power is able absolutely to predominate orto prescribe laws to others. "--Book III. Ch. Iii. § 47. "Confederacies would be a sure way of preserving the equilibrium, andsupporting the liberty of nations, did all princes thoroughly understandtheir true interests, and regulate all their steps for the good of thestate. "--Ibid. § 49. CONTRIBUTIONS IN THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY. [Sidenote: To be moderate. ] "Instead of the pillage of the country and defenceless places, a customhas been substituted more humane and more advantageous to the sovereignmaking war: I mean that of contributions. Whoever carries on _a justwar[41] has a right of making the enemy's country contribute to thesupport of the army, and towards defraying all the charges of the war_. Thus he obtains a part of what is due to him, and the subjects of theenemy, on submitting to this imposition, are secured from pillage, andthe country is preserved. But a general who would not sully hisreputation is to moderate his contributions, and proportion them tothose on whom they are imposed. An excess in this point is not withoutthe reproach of cruelty and inhumanity: if it shows less ferocity thanravage and destruction, it glares with avarice. "--Book III. Ch. Ix. §165. ASYLUM. "If an exile or banished man is driven from his country for any crime, it does _not_ belong to the nation in which he has taken refuge topunish him for a fault committed in a foreign country. For Nature givesto mankind and to nations the right of punishing only for their defenceand safety (§ 169): whence it follows that he can only be punished bythose he has offended. "But this reason shows, that, if the justice of each nation ought ingeneral to be confined to the punishment of crimes committed in its ownterritories, we ought to except from this rule the villains who, by thequality and habitual frequency of their crimes, violate all publicsecurity, and declare themselves the enemies of the human race. Poisoners, assassins, and incendiaries by profession may be exterminatedwherever they are seized; for they attack and injure all nations bytrampling under foot the foundations of their common safety. Thuspirates are brought to the gibbet by the first into whose hands theyfall. If the sovereign of the country where crimes of that nature havebeen committed reclaims the authors of them in order to bring them topunishment, they ought to be restored to him, as to one who is_principally_ interested in punishing them in an exemplary manner: andit being proper to convict the guilty, and to try them according to someform of law, this is a _second_ [not sole] reason why malefactors areusually delivered up at the desire of the state where their crimes havebeen committed. "--Book I. Ch. Xix. §§ 232, 233. "Every nation has a right of refusing to admit a stranger into thecountry, when he cannot enter it without putting it in evident danger, or without doing it a remarkable prejudice. "[42]--Ibid. § 230. FOREIGN MINISTERS. "The obligation does not go so far as to suffer at all times perpetualministers, who are desirous of residing with a sovereign, though theyhave nothing to negotiate. It is natural, indeed, and very agreeable tothe sentiments which nations owe to each other, that these residentministers, _when there it nothing to be feared from their stay_, shouldbe friendly received; but if there be any solid reason against this, what is for the good of the state ought unquestionably to be preferred:and the foreign sovereign cannot take it amiss, if his minister, who hasconcluded the affairs of his commission, and has no other affairs tonegotiate, be desired to depart. [43] The custom of keeping everywhereministers continually resident is now so strongly established, that therefusal of a conformity to it would, without _very good reasons_, giveoffence. These reasons may arise from _particular_ conjunctures; butthere are also common reasons always subsisting, and such as relate to_the constitution of a government and the state of a nation_. Therepublics have often very good reasons of the latter kind to excusethemselves from continually suffering foreign ministers who _corrupt thecitizens in order to gain them over to their masters, to the greatprejudice of the republic and fomenting of the parties_, &c. And shouldthey only diffuse among a nation, formerly plain, frugal, and virtuous, a taste for luxury, avidity for money, and the manners of courts, thesewould be more than sufficient for wise and provident rulers to dismissthem. "--Book IV. Ch. V. § 66. FOOTNOTES: [38] This is the case of France:--Semonville at Turin, --Jacobinclubs, --Liegeois meeting, --Flemish meeting, --La Fayette'sanswer, --Clootz's embassy, --Avignon. [39] The French acknowledge no power not directly emanating from thepeople. [40] By the seventh article of the Treaty of TRIPLE ALLIANCE, betweenFrance, England, and Holland, signed at the Hague, in the year 1717, itis stipulated, "that, if the kingdoms, countries, or provinces of any ofthe allies are disturbed by intestine quarrels, or _by rebellions, onaccount of the said successions_, " (the Protestant succession to thethrone of Great Britain, and the succession to the throne of France, assettled by the Treaty of Utrecht, ) "or _under any other pretextwhatever_, the ally thus in trouble shall have full right to demand ofhis allies the succors above mentioned": that is to say, the samesuccors as in the case of an invasion from any foreign power, --8, 000foot and 2, 000 horse to be furnished by France or England, and 4, 000foot and 1, 000 horse by the States-General. By the fourth article of the Treaty of QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE, betweenEngland, France, Holland, and the Emperor of Germany, signed in the year1718, the contracting powers "promise and oblige themselves that theywill and ought to maintain, guaranty, and defend the right of successionin the kingdom of France, according to the tenor of the treaties made atUtrecht the 11th day of April, 1713; . . . And this they shall perform_against all persons whosoever who may presume to disturb the order ofthe said succession_, in contradiction to the previous acts and treatiessubsequent thereon. " The above treaties have been revived and confirmed by every subsequenttreaty of peace between Great Britain and France. --EDIT. [41] Contributions raised by the Duke of Brunswick in France. Comparethese with the contributions raised by the French in theNetherlands. --EDIT. [42] The third article of the Treaty of Triple Alliance and the latterpart of the fourth article of the Treaty of Quadruple Alliancestipulate, that no kind of refuge or protection shall be given torebellious subjects of the contracting powers. --EDIT. [43] Dismission of M. Chauvelin. --EDIT. END OF VOL. IV.