110 LETTERS ON A
REGICIDE
PEACE.
Edmund Burke
?
?
LETTER IV.
99
happiness, it furnishes few means for our defence.
It is formed, in a great measure, upon the principle
of jealousy of the crown, - and as things stood, when
it took that turn, with very great reason. I go farther: it must keep alive some part of that fire of jealousy eternally and chastely burning, or it cannot be
the British Constitution. At various periods we have
had tyranny in this country, more than enough. We
have had rebellions with more or less justification.
Some of our kings have made adulterous connections
abroad, and trucked away for foreign gold the interests and glory of their crown. But, before this time,
our liberty has never been corrupted. I mean to say,
that it has never been debauched from its domestic
relations. To this time it has been English liberty,
and English liberty only. Our love of liberty and
our love of our country were not distinct things.
Liberty is now, it seems, put upon a larger and more
liberal bottom. We are men, --and as menl, undoubtedly, nothing human is foreign to us. We cannot be too liberal in our general wishes for the happiness of'our kind. But in all questions on the mode of procuring it for any particular community,
we ought to be fearful of admitting those who have
no interest in it, or who have, perhaps, an interest
against it, into the consultation. Above all, we cannot be too cautious in our communication with those
who seek their happiness by other roads than those
of humanity, morals, and religion, and whose liberty
consists, and consists alone, in being free from those
restraints which are imposed by the virtues upon the
passions.
When we invite danger from a confidence in defensive measures, we ought, first of all, to be sure that
? ? ? ? 100 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
it is a species of danger against which any defensive measures that can be adopted will be sufficient. Next, we ought to know that the spirit of our laws,
or that our own dispositions, which are stronger than
laws, are susceptible of all those defensive measures
which the occasion may require. A third consideration is, whether these measures will not bring more odium than strength to government; and the last,
whether the authority that makes them, in a general corruption of manners and principles, can insure their execution. Let no one argue, from the state
of things, as he sees them at present, concerning what
will be the means and capacities of government, when
the time arrives which shall call for remedies commensurate to enormous evils.
It is an obvious truth, that no constitution can defend itself: it must be defended by the wisdom and fortitude of men. These are what no constitution
can give: they are the gifts of God; and He alone
knows whether we shall possess such gifts at the time
we stand in need of them. Constitutions furnish
the civil means of getting at the natural: it is all
that in this case they can do. But our Constitution
has more impediments than helps. Its excellencies,
when they come to be put to this sort of proof, may
be found among its defects.
Nothing looks more awful and imposing than an
ancient fortification. Its lofty, embattled walls, its
bold, projecting, rounded towers, that pierce the sky,
strike the imagination and promise inexpugnable
strength. But they are the very things that make
its weakness. You may as well think of opposing
one of these old fortresses to the mass (of artillery
brought by a French irruption into the field as to
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 101
think of resisting by your old laws and your old
forms the new destruction which the corps of Jacobin
engineers of to-day prepare for all such forms and all
such laws. Besides the debility and false principle of
their construction to resist the present modes of attack, the fortress itself is in ruinous repair, and there is a practicable breach in every part of it.
Such is the work. But miserable works have been
defended by the constancy of the garrison. Weatherbeaten ships have been brought safe to port by the spirit and alertness of the crew. But it is here that
we shall eminently fail. The day that, by their consent, the seat of Regicide has its place among the thrones of Europe, there is no longer a motive for
zeal in their favor; it will at best be cold, unimpassioned, dejected, melancholy duty. The glory will seem all on the other side. The friends of the crown
will appear, not as champions, but as victims; discountenanced, mortified, lowered, defeated. they will fall into listlessness and indifference. They will leave
things to take their course, enjoy the present hour,
and submit to the common fate.
Is it only an oppressive nightmare with which we
have been loaded? is it, then, all a frightful dream,
and are there no regicides in the world? Have we
not heard of that prodigy of a ruffian who would not
suffer his benignant sovereign, with his hands tied
behind him, and stripped for execution, to say one
parting word to his deluded people, - of Santerre,
who commanded the drums and trumpets to strike
up to stifle his voice, and dragged him backward to
the machine of murder? This nefarious villain (for
a few days I may call him so) stands high in France,
as in a republic of robbers and murderers he ought.
? ? ? ? 102 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
What hinders this monster from being sent as ambassador to convey to his Majesty the first compliments of his brethren, the Regicide Directory? They have none that can represent them more properly. I
anticipate the day of his arrival. He will make his
public entry into London on one of the pale horses
of his brewery. As he knows that we are pleased
with the Paris taste for the orders of knighthood,*
he will fling a bloody sash across his shoulders, with
the order of the holy guillotine surmounting the
crown appendant to the riband. Thus adorned, he
will proceed from Whitechapel to the further end of
Pall Mall, all the music of London playing the Marseillaise Hymn before him, and escorted by a chosen
detachment of the Legion de l'. Echafaud. It were
only to be wished that no ill-fated loyalist, for the
imprudence of his zeal, may stand in the pillory at
Charing Cross, under the statue of King Charles the
First, at the time of this grand procession, lest some
of the rotten eggs which the Constitutional Society
shall let fly at his indiscreet head may hit the virtuous murderer of his king. They might soil the
state dress which the ministers of so many crowned
heads have admired, and in which Sir Clement Cotterel is to introduce him at St. James's.
If Santerre cannot be spared from the constitutional butcheries at home, Tallien may supply his
place, and, in point of figure, with advantage. He
has been habituated to commissions; and he is as
well qualified as Santerre for this. Nero wished
* " In the costume assumed by the members of the legislative body
we almost behold the revival of the extinguished insignia of knighthood," &c. , &c. - See A View of the Relative State of Great Britain and
France at the Commencement of the Year 1796.
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 103
the Roman people had but one neck. The wish of
the more exalted Tallien, when he sat in judgment,
was, that his sovereign had eighty-three heads, that
he might send one to every one of the Departments.
Tallien will make an excellent figure at Guildhall
at the next Sheriff's feast. He may open the ball
with my Lady Mayoress. But this will be after
lie has retired from the public table, and gone into
the private room for the enjoyment of more social
and unreserved conversation with the ministers of
state and the judges of the bench. There these ministers and magistrates will hear him entertain the worthy aldermen with an instructing and pleasing
narrative of the manner in which he made the rich
citizens of Bordeaux squeak, and gently led them
by the public credit of the guillotine to disgorge
their anti-revolutionary pelf.
All this will be the display, and the town-talk,
when our regicide is on a visit of ceremony. At
home nothing will equal the pomp and splendor of
the Hotel de la Republique. There another scene of
gaudy grandeur will be opened. When his Citizen
Excellency keeps the festival, which every citizen is
ordered to observe, for the glorious execution of
Louis the Sixteenth, and renews his oath of detestation of kings, a grand ball of course will be given on the occasion. Then what a hurly-burly! what
a crowding! what a glare of a thousand flambeaux
in the square! what a clamor of footmen contending at the door! what a rattling of a thousand coaches of duchesses, countesses, and Lady Marys,
choking the way, and overturning each other, in a
struggle who should be first to pay her court to the
Citoyenne, the spouse of the twenty-first husband, he
? ? ? ? 104 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
the husband of the thirty-first wife, and to hail her
in the rank of honorable matrons before the four
days' duration of marriage is expired i- Morals, as
they were, decorum, the great outguard of the sex,
and the proud sentiment of honor, which makes virtue more respectable, where it is, and conceals human frailty, where virtue may not be, will be banished
from this land of propriety, modesty, and reserve.
We had before an ambassador from the most Christian King. We shall have then one, perhaps two, as lately, from the most Anti-Christian Republic. His
chapel will be great and splendid, formed on the
model of the Temple of Reason at Paris; while the
famous ode of the infamous Chenier will be sung,
and a prostitute of the street adored as a goddess.
We shall then have a French ambassador without
a suspicion of Popery. One good it will have: it
will go some way in quieting the minds of that
synod of zealous Protestant lay elders who govern
Ireland on the pacific principles of polemic theology,
and who now, from dread of the Pope, cannot take
a cool bottle of claret, or enjoy an innocent Parliamentary job, with any tolerable quiet.
So far as to the French communication here:
what will be the effect of our communication there?
We know that our new brethren, whilst they everywhere shut up the churches, increased in Paris, at
one time at least fourfold, the opera-houses, the playhouses, the public shows of all kinds; and even in their state of indigence and distress, no expense was
spared for their equipment and decoration. They
were made an affair of state. There is no invention
of seduction, never wholly wanting in that place,
that has not been increased, - brothels, gaming.
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 105
houses, everything. And there is no doubt, but,
when they are settled in a triumphant peace, they
will carry all these arts to their utmost perfection,
and cover them with every species of imposing magnificence. They have all along avowed them as a
part of their policy; and whilst they corrupt youlg
minds through pleasure, they form them to crimes.
Every idea of corporal gratification is carried to the
highest excess, and wooed with all the elegance that
belongs to the senses. All elegance of mind and mallners is banished. A theatrical, bombastic, windy
phraseology of heroic virtue, blended and mingled
up with a worse dissoluteness, and joined to a murderous and savage ferocity, forms the tone and idiom of their language and their manners. Any one, who attends to all their own descriptions, narratives, and dissertations, will find in that whole place
more of the air of a body of assassins, banditti, housebreakers, and outlawed smugglers, joined to that of
a gang of strolling players expelled from and exploded orderly theatres, with their prostitutes in a
brothel, at their debauches and bacchanals, than anything of the refined and perfected virtues, or the polished, mitigated vices of a great capital.
Is it for this benefit we open " the usual relations
of peace and amity "? Is it for this our youth of
both sexes are to form themselves by travel? Is it
for this that with expense and pains we form their
lisping infant accents to the language of France? I
shall be told that this abominable medley is made
rather to revolt young and ingenuous minds. So it is
in the description. So perhaps it may in reality to a
chosen few. So it may be, when the magistrate, the
law, and the church frown on such manners, and the
? ? ? ? 106 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
wretches to whom they belong, -when they are
chased from the eye of day, and the society of civil
life, into night-cellars and caves and woods. But when
these men themselves are the magistrates, --when all
the consequence, weight, and authority of a great nation adopt them, - when we see them conjoined with
victory, glory, power, and dominion, and homage paid
to them by every government, - it is not possible that
the downhill should not be slid into, recommended
by everything which has opposed it. Let it be remembered that no young man can go to any part of
Europe without taking this place of pestilential contagion in his way; and whilst the less active part
of the community will be debauched by this travel,
whilst children are poisoned at these schools, our
trade will put the finishing hand to our ruin. No
factory will be settled in France, that will not become
a club of complete French Jacobins. The minds of
young men of that description will receive a taint in
their religion, their morals, and their politics, which
they will in a short time communicate to the whole
kingdom.
Whilst everything prepares the body to debauch
and the mind to crime, a regular church of avowed
atheism, established by law, with a direct and sanguinary persecution of Christianity, is formed to prevent all amendment and remorse. Conscience is formally deposed fiom its dominion over the mind.
What fills the measure of horror is, that schools of
atheism are set up at the public charge in every part
of the country. That some English parents will be
wicked enough to send their children to such schools
there is no doubt. Better this island should be sunk
to the bottom of the sea than that (so far as human
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 107
infirmity admits) it should not be a country of relig.
ion and morals!
With all these causes of corruption, we may well
judge what the general fashion of mind will be
through both sexes and all conditions. Such spectacles and such examples will overbear all the laws
that ever blackened the cumbrous volumes of our
statutes. When royalty shall have disavowed itself,
- when it shall have relaxed all the principles of its
own support, - when it has rendered the system of
Regicide fashionable, and received it as triumphant,
in the very persons who have consolidated that system by the perpetration of every crime, who have
not only massacred the prince, but the very laws
and magistrates which were the support of royalty,
and slaughtered with an indiscriminate proscription,
without regard to either sex or age, every person
that was suspected of an inclination to king, law,
or magistracy, -- I say, will any one dare to be
loyal? Will any one presume, against both authority and opinion, to hold up this unfashionable, antiquated, exploded Constitution? The Jacobin faction in England must grow in
strength and audacity; it will be supported by other intrigues and supplied by other resources than
yet we have seen in action. Confounded at its
growth, the government may fly to Parliament for
its support. But who will answer for the temper
of a House of Oommons elected under these circumstar. ces? Who will answer for the courage of a
House of Commons to arm the crown with the extraordinary powers that it may demand? But the
ministers will not venture to ask half of what they
know they want. They will lose half of that half
? ? ? ? 108 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
in the contest; and when they have obtained their
nothing, they will be driven by the cries of faction
either to demolish the feeble works they have thrown
up in a hurry, or, in effect, to abandon them. As to
the House of Lords, it is not worth mentioning. The
peers ought naturally to be the pillars of the crown;
but when their titles are rendered contemptible, and
their property invidious, and a part of their weakness, and not of their strength, they will be found so
many degraded and trembling individuals, who will
seek by evasion to put off the evil day of their ruin.
Both Houses will be in perpetual oscillation between
abortive attempts at energy and still more unsuccessful attempts at compromise. You will be impatient of your disease, and abhorrent of your remedy. A spirit of subterfuge and a tone of apology will enter into all your proceedings, whether of law or
legislation. Your judges, who now sustain so masculine an authority, will appear more on their trial
than the culprits they have before them. The awful frown of criminal justice will be smoothed into
the silly smile of seduction. Judges will think to insinuate and soothe the accused into conviction and
condemnation, and to wheedle to the gallows the
most artful of all delinquents. But they will not
be so wheedled. They will not submit even to the
appearance of persons on their trial. Their claim
to this exemption will be admitted. The place in
which some of the greatest names which ever distinguished the history of this country have stood
will appear beneath their dignity. The criminal
will climb from the dock to the side-bar, and take
his place and his tea with the counsel. From the
bar of the counsel, by a natural progress, he will as
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 109
cend to the boench, which long before had been virtually abandoned. They who escape from justice
will not suffer a question upon reputation. They
will take the crown of the causeway; they will be
revered as martyrs; they will triumph as conquerors.
Nobody will dare to censure that popular part of
the tribunal whose only restraint on misjudgment
is the censure of the public. They who find fault
with the decision will be represented as enemies to
the institution. Juries that convict for the crown
will be loaded with obloquy. The juries who acquit
will be held up as models of justice. If Parliament
orders a prosecution, and fails, (as fail it will,) it
will be treated to its face as guilty of a conspiracy
maliciously to prosecute. Its care in discovering a
conspiracy against the state will be treated as a
forged plot to destroy the liberty of the subject:
every such discovery, instead of strengthening government, will weaken its reputation.
In this state things will be suffered to proceed, lest
measures of vigor should precipitate a crisis. The
timid will act thus from character, the wise from necessity. Our laws had done all that the old condition of things dictated to render our judges erect and independent; but they will naturally fail on the side
upon which they had taken no precautions. The judicial magistrates will find themselves safe as against
the crown, whose will is not their tenure; the power
of executing their office will be held at the pleasure
of those who deal out fame or abuse as they think fit.
They will begin rather to consult their own repose
and their own popularity than the critical and perilous trust that is in their hands. They will speculate
on consequences, when they see at court an ambassa
? ? ? ?
110 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
dor whose robes are lined with a scarlet dyed in the
blood of judges. It is no wonder, nor are they to
blame, when they are to consider how they shall answer for their conduct to the criminal of to-day turned into the magistrate of to-morrow.
The press
The army
When thus the helm of justice is abandoned, an
universal abandonment of all other posts will succeed. Government will be for a while the sport of contending factions, who, whilst they fight with one
another, will all strike at her. She will be buffeted
and beat forward and backward by the conflict of
those billows, until at length, tumbling from the
Gallic coast, the victorious tenth wave shall ride, like
the bore, over all the rest, and poop the shattered,
weather-beaten, leaky, water-logged vessel, and sink
her to the bottom of the abyss.
Among other miserable remedies that have been
found in the materia medica of the old college, a
change of ministry will be proposed, and probably
will take place. They who go out can never long
with zeal and good-will support government in the
hands of those they hate. In a situation of fatal dependence on popularity, and without one aid from the little remaining power of the crown, it is not to be expected that they will take on them that odium which more or less attaches upon every exertion of strong
power. The ministers of popularity will lose all their
credit at a stroke, if they pursue any of those means
necessary to give life, vigor, and consistence to government. They will be considered as venal wretches, apostates, recreant to all their own principles, acts,
and declarations. They cannot preserve their credit,
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 111
but by betraying that authority of which they are the
guardians.
To be sure, no prognosticating symptoms of these
things have as yet appeared, -nothing even resembling their beginnings. May they never appear! May these prognostications of the author be justly
laughed at and speedily forgotten! If nothing as
yet to cause them has discovered itself, let us consider, in the author's excuse, that we have not yet seen a Jacobin legation in England. The natural,
declared, sworn ally of sedition has not yet fixed
its head-quarters in London.
There never was a political contest, upon better
or worse grounds, that by the heat of party-spirit
may not ripen into civil confusion. If ever a party
adverse to the crown should be in a condition here
publicly to declare itself, and to divide, however unequally, the natural force of the kingdom, they are sure of an aid of fifty thousand men, at ten days'
warning, from the opposite coast of France. But
against this infusion of a foreign force the crown has
its guaranties, old and new. But I should be glad
to hear something said of the assistance which loyal
subjects in France have received from other powers
in support of that lawful government which secured
their lawful property. I should be glad to know, if
they are so disposed to a neighborly, provident, and
sympathetic attention to their public engagements,
by what means they are to come at us. Is it from
the powerful states of Holland we are to reclaim our
guaranty? Is it from the King of Prussia, and his
steady good affections, and his powerful navy, that
we are to look for the guaranty of our security? Is
it from the Netherlands, which the French may cover
? ? ? ? 112 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
with the swarms of their citizen-soldiers in twentyfour hours, that we are to look for this assistance? This is to suppose, too, that all these powers have no
views offensive or necessities defensive of their own.
They will cut out work for one another, and France
will cut out work for them all.
That the Christian religion cannot exist in this
country with such a fraternity will not, I think, be
disputed with me. On that religion, according to
our mode, all our laws and institutions stand, as
upon their base. That scheme is supposed in every
transaction of life; and if that were done away, everything else, as in France, must be changed along with it. Thus, religion perishing, and with it this
Constitution, it is a matter of endless meditation
what order of things would follow it. But what
disorder would fill the space between the present and
that which is to come, in the gross, is no matter of
doubtful conjecture. It is a great evil, that of a civil
war. But, in that state of things, a civil war, which
would give to good men and a good cause some
means of struggle, is a blessing of comparison that
England will not enjoy. The moment the struggle
begins, it ends. They talk of Mr. Hume's euthanasia
of the British Constitution gently expiring, without
a groan, in the paternal arms of a mere monarchy.
In a monarchy! - fine trifling indeed! - there is no
such euthanasia for the British Constitution.
The manuscript copy of this Letter ends here.
? ? ? ? A
LETTER
TO
THE EMPRESS OF RUSSIA. NOVEMBER I, I79I.
VOL1. VI. 8
? ? ? ? LETTER.
MADAM, --The Comte de Woronzow, your Imperial Majesty's minister, and Mr. Fawkener,
have informed me of the very gracious manner in
which your Imperial Majesty, and, after your example, the Archduke and Archduchess, have condescended to accept my humble endeavors in the service of that cause which connects the rights and duties of sovereigns with the true interest and happiness of their people.
If, confiding in titles derived from your own goodness, I venture to address directly to your Imperial
Majesty the expressions of my gratitude for so distinguished an honor, I hope it will not be thought a
presumptuous intrusion. I hope, too, that the willing homage I pay to the high and ruling virtues
which distinguish your Imperial Majesty, and which
form the felicity of so large a part of the world, will
not be looked upon as the language of adulation to
power and greatness. In my humble situation, I can
behold majesty in its splendor without being dazzled,
and I am capable of respecting it in its fall.
It is, Madam, from my strong sense of what is due. to dignity in undeserved misfortune, that I am led
to felicitate your Imperial Majesty on the use you
have lately made of your power. The princes and
nobility of France, who from honor and duty, from
blood and from principle, are attached to that un
? ? ? ? 116 LETTER TO THE EMPRESS OF RUSSIA.
happy crown, have experienced your favor and countenance; and there is no doubt that they will finally
enjoy the full benefit of your protection. The generosity of your Imperial Majesty has induced you to
take an interest in their cause; and your sagacity
has made you perceive that in the case of the sovereign of France the cause of all sovereigns is tried,
- that in the case of its church, the cause of all
churches, - and that in the case of its nobility is
tried the cause of all the respectable orders of all
society, and even of society itself.
Your Imperial Majesty has sent your minister to
reside where the crown of France, in this disastrous
eclipse of royalty, can alone truly and freely be represented, that is, in its royal blood, -where alone
the nation can be represented, that is, in its natural and inherent dignity. A throne cannot be represented by a prison. The honor of a nation cannot be represented by an assembly which disgraces and
degrades it: at Coblentz only the king and the nation of France are to be found.
Your Imperial Majesty, who reigns and lives for
glory, has nobly and wisely disdained to associate
your crown with a faction which has for its object
the subversion of all thrones.
You have not recognized this universal public enemy as a part of the system of Europe. You have
refused to sully the lustre of your empire by any
communion with a body of fanatical usurpers and
tyrants, drawn out of the dregs of society, and exalted to their evil eminence by the enormity of their
crimes, - an assemblage of tyrants, wholly destitute
of any distinguished qualification in a single person
amongst them, that can command reverence from our
? ? ? ? LETTER TO THE EMPRESS OF' RUSSIA. 117
reason, or seduce it from our prejudices. These enemies of sovereigns, if at all acknowledged, must be
acknowledged on account of that enmity alone: they
have nothing else to recommend them.
Madam, it is dangerous to praise any human virtue before the accomplishment of the tasks which it
imposes on itself. But in expressing my part of what
I hope is, or will become, the general voice, in admiration of what you have done, I run no risk at all.
With your Imperial Majesty, declaration and execution, beginning and conclusion, are, at their different
seasons, one and the same thing.
On the faith and declaration of some of the first
potentates of Europe, several thousands of persons,
comprehending the best men and the best gentlemen
in France, have given up their country, their houses,
their fortunes, their professional situation, their all,
and are now in foreign lands, struggling under the
most grievous distresses. Whatever appearances may
menace, nobody fears that they can be finally abandoned. Such a dereliction could not be without a
strong imputation on the public and private honor
of sovereignty itself, nor without an irreparable injury to its interests. It would give occasion to represent monarchs as natural enemies to each other, and that they never support or countenance any subjects
of a brother prince, except when they rebel against
him. We individuals, mere spectators of the scene,
but who seek our liberties under the shade of legal
authority, and of course sympathize with the sufferers in that cause, never can permit ourselves to believe that such an event can disgrace the history of our time. The only thing to be feared is delay, in
which are included many mischiefs. The constancy
? ? ? ? 118 LETTER TO THE EMPRESS OF RUSSIA.
of the oppressed will be broken; the power of tyrants will be confirmed. Already the multitude of French officers, drawn from their several corps by
hopes inspired by the freely declared disposition of
sovereigns, have left all the posts in which they might
one day have effectually served the good cause abandoned to the enemy.
Your Imperial Majesty's just influence, which is
still greater than your extensive power, will animate
and expedite the efforts of other sovereigns. From
your wisdom other states will learn that they who
wait until all the powers of Europe are at once in
motion can never move at all. It would add to the
unexampled calamities of our time, if the uncommon
union of sentiment in so many powers should prove
the very cause of defeating the benefit which ought
to flow from their general good disposition. No sovereign can run any risk from the designs of other powers, whilst engaged in this glorious and necessary
work. If any attempt could be feared, your Imperial
Majesty's power and justice would secure your allies
against all danger. Madam, your glory will be complete, if, after having given peace to Europe by your moderation, you shall bestow stability on all its governments by your vigor and decision. The debt which your Imperial Majesty's august predecessors
have contracted to the ancient manners of Europe,
by means of which they civilized a vast empire, will
be nobly repaid by preserving those manners from
the hideous change with which they are now menaced. By the intervention of Russia the world will
be preserved from barbarism and ruin.
A private individual, of a remote country, in himself wholly without importance, unauthorized and
? ? ? ? LETTER TO THE EMPRESS OF RUSSIA. 119
unconnected, not as an English subject, but as a
citizen of the world, presumes to submit his thoughts
to one of the greatest and wisest sovereigns that Europe has seen. He does it without fear, because he does not involve in his weakness (if such it is) his
king, his country, or his friends. He is not afraid
that he shall offend your Imperial Majesty, --because,
secure in itself, true greatness is always accessible,
and because respectfully to speak what we conceive
to be truth is the best homage which can be paid to
true dignity.
I am, Madam, with the utmost possible respect and
veneration,
Your Imperial Majesty's
Most obedient and most humble servant,
EDM. BURKE.
BEACONSFIELD, November 1st, 1791.
? ? ? ? A
LETTER
TO
SIR CHARLES BINGHAM, BART. , ON THE
IRISH ABSENTEE TAX. OCTOBER 30, 1773.
? ? ? ? NO TE.
FROM authentic documents found with the copy of this Letter
among Mr. Burke's papers, it appears that in the year 1773 a
project of imposing a tax upon all proprietors of landed estates
in Ireland, whose ordinary residence should be in Great Britain,
had been adopted and avowed by his Majesty's ministers at that
time. A remonstrance against this measure, as highly unjust
and impolitic, was presented to the ministers by several of the
principal Irish absentees, and the project was subsequently abandoned.
? ? ? ? LETTER.
DEAR SIR, --I am much flattered by your very
obliging letter, and the rather because it promises an opening to our future correspondence. This
may be my only indemnification for very great losses.
One of the most odious parts of the proposed Absentee Tax is its tendency to separate friends, and
to make as ugly breaches in private society as it
must make in the unity of the greal political body.
I am sure that much of the satisfaction of some circles in London will be lost by it. Do you think that
our friend Mrs. Vesey will suffer her husband to
vote for a tax that is to destroy the evenings at Bolton Row? I trust we shall have other. supporters
of the same sex, equally powerful, and equally deserving to be so, who will not abandon the common
cause of their own liberties and our satisfactions.
We shall be barbarized on both sides of the water,
if we do not see one another now and then. We
shall sink into surly, brutish Johns, and you will degenerate into wild Irish. It is impossible that we
should be the wiser or the more agreeable, certainly
we shall not love one another the better, for this
forced separation, which our ministers, who have already done so much for the dissolution of every other sort of good connection, are now meditating for the further improvement of this too well united empire.
Their next step will be to encourage all the colonies,
? ? ? ? 124 LETTER TO SIR CHARLES BINGHAM.
about thirty separate governments, to keep their people from all intercourse with each other and with the
mother country. A gentleman of New York or Barbadoes will be as much gazed at as a strange animal
from Nova Zembla or Otaheite; and those rogues,
the travellers, will tell us what stories they please
about poor old Ireland.
In all seriousness, (though I am a great deal more
than half serious in what I have been saying,) I
look upon this projected tax in a very evil light; I
think it is not advisable; I am sure it is not necessary; and as it is not a mere matter of finance, but
involves a political question of much importance, I
consider the principle and precedent as far worse
than the thing itself. You are too kind in imagining
I can suggest anything new upon the subject. The
objections to it are very glaring, and must strike the
eyes of all those who have not their reasons for shutting them against evident truth. I have no feelings
or opinions on this subject which I do not partake
with all the sensible and informed people that I meet
with. At first I could scarcely meet with any one
who could believe that this scheme originated from
the English government. They considered it not only
as absurd, but as something monstrous and unnatural. In the first instance, it strikes at the power of
this country; in the end, at the union of the whole
empire. I do not mean to express, most certainly I
do not entertain in my mind, anything invidious concerning the superintending authority of Great Britain. But if it be true that the several bodies which make up this complicated mass are to be preserved
as one empire, an authority sufficient to preserve
that unity, and by its equal weight and pressure
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR CHARLES BINGHAM. 125
to consolidate the various parts that compose it,
must reside somewhere: that somewhere can only
be in Engcland. Possibly any one member, distinctly taken, might decide in favor of that residence
within itself; but certainly no member would give
its voice for any other except this. So that I look
upon the residence of the supreme power to be settled here: not by force, or tyranny, or even by mere
long usage, but by the very nature of things, and the
joint consent of the whole body.
If all this be admitted, then without question this
country must have the sole right to the imperial
legislation: by which I mean that law which regulates the polity and economy of the several parts, as
they relate to one another and to the whole. But if
any of the parts, which' (not for oppression, but for
order) are placed in a subordinate situation, will assume to themselves the power of hindering or checking the resort of their municipal subjects to the centre, or even to any other part of the empire, they arrogate to themselves the imperial rights, which do
not, which cannot, belong to them, and, so far as
in them lies, destroy the happy arrangement of the
entire empire.
A free communication by discretionary residence is
necessary to all the other purposes of communication. For what purpose are the Irish and Plantation
laws sent hither, but as means of preserving this sovereign constitution? Whether such a constitution
was originally right or wrong this is not the time of
day to dispute. If any evils arise from it, let us not
strip it of what may be useful in it. By taking the
English Privy Council into your legislature, you obtain a new, a further, and possibly a more liberal con
? ? ? ? 126 LETTER TO SIR CHARLES BINGHAM.
sideration of all your acts. If a local legislature shall
by oblique means tend to deprive any of the people
of this benefit, and shall make it penal to them to follow into England the laws which may affect them, then the English Privy Council will have to decide
upon your acts without those lights that may enable
them to judge upon what grounds you made them, or
how far they ought to be modified, received, or rejected.
To what end is the ultimate appeal in judicature
lodged in this kingdom, if men may be disabled from
following their suits here, and may be taxed into an
absolute denial of justice? You observe, my dear
Sir, that I do not assert that in all cases two shillings
will necessarily cut off this means of correcting legislative and judicial mistakes, and thus amount to
a denial of justice. I might, indeed, state cases in
which this very quantum of tax would be fillly sufficient to defeat this right. But I argue not on the case, but on the principle, and I am sure the principle implies it. They who may restrain may prohibit; they who may impose two shillings may impose ten
shillings in the pound; and those who may condition the tax to six months' annual absence may carry that condition to six weeks, or even to six days, and
thereby totally defeat the wise means which have been
provided for extensive and impartial justice, and for
orderly, well-poised, and well-connected government.
What is taxing the resort to and residence in any
place, but declaring that your connection with that
place is a grievance? Is not such an Irish tax as is
now proposed a virtual declaration that England is
a foreign country, and a renunciation on your part
of the principle of comnzon naturalization, which runs
through this whole empire?
? ?
happiness, it furnishes few means for our defence.
It is formed, in a great measure, upon the principle
of jealousy of the crown, - and as things stood, when
it took that turn, with very great reason. I go farther: it must keep alive some part of that fire of jealousy eternally and chastely burning, or it cannot be
the British Constitution. At various periods we have
had tyranny in this country, more than enough. We
have had rebellions with more or less justification.
Some of our kings have made adulterous connections
abroad, and trucked away for foreign gold the interests and glory of their crown. But, before this time,
our liberty has never been corrupted. I mean to say,
that it has never been debauched from its domestic
relations. To this time it has been English liberty,
and English liberty only. Our love of liberty and
our love of our country were not distinct things.
Liberty is now, it seems, put upon a larger and more
liberal bottom. We are men, --and as menl, undoubtedly, nothing human is foreign to us. We cannot be too liberal in our general wishes for the happiness of'our kind. But in all questions on the mode of procuring it for any particular community,
we ought to be fearful of admitting those who have
no interest in it, or who have, perhaps, an interest
against it, into the consultation. Above all, we cannot be too cautious in our communication with those
who seek their happiness by other roads than those
of humanity, morals, and religion, and whose liberty
consists, and consists alone, in being free from those
restraints which are imposed by the virtues upon the
passions.
When we invite danger from a confidence in defensive measures, we ought, first of all, to be sure that
? ? ? ? 100 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
it is a species of danger against which any defensive measures that can be adopted will be sufficient. Next, we ought to know that the spirit of our laws,
or that our own dispositions, which are stronger than
laws, are susceptible of all those defensive measures
which the occasion may require. A third consideration is, whether these measures will not bring more odium than strength to government; and the last,
whether the authority that makes them, in a general corruption of manners and principles, can insure their execution. Let no one argue, from the state
of things, as he sees them at present, concerning what
will be the means and capacities of government, when
the time arrives which shall call for remedies commensurate to enormous evils.
It is an obvious truth, that no constitution can defend itself: it must be defended by the wisdom and fortitude of men. These are what no constitution
can give: they are the gifts of God; and He alone
knows whether we shall possess such gifts at the time
we stand in need of them. Constitutions furnish
the civil means of getting at the natural: it is all
that in this case they can do. But our Constitution
has more impediments than helps. Its excellencies,
when they come to be put to this sort of proof, may
be found among its defects.
Nothing looks more awful and imposing than an
ancient fortification. Its lofty, embattled walls, its
bold, projecting, rounded towers, that pierce the sky,
strike the imagination and promise inexpugnable
strength. But they are the very things that make
its weakness. You may as well think of opposing
one of these old fortresses to the mass (of artillery
brought by a French irruption into the field as to
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 101
think of resisting by your old laws and your old
forms the new destruction which the corps of Jacobin
engineers of to-day prepare for all such forms and all
such laws. Besides the debility and false principle of
their construction to resist the present modes of attack, the fortress itself is in ruinous repair, and there is a practicable breach in every part of it.
Such is the work. But miserable works have been
defended by the constancy of the garrison. Weatherbeaten ships have been brought safe to port by the spirit and alertness of the crew. But it is here that
we shall eminently fail. The day that, by their consent, the seat of Regicide has its place among the thrones of Europe, there is no longer a motive for
zeal in their favor; it will at best be cold, unimpassioned, dejected, melancholy duty. The glory will seem all on the other side. The friends of the crown
will appear, not as champions, but as victims; discountenanced, mortified, lowered, defeated. they will fall into listlessness and indifference. They will leave
things to take their course, enjoy the present hour,
and submit to the common fate.
Is it only an oppressive nightmare with which we
have been loaded? is it, then, all a frightful dream,
and are there no regicides in the world? Have we
not heard of that prodigy of a ruffian who would not
suffer his benignant sovereign, with his hands tied
behind him, and stripped for execution, to say one
parting word to his deluded people, - of Santerre,
who commanded the drums and trumpets to strike
up to stifle his voice, and dragged him backward to
the machine of murder? This nefarious villain (for
a few days I may call him so) stands high in France,
as in a republic of robbers and murderers he ought.
? ? ? ? 102 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
What hinders this monster from being sent as ambassador to convey to his Majesty the first compliments of his brethren, the Regicide Directory? They have none that can represent them more properly. I
anticipate the day of his arrival. He will make his
public entry into London on one of the pale horses
of his brewery. As he knows that we are pleased
with the Paris taste for the orders of knighthood,*
he will fling a bloody sash across his shoulders, with
the order of the holy guillotine surmounting the
crown appendant to the riband. Thus adorned, he
will proceed from Whitechapel to the further end of
Pall Mall, all the music of London playing the Marseillaise Hymn before him, and escorted by a chosen
detachment of the Legion de l'. Echafaud. It were
only to be wished that no ill-fated loyalist, for the
imprudence of his zeal, may stand in the pillory at
Charing Cross, under the statue of King Charles the
First, at the time of this grand procession, lest some
of the rotten eggs which the Constitutional Society
shall let fly at his indiscreet head may hit the virtuous murderer of his king. They might soil the
state dress which the ministers of so many crowned
heads have admired, and in which Sir Clement Cotterel is to introduce him at St. James's.
If Santerre cannot be spared from the constitutional butcheries at home, Tallien may supply his
place, and, in point of figure, with advantage. He
has been habituated to commissions; and he is as
well qualified as Santerre for this. Nero wished
* " In the costume assumed by the members of the legislative body
we almost behold the revival of the extinguished insignia of knighthood," &c. , &c. - See A View of the Relative State of Great Britain and
France at the Commencement of the Year 1796.
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 103
the Roman people had but one neck. The wish of
the more exalted Tallien, when he sat in judgment,
was, that his sovereign had eighty-three heads, that
he might send one to every one of the Departments.
Tallien will make an excellent figure at Guildhall
at the next Sheriff's feast. He may open the ball
with my Lady Mayoress. But this will be after
lie has retired from the public table, and gone into
the private room for the enjoyment of more social
and unreserved conversation with the ministers of
state and the judges of the bench. There these ministers and magistrates will hear him entertain the worthy aldermen with an instructing and pleasing
narrative of the manner in which he made the rich
citizens of Bordeaux squeak, and gently led them
by the public credit of the guillotine to disgorge
their anti-revolutionary pelf.
All this will be the display, and the town-talk,
when our regicide is on a visit of ceremony. At
home nothing will equal the pomp and splendor of
the Hotel de la Republique. There another scene of
gaudy grandeur will be opened. When his Citizen
Excellency keeps the festival, which every citizen is
ordered to observe, for the glorious execution of
Louis the Sixteenth, and renews his oath of detestation of kings, a grand ball of course will be given on the occasion. Then what a hurly-burly! what
a crowding! what a glare of a thousand flambeaux
in the square! what a clamor of footmen contending at the door! what a rattling of a thousand coaches of duchesses, countesses, and Lady Marys,
choking the way, and overturning each other, in a
struggle who should be first to pay her court to the
Citoyenne, the spouse of the twenty-first husband, he
? ? ? ? 104 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
the husband of the thirty-first wife, and to hail her
in the rank of honorable matrons before the four
days' duration of marriage is expired i- Morals, as
they were, decorum, the great outguard of the sex,
and the proud sentiment of honor, which makes virtue more respectable, where it is, and conceals human frailty, where virtue may not be, will be banished
from this land of propriety, modesty, and reserve.
We had before an ambassador from the most Christian King. We shall have then one, perhaps two, as lately, from the most Anti-Christian Republic. His
chapel will be great and splendid, formed on the
model of the Temple of Reason at Paris; while the
famous ode of the infamous Chenier will be sung,
and a prostitute of the street adored as a goddess.
We shall then have a French ambassador without
a suspicion of Popery. One good it will have: it
will go some way in quieting the minds of that
synod of zealous Protestant lay elders who govern
Ireland on the pacific principles of polemic theology,
and who now, from dread of the Pope, cannot take
a cool bottle of claret, or enjoy an innocent Parliamentary job, with any tolerable quiet.
So far as to the French communication here:
what will be the effect of our communication there?
We know that our new brethren, whilst they everywhere shut up the churches, increased in Paris, at
one time at least fourfold, the opera-houses, the playhouses, the public shows of all kinds; and even in their state of indigence and distress, no expense was
spared for their equipment and decoration. They
were made an affair of state. There is no invention
of seduction, never wholly wanting in that place,
that has not been increased, - brothels, gaming.
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 105
houses, everything. And there is no doubt, but,
when they are settled in a triumphant peace, they
will carry all these arts to their utmost perfection,
and cover them with every species of imposing magnificence. They have all along avowed them as a
part of their policy; and whilst they corrupt youlg
minds through pleasure, they form them to crimes.
Every idea of corporal gratification is carried to the
highest excess, and wooed with all the elegance that
belongs to the senses. All elegance of mind and mallners is banished. A theatrical, bombastic, windy
phraseology of heroic virtue, blended and mingled
up with a worse dissoluteness, and joined to a murderous and savage ferocity, forms the tone and idiom of their language and their manners. Any one, who attends to all their own descriptions, narratives, and dissertations, will find in that whole place
more of the air of a body of assassins, banditti, housebreakers, and outlawed smugglers, joined to that of
a gang of strolling players expelled from and exploded orderly theatres, with their prostitutes in a
brothel, at their debauches and bacchanals, than anything of the refined and perfected virtues, or the polished, mitigated vices of a great capital.
Is it for this benefit we open " the usual relations
of peace and amity "? Is it for this our youth of
both sexes are to form themselves by travel? Is it
for this that with expense and pains we form their
lisping infant accents to the language of France? I
shall be told that this abominable medley is made
rather to revolt young and ingenuous minds. So it is
in the description. So perhaps it may in reality to a
chosen few. So it may be, when the magistrate, the
law, and the church frown on such manners, and the
? ? ? ? 106 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
wretches to whom they belong, -when they are
chased from the eye of day, and the society of civil
life, into night-cellars and caves and woods. But when
these men themselves are the magistrates, --when all
the consequence, weight, and authority of a great nation adopt them, - when we see them conjoined with
victory, glory, power, and dominion, and homage paid
to them by every government, - it is not possible that
the downhill should not be slid into, recommended
by everything which has opposed it. Let it be remembered that no young man can go to any part of
Europe without taking this place of pestilential contagion in his way; and whilst the less active part
of the community will be debauched by this travel,
whilst children are poisoned at these schools, our
trade will put the finishing hand to our ruin. No
factory will be settled in France, that will not become
a club of complete French Jacobins. The minds of
young men of that description will receive a taint in
their religion, their morals, and their politics, which
they will in a short time communicate to the whole
kingdom.
Whilst everything prepares the body to debauch
and the mind to crime, a regular church of avowed
atheism, established by law, with a direct and sanguinary persecution of Christianity, is formed to prevent all amendment and remorse. Conscience is formally deposed fiom its dominion over the mind.
What fills the measure of horror is, that schools of
atheism are set up at the public charge in every part
of the country. That some English parents will be
wicked enough to send their children to such schools
there is no doubt. Better this island should be sunk
to the bottom of the sea than that (so far as human
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 107
infirmity admits) it should not be a country of relig.
ion and morals!
With all these causes of corruption, we may well
judge what the general fashion of mind will be
through both sexes and all conditions. Such spectacles and such examples will overbear all the laws
that ever blackened the cumbrous volumes of our
statutes. When royalty shall have disavowed itself,
- when it shall have relaxed all the principles of its
own support, - when it has rendered the system of
Regicide fashionable, and received it as triumphant,
in the very persons who have consolidated that system by the perpetration of every crime, who have
not only massacred the prince, but the very laws
and magistrates which were the support of royalty,
and slaughtered with an indiscriminate proscription,
without regard to either sex or age, every person
that was suspected of an inclination to king, law,
or magistracy, -- I say, will any one dare to be
loyal? Will any one presume, against both authority and opinion, to hold up this unfashionable, antiquated, exploded Constitution? The Jacobin faction in England must grow in
strength and audacity; it will be supported by other intrigues and supplied by other resources than
yet we have seen in action. Confounded at its
growth, the government may fly to Parliament for
its support. But who will answer for the temper
of a House of Oommons elected under these circumstar. ces? Who will answer for the courage of a
House of Commons to arm the crown with the extraordinary powers that it may demand? But the
ministers will not venture to ask half of what they
know they want. They will lose half of that half
? ? ? ? 108 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
in the contest; and when they have obtained their
nothing, they will be driven by the cries of faction
either to demolish the feeble works they have thrown
up in a hurry, or, in effect, to abandon them. As to
the House of Lords, it is not worth mentioning. The
peers ought naturally to be the pillars of the crown;
but when their titles are rendered contemptible, and
their property invidious, and a part of their weakness, and not of their strength, they will be found so
many degraded and trembling individuals, who will
seek by evasion to put off the evil day of their ruin.
Both Houses will be in perpetual oscillation between
abortive attempts at energy and still more unsuccessful attempts at compromise. You will be impatient of your disease, and abhorrent of your remedy. A spirit of subterfuge and a tone of apology will enter into all your proceedings, whether of law or
legislation. Your judges, who now sustain so masculine an authority, will appear more on their trial
than the culprits they have before them. The awful frown of criminal justice will be smoothed into
the silly smile of seduction. Judges will think to insinuate and soothe the accused into conviction and
condemnation, and to wheedle to the gallows the
most artful of all delinquents. But they will not
be so wheedled. They will not submit even to the
appearance of persons on their trial. Their claim
to this exemption will be admitted. The place in
which some of the greatest names which ever distinguished the history of this country have stood
will appear beneath their dignity. The criminal
will climb from the dock to the side-bar, and take
his place and his tea with the counsel. From the
bar of the counsel, by a natural progress, he will as
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 109
cend to the boench, which long before had been virtually abandoned. They who escape from justice
will not suffer a question upon reputation. They
will take the crown of the causeway; they will be
revered as martyrs; they will triumph as conquerors.
Nobody will dare to censure that popular part of
the tribunal whose only restraint on misjudgment
is the censure of the public. They who find fault
with the decision will be represented as enemies to
the institution. Juries that convict for the crown
will be loaded with obloquy. The juries who acquit
will be held up as models of justice. If Parliament
orders a prosecution, and fails, (as fail it will,) it
will be treated to its face as guilty of a conspiracy
maliciously to prosecute. Its care in discovering a
conspiracy against the state will be treated as a
forged plot to destroy the liberty of the subject:
every such discovery, instead of strengthening government, will weaken its reputation.
In this state things will be suffered to proceed, lest
measures of vigor should precipitate a crisis. The
timid will act thus from character, the wise from necessity. Our laws had done all that the old condition of things dictated to render our judges erect and independent; but they will naturally fail on the side
upon which they had taken no precautions. The judicial magistrates will find themselves safe as against
the crown, whose will is not their tenure; the power
of executing their office will be held at the pleasure
of those who deal out fame or abuse as they think fit.
They will begin rather to consult their own repose
and their own popularity than the critical and perilous trust that is in their hands. They will speculate
on consequences, when they see at court an ambassa
? ? ? ?
110 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
dor whose robes are lined with a scarlet dyed in the
blood of judges. It is no wonder, nor are they to
blame, when they are to consider how they shall answer for their conduct to the criminal of to-day turned into the magistrate of to-morrow.
The press
The army
When thus the helm of justice is abandoned, an
universal abandonment of all other posts will succeed. Government will be for a while the sport of contending factions, who, whilst they fight with one
another, will all strike at her. She will be buffeted
and beat forward and backward by the conflict of
those billows, until at length, tumbling from the
Gallic coast, the victorious tenth wave shall ride, like
the bore, over all the rest, and poop the shattered,
weather-beaten, leaky, water-logged vessel, and sink
her to the bottom of the abyss.
Among other miserable remedies that have been
found in the materia medica of the old college, a
change of ministry will be proposed, and probably
will take place. They who go out can never long
with zeal and good-will support government in the
hands of those they hate. In a situation of fatal dependence on popularity, and without one aid from the little remaining power of the crown, it is not to be expected that they will take on them that odium which more or less attaches upon every exertion of strong
power. The ministers of popularity will lose all their
credit at a stroke, if they pursue any of those means
necessary to give life, vigor, and consistence to government. They will be considered as venal wretches, apostates, recreant to all their own principles, acts,
and declarations. They cannot preserve their credit,
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 111
but by betraying that authority of which they are the
guardians.
To be sure, no prognosticating symptoms of these
things have as yet appeared, -nothing even resembling their beginnings. May they never appear! May these prognostications of the author be justly
laughed at and speedily forgotten! If nothing as
yet to cause them has discovered itself, let us consider, in the author's excuse, that we have not yet seen a Jacobin legation in England. The natural,
declared, sworn ally of sedition has not yet fixed
its head-quarters in London.
There never was a political contest, upon better
or worse grounds, that by the heat of party-spirit
may not ripen into civil confusion. If ever a party
adverse to the crown should be in a condition here
publicly to declare itself, and to divide, however unequally, the natural force of the kingdom, they are sure of an aid of fifty thousand men, at ten days'
warning, from the opposite coast of France. But
against this infusion of a foreign force the crown has
its guaranties, old and new. But I should be glad
to hear something said of the assistance which loyal
subjects in France have received from other powers
in support of that lawful government which secured
their lawful property. I should be glad to know, if
they are so disposed to a neighborly, provident, and
sympathetic attention to their public engagements,
by what means they are to come at us. Is it from
the powerful states of Holland we are to reclaim our
guaranty? Is it from the King of Prussia, and his
steady good affections, and his powerful navy, that
we are to look for the guaranty of our security? Is
it from the Netherlands, which the French may cover
? ? ? ? 112 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
with the swarms of their citizen-soldiers in twentyfour hours, that we are to look for this assistance? This is to suppose, too, that all these powers have no
views offensive or necessities defensive of their own.
They will cut out work for one another, and France
will cut out work for them all.
That the Christian religion cannot exist in this
country with such a fraternity will not, I think, be
disputed with me. On that religion, according to
our mode, all our laws and institutions stand, as
upon their base. That scheme is supposed in every
transaction of life; and if that were done away, everything else, as in France, must be changed along with it. Thus, religion perishing, and with it this
Constitution, it is a matter of endless meditation
what order of things would follow it. But what
disorder would fill the space between the present and
that which is to come, in the gross, is no matter of
doubtful conjecture. It is a great evil, that of a civil
war. But, in that state of things, a civil war, which
would give to good men and a good cause some
means of struggle, is a blessing of comparison that
England will not enjoy. The moment the struggle
begins, it ends. They talk of Mr. Hume's euthanasia
of the British Constitution gently expiring, without
a groan, in the paternal arms of a mere monarchy.
In a monarchy! - fine trifling indeed! - there is no
such euthanasia for the British Constitution.
The manuscript copy of this Letter ends here.
? ? ? ? A
LETTER
TO
THE EMPRESS OF RUSSIA. NOVEMBER I, I79I.
VOL1. VI. 8
? ? ? ? LETTER.
MADAM, --The Comte de Woronzow, your Imperial Majesty's minister, and Mr. Fawkener,
have informed me of the very gracious manner in
which your Imperial Majesty, and, after your example, the Archduke and Archduchess, have condescended to accept my humble endeavors in the service of that cause which connects the rights and duties of sovereigns with the true interest and happiness of their people.
If, confiding in titles derived from your own goodness, I venture to address directly to your Imperial
Majesty the expressions of my gratitude for so distinguished an honor, I hope it will not be thought a
presumptuous intrusion. I hope, too, that the willing homage I pay to the high and ruling virtues
which distinguish your Imperial Majesty, and which
form the felicity of so large a part of the world, will
not be looked upon as the language of adulation to
power and greatness. In my humble situation, I can
behold majesty in its splendor without being dazzled,
and I am capable of respecting it in its fall.
It is, Madam, from my strong sense of what is due. to dignity in undeserved misfortune, that I am led
to felicitate your Imperial Majesty on the use you
have lately made of your power. The princes and
nobility of France, who from honor and duty, from
blood and from principle, are attached to that un
? ? ? ? 116 LETTER TO THE EMPRESS OF RUSSIA.
happy crown, have experienced your favor and countenance; and there is no doubt that they will finally
enjoy the full benefit of your protection. The generosity of your Imperial Majesty has induced you to
take an interest in their cause; and your sagacity
has made you perceive that in the case of the sovereign of France the cause of all sovereigns is tried,
- that in the case of its church, the cause of all
churches, - and that in the case of its nobility is
tried the cause of all the respectable orders of all
society, and even of society itself.
Your Imperial Majesty has sent your minister to
reside where the crown of France, in this disastrous
eclipse of royalty, can alone truly and freely be represented, that is, in its royal blood, -where alone
the nation can be represented, that is, in its natural and inherent dignity. A throne cannot be represented by a prison. The honor of a nation cannot be represented by an assembly which disgraces and
degrades it: at Coblentz only the king and the nation of France are to be found.
Your Imperial Majesty, who reigns and lives for
glory, has nobly and wisely disdained to associate
your crown with a faction which has for its object
the subversion of all thrones.
You have not recognized this universal public enemy as a part of the system of Europe. You have
refused to sully the lustre of your empire by any
communion with a body of fanatical usurpers and
tyrants, drawn out of the dregs of society, and exalted to their evil eminence by the enormity of their
crimes, - an assemblage of tyrants, wholly destitute
of any distinguished qualification in a single person
amongst them, that can command reverence from our
? ? ? ? LETTER TO THE EMPRESS OF' RUSSIA. 117
reason, or seduce it from our prejudices. These enemies of sovereigns, if at all acknowledged, must be
acknowledged on account of that enmity alone: they
have nothing else to recommend them.
Madam, it is dangerous to praise any human virtue before the accomplishment of the tasks which it
imposes on itself. But in expressing my part of what
I hope is, or will become, the general voice, in admiration of what you have done, I run no risk at all.
With your Imperial Majesty, declaration and execution, beginning and conclusion, are, at their different
seasons, one and the same thing.
On the faith and declaration of some of the first
potentates of Europe, several thousands of persons,
comprehending the best men and the best gentlemen
in France, have given up their country, their houses,
their fortunes, their professional situation, their all,
and are now in foreign lands, struggling under the
most grievous distresses. Whatever appearances may
menace, nobody fears that they can be finally abandoned. Such a dereliction could not be without a
strong imputation on the public and private honor
of sovereignty itself, nor without an irreparable injury to its interests. It would give occasion to represent monarchs as natural enemies to each other, and that they never support or countenance any subjects
of a brother prince, except when they rebel against
him. We individuals, mere spectators of the scene,
but who seek our liberties under the shade of legal
authority, and of course sympathize with the sufferers in that cause, never can permit ourselves to believe that such an event can disgrace the history of our time. The only thing to be feared is delay, in
which are included many mischiefs. The constancy
? ? ? ? 118 LETTER TO THE EMPRESS OF RUSSIA.
of the oppressed will be broken; the power of tyrants will be confirmed. Already the multitude of French officers, drawn from their several corps by
hopes inspired by the freely declared disposition of
sovereigns, have left all the posts in which they might
one day have effectually served the good cause abandoned to the enemy.
Your Imperial Majesty's just influence, which is
still greater than your extensive power, will animate
and expedite the efforts of other sovereigns. From
your wisdom other states will learn that they who
wait until all the powers of Europe are at once in
motion can never move at all. It would add to the
unexampled calamities of our time, if the uncommon
union of sentiment in so many powers should prove
the very cause of defeating the benefit which ought
to flow from their general good disposition. No sovereign can run any risk from the designs of other powers, whilst engaged in this glorious and necessary
work. If any attempt could be feared, your Imperial
Majesty's power and justice would secure your allies
against all danger. Madam, your glory will be complete, if, after having given peace to Europe by your moderation, you shall bestow stability on all its governments by your vigor and decision. The debt which your Imperial Majesty's august predecessors
have contracted to the ancient manners of Europe,
by means of which they civilized a vast empire, will
be nobly repaid by preserving those manners from
the hideous change with which they are now menaced. By the intervention of Russia the world will
be preserved from barbarism and ruin.
A private individual, of a remote country, in himself wholly without importance, unauthorized and
? ? ? ? LETTER TO THE EMPRESS OF RUSSIA. 119
unconnected, not as an English subject, but as a
citizen of the world, presumes to submit his thoughts
to one of the greatest and wisest sovereigns that Europe has seen. He does it without fear, because he does not involve in his weakness (if such it is) his
king, his country, or his friends. He is not afraid
that he shall offend your Imperial Majesty, --because,
secure in itself, true greatness is always accessible,
and because respectfully to speak what we conceive
to be truth is the best homage which can be paid to
true dignity.
I am, Madam, with the utmost possible respect and
veneration,
Your Imperial Majesty's
Most obedient and most humble servant,
EDM. BURKE.
BEACONSFIELD, November 1st, 1791.
? ? ? ? A
LETTER
TO
SIR CHARLES BINGHAM, BART. , ON THE
IRISH ABSENTEE TAX. OCTOBER 30, 1773.
? ? ? ? NO TE.
FROM authentic documents found with the copy of this Letter
among Mr. Burke's papers, it appears that in the year 1773 a
project of imposing a tax upon all proprietors of landed estates
in Ireland, whose ordinary residence should be in Great Britain,
had been adopted and avowed by his Majesty's ministers at that
time. A remonstrance against this measure, as highly unjust
and impolitic, was presented to the ministers by several of the
principal Irish absentees, and the project was subsequently abandoned.
? ? ? ? LETTER.
DEAR SIR, --I am much flattered by your very
obliging letter, and the rather because it promises an opening to our future correspondence. This
may be my only indemnification for very great losses.
One of the most odious parts of the proposed Absentee Tax is its tendency to separate friends, and
to make as ugly breaches in private society as it
must make in the unity of the greal political body.
I am sure that much of the satisfaction of some circles in London will be lost by it. Do you think that
our friend Mrs. Vesey will suffer her husband to
vote for a tax that is to destroy the evenings at Bolton Row? I trust we shall have other. supporters
of the same sex, equally powerful, and equally deserving to be so, who will not abandon the common
cause of their own liberties and our satisfactions.
We shall be barbarized on both sides of the water,
if we do not see one another now and then. We
shall sink into surly, brutish Johns, and you will degenerate into wild Irish. It is impossible that we
should be the wiser or the more agreeable, certainly
we shall not love one another the better, for this
forced separation, which our ministers, who have already done so much for the dissolution of every other sort of good connection, are now meditating for the further improvement of this too well united empire.
Their next step will be to encourage all the colonies,
? ? ? ? 124 LETTER TO SIR CHARLES BINGHAM.
about thirty separate governments, to keep their people from all intercourse with each other and with the
mother country. A gentleman of New York or Barbadoes will be as much gazed at as a strange animal
from Nova Zembla or Otaheite; and those rogues,
the travellers, will tell us what stories they please
about poor old Ireland.
In all seriousness, (though I am a great deal more
than half serious in what I have been saying,) I
look upon this projected tax in a very evil light; I
think it is not advisable; I am sure it is not necessary; and as it is not a mere matter of finance, but
involves a political question of much importance, I
consider the principle and precedent as far worse
than the thing itself. You are too kind in imagining
I can suggest anything new upon the subject. The
objections to it are very glaring, and must strike the
eyes of all those who have not their reasons for shutting them against evident truth. I have no feelings
or opinions on this subject which I do not partake
with all the sensible and informed people that I meet
with. At first I could scarcely meet with any one
who could believe that this scheme originated from
the English government. They considered it not only
as absurd, but as something monstrous and unnatural. In the first instance, it strikes at the power of
this country; in the end, at the union of the whole
empire. I do not mean to express, most certainly I
do not entertain in my mind, anything invidious concerning the superintending authority of Great Britain. But if it be true that the several bodies which make up this complicated mass are to be preserved
as one empire, an authority sufficient to preserve
that unity, and by its equal weight and pressure
? ? ? ? LETTER TO SIR CHARLES BINGHAM. 125
to consolidate the various parts that compose it,
must reside somewhere: that somewhere can only
be in Engcland. Possibly any one member, distinctly taken, might decide in favor of that residence
within itself; but certainly no member would give
its voice for any other except this. So that I look
upon the residence of the supreme power to be settled here: not by force, or tyranny, or even by mere
long usage, but by the very nature of things, and the
joint consent of the whole body.
If all this be admitted, then without question this
country must have the sole right to the imperial
legislation: by which I mean that law which regulates the polity and economy of the several parts, as
they relate to one another and to the whole. But if
any of the parts, which' (not for oppression, but for
order) are placed in a subordinate situation, will assume to themselves the power of hindering or checking the resort of their municipal subjects to the centre, or even to any other part of the empire, they arrogate to themselves the imperial rights, which do
not, which cannot, belong to them, and, so far as
in them lies, destroy the happy arrangement of the
entire empire.
A free communication by discretionary residence is
necessary to all the other purposes of communication. For what purpose are the Irish and Plantation
laws sent hither, but as means of preserving this sovereign constitution? Whether such a constitution
was originally right or wrong this is not the time of
day to dispute. If any evils arise from it, let us not
strip it of what may be useful in it. By taking the
English Privy Council into your legislature, you obtain a new, a further, and possibly a more liberal con
? ? ? ? 126 LETTER TO SIR CHARLES BINGHAM.
sideration of all your acts. If a local legislature shall
by oblique means tend to deprive any of the people
of this benefit, and shall make it penal to them to follow into England the laws which may affect them, then the English Privy Council will have to decide
upon your acts without those lights that may enable
them to judge upon what grounds you made them, or
how far they ought to be modified, received, or rejected.
To what end is the ultimate appeal in judicature
lodged in this kingdom, if men may be disabled from
following their suits here, and may be taxed into an
absolute denial of justice? You observe, my dear
Sir, that I do not assert that in all cases two shillings
will necessarily cut off this means of correcting legislative and judicial mistakes, and thus amount to
a denial of justice. I might, indeed, state cases in
which this very quantum of tax would be fillly sufficient to defeat this right. But I argue not on the case, but on the principle, and I am sure the principle implies it. They who may restrain may prohibit; they who may impose two shillings may impose ten
shillings in the pound; and those who may condition the tax to six months' annual absence may carry that condition to six weeks, or even to six days, and
thereby totally defeat the wise means which have been
provided for extensive and impartial justice, and for
orderly, well-poised, and well-connected government.
What is taxing the resort to and residence in any
place, but declaring that your connection with that
place is a grievance? Is not such an Irish tax as is
now proposed a virtual declaration that England is
a foreign country, and a renunciation on your part
of the principle of comnzon naturalization, which runs
through this whole empire?
? ?
