As long as these powers flattered
themselves
that
the menace of force would produce the effect of force,
they acted on those declarations; but when their menaces failed of success, their efforts took a new direction.
the menace of force would produce the effect of force,
they acted on those declarations; but when their menaces failed of success, their efforts took a new direction.
Edmund Burke
I joined them with all my soul, on the principles contained in that
manly and masterly state-paper which I have two or
three times referred to,* and may still more frequently hereafter. The diplomatic collection never was more enriched than with this piece. The historic
facts justify every stroke of the master. "Thus
painters write their names at Co. "
Various persons may concur in the same measure
on various grounds. They may be various, without
being contrary to or exclusive of each other. I
thought the insolent, unprovoked aggression of the
Regicide upon our ally of Holland a good ground of
war. I think his manifest attempt to overturn the
balance of Europe a good ground of war. As a good
* Declaration, Whitehall, Oct. 29, 1793.
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 335
ground of war I consider his declaration of war on
his Majesty and his kingdom. But though I have
taken all these to my aid, I consider them as nothing
more than as a sort of evidence to indicate the treasonable mind within. Long before their acts of
aggression and their declaration of war, the faction
in France had assumed a form, had adopted a body
of principles and maxims, and had regularly and
systematically acted on them, by which she virtually
had put herself in a posture which was in itself a
declaration of war against mankind.
It is said by the Directory, in their several manifestoes, that we of the people are tumultuous for
peace, and that ministers pretend negotiation to
amuse us. This they have learned from the language of many amongst ourselves, whose conversations have been one main cause of whatever extent the opinion for peace with Regicide may be. But
I, who think the ministers unfortunately to be but
too serious in their proceedings, find myself obliged
to say a little more on this subject of the popular
opinion.
Before our opinions are quoted against ourselves,
it is proper, that, from our serious deliberation, they
may be worth quoting. It is without reason we
praise the wisdom of our Constitution in putting under the discretion of the crown the awful trust of
war and peace, if the ministers of the crown virtually
return it again into our bands. The trust was placed
there as a sacred deposit, to secure us against popular rashness in plunging into wars, and against the
effects of popular dismay, disgust, or lassitude, in
getting out of them as imprudently as we might first
engage in them. To have no other measure in judg.
? ? ? ? 336 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
ing of those great objects than our momentary opinions and desires is to throw us back upon that very democracy which, in this part, our Constitution was
formed to avoid.
It is no excuse at all for a minister who at our
desire takes a measure contrary to our safety, that it
is our own act. He who does not stay the hand of
suicide is guilty of murder. On our part, I say, that
to be instructed is not to be degraded or enslaved.
Information is an advantage to us; and we have a
right to demand it. He that is bound to act in the
dark cannot be said to act freely. When it appears
evident to our governors that our desires and our
interests are at variance, they ought not to gratify
the former at the expense of the latter. Statesmen
are placed on an eminence, that they may have a
larger horizon than we can possibly command. They
have a whole before them, which we can contemplate
only in the parts, and often without the necessary
relations. Ministers are not only our natural rulers,
but our natural guides. Reason, clearly and manfully delivered, has in itself a mighty force; but
reason in the mouth of legal authority is, I may
fairly say, irresistible.
I admit that reason of state will not, in many circumstances, permit the disclosure of the true ground of a public proceeding. In that case silence is manly,
and it is wise. It is fair to call for trust, when the
principle of reason itself suspends its public use. I
take the distinction to be this: the ground of a particular measure making a part of a plan it is rarely proper to divulge; all the broader grounds of policy,
on which the general plan is to be adopted, ought
as rarely to be concealed. They who have not the
? ? ? ? LETTER 1. 337
whole cause before them, call them politicians, call
them people, call them what you will, are no judges.
The difficulties of the case, as well as its fair side,
ought to be presented. This ought to be done; and
it is all that can be done. When we have our true
situation distinctly presented to us, if then we resolve, with a blind and headlong violence, to resist
the admonitions of our friends, and to cast ourselves
into the hands of our potent and irreconcilable foes,
then, and not till then, the ministers stand acquitted
before God and man for whatever may come.
Lamenting, as I do, that the matter has not had:
so full and free a discussion as it requires, I mean tQo
omit none of the points which seem to me necessary
for consideration, previous to an arrangement which
is forever to decide the form and the fate of Europe.
In the course, therefore, of what I shall have the honor to address to you, I propose the following questions to your serious thoughts. -1. Whether the present
system, which stands for a government, in France, be
such as in peace and war affects the neighboring
states in a manner different from the internal government that formerly prevailed in that country? -- 2. Whether that system,. supposing its views hostile to,
other nations, possesses any means of being hurtful to
them peculiar to itself? 3. Whether there has been
lately such a change in France as to alter the nature
of its system, or its effect upon other powers? - 4.
Whether any public declarations or engagements exist, on the part of the allied powers, which stand in
the way of a treaty of peace which supposes the right
and confirms the power of the Regicide faction in
France? - 5. What the state of the other powers of
Europe will be with respect to each other and their
VOL. V. 22
? ? ? ? 338 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
colonies, on the conclusion of a Regicide peace? - 6.
Whether we are driven to the absolute necessity of
making that kind of peace?
These heads of inquiry will enable us to make the
application of the several matters of fact and topics
of argument, that occur in this vast discussion, to
certain fixed principles. I do not mean to confine
myself to the order in which they stand. I shall discuss them in such a manner as shall appear to me the best adapted for showing their mutual bearings and
relations. Here, then, I close the public matter of
my letter; but before I have done, let me say one
word in apology for myself.
In wishing this nominal peace not to be precipitated, I am sure no man living is less disposed to blame the present ministry than I am. Some of my oldest
friends (and I wish I could" say it of more of them)
make a part in that ministry. There are some, indeed, "whom my dim eyes in vain explore. " In my mind, a greater calamity could not have fallen on
the public than the exclusion of one of them. But I
drive away that, with other melancholy thoughts.
A great deal ought to be said upon that subject, or
nothing. As to the distinguished persons to whom
my friends who remain are joined, if benefits nobly and generously conferred' ought to procure good wishes, they are entitled to my best vows; and they
have them all. They have administered to me the
only consolation I am capable of receiving, which is,
Ito know that no individual will suffer by my thirty
years' service to the public. If things should give
qs the comparative happiness of a struggle, I shall
be found, I was going to say fighting, (that would be
foolish,) but dying, by the side of Mr. Pitt. I must
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 339
add, that, if anything defensive in our domestic system can possibly save us from the disasters of a Regicide peace, he is the man to save us. If the finances in such a case can be repaired, he is the man to re
pair them. If I should lament any of his acts, it is
only when they appear to me to have no resemblance
to acts of his. But let him not have a confidence in
himself which no human abilities can warrant. His
abilities are fully equal (and that is to say much for
any man) to those which are opposed to him. But if
we look to him as our security against the consequences of a Regicide peace, let us be assured that a Regicide peace and a constitutional ministry are terms that will not agree. With a Regicide peace the king
cannot long have a minister to serve him, nor the
minister a king to serve. If the Great Disposer, in
reward of the royal and the private virtues of our
sovereign, should call him from the calamitous spectacles which will attend a state of amity with Regicide, his successor will surely see them, unless the same Providence greatly anticipates the course of Nature. Thinking thus, (and not, as I conceive, on
light grounds,) I dare not flatter the reigning sovereign, nor ally minister he has or can have, nor his
successor apparent, nor any of those who may be
called to serve him, with what appears to me a false
state of their situation. We cannot have them and
that peace together.
I do not forget that there had been a considerable
difference between several of our friends (with my insignificant self) and the great man at the head of
ministry, in an early stage of these discussions. But
I am sure there was a period in which we agreed better in the danger of a Jacobin existence in France.
? ? ? ? 340 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE
At one time he and all Europe seemed to feel it.
But why am not I converted with so many great powers and so many great ministers? It is because I am old and slow. I am in this year, 1796, only where
all the powers of Europe were in 1793. I cannot
move with this precession of the equinoxes, which is
preparing for us the return of some very old, I am
afraid no golden era, or the commencement of some
new era that must be denominated from some new
metal. In this crisis I must hold my tongue or I
must speak with freedom. Falsehood and delusion
are allowed in no case whatever: but, as in the exert
cise of all the virtues, there is an economy of truth.
It is a sort of temperance, by which a man speaks
truth with measure, that he may speak it the longer.
But as the same rules do not hold in all cases, what
would be right for you, who may presume on a series
of years before you, would have no sense for me, who
cannot, without absurdity, calculate on six months of
life. What I say I must say at once. Whatever I
write is in its nature testamentary. It may have the
weakness, but it has the sincerity, of a dying declaration. For the few days I have to linger here I
am removed completely from the busy scene of the
world; but I hold myself to be still responsible for
everything that I have done whilst I continued on the
place of action. If the rawest tyro in politics has
been influenced by the authority of my gray hairs,
and led by anything in my speeches or my writings
to enter into this war, he has a right to call upon me
to know why I have changed my opinions, or why,
when those I voted with have adopted better notions,
I persevere in exploded error.
When I seem not to acquiesce in the acts of those
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 341
I respect in every degree short of superstition, I am
obliged to give my reasons fully. I cannot set my
authority against their authority. But to exert reason is not to revolt against authority. Reason and authority do not move in the same parallel. That
reason is an amicus curice who speaks de piano, not
pro tribunali. It is a friend who makes an usefiul
suggestion to the court, without questioning its jurisdiction. Whilst he acknowledges its competence, he promotes its efficiency. I shall pursue the plan I
have chalked out in my letters that follow this.
? ? ? ? LETTER II.
ON THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION AS IT REGARDS OTHER NATIONS.
M/Y DEAR SIR,- I closed my first letter with
serious matter, and I hope it has employed
your thoughts. The system of peace must have a
reference to the system of the war. On that ground,
I must therefore again recall your mind to our original opinions, which time and events have not taught me to vary.
My ideas and my principles led me, in this contest,
to encounter France, not as a state, but as a faction.
The vast territorial extent of that country, its immense population, its riches of production, its riches
of commerce and convention, the whole aggregate
mass of what in ordinary cases constitutes the force
of a state, to me were but objects of secondary consideration. They might be balanced; and they have been often more than balanced. Great as these
things are, they are not what make the faction formidable. It is the faction that makes them truly dreadful. That faction is the evil spirit that possesses the body of France,-that informs it as a
soul, -- that stamps upon its ambition, and upon all
its pursuits, a characteristic mark, which strongly
distinguishes them from the same general passions
and the same general views in other men and in
other communities. It is that spirit which inspires
? ? ? ? LETTER II. 343
into them a new, a pernicious, a desolating activity.
Constituted as France was ten years ago, it was not
in that France to shake, to shatter, and to overwhelm
Europe in the manner that we behold. A sure destruction impends over those infatuated princes who, in the conflict with this new and unheard-of power,
proceed as if they were engaged in a war that bore
a resemblance to their former contests, or that they
can make peace in the spirit of their former arrange
ments of pacification. Here the beaten path is thevery reverse of the safe road.
As to me, I was always steadily of opinion that this
disorder was not in its nature intermittent. I conceived that the contest, once begun, could not be laid down again, to be resumed at our discretion, but that
our first struggle with this evil would also be our last.
I never thought we could make peace with the system; because it was not for the sake of an object we pursued in rivalry with each other, but with the system itself that we were at war. As I understood the matter, we were at war, not with its conduct, blrt
with its existence, - convinced that its existence and
its hostility were the same.
The faction is not local or territorial. It is a geleral evil. Where it least appears in action, it is still
full of life. In its sleep it recruits its strength and
prepares its exertion. Its spirit lies deep in the corruptions of our common nature. The social order which restrains it feeds it. It exists in every country in Europe, and among all orders of men in every country,' who look up to France as to a common
head. The centre is there. The circumference is
the world of Europe, wherever the race of Europe
may be settled. Everywhere else the faction is mili
? ? ? ? 344 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
tant; in France it is triumphant. In France is the
bank of deposit and the bank of circulation of all the
pernicious principles that are forming in every state.
It will be a folly scarcely deserving of pity, and too
mischievous for contempt, to think of restraining it
in any other country whilst it is predominant there.
War, instead of being the cause of its force, has suspenied its operation. It has given a reprieve, at
least, to the Christian world.
The true nature of a Jacobin war, in the beginling, was by most of the Christian powers felt, acknowledged, and even in the most precise manner
declared. In the joint manifesto published by the
Emperor and the King of Prussia, on the 4th of August, 1792, it is expressed in the clearest terms, and
on principles which could not fail, if they had adhered to them, of classing those monarchs with the
first benefactors of mankind. This manifesto was
published, as they themselves express it, "to lay
open to the present generation, as well as to posterity, their motives, their intentions, and the disinterestedness of their personal views: taking up arms for the purpose of preserving social and political order
amongst all civilized nations, and to secure to each
state its religion, happiness, independence, territories.
and real constitution. " -" On this ground they hoped
that all empires and all states would be unanimous,
and, becoming the firm guardians of the happiness
of mankind, that they could not fail to unite their
efforts to rescue a numerous nation from its own fury,
to preserve Europe from the return of barbarism, and
the universe from the subversion and anarchy with
which it was threatened. " The whole of that noble
performance ought to be read at the first meeting of
? ? ? ? LETTER II. 345
any congress which may assemble for the purpose of
pacification. In that piece " these powers expressly
renounce all views of personal aggrandizement," and
confine themselves to objects worthy of so generous,
so heroic, and so perfectly wise and politic an enterprise. It was to the principles of this confederation,
and to no other, that we wished our sovereign and
our country to accede, as a part of the commonwealth
of Europe. To these principles, with some trifling
exceptions and limitations, they did fully accede. *
And all our friends who took office acceded to the
ministry, (whether wisely or not,) as I always understood the matter, on the faith and on the principles
of that declaration.
As long as these powers flattered themselves that
the menace of force would produce the effect of force,
they acted on those declarations; but when their menaces failed of success, their efforts took a new direction. It did not appear to them that virtue and heroism ought to be purchased by millions of rixdollars. It is a dreadful truth, but it is a truth that
cannot be concealed: in ability, in dexterity, in the
distinctness of their views, the Jacobins are our superiors. They saw the thing right from the very beginning. Whatever were the first motives to the war among politicians, they saw that in its spirit, and for
its objects, it was a civil war; and as such they pursued it. It is a war between the partisans of the
ancient civil, moral, and political order of Europe
against a sect of fanatical and ambitious atheists
which means to change them all. It is not France
extending a foreign empire over other nations: it is
a sect aiming at universal empire, and beginning with
* See Declaration, Whitehall, Oct. 29, 1793.
? ? ? ? 346 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
the conquest of France. The leaders of that sect secured the centre of Europe; and that secured, they knew, that, whatever might be the event of battles
and sieges, their cause was victorious. Whether its
territory had a little more or a little less peeled from
its surface, or whether an island or two was detached
from its commerce, to them was of little moment.
The conquest of France was a glorious acquisition.
That once well laid as a basis of empire, opportunities never could be wanting to regain or to replace what had been lost, and dreadfully to avenge themselves on the faction of their adversaries.
They saw it was a civil war. It was their business
to persuade their adversaries that it ought to be aforeign war. The Jacobins everywhere set up a cry against the new crusade; and they intrigued with
effect in the cabinet, in the field, and in every private
society in Europe. Their task was not difficult. The
condition of princes, and sometimes of first ministers
too, is to be pitied. The creatures of the desk and
the creatures of favor had no relish for the principles
of the manifestoes. They promised no governlments,
no regiments, no revenues from whence emoluments
might arise by perquisite or by grant. In truth, the
tribe of vulgar politicians are the lowest of our species. There is no trade so vile and mechanical as government in their hands. Virtue is not their habit.
They are out of themselves in any course of conduct
recommended only by conscience and glory. A large,
liberal, and prospective view of the interests of states
passes with them for romance, and the principles that
recommend it for the wanderings of a disordered imagination. The calculators compute them out of their senses. The jesters and buffoons shame them out of
? ? ? ? LETTER II. 347
everything grand and elevated. Littleness in object
and in means to them appears soundness and sobriety. They think there is nothing worth pursuit, but that which they can handle, which they can measure
with a two-foot rule, which they can tell upon ten
fingers.
Without the principles of the Jacobins, perhaps
without any principles at all, they played the game
of that faction. There was a beaten road before
them. The powers of Europe were armed; France
had always appeared dangerous; the war was easily
diverted from France as a faction to France as a
state. The princes were easily taught to slide back
into their old, habitual course of politics. They were
easily led to consider the flames that were consuming
France, not as a warning to protect their own buildings, (which were without any party-wall, and linked by a contignation into the edifice of France,) but as an
happy occasion for pillaging the goods, and for carrying off the materials of their neighbor's house. Their provident fears were changed into avaricious hopes.
They carried on their new designs without seeming
to abandon the principles of their old policy. They
pretended to seek, or they flattered themselves that
they sought, in the accession of new fortresses and
new territories a defensive security. But the security
wanted was against a kind of power which was not
so truly dangerous in its fortresses nor in its territories as in its spirit and its principles. They aimed,
or pretended to aim, at defending themselves against
a danger from which there can be no security in any
defensive plan. If armies and fortresses were a defence against Jacobinism, Louis the Sixteenth would this day reign a powerful monarch over an happy
people.
? ? ? ? 348 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
This error obliged them, even in their offensive
operations, to adopt a plan of war against the success of which there was something little short of
mathematical demonstration. They refused to take
any step which might strike at the heart of affairs.
They seemed unwilling to wound the enemy in any
vital part. They acted through the whole as if they
really wished the conservation of the Jacobin power,
as what might be more favorable than the lawful
government to the attainment of the petty objects
they looked for. They always kept on the circumference; and the wider and remoter the circle was,
the more eagerly they chose it as their sphere of
action in this centrifugal war. The plan they pursued in its nature demanded great length of time.
In its execution, they who went the nearest way to
work were obliged to cover an incredible extent of
country. It left to the enemy every means of destroying this extended line of weakness. Ill success
in any part was sure to defeat the effect of the whole.
This is true of Austria. It is still more true of England. On this false plan, even good fortune, by further weakening the victor, put him but the further off from his object.
As long as there was any appearance of success,
the spirit of aggrandizement, and consequently the
spirit of mutual jealousy, seized upon all the coalesced powers. Some sought an accession of territory at the expense of France, some at the expense of each other, some at the expense of third parties;
and when the vicissitude of disaster took its turn,
they found common distress a treacherous bond of
faith and friendship.
The greatest skill, conducting the greatest military
? ? ? ? LETTER II. 349
apparatus, has been employed; but it has been worse
than uselessly employed, through the false policy of
the war. The operations of the field suffered by the
errors of the cabinet. If the same spirit continues,
when peace is made, the peace will fix and perpetuate all the errors of the war; because it will be
made upon the same false principle. What has been
lost in the field, in the field may be regained. An
arrangement of peace in its nature is a permanent
settlement: it is the effect of counsel and deliberation, and not of fortuitous events. If built upon a
basis fundamentally erroneous, it can only be retrieved by some of those unforeseen dispensations which the all-wise, but mysterious, Governor of the
world sometimes interposes, to snatch nations from
ruin. It would not be pious error, but mad and
impious presumption, for any one to trust in an unknown order of dispensations, in defiance of the rules of prudence, which are formed upon the known
march of the ordinary providence of God.
It was not of that sort of war that I was amongst
the least considerable, but amongst the most zealous
advisers; and it is not by the sort of peace now
talked of that I wish it concluded. It would answer no great purpose to enter into the particular
errors of the war. The whole has been but one
error. It was but nominally a war of alliance. As
the combined powers pursued it, there was nothing
to hold an alliance together. There could be no tie
of honor in a society for pillage. There could be no
tie of a common interest, where the object did not
offer such a division amongst the parties as could
well give them a warm concern in the gains of each
other, or could, indeed, form such a body of equiva
? ? ? ? 350 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
lents as might make one of them willing to abandon
a separate object of his ambition for the gratification
of any other member of the alliance. The partition
of Poland offered an object of spoil in which the parties might agree. They were circumjacent, and each
might take a portion convenient to his own territory.
They might dispute about the value of their several
shares, but the contiguity to each of the demandants always furnished the means of an adjustment.
Though hereafter the world will have cause to rue
this iniquitous measure, and they most who were
most concerned in it, for the moment there was
wherewithal in the object to preserve peace amongst
confederates in wrong. But the spoil of France did
not afford the same facilities for accommodation.
What might satisfy the House of Austria in a Flemish frontier afforded no equivalent to tempt the cupidity of the King of Prussia. What might be desired
by Great Britain in the West Indies must be coldly
and remotely, if at all, felt as all interest at Vienna,
and it would be felt as something worse than a negative interest at Madrid. Austria, long possessed with
unwise and dangerous designs on Italy, could not
be very much in earnest about the conservation of
the old patrimony of the House of Savoy; and Sardinia, who owed to an Italian force all her means
of shutting out France from Italy, of which she has
been supposed to hold the key, would not purchase
the means of strength upon one side by yielding it
on the other: she would not readily give the possession of Novara for the hope of Savoy. No Continental power was willing to lose any of its Continental objects for the increase of the naval power of Great Britain; and Great Britain would not give
? ? ? ? LETTER II. 351
up any of the objects she sought for, as the means
of an increase to her naval power, to further their
aggrandizement.
The moment this war came to be considered as a
war merely of profit, the actual circumstances are
such that it never could become really a war of allialnce. Nor can the peace be a peace of alliance, until things are put upon their right bottom. I don't find it denied, that, when a treaty is entered into for peace, a demand will be made on the
Regicides to surrender a great part of their conquests
on the Continent. Will they, in the present state of
the war, make that surrender without an equivalent?
This Continental cession must of course be made in
favor of that party in the alliance that has suffered
losses. That party has nothing to furnish towards an
equivalent. What equivalent, for instance, has Holland to offer, who has lost her all? What equivalent
can come from the Emperor, every part of whose territories contiguous to France is already within the
pale of the Regicide dominion? What equivalent has
Sardinia to offer for Savoy, and for Nice, - I may say,
for her whole being? What has she taken from the
faction of France? She has lost very near her all,
and she has gained nothing. What equivalent has
Spain to give? Alas! she has already paid for her
own ransom the fund of equivalent, - and a dreadful
equivalent it is, to England and to herself. But I
put Spain out of the question: she is a province of the
Jacobin empire, and she must make peace or war according to the orders she receives from the Directory
of Assassins. In effect and substance, her crown is
a fief of Regicide.
Whence, then, can the compensation be demanded?
? ? ? ? 352 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
Undoubtedly from that power which alone has made
some conquests. That power is England. Will the
Allies, then, give away their ancient patrimony, that
England may keep islands in the West Indies? They
never can protract the war in good earnest for that
object; nor can they act in concert with us, in our
refusal to grant anything towards their redemption.
In that case we are thus situated: either we must
give Europe, bound hand and foot, to France, or we
must quit the West Indies without any one object,
great or small, towards indemnity and security. I
repeat it, without any advantage whatever: because,
supposing that our conquest could comprise all that
France ever possessed in the tropical America, it
never can amount in any fair estimation to a fair
equivalent for Holland, for the Austrian Netherlands,
for the Lower Germany, - that is, for the whole ancient kingdom or circle of Burgundy, now under the yoke of Regicide, to say nothing of almost all Italy,
under the same barbarous domination. If we treat
in the present situation of things, we have nothing in
our hands that can redeem Europe. Nor is the Emperor, as I have observed, more rich in the fund of equivalents.
If we look to our stock in the Eastern world, our
most valuable and systematic acquisitions are made
in that quarter. Is it from France they are made?
France has but one or two contemptible factories,
subsisting by the offal of the private fortunes of English individuals to support them, in any part of India. I look on the taking of the Cape of Good Hope as the
securing of a post of great moment; it does honor to
those who planned and to those who executed that
enterprise; but I speak of it always as comparatively
? ? ? ? LETTER II. 353
good, - as good as anything can be in a scheme of
war that repels us from a centre, and employs all our
forces where nothing can be finally decisive. But
giving, as I freely give, every possible credit to these
Eastern conquests, I ask one question:- On whom
are they made? It is evident, that, if we can keep
our Eastern conquests, we keep them not at the expense of France, but at the expense of Holland, out
ally, --of Holland, the immediate cause of the war,
the nation whom we had undertaken to protect, and
not of the Republic which it was our business to destroy. If we return the African and the Asiatic conquests, we put them into the hands of a nominal state (to that Holland is reduced) unable to retain them,
and which will virtually leave them under the direction of France. If we withhold them, Holland de --
clines still more as a state. She loses so much
carrying trade, and that means of keeping up the
small degree of naval power she holds: for which
policy alone, and not for any commercial gain, she
maintains the Cape, or any settlement beyond it. In
that case, resentment, faction, and even necessity,
will throw her more and more into the power of the
new, mischievous Republic. But on the probable
state of Holland I shall say more, when in this cor --
respondence I come to talk over with you the state
in which any sort of Jacobin peace will leave all
Europe.
So far as to the East Indies.
As to the West Indies, - indeed, as to either, if
we look for matter of exchange in order to ransom
Europe, -it is easy to show that we have taken a
terribly roundabout road. I cannot conceive, even
if, for the sake of holding conquests there, we should
VOL. V. 23
? ? ? ? 354 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
refuse to redeem Holland, and the Austrian Nethei
lands, and the hither Germany, that Spain, merely
as she is Spain, (and forgetting that the Regicide
ambassador governs at Madrid,) will see with perfect
satisfaction Great Britain sole mistress of the isles.
In truth, it appears to me, that, when we come to
balance our account, we shall find in the proposed
peace only the pure, simple, and unendowed charms
of Jacobin amity. We shall have the satisfaction of
knowing that no blood or treasure has been spared
by the Allies for support of the Regicide system.
We shall reflect at leisure on one great truth: that it
was ten times more easy totally to destroy the system
itself than, when established, it would be to reduce
its power,- and that this republic, most formidable
abroad, was of all things the weakest at home; that
her frontier was terrible, her interior feeble; that it
was matter of choice to attack her where she is invincible, and to spare her where she was ready to dissolve by her own internal disorders. We shall reflect that our plan was good neither for offence nor defence.
It would not be at all difficult to prove that an
army of an hundred thousand men, horse, foot, and
artillery, might have been employed against the enemy, on the very soil which he has usurped, at a far
less expense than has been squandered away upon
tropical adventures. In these adventures it was not
an enemy we had to vanquish, but a cemetery to
conquer. In carrying on the war in the West Indies,
the hostile sword is merciful, the country in which
we engage is the dreadful enemy. There the European conqueror finds a cruel defeat in the very fruits
of his success. Every advantage is but a new demand
? ? ? ? LETTER II. 355
on England for recruits to the West Indian grave.
In a West India war, the Regicides have for their
troops a race of fierce barbarians, to whom the poisoned air, in which our youth inhale certain death, is
salubrity and life. To them the climate is the surest
and most faithful of allies.
Had we carried on the war on the side of France
which looks towards the Channel or the Atlantic, we
should have attacked our enemy on his weak and
unarmed side. We should not have to reckon on
the loss of a man who did not fall in battle. We
should have an ally in the heart of the country, who
to our hundred thousand would at one time have
added eighty thousand men at the least, and all
animated by principle, by enthusiasm, and by vengeance: motives which secured them to the cause
in a very differ6nt manner from some of those allies
whom we subsidized with millions. This ally, (or
rather, this principal in the war,) by the confession
of the Regicide himself, was more formidable to him
than all his other foes united. Warring there, we
should have led our arms to the capital of Wrong.
Defeated, we could not fail (proper precautions taken) of a sure retreat. Stationary, and only supporting the royalists, an impenetrable barrier, an impregnable rampart, would have been formed between the enemy and his naval power. We are
probably the only nation who have declined to act
against an enemy when it might have been done in
his own country, and who, having an armed, a powerful, and a long victorious ally in that country,
declined all effectual cooperation, and suffered him
to perish for want of support. On the plan of a war
in France, every advantage that our allies might
? ? ? ? 356 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
obtain would be doubled in its effect. Disasters on
the one side might have a fair chance of being compensated by victories on the other. Had we brought the main of our force to bear upon that quarter, all
the operations of the British and Imperial crowns
would have been combined. The war would have had
system, correspondence, and a certain direction. But
as the war has been pursued, the operations of the
two crowns have not the smallest degree of mutual
bearing or relation.
Had acquisitions in the West Indies been our object, on success in France, everything reasonable in those remote parts might be demanded with decorum
and justice and a sure effect. Well might we- call
for a recompense in America for those services to
which Europe owed its safety. Having abandoned
this obvious policy connected with principle, we have
seen the Regicide power taking the reverse course,
and making real conquests in the West Indies, to
which all our dear-bought advantages (if we could
hold them) are mean and contemptible. The noblest
island within the tropics, worth all that we possess
put together, is by the vassal Spaniard delivered into
her hands.
manly and masterly state-paper which I have two or
three times referred to,* and may still more frequently hereafter. The diplomatic collection never was more enriched than with this piece. The historic
facts justify every stroke of the master. "Thus
painters write their names at Co. "
Various persons may concur in the same measure
on various grounds. They may be various, without
being contrary to or exclusive of each other. I
thought the insolent, unprovoked aggression of the
Regicide upon our ally of Holland a good ground of
war. I think his manifest attempt to overturn the
balance of Europe a good ground of war. As a good
* Declaration, Whitehall, Oct. 29, 1793.
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 335
ground of war I consider his declaration of war on
his Majesty and his kingdom. But though I have
taken all these to my aid, I consider them as nothing
more than as a sort of evidence to indicate the treasonable mind within. Long before their acts of
aggression and their declaration of war, the faction
in France had assumed a form, had adopted a body
of principles and maxims, and had regularly and
systematically acted on them, by which she virtually
had put herself in a posture which was in itself a
declaration of war against mankind.
It is said by the Directory, in their several manifestoes, that we of the people are tumultuous for
peace, and that ministers pretend negotiation to
amuse us. This they have learned from the language of many amongst ourselves, whose conversations have been one main cause of whatever extent the opinion for peace with Regicide may be. But
I, who think the ministers unfortunately to be but
too serious in their proceedings, find myself obliged
to say a little more on this subject of the popular
opinion.
Before our opinions are quoted against ourselves,
it is proper, that, from our serious deliberation, they
may be worth quoting. It is without reason we
praise the wisdom of our Constitution in putting under the discretion of the crown the awful trust of
war and peace, if the ministers of the crown virtually
return it again into our bands. The trust was placed
there as a sacred deposit, to secure us against popular rashness in plunging into wars, and against the
effects of popular dismay, disgust, or lassitude, in
getting out of them as imprudently as we might first
engage in them. To have no other measure in judg.
? ? ? ? 336 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
ing of those great objects than our momentary opinions and desires is to throw us back upon that very democracy which, in this part, our Constitution was
formed to avoid.
It is no excuse at all for a minister who at our
desire takes a measure contrary to our safety, that it
is our own act. He who does not stay the hand of
suicide is guilty of murder. On our part, I say, that
to be instructed is not to be degraded or enslaved.
Information is an advantage to us; and we have a
right to demand it. He that is bound to act in the
dark cannot be said to act freely. When it appears
evident to our governors that our desires and our
interests are at variance, they ought not to gratify
the former at the expense of the latter. Statesmen
are placed on an eminence, that they may have a
larger horizon than we can possibly command. They
have a whole before them, which we can contemplate
only in the parts, and often without the necessary
relations. Ministers are not only our natural rulers,
but our natural guides. Reason, clearly and manfully delivered, has in itself a mighty force; but
reason in the mouth of legal authority is, I may
fairly say, irresistible.
I admit that reason of state will not, in many circumstances, permit the disclosure of the true ground of a public proceeding. In that case silence is manly,
and it is wise. It is fair to call for trust, when the
principle of reason itself suspends its public use. I
take the distinction to be this: the ground of a particular measure making a part of a plan it is rarely proper to divulge; all the broader grounds of policy,
on which the general plan is to be adopted, ought
as rarely to be concealed. They who have not the
? ? ? ? LETTER 1. 337
whole cause before them, call them politicians, call
them people, call them what you will, are no judges.
The difficulties of the case, as well as its fair side,
ought to be presented. This ought to be done; and
it is all that can be done. When we have our true
situation distinctly presented to us, if then we resolve, with a blind and headlong violence, to resist
the admonitions of our friends, and to cast ourselves
into the hands of our potent and irreconcilable foes,
then, and not till then, the ministers stand acquitted
before God and man for whatever may come.
Lamenting, as I do, that the matter has not had:
so full and free a discussion as it requires, I mean tQo
omit none of the points which seem to me necessary
for consideration, previous to an arrangement which
is forever to decide the form and the fate of Europe.
In the course, therefore, of what I shall have the honor to address to you, I propose the following questions to your serious thoughts. -1. Whether the present
system, which stands for a government, in France, be
such as in peace and war affects the neighboring
states in a manner different from the internal government that formerly prevailed in that country? -- 2. Whether that system,. supposing its views hostile to,
other nations, possesses any means of being hurtful to
them peculiar to itself? 3. Whether there has been
lately such a change in France as to alter the nature
of its system, or its effect upon other powers? - 4.
Whether any public declarations or engagements exist, on the part of the allied powers, which stand in
the way of a treaty of peace which supposes the right
and confirms the power of the Regicide faction in
France? - 5. What the state of the other powers of
Europe will be with respect to each other and their
VOL. V. 22
? ? ? ? 338 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
colonies, on the conclusion of a Regicide peace? - 6.
Whether we are driven to the absolute necessity of
making that kind of peace?
These heads of inquiry will enable us to make the
application of the several matters of fact and topics
of argument, that occur in this vast discussion, to
certain fixed principles. I do not mean to confine
myself to the order in which they stand. I shall discuss them in such a manner as shall appear to me the best adapted for showing their mutual bearings and
relations. Here, then, I close the public matter of
my letter; but before I have done, let me say one
word in apology for myself.
In wishing this nominal peace not to be precipitated, I am sure no man living is less disposed to blame the present ministry than I am. Some of my oldest
friends (and I wish I could" say it of more of them)
make a part in that ministry. There are some, indeed, "whom my dim eyes in vain explore. " In my mind, a greater calamity could not have fallen on
the public than the exclusion of one of them. But I
drive away that, with other melancholy thoughts.
A great deal ought to be said upon that subject, or
nothing. As to the distinguished persons to whom
my friends who remain are joined, if benefits nobly and generously conferred' ought to procure good wishes, they are entitled to my best vows; and they
have them all. They have administered to me the
only consolation I am capable of receiving, which is,
Ito know that no individual will suffer by my thirty
years' service to the public. If things should give
qs the comparative happiness of a struggle, I shall
be found, I was going to say fighting, (that would be
foolish,) but dying, by the side of Mr. Pitt. I must
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 339
add, that, if anything defensive in our domestic system can possibly save us from the disasters of a Regicide peace, he is the man to save us. If the finances in such a case can be repaired, he is the man to re
pair them. If I should lament any of his acts, it is
only when they appear to me to have no resemblance
to acts of his. But let him not have a confidence in
himself which no human abilities can warrant. His
abilities are fully equal (and that is to say much for
any man) to those which are opposed to him. But if
we look to him as our security against the consequences of a Regicide peace, let us be assured that a Regicide peace and a constitutional ministry are terms that will not agree. With a Regicide peace the king
cannot long have a minister to serve him, nor the
minister a king to serve. If the Great Disposer, in
reward of the royal and the private virtues of our
sovereign, should call him from the calamitous spectacles which will attend a state of amity with Regicide, his successor will surely see them, unless the same Providence greatly anticipates the course of Nature. Thinking thus, (and not, as I conceive, on
light grounds,) I dare not flatter the reigning sovereign, nor ally minister he has or can have, nor his
successor apparent, nor any of those who may be
called to serve him, with what appears to me a false
state of their situation. We cannot have them and
that peace together.
I do not forget that there had been a considerable
difference between several of our friends (with my insignificant self) and the great man at the head of
ministry, in an early stage of these discussions. But
I am sure there was a period in which we agreed better in the danger of a Jacobin existence in France.
? ? ? ? 340 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE
At one time he and all Europe seemed to feel it.
But why am not I converted with so many great powers and so many great ministers? It is because I am old and slow. I am in this year, 1796, only where
all the powers of Europe were in 1793. I cannot
move with this precession of the equinoxes, which is
preparing for us the return of some very old, I am
afraid no golden era, or the commencement of some
new era that must be denominated from some new
metal. In this crisis I must hold my tongue or I
must speak with freedom. Falsehood and delusion
are allowed in no case whatever: but, as in the exert
cise of all the virtues, there is an economy of truth.
It is a sort of temperance, by which a man speaks
truth with measure, that he may speak it the longer.
But as the same rules do not hold in all cases, what
would be right for you, who may presume on a series
of years before you, would have no sense for me, who
cannot, without absurdity, calculate on six months of
life. What I say I must say at once. Whatever I
write is in its nature testamentary. It may have the
weakness, but it has the sincerity, of a dying declaration. For the few days I have to linger here I
am removed completely from the busy scene of the
world; but I hold myself to be still responsible for
everything that I have done whilst I continued on the
place of action. If the rawest tyro in politics has
been influenced by the authority of my gray hairs,
and led by anything in my speeches or my writings
to enter into this war, he has a right to call upon me
to know why I have changed my opinions, or why,
when those I voted with have adopted better notions,
I persevere in exploded error.
When I seem not to acquiesce in the acts of those
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 341
I respect in every degree short of superstition, I am
obliged to give my reasons fully. I cannot set my
authority against their authority. But to exert reason is not to revolt against authority. Reason and authority do not move in the same parallel. That
reason is an amicus curice who speaks de piano, not
pro tribunali. It is a friend who makes an usefiul
suggestion to the court, without questioning its jurisdiction. Whilst he acknowledges its competence, he promotes its efficiency. I shall pursue the plan I
have chalked out in my letters that follow this.
? ? ? ? LETTER II.
ON THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION AS IT REGARDS OTHER NATIONS.
M/Y DEAR SIR,- I closed my first letter with
serious matter, and I hope it has employed
your thoughts. The system of peace must have a
reference to the system of the war. On that ground,
I must therefore again recall your mind to our original opinions, which time and events have not taught me to vary.
My ideas and my principles led me, in this contest,
to encounter France, not as a state, but as a faction.
The vast territorial extent of that country, its immense population, its riches of production, its riches
of commerce and convention, the whole aggregate
mass of what in ordinary cases constitutes the force
of a state, to me were but objects of secondary consideration. They might be balanced; and they have been often more than balanced. Great as these
things are, they are not what make the faction formidable. It is the faction that makes them truly dreadful. That faction is the evil spirit that possesses the body of France,-that informs it as a
soul, -- that stamps upon its ambition, and upon all
its pursuits, a characteristic mark, which strongly
distinguishes them from the same general passions
and the same general views in other men and in
other communities. It is that spirit which inspires
? ? ? ? LETTER II. 343
into them a new, a pernicious, a desolating activity.
Constituted as France was ten years ago, it was not
in that France to shake, to shatter, and to overwhelm
Europe in the manner that we behold. A sure destruction impends over those infatuated princes who, in the conflict with this new and unheard-of power,
proceed as if they were engaged in a war that bore
a resemblance to their former contests, or that they
can make peace in the spirit of their former arrange
ments of pacification. Here the beaten path is thevery reverse of the safe road.
As to me, I was always steadily of opinion that this
disorder was not in its nature intermittent. I conceived that the contest, once begun, could not be laid down again, to be resumed at our discretion, but that
our first struggle with this evil would also be our last.
I never thought we could make peace with the system; because it was not for the sake of an object we pursued in rivalry with each other, but with the system itself that we were at war. As I understood the matter, we were at war, not with its conduct, blrt
with its existence, - convinced that its existence and
its hostility were the same.
The faction is not local or territorial. It is a geleral evil. Where it least appears in action, it is still
full of life. In its sleep it recruits its strength and
prepares its exertion. Its spirit lies deep in the corruptions of our common nature. The social order which restrains it feeds it. It exists in every country in Europe, and among all orders of men in every country,' who look up to France as to a common
head. The centre is there. The circumference is
the world of Europe, wherever the race of Europe
may be settled. Everywhere else the faction is mili
? ? ? ? 344 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
tant; in France it is triumphant. In France is the
bank of deposit and the bank of circulation of all the
pernicious principles that are forming in every state.
It will be a folly scarcely deserving of pity, and too
mischievous for contempt, to think of restraining it
in any other country whilst it is predominant there.
War, instead of being the cause of its force, has suspenied its operation. It has given a reprieve, at
least, to the Christian world.
The true nature of a Jacobin war, in the beginling, was by most of the Christian powers felt, acknowledged, and even in the most precise manner
declared. In the joint manifesto published by the
Emperor and the King of Prussia, on the 4th of August, 1792, it is expressed in the clearest terms, and
on principles which could not fail, if they had adhered to them, of classing those monarchs with the
first benefactors of mankind. This manifesto was
published, as they themselves express it, "to lay
open to the present generation, as well as to posterity, their motives, their intentions, and the disinterestedness of their personal views: taking up arms for the purpose of preserving social and political order
amongst all civilized nations, and to secure to each
state its religion, happiness, independence, territories.
and real constitution. " -" On this ground they hoped
that all empires and all states would be unanimous,
and, becoming the firm guardians of the happiness
of mankind, that they could not fail to unite their
efforts to rescue a numerous nation from its own fury,
to preserve Europe from the return of barbarism, and
the universe from the subversion and anarchy with
which it was threatened. " The whole of that noble
performance ought to be read at the first meeting of
? ? ? ? LETTER II. 345
any congress which may assemble for the purpose of
pacification. In that piece " these powers expressly
renounce all views of personal aggrandizement," and
confine themselves to objects worthy of so generous,
so heroic, and so perfectly wise and politic an enterprise. It was to the principles of this confederation,
and to no other, that we wished our sovereign and
our country to accede, as a part of the commonwealth
of Europe. To these principles, with some trifling
exceptions and limitations, they did fully accede. *
And all our friends who took office acceded to the
ministry, (whether wisely or not,) as I always understood the matter, on the faith and on the principles
of that declaration.
As long as these powers flattered themselves that
the menace of force would produce the effect of force,
they acted on those declarations; but when their menaces failed of success, their efforts took a new direction. It did not appear to them that virtue and heroism ought to be purchased by millions of rixdollars. It is a dreadful truth, but it is a truth that
cannot be concealed: in ability, in dexterity, in the
distinctness of their views, the Jacobins are our superiors. They saw the thing right from the very beginning. Whatever were the first motives to the war among politicians, they saw that in its spirit, and for
its objects, it was a civil war; and as such they pursued it. It is a war between the partisans of the
ancient civil, moral, and political order of Europe
against a sect of fanatical and ambitious atheists
which means to change them all. It is not France
extending a foreign empire over other nations: it is
a sect aiming at universal empire, and beginning with
* See Declaration, Whitehall, Oct. 29, 1793.
? ? ? ? 346 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
the conquest of France. The leaders of that sect secured the centre of Europe; and that secured, they knew, that, whatever might be the event of battles
and sieges, their cause was victorious. Whether its
territory had a little more or a little less peeled from
its surface, or whether an island or two was detached
from its commerce, to them was of little moment.
The conquest of France was a glorious acquisition.
That once well laid as a basis of empire, opportunities never could be wanting to regain or to replace what had been lost, and dreadfully to avenge themselves on the faction of their adversaries.
They saw it was a civil war. It was their business
to persuade their adversaries that it ought to be aforeign war. The Jacobins everywhere set up a cry against the new crusade; and they intrigued with
effect in the cabinet, in the field, and in every private
society in Europe. Their task was not difficult. The
condition of princes, and sometimes of first ministers
too, is to be pitied. The creatures of the desk and
the creatures of favor had no relish for the principles
of the manifestoes. They promised no governlments,
no regiments, no revenues from whence emoluments
might arise by perquisite or by grant. In truth, the
tribe of vulgar politicians are the lowest of our species. There is no trade so vile and mechanical as government in their hands. Virtue is not their habit.
They are out of themselves in any course of conduct
recommended only by conscience and glory. A large,
liberal, and prospective view of the interests of states
passes with them for romance, and the principles that
recommend it for the wanderings of a disordered imagination. The calculators compute them out of their senses. The jesters and buffoons shame them out of
? ? ? ? LETTER II. 347
everything grand and elevated. Littleness in object
and in means to them appears soundness and sobriety. They think there is nothing worth pursuit, but that which they can handle, which they can measure
with a two-foot rule, which they can tell upon ten
fingers.
Without the principles of the Jacobins, perhaps
without any principles at all, they played the game
of that faction. There was a beaten road before
them. The powers of Europe were armed; France
had always appeared dangerous; the war was easily
diverted from France as a faction to France as a
state. The princes were easily taught to slide back
into their old, habitual course of politics. They were
easily led to consider the flames that were consuming
France, not as a warning to protect their own buildings, (which were without any party-wall, and linked by a contignation into the edifice of France,) but as an
happy occasion for pillaging the goods, and for carrying off the materials of their neighbor's house. Their provident fears were changed into avaricious hopes.
They carried on their new designs without seeming
to abandon the principles of their old policy. They
pretended to seek, or they flattered themselves that
they sought, in the accession of new fortresses and
new territories a defensive security. But the security
wanted was against a kind of power which was not
so truly dangerous in its fortresses nor in its territories as in its spirit and its principles. They aimed,
or pretended to aim, at defending themselves against
a danger from which there can be no security in any
defensive plan. If armies and fortresses were a defence against Jacobinism, Louis the Sixteenth would this day reign a powerful monarch over an happy
people.
? ? ? ? 348 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
This error obliged them, even in their offensive
operations, to adopt a plan of war against the success of which there was something little short of
mathematical demonstration. They refused to take
any step which might strike at the heart of affairs.
They seemed unwilling to wound the enemy in any
vital part. They acted through the whole as if they
really wished the conservation of the Jacobin power,
as what might be more favorable than the lawful
government to the attainment of the petty objects
they looked for. They always kept on the circumference; and the wider and remoter the circle was,
the more eagerly they chose it as their sphere of
action in this centrifugal war. The plan they pursued in its nature demanded great length of time.
In its execution, they who went the nearest way to
work were obliged to cover an incredible extent of
country. It left to the enemy every means of destroying this extended line of weakness. Ill success
in any part was sure to defeat the effect of the whole.
This is true of Austria. It is still more true of England. On this false plan, even good fortune, by further weakening the victor, put him but the further off from his object.
As long as there was any appearance of success,
the spirit of aggrandizement, and consequently the
spirit of mutual jealousy, seized upon all the coalesced powers. Some sought an accession of territory at the expense of France, some at the expense of each other, some at the expense of third parties;
and when the vicissitude of disaster took its turn,
they found common distress a treacherous bond of
faith and friendship.
The greatest skill, conducting the greatest military
? ? ? ? LETTER II. 349
apparatus, has been employed; but it has been worse
than uselessly employed, through the false policy of
the war. The operations of the field suffered by the
errors of the cabinet. If the same spirit continues,
when peace is made, the peace will fix and perpetuate all the errors of the war; because it will be
made upon the same false principle. What has been
lost in the field, in the field may be regained. An
arrangement of peace in its nature is a permanent
settlement: it is the effect of counsel and deliberation, and not of fortuitous events. If built upon a
basis fundamentally erroneous, it can only be retrieved by some of those unforeseen dispensations which the all-wise, but mysterious, Governor of the
world sometimes interposes, to snatch nations from
ruin. It would not be pious error, but mad and
impious presumption, for any one to trust in an unknown order of dispensations, in defiance of the rules of prudence, which are formed upon the known
march of the ordinary providence of God.
It was not of that sort of war that I was amongst
the least considerable, but amongst the most zealous
advisers; and it is not by the sort of peace now
talked of that I wish it concluded. It would answer no great purpose to enter into the particular
errors of the war. The whole has been but one
error. It was but nominally a war of alliance. As
the combined powers pursued it, there was nothing
to hold an alliance together. There could be no tie
of honor in a society for pillage. There could be no
tie of a common interest, where the object did not
offer such a division amongst the parties as could
well give them a warm concern in the gains of each
other, or could, indeed, form such a body of equiva
? ? ? ? 350 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
lents as might make one of them willing to abandon
a separate object of his ambition for the gratification
of any other member of the alliance. The partition
of Poland offered an object of spoil in which the parties might agree. They were circumjacent, and each
might take a portion convenient to his own territory.
They might dispute about the value of their several
shares, but the contiguity to each of the demandants always furnished the means of an adjustment.
Though hereafter the world will have cause to rue
this iniquitous measure, and they most who were
most concerned in it, for the moment there was
wherewithal in the object to preserve peace amongst
confederates in wrong. But the spoil of France did
not afford the same facilities for accommodation.
What might satisfy the House of Austria in a Flemish frontier afforded no equivalent to tempt the cupidity of the King of Prussia. What might be desired
by Great Britain in the West Indies must be coldly
and remotely, if at all, felt as all interest at Vienna,
and it would be felt as something worse than a negative interest at Madrid. Austria, long possessed with
unwise and dangerous designs on Italy, could not
be very much in earnest about the conservation of
the old patrimony of the House of Savoy; and Sardinia, who owed to an Italian force all her means
of shutting out France from Italy, of which she has
been supposed to hold the key, would not purchase
the means of strength upon one side by yielding it
on the other: she would not readily give the possession of Novara for the hope of Savoy. No Continental power was willing to lose any of its Continental objects for the increase of the naval power of Great Britain; and Great Britain would not give
? ? ? ? LETTER II. 351
up any of the objects she sought for, as the means
of an increase to her naval power, to further their
aggrandizement.
The moment this war came to be considered as a
war merely of profit, the actual circumstances are
such that it never could become really a war of allialnce. Nor can the peace be a peace of alliance, until things are put upon their right bottom. I don't find it denied, that, when a treaty is entered into for peace, a demand will be made on the
Regicides to surrender a great part of their conquests
on the Continent. Will they, in the present state of
the war, make that surrender without an equivalent?
This Continental cession must of course be made in
favor of that party in the alliance that has suffered
losses. That party has nothing to furnish towards an
equivalent. What equivalent, for instance, has Holland to offer, who has lost her all? What equivalent
can come from the Emperor, every part of whose territories contiguous to France is already within the
pale of the Regicide dominion? What equivalent has
Sardinia to offer for Savoy, and for Nice, - I may say,
for her whole being? What has she taken from the
faction of France? She has lost very near her all,
and she has gained nothing. What equivalent has
Spain to give? Alas! she has already paid for her
own ransom the fund of equivalent, - and a dreadful
equivalent it is, to England and to herself. But I
put Spain out of the question: she is a province of the
Jacobin empire, and she must make peace or war according to the orders she receives from the Directory
of Assassins. In effect and substance, her crown is
a fief of Regicide.
Whence, then, can the compensation be demanded?
? ? ? ? 352 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
Undoubtedly from that power which alone has made
some conquests. That power is England. Will the
Allies, then, give away their ancient patrimony, that
England may keep islands in the West Indies? They
never can protract the war in good earnest for that
object; nor can they act in concert with us, in our
refusal to grant anything towards their redemption.
In that case we are thus situated: either we must
give Europe, bound hand and foot, to France, or we
must quit the West Indies without any one object,
great or small, towards indemnity and security. I
repeat it, without any advantage whatever: because,
supposing that our conquest could comprise all that
France ever possessed in the tropical America, it
never can amount in any fair estimation to a fair
equivalent for Holland, for the Austrian Netherlands,
for the Lower Germany, - that is, for the whole ancient kingdom or circle of Burgundy, now under the yoke of Regicide, to say nothing of almost all Italy,
under the same barbarous domination. If we treat
in the present situation of things, we have nothing in
our hands that can redeem Europe. Nor is the Emperor, as I have observed, more rich in the fund of equivalents.
If we look to our stock in the Eastern world, our
most valuable and systematic acquisitions are made
in that quarter. Is it from France they are made?
France has but one or two contemptible factories,
subsisting by the offal of the private fortunes of English individuals to support them, in any part of India. I look on the taking of the Cape of Good Hope as the
securing of a post of great moment; it does honor to
those who planned and to those who executed that
enterprise; but I speak of it always as comparatively
? ? ? ? LETTER II. 353
good, - as good as anything can be in a scheme of
war that repels us from a centre, and employs all our
forces where nothing can be finally decisive. But
giving, as I freely give, every possible credit to these
Eastern conquests, I ask one question:- On whom
are they made? It is evident, that, if we can keep
our Eastern conquests, we keep them not at the expense of France, but at the expense of Holland, out
ally, --of Holland, the immediate cause of the war,
the nation whom we had undertaken to protect, and
not of the Republic which it was our business to destroy. If we return the African and the Asiatic conquests, we put them into the hands of a nominal state (to that Holland is reduced) unable to retain them,
and which will virtually leave them under the direction of France. If we withhold them, Holland de --
clines still more as a state. She loses so much
carrying trade, and that means of keeping up the
small degree of naval power she holds: for which
policy alone, and not for any commercial gain, she
maintains the Cape, or any settlement beyond it. In
that case, resentment, faction, and even necessity,
will throw her more and more into the power of the
new, mischievous Republic. But on the probable
state of Holland I shall say more, when in this cor --
respondence I come to talk over with you the state
in which any sort of Jacobin peace will leave all
Europe.
So far as to the East Indies.
As to the West Indies, - indeed, as to either, if
we look for matter of exchange in order to ransom
Europe, -it is easy to show that we have taken a
terribly roundabout road. I cannot conceive, even
if, for the sake of holding conquests there, we should
VOL. V. 23
? ? ? ? 354 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
refuse to redeem Holland, and the Austrian Nethei
lands, and the hither Germany, that Spain, merely
as she is Spain, (and forgetting that the Regicide
ambassador governs at Madrid,) will see with perfect
satisfaction Great Britain sole mistress of the isles.
In truth, it appears to me, that, when we come to
balance our account, we shall find in the proposed
peace only the pure, simple, and unendowed charms
of Jacobin amity. We shall have the satisfaction of
knowing that no blood or treasure has been spared
by the Allies for support of the Regicide system.
We shall reflect at leisure on one great truth: that it
was ten times more easy totally to destroy the system
itself than, when established, it would be to reduce
its power,- and that this republic, most formidable
abroad, was of all things the weakest at home; that
her frontier was terrible, her interior feeble; that it
was matter of choice to attack her where she is invincible, and to spare her where she was ready to dissolve by her own internal disorders. We shall reflect that our plan was good neither for offence nor defence.
It would not be at all difficult to prove that an
army of an hundred thousand men, horse, foot, and
artillery, might have been employed against the enemy, on the very soil which he has usurped, at a far
less expense than has been squandered away upon
tropical adventures. In these adventures it was not
an enemy we had to vanquish, but a cemetery to
conquer. In carrying on the war in the West Indies,
the hostile sword is merciful, the country in which
we engage is the dreadful enemy. There the European conqueror finds a cruel defeat in the very fruits
of his success. Every advantage is but a new demand
? ? ? ? LETTER II. 355
on England for recruits to the West Indian grave.
In a West India war, the Regicides have for their
troops a race of fierce barbarians, to whom the poisoned air, in which our youth inhale certain death, is
salubrity and life. To them the climate is the surest
and most faithful of allies.
Had we carried on the war on the side of France
which looks towards the Channel or the Atlantic, we
should have attacked our enemy on his weak and
unarmed side. We should not have to reckon on
the loss of a man who did not fall in battle. We
should have an ally in the heart of the country, who
to our hundred thousand would at one time have
added eighty thousand men at the least, and all
animated by principle, by enthusiasm, and by vengeance: motives which secured them to the cause
in a very differ6nt manner from some of those allies
whom we subsidized with millions. This ally, (or
rather, this principal in the war,) by the confession
of the Regicide himself, was more formidable to him
than all his other foes united. Warring there, we
should have led our arms to the capital of Wrong.
Defeated, we could not fail (proper precautions taken) of a sure retreat. Stationary, and only supporting the royalists, an impenetrable barrier, an impregnable rampart, would have been formed between the enemy and his naval power. We are
probably the only nation who have declined to act
against an enemy when it might have been done in
his own country, and who, having an armed, a powerful, and a long victorious ally in that country,
declined all effectual cooperation, and suffered him
to perish for want of support. On the plan of a war
in France, every advantage that our allies might
? ? ? ? 356 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
obtain would be doubled in its effect. Disasters on
the one side might have a fair chance of being compensated by victories on the other. Had we brought the main of our force to bear upon that quarter, all
the operations of the British and Imperial crowns
would have been combined. The war would have had
system, correspondence, and a certain direction. But
as the war has been pursued, the operations of the
two crowns have not the smallest degree of mutual
bearing or relation.
Had acquisitions in the West Indies been our object, on success in France, everything reasonable in those remote parts might be demanded with decorum
and justice and a sure effect. Well might we- call
for a recompense in America for those services to
which Europe owed its safety. Having abandoned
this obvious policy connected with principle, we have
seen the Regicide power taking the reverse course,
and making real conquests in the West Indies, to
which all our dear-bought advantages (if we could
hold them) are mean and contemptible. The noblest
island within the tropics, worth all that we possess
put together, is by the vassal Spaniard delivered into
her hands.
