The only excuse to be made for all our mendicant
diplomacy
is the same as in the case of all
other mendicancy, namely, that it has been founded
on absolute necessity.
other mendicancy, namely, that it has been founded
on absolute necessity.
Edmund Burke
We ought not to have waited for the disgraceful dismissal of our ambassador.
There are cases in which
we may pretend to sleep; but the wittol rule has some
sense in it, Non omnibus dormio. We might, however,
have seemed ignorant of the affront; but what was
the fact? Did we dissemble or pass it by in silence?
When dignity is talked of, a language which I did not
expect to hear in such a transaction, I must say, what
all the world must feel, that it was not for the king's
dignity to notice this insult and not to resent it.
This mode of proceeding is formed on new ideas of
the correspondence between sovereign powers.
? ? ? ? J38 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
This was far from the only ill effect of the policy
of degradation. The state of inferiority in which we
were placed, in this vain attempt at treaty, drove us
headlong from error into error, and led. us to wander
far away, not only from all the paths which have
been beaten in the old course of political communication between mankind, but out of the ways even
of the most common prudence. Against all rules,
after we had met nothing but rebuffs in return to.
all our proposals, we made two confidential communications to those in whom we had no confidence and
who reposed no confidence in us. What was worse,
we were fully aware of the madness of the step we
were taking. Ambassadors are not sent to a hostile
power, persevering in sentiments of hostility, to make
candid, confidential, and amicable communications.
Hitherto the world has considered it as the duty
of an ambassador ill such a situation to be cautious,
guarded, dexterous, and circumspect. It is true
that mutual confidence and common interest dispense with all rules, smooth the rugged way, remove every obstacle, and make all things plain and level. When, ill the last century, Temple and De
Witt negotiated the famous Triple Alliance, their
candor, their freedom, and the most confidential disclosures were the result of true policy. Accordingly,
in spite of all the dilatory forms of the complex government of the United Provinces, the treaty was
concluded in three days. It did not take a much
longer time to bring the same state (that of Holland) through a still more complicated transaction,
-that of the Grand Alliance. But in the present
case, this unparalleled candor, this unpardonable
want of reserve, produced, what might have been
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 439
expected from it, the most serious evils. It instructed the enemy in the whole plan of our demands and concessions. It made the most fatal discoveries.
And first,. it induced us to lay down the basis of
a treaty which itself had nothing to rest upon. It
seems, we thought we had gained a great point in
getting this basis admitted, - that is, a basis of mutual compensation and exchange of conquests. If a disposition to peace, and with any reasonable assurance, had been previously indicated, such a plan of arrangement might with propriety and safety be
proposed; because these arrangements were not, ill
effect, to make the basis, but a part of the superstructure, of the fabric of pacification. The order of things would thus be reversed. The mutual disposition to peace would form the reasonable base, upon which the scheme of compensation upon one side or
the other might be constructed. This truly fundamental base being once laid, all differences arising from the spirit of huckstering and barter might be
easily adjusted. If the restoration of peace, with a
view to the establishment of a fair balance of power
in Europe, had been made the real basis of the treaty,
the reciprocal value of the compensations could not
be estimated according to their proportion to each
other, but according to their proportionate relation to
that end: to that great end the whole would be sub
servient. The effect of the treaty would be in a
manner secured before the detail of particulars was
begun, and for a plain reason, -because the hostile
spirit on both sides had been conjured down; but if,
in the full fury and unappeased rancor of war, a little traffic is attempted, it is easy to divine what must be the consequence to those who endeavor to open
that kind of petty commerce.
? ? ? ? 440 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
To illustrate what I have said, I go back nlo further
than to the two last Treaties of Paris, and to the
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which preceded the first of
these two Treaties of Paris by about fourteen or fifteen years. I do not mean here to criticize any of them. My opinions upon some particulars of the
Treaty of Paris in 1763 are published in a pamphlet *
which your recollection will readily bring into your
view. I recur to them only to show that their basis
had not been, and never could have been, a mere
dealing of truck and barter, but that the parties being
willing, fiom common fatigue or common suffering,
to put an end to a war the first object of which had
either been obtained or despaired of, the lesser objects
were not thought worth the price of further contest.
The parties understanding one another, so much was
given away without considering from whose budget it
came, not as the value of the objects, but as the value
of peace to the parties might require.
At the last Treaty of Paris, the subjugation of
America being despaired of on the part of Great
Britain, and the independence of America being
looked upon as secure on the part of France, the
main cause of the war was removed; and then the
conquests which France had made upon us (for we
had made none of importance upon her) were surrendered with sufficient facility. Peace was restored as peace. In America the parties stood as they were
possessed. A limit was to be settled, but settled as a
limit to secure that peace, and not at all on a system
of equivalents, for which, as we then stood with the
United States, there were little or no materials.
At the preceding Treaty of Paris, I mean that of
* Observations on a Late State of the Nation.
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 441
1763, there was nothing at all on which to fix a basis
of compensation from reciprocal cession of conquests.
They were all on one side. The question with us
was not what we were to receive, and on what consideration, but what we were to keep for indemnity or to cede for peace. Accordingly, no place being
left for barter, sacrifices were made on our side to
peace; and we surrendered to the French their most
valuable possessions in the West Indies without any
equivalent. The rest of Europe fell soon after into
its ancient order; and the German war ended exactly where it had begun.
The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was built upon a
similar basis. All the conquests in Europe had been
made by France. She had subdued the Austrian
Netherlands, and broken open the gates of Holland.
We had taken nothing in the West Indies; and Cape
Breton was a trifling business indeed. France gave
up all for peace. The Allies had given up all that
was ceded at Utrecht. Louis the Fourteenth made
all, or nearly all, the cessions at Ryswick, and at
Nimeguen. In all those treaties, and in all the preceding, as well as in the others which intervened, the question never had been that of barter. The balance
of power had been ever assumed as the known common law of Europe at all times and by all powers: the question had only been (as it must happen) on
the more or less inclination of that balance.
This general balance was regarded in four principal points of view: the GREAT MIDDLE BALANCE, which comprehended Great Britain, France, and Spain; the
BALANCE OF THE NORTH; the BALANCE, external and
internal, of GERMANY; and the BALANCE OF ITALY.
In all those systems of balance, England was the
? ? ? ? 442 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
power to whose custody it was thought it might be
most safely committed.
France, as she happened to stand, secured the balance or endangered it. Without question, she had been long the security for the balance of Germany,
and, under her auspices, the system, if not formed,
had been at least perfected. She was so in some
measure with regard to Italy, more than occasionally. She had a clear interest in the balance of the North, and had endeavored to preserve it. But when
we began to treat with the present France, or, more
properly, to prostrate ourselves to her, and to try if
we should be admitted to ransom our allies upon a
system of mutual concession and compensation, we
had not one of the usual facilities. For, first, we had
not the smallest indication of a desire for peace on
the part of the enemy, but rather the direct contrary.
Men do not make sacrifices to obtain what they do
not desire: and as for the balance of power, it was
so far from being admitted by France, either on the
general system, or with regard to the particular systems that I have mentioned, that, in the whole body of their authorized or encouraged reports and discussions upon the theory of tile diplomatic system, they constantly rejected the very idea of the balance of
power, and treated it as the true cause of all the
wars and calamities that had afflicted Europe; and
their practice was correspondent to the dogmatic
positions they had laid down. The Empire and
the Papacy it was their great object to destroy;
and this, now openly avowed and steadfastly acted
upon, might have been discerned with very little
acuteness of sight, from the very first dawnings of
the Revolution, to be the main drift of their policy:
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 443
for they professed a resolution to destroy everything
which can hold states together by the tie of opinion.
Exploding, therefore, all sorts of balances, they
avow their design to erect themselves into a new
description of empire, which is not grounded on any
balance, but forms a sort of impious hierarchy, of
which France is tb be the head and the guardian.
The law of this their empire is anything rather than
the public law of Europe, the ancient conventions
of its several states, or the ancient opinions which
assign to them superiority or preeminence of any
sort, or any other kind of connection in virtue of
ancient relations. They permit, and that is all, the
temporary existence of some of the old communities:
but whilst they give to these tolerated states this
temporary respite, in order to secure them in a condition of real dependence on themselves, they invest them on every side by a body of republics, formed
on the model, and dependent ostensibly, as well as
substantially, on the will of the mother republic to
which they owe their origin. These are to be so many garrisons to check and control the states which are to be permitted to remain on the old model until
they are ripe for a change. It is in this manner that
France, on her new system, means to form an universal empire, by producing an universal revolution. By this means, forming a new code of communities
according to what she calls the natural rights of mail
and of states, she pretends to secure eternal peace to
the world, guarantied by her generosity and justice,
which are to grow with the extent of her power. To
talk of the balance of power to the governors of such
a country was a jargon which they could not understand even through an interpreter. Before men can
? ? ? ? 444 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
transact any affair, they must have a common language to speak, and some common, recognized principles on which they can argue; otherwise all is
cross purpose and confusion. It was, therefore, an
essential preliminary to the whole proceeding, to fix
whether the balance of power, the liberties and laws
of the Empire, and the treaties of different belligerent
powers in past times, when they put an end to hostilities, were to be considered as the basis of the present
negotiation.
The whole of the enemy's plan was known when
Lord Malmesbury was sent with his scrap of equivalents to Paris. Yet, in this unfortunate attempt at
negotiation, instead of fixing these points, and assuming the balance of power and the peace of Europe as the basis to which all cessions on all sides
were to be subservient, our solicitor for peace was
directed to reverse that order. He was directed to
make mutual concessions, on a mere comparison of
their marketable value, the base of treaty. The balance of power was to be thrown in as an inducement, and a sort of make-weight to supply the manifest deficiency, which must stare him and the world in the face, between those objects which he was to
require the enemy to surrender and those which he
had to offer as a fair equivalent.
To give any force to this inducement, and to
make it answer even the secondary purpose of equalizing equivalents having in themselves no natural
proportionate value, it supposed that the enemy, coI1trary to the most notorious fact, did admit this balance of power to be of some value, great or small;
whereas it is plain, that, in the enemy's estimate of
things, the consideration of the balance of power, as
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 4t45
we have said before, was so far from going in diminution of the value of what the Directory was desired to surrender, or of giving an additional price to our objects offered in exchange, that the hope of
the utter destruction of that balance became a new
motive to the junto of Regicides for preserving, as a
means for realizing that hope, what we wished them
to abandon.
Thus stood the basis of the treaty, on laying the
first stone of the foundation. At the very best, upon
our side, the question stood upon a mere naked bargain and sale. Unthinking people here triumphed,
when they thought they had obtained it; whereas,
when obtained as a basis of a treaty, it was just the
worst we could possibly have chosen. As to our offer
to cede a most unprofitable, and, indeed, beggarly,
chargeable counting-house or two in the East Indies,
we ought not to presume that they would consider
this as anything else than a mockery. As to anything of real value, we had nothing under heaven to
offer, (for which we were not ourselves in a very
dubious struggle,) except the island of Martinico only. When this object was to be weighed against
the Directorial conquests, merely as an object of a
value at market, the principle of barter became
perfectly ridiculous: a single quarter in the single
city of Amsterdam was worth ten Martinicos, and
would have sold for many more years' purchase in
any market overt in Europe. How was this gross
and glaring defect in the objects of exchange to be
supplied? It was to be made up by argument. And
what was that argument? The extreme utility of
possessions in the West Indies to the augmentation
of the naval power of France. A very curious topic
? ? ? ? 446 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
of argument to be proposed and insisted on by an
ambassador of Great Britain! It is directly and
plainly this:-" Come, we know that of all things
you wish a naval power, and it is natural you should,
who wish to destroy the very sources of the British
greatness, to overpower our marine, to destroy our
commerce, to eradicate our foreign influence, and to
lay us open to an invasion, which at one stroke may
complete our servitude and ruin and expunge us
from among the nations of the earth. Here I have
it in my budget, the infallible arcanum for that purpose. You are but novices in the art of naval resources. Let you have the West Indies back, and
your maritime preponderance is secured, for which
you would do well to be moderate in your demands
upon the Austrian Netherlands. "
Under any circumstances, this is a most extraordinary topic of argument; but it is rendered by
much the more unaccountable, when we are told,
that, if the war has been diverted from the great
object of establishing society and good order in Europe by destroying the usurpation in France, this diversion was made to increase the naval resources and power of Great Britain, and to lower, if not annihilate, those of the marine of France. I leave all this
to the very serious reflection of every Englishman.
This basis was no sooner admitted than the rejection of a treaty upon that sole foundation was a thing
of course. The enemy did not think it worthy of a
discussion, as in truth it was not; and immediately,
as usual, they began, in the most opprobrious and
most insolent manner, to question our sincerity and
good faith: whereas, in truth, there was no one symptom wanting of openness and fair dealing. What
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 447
could be more fair than to lay open to an enemy all
that you wished to obtain, and the price you meant
to pay for it, and to desire him to imitate your ilgenuous proceeding, and in the same manner to open his
honest heart to you? Here was no want of fair dealing, but there was too evidently a fault of another
kind: there was much weakness, -there was an eager and impotent desire of associating with this unsocial power, and of attempting the connection by any means. however manifestly feeble and ineffectual.
The event was committed to chance, --that is, to
such a manifestation of tile desire of France for peace
as would induce the Directory to forget the advantages they had in the system of barter. Accordingly,
the general desire for such a peace was triumphantly reported from the moment that Lord Malmesbury
had set his foot on shore at Calais.
It has been said that the Directory was compelled
against its will to accept the basis of barter (as if that
had tended to accelerate the work of pacification! )
by the voice of all France. Had this been the case,
the Directors would have continued to listen to that
voice to which it seems they were so obedient: they
would have proceeded with the negotiation upon that
basis. But the fact is, that they instantly broke up
the negotiation, as soon as they had obliged our ambassador to violate all the principles of treaty, and
weakly, rashly, and unguardedly to expose, without
any counter proposition, the whole of our project
with regard to ourselves and our allies, and without
holding out the smallest hope that they would admit
the smallest part of our pretensions.
When they had thus drawn from us all that they
could draw out, they expelled Lord Malmesbury, and
? ? ? ? 448 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
they appealed, for the propriety of their conduct, to
that very France which we thought proper to suppose
had driven them to this fine concession: and I do not
find that in either division of the family of thieves,
the younger branch, or the elder, or in any other
body whatsoever, there was any indignation excited,
or any tumult raised, or anything like the virulence
of opposition which was shown to the king's ministers
here, on account of that transaction.
Notwithstanding all this, it seems a hope is still entertained that the Directory will have that tenderness
for the carcass of their country, by whose very distemper, and on whose festering wounds, like vermin,
they are fed, that these pious patriots will of themselves come into a more moderate and reasonable way
of thinking and acting. In the name of wonder,
what has inspired our ministry with this hope any
more than with their former expectations?
Do these hopes only arise from continual disappointment? Do they grow out of the usual grounds
of despair? What is there to encourage them, in the
conduct or even in the declarations of the ruling powers in France, from the first formation of their mischievous republic to the hour in which I write? Is not the Directory composed of the same junto? . Are
they not the identical men who, from the base and
sordid vices which belonged to their original place
and situation, aspired to the dignity of crimes, - and
from the dirtiest, lowest, most fraudulent, and most
knavish of chicaners, ascended in the scale of robbery,
sacrilege, and assassination in all its forms, till at last
they had imbrued their impious hands in the blood
of their sovereign? Is it from these men that we are
to hope for this paternal tenderness to their country,
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 449
and this sacred regard for the peace and happiness of
all nations?
But it seems there is still another lurking hope,
akin to that which duped us so egregiously before,
when our delightful basis was accepted: we still
flatter ourselves that the public voice of France will
compel this Directory to more moderation. Whence
does this hope arise? What public voice is there ill
France? There are, indeed, some writers, who, since
this monster of a Directory has obtained a great, regular, military force to guard them, are indulged in a
sufficient liberty of writing; and some of them write
well, undoubtedly. But the world knows that int
France there is no public, -that the country is&
composed but of two descriptions, audacious tyrants.
and trembling slaves. The contests between the tyrants is the only vital principle that can be discerned
in France. The only thing which there appears like
spirit is amongst their late associates, and fastest
friends of the Directory, - the more furious and
untamable part of the Jacobins. This discontented
member of the faction does almost balance the reigning divisions, and it threatens every moment to predominate. For the present, however, the dread of their fury forms some sort of security to their fellows,
who now exercise' a more regular and therefore a
somewhat less ferocious tyranny. Most of the slaves
choose a quiet, however reluctant, submission to those
who. are somewhat satiated with blood, and who, like
wolves, are a little more tame from being a little less
hungry, in preference to an irruption of the famished
devourers who are prowling and howling about the
fold.
This circumstance assures some degree of perma --
VOL. V. 29
? ? ? ? 450 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEAtE.
nence to the power of those whom we know to be
permanently our rancorous and implacable enemies.
But to those very enemies who have sworn our destruction we have ourselves given a further and far
better security, by rendering the cause of the royalists desperate. Those brave and virtuous, but unfortunate adherents to the ancient Constitution of their country, after the miserable slaughters which
have been made in that body, after all their losses
by emigration, are still numerous, but unable to exert themselves against the force of the usurpation
evidently countenanced and upheld by those very
princes who had called them to arm for the support
of the legal monarchy. Where, then, after chasing
these fleeting hopes of ours from point to point of the
political horizon; are they at last really found? Not
where, under Providence, the hopes of Englishmen
used to be placed, in our own courage and in our
own virtues, but in the moderation and virtue' of the
most atrocious monsters that have ever disgraced
and plagued mankind.
The only excuse to be made for all our mendicant diplomacy is the same as in the case of all
other mendicancy, namely, that it has been founded
on absolute necessity. This deserves consideration.
Necessity, as it has no law, so it has no shame. But
moral necessity is not like metaphysical, or even
physical. In that category it is a word of loose signification, and conveys different ideas to different minds.
To the low-minded, the slightest necessity becomes
an invincible necessity. "The slothful man saith,
There is a lion in the way, and I shall be devoured in
the streets. " But when the necessity pleaded is not
in the nature of things, but in the vices of him who
? ? ? ? LETTER J[I. 451
alleges it, the whining tones of commonplace beggarly rhetoric produce nothing but indignationl: because they indicate a desire of keeping up a dishonorable
existence, without utility to others, and without dignity to itself; because they aim at obtaining the dues of labor without industry, and by frauds would draw
from the compassion of others what men ought to owe
to their own spirit and their own exertions.
I am thoroughly satisfied, that, if we degrade curselves, it is the degradation which will subject us to
the yoke of necessity, and not that it is necessity
which has brought on our degradation. In this same
chaos, where light and darkness are struggling together, the open subscription of last year, with all
its circumstances, must have given us no little glimmering of hope: not (as I have heard it was vainly discoursed) that the loan could prove a crutch to a
lame negotiation abroad, and that the whiff and wind
of it must at once have disposed the enemies of all
tranquillity to a desire for peace. Judging on the
face of facts, if on them it had any effect at all, it had
the direct contrary effect; for very soon after the
loan became public at Paris, the negotiation ended,
and our ambassador was ignominiously expelled. My
view of this was different: I liked the loan, not from
the influence which it might have on the enemy, but
on account of the temper which it indicated in our
own people. This alone is a consideration of any
importance; because all calculation formed upon a
supposed relation of the habitudes of others to our
own, under the present circumstances, is weak and
fallacious. The adversary must be judged, not by
what we are, or by what we wish him to be, but by
what we must know he actually is: unless we choose
? ? ? ? 452 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
to shut our eyes and our ears to the uniform tenor of
all his discourses, and to his uniform course in all
his actions. We may be deluded; but we cannot
pretend that we have been disappointed. The old
rule of Ne te qucesiveris extra is a precept as available in policy as it is in morals. Let us leave off
speculating upon the disposition and the wants of the
enemy. Let us descend into our own bosoms; let
us ask ourselves what are our duties, and what are
our means of discharging them. In what heart are
you at home? How far may an English minister
confide in the affections, in the confidence, in the
force of an English people? Wlat does he find us,
when lie puts us to the proof of what English interest
and English honor demand? It is as furnishing an
answer to these questions that I consider the circumstances of the loan. The effect on the enemy is not
in what he may speculate on our resources, but in
what he shall feel from our arms.
The circumstances of the loan have proved beyond
a doubt three capital points, which, if they are properly used, may be advantageous to the future liberty
and happiness of mankind. In the first place, the
loan demonstrates, in regard to instrumental resources, the competency of this kingdom to the assertion of the common cause, and to the maintenance and superintendence of that which it is its duty and
its glory to hold and to watch over, --the balance
of power throughout the Christian world. Secondly,
it brings to light what, under the most discouraging
appearances, I always reckoned on: that, with its
ancient physical force, not only unimpaired, but augmented, its ancient spirit is still alive in the British
nation. It proves that for their application there is
? ? ? ? . LETTER III. 453
a spirit equal to the resources, for its energy above
them. It proves that there exists, though not always
visible, a spirit which never fails to come forth, whenever it is ritually invoked, -- a spirit which will give
no equivocal response, but such as will hearten the
timidity and fix the irresolution of hesitating prudence,- a spirit which will be ready to perform all
the tasks that shall be imposed upon it by public honlor. Thirdly, the loan displays an abundant confidence in his Majesty's government, as administered by his present servants, in the prosecution of a war
which the people consider, not as a war made on the
suggestion of ministers, and to answer the purposes
of the ambition or pride of statesmen, but as a war
of their own, and in defence of that very property
which they expend for its support,-a war for that
order of things from which everything valuable that
they possess is derived, and in which order alone it
can possibly be maintained.
I hear, in derogation of the value of the fact from
which I draw inferences so favorable to the spirit of
the people and to its just expectation from ministers,
that the eighteen million loan is to be considered in
no other light than as taking advantage of a very
lucrative bargain held out to the subscribers. I do
not in truth believe it. All the circumstances which
attended the subscription strongly spoke a different
language. Be it, however, as these detractors say.
This with me derogates little, or rather nothing at all,
from the political value and importance of the fact.
I should be very sorry, if the transaction was not such
a bargain; otherwise it would not have been a fair
one. A corrupt and improvident loan, like everything else corrupt or prodigal, cannot be too much
? ? ? ? 454 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
condemned; but there is a short-sighted parsimony
still more fatal than an unforeseeing expense. The
value of money must be judged, like everything else,
from its rate at market. To force that market, or
any market, is of all things the most dangerous. For
a small temporary benefit, the spring of all public
credit might be relaxed forever. The moneyed menl
have a right to look to advantage in the investment
of their property. To advance their money, they risk
it; and the risk is to be included in the price. If
they were to incur a loss, that loss would amount to
a tax on that peculiar species of property. In effect,
it would be the most unjust and impolitic of all
things, -- unequal taxation. It would throw upon
one description of persons in the community that
burden which ought by fair and equitable distributionl to rest upon the whole. None on account of their dignity should be exempt; none (preserving
due proportion) on account of the scantiness of their
means. The moment a man is exempted from the
maintenance of the community, he is in a sort separated from it, - he loses the place of a citizen.
So it is in all taxation. But in a bargain, when
terms of loss are looked for by the borrower from the
lender, compulsion, or what virtually is compulsion,
introduces itself into the place of treaty. When compulsion may be at all used by a state in borrowing the occasion must determine. But the compulsion
ought to be known, and well defined, and well distinlguished; for otherwise treaty only weakens the elergy of compulsion, while compulsion destroys the
freedom of a bargain. The advantage of both is lost
by thle confusion of things in their nature utterly ulnsociable. It would be to introduce compulsion into
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 455
that in which freedom and existence are the same: I
mean credit. The moment that shame or fear or
force are directly or indirectly applied to a loan, credit perishes.
There must be some impulse, besides public spirit,
to put private interest into motion along with it.
Moneyed men ought to be allowed to set a value on
their money: if they did not, there could be no moneyed men. This desire of accumulation is a principle without which the means of their service to the state could not exist. The love of lucre, though
sometimes carried to a ridiculous, sometimes to a
vicious excess, is the grand cause of prosperity to all
states. In this natural, this reasonable, this powerful,
this prolific principle, it is for the satirist to expose
the ridiculous,- it is for the moralist to censure the
vicious,- it is for the sympathetic heart to reprobate
the hard and cruel, -it is for the judge to animadvert on the fraud, the extortion, and the oppression;
but it is for the statesman to employ it as he finds it,
with all its concomitant excellencies, with all its imperfections on its head. It is his part, in this case, as
it is in all other cases, where he is to make use of
the general energies of Nature, to take them as he
finds them.
After all, it is a great mistake to imagine, as too
commonly, almost indeed generally, it is imagined,
that the public borrower and the private lender are
two adverse parties, with different and contending
interests, and that what is given to the one is wholly
taken from the other. Constituted as our system of
finance and taxation is, the interests of the contracting
parties cannot well be separated, whatever they may
reciprocally intend. He who is the hard lender of to
? ? ? ? 456 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
day to-morrow is the generous contributor to his own
payment. For example, the last loan is raised on
public taxes, which are designed to produce annually
two millions sterling. At first view, this is an annuity of two millions dead charge upon the public in favor of certain moneyed men; but inspect the thing more nearly, follow the stream in its meanders, and
you will find that there is a good deal of fallacy in
this state of things.
I take it, that whoever considers any man's expenditure of his income, old or new, (I speak of certain
classes in life,) will find a full third of it to go in
taxes, direct or indirect. If so, this new-created income of two millions will probably furnish 665,0001.
(I avoid broken numbers) towards the payment of
its own interest, or to the sinking of its own capital. So it is with the whole of the public debt. Suppose it any given sum, it is a fallacious estimate of the affairs of a nation to consider it as a mere burden. To a degree it is so without question, but not
wholly so, nor anything like it. If the income from
the interest be spent, the above proportion returns
again into the public stock; insomuch that, taking
the interest of the whole debt to be twelve million
three hundred thousand pound, (it is something
more,) not less than a sum of four million one hundred thousand pound comes back again to the public
through the channel of imposition. If the whole
or any part of that income be saved, so much new
capital is generated, - the infallible operation of
which is to lower the value of money, and consequently to conduce towards the improvement of public credit.
I take the expenditure of the capitalist, not the
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 457
value of the capital, as my standard; because it is
the standard upon which, amongst us, property, as
an object of taxation, is rated. Inll this country, land
and offices only excepted, we raise no faculty tax.
We preserve the faculty from the expense. Our
taxes, for the far greater portion, fly over the heads
of the lowest classes. They escape too, who, with
better ability, voluntarily subject themselves to the
harsh discipline of a rigid necessity. With us, labor
and frugality, the parents of riches, are spared, and
wisely too. The moment men cease to augment the
common stock, the moment they no longer enrich it
by their industry or their self-denial, their luxury
and even their ease are obliged to pay contribution
to the public; not because they are vicious principles, but because they are unproductive; If, in fact, the interest paid by the public had not thus revolved
again into its own fund, if this secretion had not
again been absorbed into the mass of blood, it would
have been impossible for the nation to have existed
to this time under such a debt. But under the debt
it does exist and flourish; and this flourishing state
of existence in no small degree is owing to the contribution from the debt to the payment. Whatever, therefore, is taken from that capital by too close a
bargain is but a delusive advantage: it is so much
lost to the public in another way. This matter cannot, on the one side or the other, be metaphysically pursued to the extreme; but it is a consideration
of which, in all discussions of this kind, we ought
never wholly to lose sight.
It is never, therefore, wise to quarrel with the interested views of men, whilst they are combined with the public interest and promote it: it is our business
? ? ? ? 458 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
to tie the knot, if possible, closer. Resources that are
derived from extraordinary virtues, as such virtues
are rare, so they must be unproductive. It is a good
thing for a moneyed man to pledge his property on
the welfare of his country: he shows that he places
his treasure where his heart is; and revolving in
this circle, we know, that, "wherever a man's treasure is, there his heart will be also. " For these reasons, and on these principles, I have been sorry to see the attempts which have been made, with more
good meaning than foresight and consideration, towards raising the annual interest of this loan by private contributions. Wherever a regular revenue is established, there voluntary contribution can answer
no purpose but to disorder and disturb it in its
course. To recur to such aids is, for so much, to
dissolve the community, and to return to a state
of unconnected Nature. And even if such a supply
should be productive in a degree commensurate to
its object, it must also be productive of much vexation and much oppression. Either the citizens by
the proposed duties pay their proportion according
to some rate made by public authority, or they do
not. If the law be well made, and the contributions
founded on just proportions, everything superadded
by something that is not as regular as law, and as
uniform in its operation, will become more or less
out of proportion. If, on the contrary, the law be
not made upon proper calculation, it is a disgrace
to the public wisdom, which fails in skill to assess
the citizen in just measure and according to his
means. But the hand of authority is not always the
most heavy hand. It is obvious that men may be
oppressed by many ways besides those which take
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 459
their course from the supreme power of the state.
Suppose the payment to be wholly discretionary.
Whatever has its origin in caprice is sure not to
improve in its progress, nor to end in reason. It is
impossible for each private individual to have ally
measure conformable to the particular condition of
each of his fellow-citizens, or to the general exigencies of his country. 'T is a random shot at best.
When men proceed in this irregular mode, the
first contributor is apt to grow peevish with his neighbors. He is but too well disposed to measure their
means by his own envy, and not by the real state of
their fortunes, which he can rarely know, and which
it may in them be an act of the grossest imprudence
to reveal. Hence the odium and lassitude with which
people will look upon a provision for the public which
is bought by discord at the expense of social quiet,
Hence the bitter heart-burnings, and the war of
tongues, which is so often the prelude to other wars.
Nor is it every contribution, called voluntary, which
is according to the free will of the giver. A false
shame, or a false glory, against his feelings and his
judgment, may tax an individual to the detriment
of his family and in wrong of his creditors. A pretence of public spirit may disable him from the performance of his private duties; it may disable him even from paying the legitimate contributions which
he is to furnish according to the prescript of law.
But what is the most dangerous of all is that malignant disposition to which this mode of contribution
evidently tends, and which at length leaves the comparatively indigent to judge of the wealth, and to
prescribe to the opulent, or those whom they conceive to be such, the use they are to make of their
? ? ? ? 460 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
fortunes. From thence it is but one step to the subversion of all property.
Far, very far, am I from supposing that such
things enter into the purposes of those excellent persons whose zeal hasled them to this kind of measure; but the measure itself will lead them beyond their intention, and what is begun with the best designs bad men will perversely improve to the worst
of their purposes. An ill-founded plausibility in
great affairs is a real evil. In France we have seen
the wickedest and most foolish of men, the constitution-mongers of 1789, pursuing this very course, and
ending in this very event. These projectors of deception set on foot two modes of voluntary contribution
to the state. The first they called patriotic gifts.
These, for the greater part, were not more ridiculous
in the mode than contemptible in the project. The
other, which they called the patriotic contribution,
was expected to amount to a fourth of the fortunes
of individuals, but at their own will and on their
own estimate; but this contribution threatening to
fall infinitely short of their hopes, they soon made
it compulsory, both in the rate and in the levy, beginning in fraud, and ending, as all the frauds of
power end, in plain violence. All these devices to
produce an involuntary will were under the pretext
of relieving the more indigent classes; but the priiiciple of voluntary contribution, however delusive, being once established, these lower classes first, and then all classes, were encouraged to throw off the
regular, methodical payments to the state, as so
many badges of slavery. Tllus all regular revenue
failing, these impostors, raising thel superstructure on
the same cheats with whichl tlhey had laid tile founda
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 461
tion of their greatness, and not content with a portion of the possessions of the rich, confiscated the
whole, and, to prevent them from reclaiming their
rights, murdered the proprietors. The whole of the
process has passed before our eyes, and been conducted, indeed, with a greater degree of rapidity
than could be expected.
AMy opinion, then, is, that public contributions
ought only to be raised by the public will. By the
judicious form of our Constitution, the public contribution is in its name and substance a grant. In
its origin it is truly voluntary: not voluntary according to the irregular, unsteady, capricious will of individuals, but according to the will and wisdom of
the whole popular mass, in the only way in which
will and wisdom Call go together. This voluntary
grant obtaining in its progress the force of a law,
a general necessity, which takes away all merit, and
consequently all jealousy from individuals, compresses, equalizes, and satisfies the whole, suffering no man to judge of his neighbor or to arrogate anything to
himself. If their will complies with their obligation,
the great end is answered in the happiest mode;
if the will resists the burden, every one loses a great
part of his own will as a common lot. After all,
perhaps, contributions raised by a charge on luxury, or that degree of convenience which approaches
so near as to be confounded with luxury, is the only mode of contribution which may be with truth
termed voluntary.
I might rest here, and take the loan I speak of as
leading to a solution of that question which I proposed in my first letter: " Whether the inability of
the country to prosecute the war did necessitate a
? ? ? ? 462 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
submission to the indignities and the'calamities of
a peace with the Regicide power? " But give me
leave to pursue this point a little further.
I know that it has been a cry usual on this occasion, as it has been upon occasions where such a cry could have less apparent justification, that great distress and misery have been the consequence of this war, by the burdens brought and laid upon the people. But to know where the burden really lies,
and where it presses, we must divide the people.
As to the common people, their stock is in their persons and in their earnings. I deny that the stock of their persons is diminished in a greater proportion
than the common sources of populousness abundantly
fill up: I mean constant employment; proportioned
pay according to the produce of the soil, and, where
the soil fails, according to the operation of the general capital; plentiful nourishment to vigorous labor; comfortable provision to decrepit age, to orphan infancy, and to accidental malady. I say nothing to
the policy of the provision for the poor, in all the variety of faces under which it presents itself. This is the matter of another inquiry. I only just speak of
it as of a fact, taken with others, to support me in my
denial that hitherto any one of the ordinary sources
of the increase of mankind is dried up by this war.
I affirm, what I can well prove, that the waste has
been less than the supply. To say that in war no
man must be killed is to say that there ought to be no
war. This they may say who wish to talk idly, and
who would display their humanity at the expense of
their honesty or their understanding. If more lives
are lost in this war than necessity requires, they are
lost by misconduct or mistake; but if the hostility be
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 463
just, the error is to be corrected, the war is not to be
abandoned.
we may pretend to sleep; but the wittol rule has some
sense in it, Non omnibus dormio. We might, however,
have seemed ignorant of the affront; but what was
the fact? Did we dissemble or pass it by in silence?
When dignity is talked of, a language which I did not
expect to hear in such a transaction, I must say, what
all the world must feel, that it was not for the king's
dignity to notice this insult and not to resent it.
This mode of proceeding is formed on new ideas of
the correspondence between sovereign powers.
? ? ? ? J38 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
This was far from the only ill effect of the policy
of degradation. The state of inferiority in which we
were placed, in this vain attempt at treaty, drove us
headlong from error into error, and led. us to wander
far away, not only from all the paths which have
been beaten in the old course of political communication between mankind, but out of the ways even
of the most common prudence. Against all rules,
after we had met nothing but rebuffs in return to.
all our proposals, we made two confidential communications to those in whom we had no confidence and
who reposed no confidence in us. What was worse,
we were fully aware of the madness of the step we
were taking. Ambassadors are not sent to a hostile
power, persevering in sentiments of hostility, to make
candid, confidential, and amicable communications.
Hitherto the world has considered it as the duty
of an ambassador ill such a situation to be cautious,
guarded, dexterous, and circumspect. It is true
that mutual confidence and common interest dispense with all rules, smooth the rugged way, remove every obstacle, and make all things plain and level. When, ill the last century, Temple and De
Witt negotiated the famous Triple Alliance, their
candor, their freedom, and the most confidential disclosures were the result of true policy. Accordingly,
in spite of all the dilatory forms of the complex government of the United Provinces, the treaty was
concluded in three days. It did not take a much
longer time to bring the same state (that of Holland) through a still more complicated transaction,
-that of the Grand Alliance. But in the present
case, this unparalleled candor, this unpardonable
want of reserve, produced, what might have been
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 439
expected from it, the most serious evils. It instructed the enemy in the whole plan of our demands and concessions. It made the most fatal discoveries.
And first,. it induced us to lay down the basis of
a treaty which itself had nothing to rest upon. It
seems, we thought we had gained a great point in
getting this basis admitted, - that is, a basis of mutual compensation and exchange of conquests. If a disposition to peace, and with any reasonable assurance, had been previously indicated, such a plan of arrangement might with propriety and safety be
proposed; because these arrangements were not, ill
effect, to make the basis, but a part of the superstructure, of the fabric of pacification. The order of things would thus be reversed. The mutual disposition to peace would form the reasonable base, upon which the scheme of compensation upon one side or
the other might be constructed. This truly fundamental base being once laid, all differences arising from the spirit of huckstering and barter might be
easily adjusted. If the restoration of peace, with a
view to the establishment of a fair balance of power
in Europe, had been made the real basis of the treaty,
the reciprocal value of the compensations could not
be estimated according to their proportion to each
other, but according to their proportionate relation to
that end: to that great end the whole would be sub
servient. The effect of the treaty would be in a
manner secured before the detail of particulars was
begun, and for a plain reason, -because the hostile
spirit on both sides had been conjured down; but if,
in the full fury and unappeased rancor of war, a little traffic is attempted, it is easy to divine what must be the consequence to those who endeavor to open
that kind of petty commerce.
? ? ? ? 440 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
To illustrate what I have said, I go back nlo further
than to the two last Treaties of Paris, and to the
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which preceded the first of
these two Treaties of Paris by about fourteen or fifteen years. I do not mean here to criticize any of them. My opinions upon some particulars of the
Treaty of Paris in 1763 are published in a pamphlet *
which your recollection will readily bring into your
view. I recur to them only to show that their basis
had not been, and never could have been, a mere
dealing of truck and barter, but that the parties being
willing, fiom common fatigue or common suffering,
to put an end to a war the first object of which had
either been obtained or despaired of, the lesser objects
were not thought worth the price of further contest.
The parties understanding one another, so much was
given away without considering from whose budget it
came, not as the value of the objects, but as the value
of peace to the parties might require.
At the last Treaty of Paris, the subjugation of
America being despaired of on the part of Great
Britain, and the independence of America being
looked upon as secure on the part of France, the
main cause of the war was removed; and then the
conquests which France had made upon us (for we
had made none of importance upon her) were surrendered with sufficient facility. Peace was restored as peace. In America the parties stood as they were
possessed. A limit was to be settled, but settled as a
limit to secure that peace, and not at all on a system
of equivalents, for which, as we then stood with the
United States, there were little or no materials.
At the preceding Treaty of Paris, I mean that of
* Observations on a Late State of the Nation.
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 441
1763, there was nothing at all on which to fix a basis
of compensation from reciprocal cession of conquests.
They were all on one side. The question with us
was not what we were to receive, and on what consideration, but what we were to keep for indemnity or to cede for peace. Accordingly, no place being
left for barter, sacrifices were made on our side to
peace; and we surrendered to the French their most
valuable possessions in the West Indies without any
equivalent. The rest of Europe fell soon after into
its ancient order; and the German war ended exactly where it had begun.
The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was built upon a
similar basis. All the conquests in Europe had been
made by France. She had subdued the Austrian
Netherlands, and broken open the gates of Holland.
We had taken nothing in the West Indies; and Cape
Breton was a trifling business indeed. France gave
up all for peace. The Allies had given up all that
was ceded at Utrecht. Louis the Fourteenth made
all, or nearly all, the cessions at Ryswick, and at
Nimeguen. In all those treaties, and in all the preceding, as well as in the others which intervened, the question never had been that of barter. The balance
of power had been ever assumed as the known common law of Europe at all times and by all powers: the question had only been (as it must happen) on
the more or less inclination of that balance.
This general balance was regarded in four principal points of view: the GREAT MIDDLE BALANCE, which comprehended Great Britain, France, and Spain; the
BALANCE OF THE NORTH; the BALANCE, external and
internal, of GERMANY; and the BALANCE OF ITALY.
In all those systems of balance, England was the
? ? ? ? 442 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
power to whose custody it was thought it might be
most safely committed.
France, as she happened to stand, secured the balance or endangered it. Without question, she had been long the security for the balance of Germany,
and, under her auspices, the system, if not formed,
had been at least perfected. She was so in some
measure with regard to Italy, more than occasionally. She had a clear interest in the balance of the North, and had endeavored to preserve it. But when
we began to treat with the present France, or, more
properly, to prostrate ourselves to her, and to try if
we should be admitted to ransom our allies upon a
system of mutual concession and compensation, we
had not one of the usual facilities. For, first, we had
not the smallest indication of a desire for peace on
the part of the enemy, but rather the direct contrary.
Men do not make sacrifices to obtain what they do
not desire: and as for the balance of power, it was
so far from being admitted by France, either on the
general system, or with regard to the particular systems that I have mentioned, that, in the whole body of their authorized or encouraged reports and discussions upon the theory of tile diplomatic system, they constantly rejected the very idea of the balance of
power, and treated it as the true cause of all the
wars and calamities that had afflicted Europe; and
their practice was correspondent to the dogmatic
positions they had laid down. The Empire and
the Papacy it was their great object to destroy;
and this, now openly avowed and steadfastly acted
upon, might have been discerned with very little
acuteness of sight, from the very first dawnings of
the Revolution, to be the main drift of their policy:
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 443
for they professed a resolution to destroy everything
which can hold states together by the tie of opinion.
Exploding, therefore, all sorts of balances, they
avow their design to erect themselves into a new
description of empire, which is not grounded on any
balance, but forms a sort of impious hierarchy, of
which France is tb be the head and the guardian.
The law of this their empire is anything rather than
the public law of Europe, the ancient conventions
of its several states, or the ancient opinions which
assign to them superiority or preeminence of any
sort, or any other kind of connection in virtue of
ancient relations. They permit, and that is all, the
temporary existence of some of the old communities:
but whilst they give to these tolerated states this
temporary respite, in order to secure them in a condition of real dependence on themselves, they invest them on every side by a body of republics, formed
on the model, and dependent ostensibly, as well as
substantially, on the will of the mother republic to
which they owe their origin. These are to be so many garrisons to check and control the states which are to be permitted to remain on the old model until
they are ripe for a change. It is in this manner that
France, on her new system, means to form an universal empire, by producing an universal revolution. By this means, forming a new code of communities
according to what she calls the natural rights of mail
and of states, she pretends to secure eternal peace to
the world, guarantied by her generosity and justice,
which are to grow with the extent of her power. To
talk of the balance of power to the governors of such
a country was a jargon which they could not understand even through an interpreter. Before men can
? ? ? ? 444 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
transact any affair, they must have a common language to speak, and some common, recognized principles on which they can argue; otherwise all is
cross purpose and confusion. It was, therefore, an
essential preliminary to the whole proceeding, to fix
whether the balance of power, the liberties and laws
of the Empire, and the treaties of different belligerent
powers in past times, when they put an end to hostilities, were to be considered as the basis of the present
negotiation.
The whole of the enemy's plan was known when
Lord Malmesbury was sent with his scrap of equivalents to Paris. Yet, in this unfortunate attempt at
negotiation, instead of fixing these points, and assuming the balance of power and the peace of Europe as the basis to which all cessions on all sides
were to be subservient, our solicitor for peace was
directed to reverse that order. He was directed to
make mutual concessions, on a mere comparison of
their marketable value, the base of treaty. The balance of power was to be thrown in as an inducement, and a sort of make-weight to supply the manifest deficiency, which must stare him and the world in the face, between those objects which he was to
require the enemy to surrender and those which he
had to offer as a fair equivalent.
To give any force to this inducement, and to
make it answer even the secondary purpose of equalizing equivalents having in themselves no natural
proportionate value, it supposed that the enemy, coI1trary to the most notorious fact, did admit this balance of power to be of some value, great or small;
whereas it is plain, that, in the enemy's estimate of
things, the consideration of the balance of power, as
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 4t45
we have said before, was so far from going in diminution of the value of what the Directory was desired to surrender, or of giving an additional price to our objects offered in exchange, that the hope of
the utter destruction of that balance became a new
motive to the junto of Regicides for preserving, as a
means for realizing that hope, what we wished them
to abandon.
Thus stood the basis of the treaty, on laying the
first stone of the foundation. At the very best, upon
our side, the question stood upon a mere naked bargain and sale. Unthinking people here triumphed,
when they thought they had obtained it; whereas,
when obtained as a basis of a treaty, it was just the
worst we could possibly have chosen. As to our offer
to cede a most unprofitable, and, indeed, beggarly,
chargeable counting-house or two in the East Indies,
we ought not to presume that they would consider
this as anything else than a mockery. As to anything of real value, we had nothing under heaven to
offer, (for which we were not ourselves in a very
dubious struggle,) except the island of Martinico only. When this object was to be weighed against
the Directorial conquests, merely as an object of a
value at market, the principle of barter became
perfectly ridiculous: a single quarter in the single
city of Amsterdam was worth ten Martinicos, and
would have sold for many more years' purchase in
any market overt in Europe. How was this gross
and glaring defect in the objects of exchange to be
supplied? It was to be made up by argument. And
what was that argument? The extreme utility of
possessions in the West Indies to the augmentation
of the naval power of France. A very curious topic
? ? ? ? 446 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
of argument to be proposed and insisted on by an
ambassador of Great Britain! It is directly and
plainly this:-" Come, we know that of all things
you wish a naval power, and it is natural you should,
who wish to destroy the very sources of the British
greatness, to overpower our marine, to destroy our
commerce, to eradicate our foreign influence, and to
lay us open to an invasion, which at one stroke may
complete our servitude and ruin and expunge us
from among the nations of the earth. Here I have
it in my budget, the infallible arcanum for that purpose. You are but novices in the art of naval resources. Let you have the West Indies back, and
your maritime preponderance is secured, for which
you would do well to be moderate in your demands
upon the Austrian Netherlands. "
Under any circumstances, this is a most extraordinary topic of argument; but it is rendered by
much the more unaccountable, when we are told,
that, if the war has been diverted from the great
object of establishing society and good order in Europe by destroying the usurpation in France, this diversion was made to increase the naval resources and power of Great Britain, and to lower, if not annihilate, those of the marine of France. I leave all this
to the very serious reflection of every Englishman.
This basis was no sooner admitted than the rejection of a treaty upon that sole foundation was a thing
of course. The enemy did not think it worthy of a
discussion, as in truth it was not; and immediately,
as usual, they began, in the most opprobrious and
most insolent manner, to question our sincerity and
good faith: whereas, in truth, there was no one symptom wanting of openness and fair dealing. What
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 447
could be more fair than to lay open to an enemy all
that you wished to obtain, and the price you meant
to pay for it, and to desire him to imitate your ilgenuous proceeding, and in the same manner to open his
honest heart to you? Here was no want of fair dealing, but there was too evidently a fault of another
kind: there was much weakness, -there was an eager and impotent desire of associating with this unsocial power, and of attempting the connection by any means. however manifestly feeble and ineffectual.
The event was committed to chance, --that is, to
such a manifestation of tile desire of France for peace
as would induce the Directory to forget the advantages they had in the system of barter. Accordingly,
the general desire for such a peace was triumphantly reported from the moment that Lord Malmesbury
had set his foot on shore at Calais.
It has been said that the Directory was compelled
against its will to accept the basis of barter (as if that
had tended to accelerate the work of pacification! )
by the voice of all France. Had this been the case,
the Directors would have continued to listen to that
voice to which it seems they were so obedient: they
would have proceeded with the negotiation upon that
basis. But the fact is, that they instantly broke up
the negotiation, as soon as they had obliged our ambassador to violate all the principles of treaty, and
weakly, rashly, and unguardedly to expose, without
any counter proposition, the whole of our project
with regard to ourselves and our allies, and without
holding out the smallest hope that they would admit
the smallest part of our pretensions.
When they had thus drawn from us all that they
could draw out, they expelled Lord Malmesbury, and
? ? ? ? 448 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
they appealed, for the propriety of their conduct, to
that very France which we thought proper to suppose
had driven them to this fine concession: and I do not
find that in either division of the family of thieves,
the younger branch, or the elder, or in any other
body whatsoever, there was any indignation excited,
or any tumult raised, or anything like the virulence
of opposition which was shown to the king's ministers
here, on account of that transaction.
Notwithstanding all this, it seems a hope is still entertained that the Directory will have that tenderness
for the carcass of their country, by whose very distemper, and on whose festering wounds, like vermin,
they are fed, that these pious patriots will of themselves come into a more moderate and reasonable way
of thinking and acting. In the name of wonder,
what has inspired our ministry with this hope any
more than with their former expectations?
Do these hopes only arise from continual disappointment? Do they grow out of the usual grounds
of despair? What is there to encourage them, in the
conduct or even in the declarations of the ruling powers in France, from the first formation of their mischievous republic to the hour in which I write? Is not the Directory composed of the same junto? . Are
they not the identical men who, from the base and
sordid vices which belonged to their original place
and situation, aspired to the dignity of crimes, - and
from the dirtiest, lowest, most fraudulent, and most
knavish of chicaners, ascended in the scale of robbery,
sacrilege, and assassination in all its forms, till at last
they had imbrued their impious hands in the blood
of their sovereign? Is it from these men that we are
to hope for this paternal tenderness to their country,
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 449
and this sacred regard for the peace and happiness of
all nations?
But it seems there is still another lurking hope,
akin to that which duped us so egregiously before,
when our delightful basis was accepted: we still
flatter ourselves that the public voice of France will
compel this Directory to more moderation. Whence
does this hope arise? What public voice is there ill
France? There are, indeed, some writers, who, since
this monster of a Directory has obtained a great, regular, military force to guard them, are indulged in a
sufficient liberty of writing; and some of them write
well, undoubtedly. But the world knows that int
France there is no public, -that the country is&
composed but of two descriptions, audacious tyrants.
and trembling slaves. The contests between the tyrants is the only vital principle that can be discerned
in France. The only thing which there appears like
spirit is amongst their late associates, and fastest
friends of the Directory, - the more furious and
untamable part of the Jacobins. This discontented
member of the faction does almost balance the reigning divisions, and it threatens every moment to predominate. For the present, however, the dread of their fury forms some sort of security to their fellows,
who now exercise' a more regular and therefore a
somewhat less ferocious tyranny. Most of the slaves
choose a quiet, however reluctant, submission to those
who. are somewhat satiated with blood, and who, like
wolves, are a little more tame from being a little less
hungry, in preference to an irruption of the famished
devourers who are prowling and howling about the
fold.
This circumstance assures some degree of perma --
VOL. V. 29
? ? ? ? 450 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEAtE.
nence to the power of those whom we know to be
permanently our rancorous and implacable enemies.
But to those very enemies who have sworn our destruction we have ourselves given a further and far
better security, by rendering the cause of the royalists desperate. Those brave and virtuous, but unfortunate adherents to the ancient Constitution of their country, after the miserable slaughters which
have been made in that body, after all their losses
by emigration, are still numerous, but unable to exert themselves against the force of the usurpation
evidently countenanced and upheld by those very
princes who had called them to arm for the support
of the legal monarchy. Where, then, after chasing
these fleeting hopes of ours from point to point of the
political horizon; are they at last really found? Not
where, under Providence, the hopes of Englishmen
used to be placed, in our own courage and in our
own virtues, but in the moderation and virtue' of the
most atrocious monsters that have ever disgraced
and plagued mankind.
The only excuse to be made for all our mendicant diplomacy is the same as in the case of all
other mendicancy, namely, that it has been founded
on absolute necessity. This deserves consideration.
Necessity, as it has no law, so it has no shame. But
moral necessity is not like metaphysical, or even
physical. In that category it is a word of loose signification, and conveys different ideas to different minds.
To the low-minded, the slightest necessity becomes
an invincible necessity. "The slothful man saith,
There is a lion in the way, and I shall be devoured in
the streets. " But when the necessity pleaded is not
in the nature of things, but in the vices of him who
? ? ? ? LETTER J[I. 451
alleges it, the whining tones of commonplace beggarly rhetoric produce nothing but indignationl: because they indicate a desire of keeping up a dishonorable
existence, without utility to others, and without dignity to itself; because they aim at obtaining the dues of labor without industry, and by frauds would draw
from the compassion of others what men ought to owe
to their own spirit and their own exertions.
I am thoroughly satisfied, that, if we degrade curselves, it is the degradation which will subject us to
the yoke of necessity, and not that it is necessity
which has brought on our degradation. In this same
chaos, where light and darkness are struggling together, the open subscription of last year, with all
its circumstances, must have given us no little glimmering of hope: not (as I have heard it was vainly discoursed) that the loan could prove a crutch to a
lame negotiation abroad, and that the whiff and wind
of it must at once have disposed the enemies of all
tranquillity to a desire for peace. Judging on the
face of facts, if on them it had any effect at all, it had
the direct contrary effect; for very soon after the
loan became public at Paris, the negotiation ended,
and our ambassador was ignominiously expelled. My
view of this was different: I liked the loan, not from
the influence which it might have on the enemy, but
on account of the temper which it indicated in our
own people. This alone is a consideration of any
importance; because all calculation formed upon a
supposed relation of the habitudes of others to our
own, under the present circumstances, is weak and
fallacious. The adversary must be judged, not by
what we are, or by what we wish him to be, but by
what we must know he actually is: unless we choose
? ? ? ? 452 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
to shut our eyes and our ears to the uniform tenor of
all his discourses, and to his uniform course in all
his actions. We may be deluded; but we cannot
pretend that we have been disappointed. The old
rule of Ne te qucesiveris extra is a precept as available in policy as it is in morals. Let us leave off
speculating upon the disposition and the wants of the
enemy. Let us descend into our own bosoms; let
us ask ourselves what are our duties, and what are
our means of discharging them. In what heart are
you at home? How far may an English minister
confide in the affections, in the confidence, in the
force of an English people? Wlat does he find us,
when lie puts us to the proof of what English interest
and English honor demand? It is as furnishing an
answer to these questions that I consider the circumstances of the loan. The effect on the enemy is not
in what he may speculate on our resources, but in
what he shall feel from our arms.
The circumstances of the loan have proved beyond
a doubt three capital points, which, if they are properly used, may be advantageous to the future liberty
and happiness of mankind. In the first place, the
loan demonstrates, in regard to instrumental resources, the competency of this kingdom to the assertion of the common cause, and to the maintenance and superintendence of that which it is its duty and
its glory to hold and to watch over, --the balance
of power throughout the Christian world. Secondly,
it brings to light what, under the most discouraging
appearances, I always reckoned on: that, with its
ancient physical force, not only unimpaired, but augmented, its ancient spirit is still alive in the British
nation. It proves that for their application there is
? ? ? ? . LETTER III. 453
a spirit equal to the resources, for its energy above
them. It proves that there exists, though not always
visible, a spirit which never fails to come forth, whenever it is ritually invoked, -- a spirit which will give
no equivocal response, but such as will hearten the
timidity and fix the irresolution of hesitating prudence,- a spirit which will be ready to perform all
the tasks that shall be imposed upon it by public honlor. Thirdly, the loan displays an abundant confidence in his Majesty's government, as administered by his present servants, in the prosecution of a war
which the people consider, not as a war made on the
suggestion of ministers, and to answer the purposes
of the ambition or pride of statesmen, but as a war
of their own, and in defence of that very property
which they expend for its support,-a war for that
order of things from which everything valuable that
they possess is derived, and in which order alone it
can possibly be maintained.
I hear, in derogation of the value of the fact from
which I draw inferences so favorable to the spirit of
the people and to its just expectation from ministers,
that the eighteen million loan is to be considered in
no other light than as taking advantage of a very
lucrative bargain held out to the subscribers. I do
not in truth believe it. All the circumstances which
attended the subscription strongly spoke a different
language. Be it, however, as these detractors say.
This with me derogates little, or rather nothing at all,
from the political value and importance of the fact.
I should be very sorry, if the transaction was not such
a bargain; otherwise it would not have been a fair
one. A corrupt and improvident loan, like everything else corrupt or prodigal, cannot be too much
? ? ? ? 454 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
condemned; but there is a short-sighted parsimony
still more fatal than an unforeseeing expense. The
value of money must be judged, like everything else,
from its rate at market. To force that market, or
any market, is of all things the most dangerous. For
a small temporary benefit, the spring of all public
credit might be relaxed forever. The moneyed menl
have a right to look to advantage in the investment
of their property. To advance their money, they risk
it; and the risk is to be included in the price. If
they were to incur a loss, that loss would amount to
a tax on that peculiar species of property. In effect,
it would be the most unjust and impolitic of all
things, -- unequal taxation. It would throw upon
one description of persons in the community that
burden which ought by fair and equitable distributionl to rest upon the whole. None on account of their dignity should be exempt; none (preserving
due proportion) on account of the scantiness of their
means. The moment a man is exempted from the
maintenance of the community, he is in a sort separated from it, - he loses the place of a citizen.
So it is in all taxation. But in a bargain, when
terms of loss are looked for by the borrower from the
lender, compulsion, or what virtually is compulsion,
introduces itself into the place of treaty. When compulsion may be at all used by a state in borrowing the occasion must determine. But the compulsion
ought to be known, and well defined, and well distinlguished; for otherwise treaty only weakens the elergy of compulsion, while compulsion destroys the
freedom of a bargain. The advantage of both is lost
by thle confusion of things in their nature utterly ulnsociable. It would be to introduce compulsion into
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 455
that in which freedom and existence are the same: I
mean credit. The moment that shame or fear or
force are directly or indirectly applied to a loan, credit perishes.
There must be some impulse, besides public spirit,
to put private interest into motion along with it.
Moneyed men ought to be allowed to set a value on
their money: if they did not, there could be no moneyed men. This desire of accumulation is a principle without which the means of their service to the state could not exist. The love of lucre, though
sometimes carried to a ridiculous, sometimes to a
vicious excess, is the grand cause of prosperity to all
states. In this natural, this reasonable, this powerful,
this prolific principle, it is for the satirist to expose
the ridiculous,- it is for the moralist to censure the
vicious,- it is for the sympathetic heart to reprobate
the hard and cruel, -it is for the judge to animadvert on the fraud, the extortion, and the oppression;
but it is for the statesman to employ it as he finds it,
with all its concomitant excellencies, with all its imperfections on its head. It is his part, in this case, as
it is in all other cases, where he is to make use of
the general energies of Nature, to take them as he
finds them.
After all, it is a great mistake to imagine, as too
commonly, almost indeed generally, it is imagined,
that the public borrower and the private lender are
two adverse parties, with different and contending
interests, and that what is given to the one is wholly
taken from the other. Constituted as our system of
finance and taxation is, the interests of the contracting
parties cannot well be separated, whatever they may
reciprocally intend. He who is the hard lender of to
? ? ? ? 456 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
day to-morrow is the generous contributor to his own
payment. For example, the last loan is raised on
public taxes, which are designed to produce annually
two millions sterling. At first view, this is an annuity of two millions dead charge upon the public in favor of certain moneyed men; but inspect the thing more nearly, follow the stream in its meanders, and
you will find that there is a good deal of fallacy in
this state of things.
I take it, that whoever considers any man's expenditure of his income, old or new, (I speak of certain
classes in life,) will find a full third of it to go in
taxes, direct or indirect. If so, this new-created income of two millions will probably furnish 665,0001.
(I avoid broken numbers) towards the payment of
its own interest, or to the sinking of its own capital. So it is with the whole of the public debt. Suppose it any given sum, it is a fallacious estimate of the affairs of a nation to consider it as a mere burden. To a degree it is so without question, but not
wholly so, nor anything like it. If the income from
the interest be spent, the above proportion returns
again into the public stock; insomuch that, taking
the interest of the whole debt to be twelve million
three hundred thousand pound, (it is something
more,) not less than a sum of four million one hundred thousand pound comes back again to the public
through the channel of imposition. If the whole
or any part of that income be saved, so much new
capital is generated, - the infallible operation of
which is to lower the value of money, and consequently to conduce towards the improvement of public credit.
I take the expenditure of the capitalist, not the
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 457
value of the capital, as my standard; because it is
the standard upon which, amongst us, property, as
an object of taxation, is rated. Inll this country, land
and offices only excepted, we raise no faculty tax.
We preserve the faculty from the expense. Our
taxes, for the far greater portion, fly over the heads
of the lowest classes. They escape too, who, with
better ability, voluntarily subject themselves to the
harsh discipline of a rigid necessity. With us, labor
and frugality, the parents of riches, are spared, and
wisely too. The moment men cease to augment the
common stock, the moment they no longer enrich it
by their industry or their self-denial, their luxury
and even their ease are obliged to pay contribution
to the public; not because they are vicious principles, but because they are unproductive; If, in fact, the interest paid by the public had not thus revolved
again into its own fund, if this secretion had not
again been absorbed into the mass of blood, it would
have been impossible for the nation to have existed
to this time under such a debt. But under the debt
it does exist and flourish; and this flourishing state
of existence in no small degree is owing to the contribution from the debt to the payment. Whatever, therefore, is taken from that capital by too close a
bargain is but a delusive advantage: it is so much
lost to the public in another way. This matter cannot, on the one side or the other, be metaphysically pursued to the extreme; but it is a consideration
of which, in all discussions of this kind, we ought
never wholly to lose sight.
It is never, therefore, wise to quarrel with the interested views of men, whilst they are combined with the public interest and promote it: it is our business
? ? ? ? 458 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
to tie the knot, if possible, closer. Resources that are
derived from extraordinary virtues, as such virtues
are rare, so they must be unproductive. It is a good
thing for a moneyed man to pledge his property on
the welfare of his country: he shows that he places
his treasure where his heart is; and revolving in
this circle, we know, that, "wherever a man's treasure is, there his heart will be also. " For these reasons, and on these principles, I have been sorry to see the attempts which have been made, with more
good meaning than foresight and consideration, towards raising the annual interest of this loan by private contributions. Wherever a regular revenue is established, there voluntary contribution can answer
no purpose but to disorder and disturb it in its
course. To recur to such aids is, for so much, to
dissolve the community, and to return to a state
of unconnected Nature. And even if such a supply
should be productive in a degree commensurate to
its object, it must also be productive of much vexation and much oppression. Either the citizens by
the proposed duties pay their proportion according
to some rate made by public authority, or they do
not. If the law be well made, and the contributions
founded on just proportions, everything superadded
by something that is not as regular as law, and as
uniform in its operation, will become more or less
out of proportion. If, on the contrary, the law be
not made upon proper calculation, it is a disgrace
to the public wisdom, which fails in skill to assess
the citizen in just measure and according to his
means. But the hand of authority is not always the
most heavy hand. It is obvious that men may be
oppressed by many ways besides those which take
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 459
their course from the supreme power of the state.
Suppose the payment to be wholly discretionary.
Whatever has its origin in caprice is sure not to
improve in its progress, nor to end in reason. It is
impossible for each private individual to have ally
measure conformable to the particular condition of
each of his fellow-citizens, or to the general exigencies of his country. 'T is a random shot at best.
When men proceed in this irregular mode, the
first contributor is apt to grow peevish with his neighbors. He is but too well disposed to measure their
means by his own envy, and not by the real state of
their fortunes, which he can rarely know, and which
it may in them be an act of the grossest imprudence
to reveal. Hence the odium and lassitude with which
people will look upon a provision for the public which
is bought by discord at the expense of social quiet,
Hence the bitter heart-burnings, and the war of
tongues, which is so often the prelude to other wars.
Nor is it every contribution, called voluntary, which
is according to the free will of the giver. A false
shame, or a false glory, against his feelings and his
judgment, may tax an individual to the detriment
of his family and in wrong of his creditors. A pretence of public spirit may disable him from the performance of his private duties; it may disable him even from paying the legitimate contributions which
he is to furnish according to the prescript of law.
But what is the most dangerous of all is that malignant disposition to which this mode of contribution
evidently tends, and which at length leaves the comparatively indigent to judge of the wealth, and to
prescribe to the opulent, or those whom they conceive to be such, the use they are to make of their
? ? ? ? 460 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
fortunes. From thence it is but one step to the subversion of all property.
Far, very far, am I from supposing that such
things enter into the purposes of those excellent persons whose zeal hasled them to this kind of measure; but the measure itself will lead them beyond their intention, and what is begun with the best designs bad men will perversely improve to the worst
of their purposes. An ill-founded plausibility in
great affairs is a real evil. In France we have seen
the wickedest and most foolish of men, the constitution-mongers of 1789, pursuing this very course, and
ending in this very event. These projectors of deception set on foot two modes of voluntary contribution
to the state. The first they called patriotic gifts.
These, for the greater part, were not more ridiculous
in the mode than contemptible in the project. The
other, which they called the patriotic contribution,
was expected to amount to a fourth of the fortunes
of individuals, but at their own will and on their
own estimate; but this contribution threatening to
fall infinitely short of their hopes, they soon made
it compulsory, both in the rate and in the levy, beginning in fraud, and ending, as all the frauds of
power end, in plain violence. All these devices to
produce an involuntary will were under the pretext
of relieving the more indigent classes; but the priiiciple of voluntary contribution, however delusive, being once established, these lower classes first, and then all classes, were encouraged to throw off the
regular, methodical payments to the state, as so
many badges of slavery. Tllus all regular revenue
failing, these impostors, raising thel superstructure on
the same cheats with whichl tlhey had laid tile founda
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 461
tion of their greatness, and not content with a portion of the possessions of the rich, confiscated the
whole, and, to prevent them from reclaiming their
rights, murdered the proprietors. The whole of the
process has passed before our eyes, and been conducted, indeed, with a greater degree of rapidity
than could be expected.
AMy opinion, then, is, that public contributions
ought only to be raised by the public will. By the
judicious form of our Constitution, the public contribution is in its name and substance a grant. In
its origin it is truly voluntary: not voluntary according to the irregular, unsteady, capricious will of individuals, but according to the will and wisdom of
the whole popular mass, in the only way in which
will and wisdom Call go together. This voluntary
grant obtaining in its progress the force of a law,
a general necessity, which takes away all merit, and
consequently all jealousy from individuals, compresses, equalizes, and satisfies the whole, suffering no man to judge of his neighbor or to arrogate anything to
himself. If their will complies with their obligation,
the great end is answered in the happiest mode;
if the will resists the burden, every one loses a great
part of his own will as a common lot. After all,
perhaps, contributions raised by a charge on luxury, or that degree of convenience which approaches
so near as to be confounded with luxury, is the only mode of contribution which may be with truth
termed voluntary.
I might rest here, and take the loan I speak of as
leading to a solution of that question which I proposed in my first letter: " Whether the inability of
the country to prosecute the war did necessitate a
? ? ? ? 462 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
submission to the indignities and the'calamities of
a peace with the Regicide power? " But give me
leave to pursue this point a little further.
I know that it has been a cry usual on this occasion, as it has been upon occasions where such a cry could have less apparent justification, that great distress and misery have been the consequence of this war, by the burdens brought and laid upon the people. But to know where the burden really lies,
and where it presses, we must divide the people.
As to the common people, their stock is in their persons and in their earnings. I deny that the stock of their persons is diminished in a greater proportion
than the common sources of populousness abundantly
fill up: I mean constant employment; proportioned
pay according to the produce of the soil, and, where
the soil fails, according to the operation of the general capital; plentiful nourishment to vigorous labor; comfortable provision to decrepit age, to orphan infancy, and to accidental malady. I say nothing to
the policy of the provision for the poor, in all the variety of faces under which it presents itself. This is the matter of another inquiry. I only just speak of
it as of a fact, taken with others, to support me in my
denial that hitherto any one of the ordinary sources
of the increase of mankind is dried up by this war.
I affirm, what I can well prove, that the waste has
been less than the supply. To say that in war no
man must be killed is to say that there ought to be no
war. This they may say who wish to talk idly, and
who would display their humanity at the expense of
their honesty or their understanding. If more lives
are lost in this war than necessity requires, they are
lost by misconduct or mistake; but if the hostility be
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 463
just, the error is to be corrected, the war is not to be
abandoned.
