In the present state of the French crown
army, is the crown responsible for the whole of it?
army, is the crown responsible for the whole of it?
Edmund Burke
These people must be ordered to march in thse
night only, and to arrive here with the greatest dispatch. You sent ten mangoes for my master and
two for me, all of which I have delivered to my master, thinking that ten was not sufficient to present him with. I write this for your information, and salute
you with ten thousand respects.
I, Muttu Kistnah, of Madras Patnam, dubash, declare that I
perfectly understand the Gentoo language, and do most sol-
emnly affirm that the foregoing Muttu Kistnah.
is a true translation of the annexed paper writing from the
Gentoo language.
(Signed)
? ? ? ? SUBSTANCE OF THE SPEECH
IN THE
DEBATE ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS,
ON TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1790: COMPREHENDING
A DISCUSSION OF THE PRESENT SITUATION OF AFFAIRS IN FRANCE.
? ? ? ? SPEECH.
M R. BURKE'S speech on the report of the army
estimates has not been correctly stated in some
of the public papers. It is of consequence to him
not to be misunderstood. The matter which incidentally came into discussion is of the most serious
importance. It is thought that the heads and substance of the speech will answer the purpose sufficiently. If, in making the abstract, through defect of memory in the person who now gives it, any difference at all should be perceived from the speech as
it was spoken, it will not, the editor imagines, be
found in anything which may amount to a retraction of the opinions he then maintained, or to any
softening in the expressions in which they were conveyed.
Mr. Burke spoke a considerable time in answer to
various arguments, which had been insisted upon by
Mr. Grenville and Mr. Pitt, for keeping an increased
peace establishment, and against an improper jealousy of the ministers, in whom a full confidence,
subject to responsibility, ought to be placed, on account of their knowledge of the real situation of
affairs, the exact state of which it frequently happened that they could not disclose without violating
the constitutional and political secrecy necessary to
the well-being of their country.
? ? ? ? 214 SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES.
Mr. Burke said in substance, That confidence
might become a vice, and jealousy a virtue, according to circumstances. That confidence, of all public virtues, was the most dangerous, and jealousy in an
House of Commons, of all public vices, the most tolerable, - especially where the number and the charge of standing armies in time of peace was the question.
That in the annual Mutiny Bill the annual army
was declared to be for the purpose of preserving the
balance of power in Europe. The propriety of its
being larger or smaller depended, therefore, upon
the true state of that balance. If the increase of
peace establishments demanded of Parliament agreed
with the manifest appearance of the balance, confidence in ministers as to the particulars would be
very proper. If the increase was not at all supported
by any such appearance, he thought great jealousy
might be, and ought to be, entertained on that subject.
That he did not find, on a review of all Europe,
that, politically, we stood in the smallest degree of
danger from any one state or kingdom it contained,
nor that any other foreign powers than our own allies
were likely to obtain a considerable preponderance in
the scale.
That France had hitherto been our first object in
all considerations concerning the balance of power.
The presence or absence of France totally varied
every sort of speculation relative to that balance.
That France is at this time, in a political light, to
be considered as expunged out of the system of Europe. Whether she could ever appear in it again,
as a leading power, was not easy to determine; but
at present le considered France as not politically ex
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 215
isting; and most assuredly it would take up much
time to restore her to her former active existence:
Gallos quoque in bellis floruisse audivimus might possibly be the language of the rising generation. He did not mean to deny that it was our duty to keep
our eye on that nation, and to regulate our preparation by the symptoms of her recovery.
That it was to her strength, not to her form of government, which we were to attend; because republics,
as well as monarchies, were susceptible of ambition,
jealousy, and anger, the usual causes of war.
But if, while France continued in this swoon, we
should go on increasing our expenses, we should certainly make ourselves less a match for her when it
became our concern to arm.
It was said, that, as she had speedily fallen, she
might speedily rise again. He doubted this. That
the fall from an height was with an accelerated velocity; but to lift a weight up to that height again was
difficult, and opposed by the laws of physical and political gravitation.
In a political view, France was low indeed. She
had lost everything, even to her name.
Jacet ingens littore truncus,
Avolsumque humeris caput, et sine nomine corpus. *
ie was astonished at it; he was alarmed at it; he
trembled at the uncertainty of all human greatness.
* Mr. Burke probably had in his mind the remainder of the passage, and was filled with some congenial apprehensions:Thec finis Priami fatorum; hice exitus illum Sorte tulit,'rrojam incensam et prolapsa videntem
Pergama, tot quondam populis terrisque superbum
Regnatorem Asiae. Jacet ingens littore truncus,
Arolsumque humeris caput, et sine nomine corpus. . t me tum primum ssevus circumstetit horror:
Obstupui: subiit chari genitoris imago.
? ? ? ? 216 SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES.
Since the House had been prorogued in the summer much work was done in France. The French
had shown themselves the ablest architects of ruin
that had hitherto existed in the world. In that very
short space of time they had completely pulled down
to the ground their monarchy, their church, their nobility, their law, their revenue, their army, their navy, their commerce, their arts, and their manufactures.
They had done their business for us as rivals in a way
in which twenty Ramillies or Blenheims could never
have done it. Were we absolute conquerors, and
France to lie prostrate at our feet,. we should be
ashamed to send a commission to settle their affairs
which could impose so hard a law upon the French,
and so destructive of all their consequence as a nations
as that they had imposed upon themselves.
France, by the mere circumstance of its vicinity,
had been, and in a degree always must be, an object
of our vigilance, either with regard to her actual
power or to her influence and example. As to the
former he had spoken; as to the latter (her example) he should say a few words: for by this example
our friendship and our intercourse with that nation
had once been, and might again become, more dangerous to us than their worst hostility.
In the last century, Louis the Fourteenth had es:
tablished a greater and better disciplined military
force than ever had been before seen in Europe, and
with it a perfect despotism. Though that despotism
was proudly arrayed in manners, gallantry, splendor,
magnificence, and even covered over with the imposing robes of science, literature, and arts, it was, in government, nothing better than a painted and gilded
tyranny, --in religion, a hard, stern intolerance, the
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 217
fit companion and auxiliary to the despotic tyranny
which prevailed in its government. The same character of despotism insinuated itself into every court of
Europe, - the same spirit of disproportioned magnificence, - the same love of standing armies, above the
ability of the people. In particular, our then sovereigns, King Charles and King James, fell in love
with the government of their neighbor, so flattering
to the pride of kings. A similarity of sentiments
brought on connections equally dangerous to the in-. terests and liberties of their country. It were well
that the infection had gone no farther than the
throne. The admiration of a government flourishing and successful, unchecked in its operations, and
seeming, therefore, to compass its objects more speedily and effectually, gained something upon all ranks
of people. The good patriots of that day, however,
struggled against it. They sought nothing more
anxiously than to break off all communication with
France, and to beget a total alienation from its councils and its example, - which, by the animosity prevalent between the abettors of their religious system and the assertors of ours, was in some degree effected.
This day the evil is totally changed in France: but
there is an evil there. The disease is altered; but
the vicinity of the two countries remains, and must
remain; and the natural mental habits of mankind
are such, that the present distemper of France is far
more likely to be contagious than the old one: for it
is not quite easy to spread a passion for servitude
among the people; but in all evils of the opposite
kind our natural inclinations are flattered. In the
case of despotism, there is the vfdum crimen servitutis:
? ? ? ? 218 SPEECH ON THE ARMIY ESTIMATES.
in the last, the falsa SPECIES libertatis; and accordingly, as the historian says, pronis auribus accipitur.
In the last age we were in danger of being entangled by the example of France in the net of a relentless despotism. It is not necessary to say anything upon that example. It exists no longer. Our present danger from the example of a people whose
character knows no medium is, with regard to government, a danger from anarchy: a danger of being
led, through an admiration of successful fraud and
violence, to an imitation of the excesses of an irra-,
tional, unprincipled, proscribing, confiscating, plundering, ferocious, bloody, and tyrannical democracy.
On the side of religion, the danger of their example is
no longer from intolerance, but from atheism: a foul,
unnatural vice, foe to all the dignity and consolation
of mankind; which seems in France, for a long time,
to have been embodied into a faction, accredited, and
almost avowed.
These are our present dangers from France. But,
in his opinion, the very worst part of the example
set is in the late assumption of citizenship by the
army, and the whole of the arrangement, or rather
disarrangement, of their military.
He was sorry that his right honorable friend (Mr.
Fox) had dropped even a word expressive of exultation on that circumstance, or that he seemed of
opinion that the objection from standing armies was
at all lessened by it. He attributed this opinion of
Mr. Fox entirely to his known zeal for the best of all
causes, liberty. That it was with a pain inexpressible
he was obliged to have even the shadow of a difference with his friend, whose authority would always
be great with him, and with all thinking people, --
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES 219
Quce maxima semper censetur nobis, et ERIT quce maxima
semper; -his confidence in Mr. Fox was such, and so
ample, as to be almost implicit. That he was not
ashamed to avow that degree of docility. That, when
the choice is well made, it strengthens, instead of oppressing our intellect. That he who calls in the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own. He who
profits of a superior understanding raises his powers to
a level with the height of the superior understanding
he unites with. He had found the benefit of such a
junction, and would not lightly depart from it. He
wished almost, on all occasions, that his sentiments
were understood to be conveyed in Mr. Fox's words.
And that he wished, as amongst the greatest benefits
he could wish the country, an eminent share of power
to that right honorable gentleman; because he knew
that to his great and masterly understanding he had
joined the greatest possible degree of that natural
moderation which is the best corrective of power:
that he was of the most artless, candid, open, and benevolent disposition; disinterested in the extreme; of a temper mild and placable even to a fault; without one drop of gall in his whole constitution.
That the House must perceive, from his coming
forward to mark an expression or two of his best
friend, how anxious he was to keep the distemper
of France from the least countenance in England,
where he was sure some wicked persons had shown
a strong disposition to recommend an imitation of
the French spirit of reform. He was so strongly
opposed to any the least tendency towards the means
of introducing a democracy like theirs, as well as to
the end itself, that, much as it would afflict him, if
such a thing could be attempted, and that any friend
? ? ? ? 220 SPEECH OrA'rH1E ARMY ESTIMA3TES.
of his could concur in such measures, (he was far,
very far, from believing they could,) he would abandon his best friends, and join with his worst enemies,
to oppose either the means or the end, -and to resist
all violent exertions of the spirit of innovation, so distant from all principles of true and safe reformation:
a spirit well calculated to overturn states, but perfectly unfit to amend them.
That he was no enemy to reformation. Almost
every business in which he was much concerned,
from the first day he sat in that House to that hour,
was a business of reformation; and when he had not
been employed in correcting, he had been employed
in resisting abuses. Some traces of this spirit in
him now stand on their statute-book. In his opinion,
anything which unnecessarily tore to pieces the contexture of the state not only prevented all real reformation, but introduced evils which would call, but perhaps call in vain, for new reformation.
That he thought the French nation very unwise.
What they valued themselves on was a disgrace to
them. They had gloried (and some people in England had thought fit to take share in that glory) in
making a Revolution, as if revolutions were good
things in themselves. All the horrors and all the
crimes of the anarchy which led to their Revolution,
which attend its progress, and which may virtually
attend it in its establishment, pass for nothing with
the lovers of revolutions. The French have made
their way, through the destruction of their country,
to a bad constitution, when they were absolutely in
possession of a good one. They were in possession
of it the day the states met in separate orders. Their
business, had they been either virtuous or wise, or had
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 221
been left to their own judgment, was to secure the
stability and independence of the states, according
to those orders, under the monarch on the throne.
It was then their duty to redress grievances.
Instead of redressing grievances, and improving the
fabric of their state, to which they were called by
their monarch and sent by their country, they were
made to take a very different course. They first destroyed all the balances and counterpoises which serve
to fix the state and to give it a steady direction, and
which furnish sure correctives to any violent spirit
which may prevail in any of the orders. These bal-.
ances existed in their oldest constitution, and in the
constitution of this country, and in the constitution,
of all the countries in Europe. These they rashly
destroyed, and then they melted down the whole into
one incongruous, ill-connected mass.
When they had done this, they instantly, and with
the most atrocious perfidy and breach of all faith
among men, laid the axe to the root of all property, and consequently of all national prosperity, by
the principles they established and the example they
set, in confiscating all the possessions of the Church.
They made and recorded a sort of institute and digest
of anarchy, called the Rights of Man, in such a pedantic abuse of elementary principles as would have disgraced boys at school: but this declaration of rights. was worse than trifling and pedantic in them; as
by their name and authority they systematically destroyed every hold of authority by opinion, religious
or civil, on the minds of the people. By this mad
declaration they subverted the state, and brought on
such calamities as no country, without a long war,
has ever been known to suffer, and which may in
? ? ? ? 222 SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES.
the end produce such a war, and perhaps many
such.
With them the question was not between despotism and liberty. The sacrifice they made of the
peace and power of their country was not made on
the altar of freedom. Freedom, and a better security
for freedom than that they have taken, they might
hlave had without any sacrifice at all. They brought
themselves into all the calamities they suffer, not
that through them they might obtain a British constitution; they plunged themselves headlong into those
calamities to prevent themselves from settling into
that constitution, or into anything resembling it.
That, if they should perfectly succeed in what they
propose, as they are likely enough to do, and establish a democracy, or a mob of democracies, in a country circumstanced like France, they will establish a very bad government, a very bad species of tyranny.
That the worst effect of all their proceeding was on
their military, which was rendered an army for every
purpose but that of defence. That, if the question
was, whether soldiers were to forget they were citizens, as an abstract proposition, he could have no
difference about it; though, as it is usual, when abstract principles are to be applied, much was to be
thought on the manner of uniting the character of
citizen and soldier. But as applied to the events
which had happened in France, where the abstract
principle was clothed with its circumstances, he
thought that his friend would agree with him, that
what was done there furnished no matter of exultation, either in the act or the example. These soldiers
were not citizens, but base, hireling mutineers, and
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 223
mercenary, sordid deserters, wholly destitute of any
honorable principle. Their conduct was one of the
fruits of that anarchic spirit from the evils of which
a democracy itself was to be resorted to, by those who
were the least disposed to that form, as a sort of refuge. It was not an army in corps and with discipline,
and embodied under the respectable patriot citizens of
the state in resisting tyranny. Nothing like it. It was
the case of common soldiers deserting from their officers, to join a furious, licentious populace. It was a
desertion to a cause the real object of which was to
level all those institutions, and to break all those connections, natural and civil, that regulate and hold together the community by a chain of subordination: to raise soldiers against their officers, servants against
their masters, tradesmen against their customers, artificers against their employers, tenants against their
landlords, curates against their bishops, and children
against their parents. That this cause of theirs was
not an enemy to servitude, but to society.
He wished the House to consider how the members would like to have their mansions pulled down
and pillaged, their persons abused, insulted, and
destroyed, their title-deeds brought out and burned
before their faces, and themselves and their families
driven to seek refuge in every nation throughout
Europe, for no other reason than this, that, without
any fault of theirs, they were born gentlemen and
men of property, and were suspected of a desire to
preserve their consideration and their estates. The
desertion in France was to aid an abominable sedition, the very professed principle of which was an implacable hostility to nobility and gentry, and whose savage war-whoop was, "A I'Aristocrate! "-by which
? ? ? ? 224 SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES.
senseless, bloody cry they animated one another to
rapine and murder; whilst abetted by ambitious men
of another class, they were crushing everything respectable and virtuous in their nation, and to their
power disgracing almost every name by which we formerly knew there was such a country in the world
as France.
He knew too well, and he felt as much as any man,
how difficult it was to accommodate a standing army
to a free constitution, or to any constitution. An
armed disciplined body is, in its essence, dangerous
to liberty; undisciplined, it is ruinous to society. Its
component parts are in the latter case neither good
citizens nor good soldiers. What have they thought
of in France, under such a difficulty as almost puts
the human faculties to a stand? They have put their
army under such a variety of principles of duty, that
it is more likely to breed litigants, pettifoggers, and
mutineers than soldiers. * They have set up, to balance their crown army, another army, deriving under
another authority, called a municipal army,- a balance of armies, not of orders. These latter they have destroyed with every mark of insult and oppression.
States may, and they will best, exist with a partition
of civil powers. Armies cannot exist under a divided command. This state of things he thought
in effect a state of war, or at best but a truce, instead of peace, in the country.
What a dreadful thing is a standing army for the
conduct of the whole or any part of which no man is
responsible!
In the present state of the French crown
army, is the crown responsible for the whole of it? Is
there any general who can be responsible for the obe* They are sworn to obey the king, the nation, and the law.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 225
dience of a brigade, any colonel for that of a regiment, any captain for that of a company? And as
to the municipal army, reinforced as it is by the new
citizen deserters, under whose command are they?
Have we not seen them, not led by, but dragging,
their nominal commander, with a rope about his
neck, when they, or those whom they accompanied,
proceeded to the most atrocious acts of treason and
murder? Are any of these armies? Are any of
these citizens?
We have in such a difficulty as that of fitting a
standing army to the state, he conceived, done much
better. We have not distracted our army by divided
principles of obedience. We have put them under a
single authority, with a simple (our common) oath
of fidelity; and we keep the whole under our annual
inspection. This was doing all that could be safely
done.
He felt some concern that this strange thing called
a Revolution in France should be compared with the
glorious event commonly called the Revolution in
England, and the conduct of the soldiery on that
occasion compared with the behavior of some of the
troops of France in the present instance. At that
period, the Prince of Orange, a prince of the bloodroyal in England, was called in by the flower of the English aristocracy to defend its ancient Constitution,
and not to level all distinctions. To this prince, so
invited, the aristocratic leaders who commanded the
troops went over with their several corps, in bodies,
to the deliverer of their country. Aristocratic leaders
brought up the corps of citizens who newly enlisted
in this cause. Military obedience changed its object;
but military discipline was not for a moment interVOL. III. 15
? ? ? ? 226 SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES.
rupted in its principle. The troops were ready for
war, but indisposed to mutiny. .
But as the conduct of the English armies was different, so was that of the whole English nation at
that time. In truth, the circumstances of our Revolution (as it is called) and that of France are just the
reverse of each other in almost every particular, and
in the whole spirit of the transaction. With us it
was the case of a legal monarch attempting arbitrary
power; in France it is the case of an arbitrary monarch beginning, from whatever cause, to legalize his
authority. The one was to be resisted, the other was
to be managed and directed; but in neither case was
the order of the state to be changed, lest government
might be ruined, which ought only to be corrected
and legalized. With us we got rid of the man, and
preserved the constituent parts of the state. There
they get rid of the constituent parts of the state, and
keep the man. What we did was in truth and substance, and in a constitutional light, a revolution, not
made, but prevented. We took solid securities; we
settled doubtful questions; we corrected anomalies
in our law. In the stable, fundamental parts of our
Constitution we made no revolution, -- no, nor any
alteration at all. We did not impair the monarchy.
Perhaps it might be shown that we strengthened it
very considerably. The nation kept the same ranks,
the same orders, the same privileges, the same franchises, the same rules for property, the same subordinations, the same order in the law, in the revenue, and in the magistracy, --the same lords, the same
commons, the same corporations, the same electors.
The Church was not impaired. Her estates, her
majesty, her splendor, her orders and gradations, con
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 227
tinued the same. She was preserved in her full
efficiency, and cleared only of a certain intolerance,
which was her weakness and disgrace. The Church
and the State were the same after the Revolution
that they were before, but better secured in every
part.
Was little done because a revolution was not made
in the Constitution? No! Everything was done; because we commenced with reparation, not with ruin.
Accordingly, the state flourished. Instead of lying
as dead, in a sort of trance, or exposed, as some
others, in an epileptic fit, to the pity or derision of
the world, for her wild, ridiculous, convulsive movements, impotent to every purpose but that of dashing
out her brains against the pavement, Great Britain
rose above the standard even of her former self.
An era of a more improved domestic prosperity then
commenced, and still continues, not only unimpaired,
but growing, under the wasting hand of time. All
the energies of the country were awakened. England never preserved a firmer countenance or a
more vigorous arm to all her enemies and to all
her rivals. Europe under her respired and revived.
Everywhere she appeared as the protector, assertor,
or avenger of liberty. A war was made and supported against fortune itself. The treaty of Ryswick,
which first limited the power of France, was soon after made; the grand alliance very shortly followed,
which shook to the foundations the dreadful power
which menaced the independence of mankind. The
states of Europe lay happy under the shade of a great
and free monarchy, which knew how to be great without endangering its own peace at home or the internal or external peace of any of its neighbors.
? ? ? ? 228 SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES.
Mr. Burke said he should have felt very unpleas
antly, if he had not delivered these sentiments. He
was near the end of his natural, probably still nearer
the end of his political career. That he was weak and
weary, and wished for rest. That he was little disposed to controversies, or what is called a detailed
opposition. That at his time of life, if he could not
do something by some sort of weight of opinion, natural or acquired, it was useless and indecorous to attempt anything by mere struggle. Turpe senex miles. That he had for that reason little attended the army
business, or that of the revenue, or almost any other
matter of detail, for some years past. That he had,
however, his task. He was far from condemning
such opposition; on the contrary, he most highly
applauded it, where a just occasion existed for it,
and gentlemen had vigor and capacity to pursue it.
Where a great occasion occurred, he was, and, while
he continued in Parliament, would be, amongst the
most active and the most earnest, - as he hoped he
had shown on a late event. With respect to the Constitution itself, he wished few alterations in it, - happy if he left it not the worse for any share he had
taken in its service.
Mr. Fox then rose, and declared, in substance,
that, so far as regarded the French army, he went
no farther than the general principle, by which that
army showed itself indisposed to be an instrument
in the servitude of their fellow-citizens, but did not
enter into the particulars of their conduct. He declared that he did not affect a democracy: that he
always thought any of the simple, unbalanced governments bad: simple monarchy, simple aristocracy,
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 229
slmlple democracy, - he held them all imperfect or
vicious; all were bad by themselves; the composition alone was good. That these had been always his principles, in which he had agreed with his friend Mr.
Burke, - of whom he had said many kind and flattering things, which Mr. Burke, I take it for granted,
will know himself too well to think he merits from
anything but Mr. Fox's acknowledged good-nature.
Mr. Fox thought, however, that, in many cases, Mr.
Burke was rather carried too far by his hatred to innovation.
Mr. Burke said, he well knew that these had been
Mr. Fox's invariable opinions; that they were a sure
ground for the confidence of his country. But he
had been fearful that cabals of very different intentions would be ready to make use of his great name, against his character and sentiments, in order to derive a credit to their destructive machinations.
Mr. Sheridan then rose, and made a lively and eloquent speech against Mr. Burke; in which, among other things, he said that Mr. Burke had libelled the
National Assembly of France, and had cast out reflections on such characters as those of the Marquis de La Fayette and Mr. Bailly.
Mr. Burke said, that he did not libel the National
Assembly of France, whom he considered very little
in the discussion of these matters. That he thought
all the substantial power resided in the republic of
Paris, whose authority guided, or whose example was
followed by, all the republics of France. The republic
of Paris had an army under their orders, and not
under those of the National Assembly.
N. B. As to the particular gentlemen, I do not
remember that Mr. Burke mentioned either of them,
? ? ? ? 230 SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES.
-- certainly not Mr. Bailly. He alluded, undoubtedly, to the case of the Marquis de La Fayette; but whether what he asserted of him be a libel on him
must be left to those who are acquainted with the
business.
Mr. Pitt concluded the debate with becoming gravity and dignity, and a reserve on both sides of the question, as related to France, fit for a person in a
ministerial situation. He said, that what he had
spoken only regarded France when she should unite,
which he rather thought she soon might, with the
liberty she had acquired, the blessings of law and order. He, too, said several civil things concerning the sentiments of Mr. Burke, as applied to this country.
? ? ? ? REFLECTIONS
ON THE
REVOLUTION IN FRANCE,
AND ON
THE PROCEEDINGS IN CERTAIN SOCIETIES IN LONDON RELATIVE TO THAT EVENT:
IN A LETTER
INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN SENT TO A GENTLEMAN IN PARIS.
I 790.
? ? ? ? IT may not be unnecessary to inform the reader
that the following Reflections had their origin
in a correspondence between the author and a very
young gentleman at Paris, who did him the honor of
desiring his opinion upon the important transactions
which then, and ever since have, so much occupied
the attention of all men. An answer was written
some time in the month of October, 1789; but it was
kept back upon prudential considerations. That letter is alluded to in the beginning of the following
sheets. It has been since forwarded to the person to
whom it was addressed. The reasons for the delay
in sending it were assigned in a short letter to the
same gentleman. This produced on his part a new
and pressing application for the author's sentiments.
The author began a second and more full discus.
sion on the subject. This he had some thoughts of
publishing early in the last spring; but the matter
gaining upon him, he found that what he had undertaken not only far exceeded the measure of a letter,
but that its importance required rather a more detailed consideration than at that time he had any leisure to bestow upon it. However, having thrown down his first thoughts in the form of a letter, and,
indeed, when he sat down to write, having intended
it for a private letter, he found it difficult to change
the form of address, when his sentiments had grown
into a greater extent and had received another direction. A different plan, he is sensible, mlight be
more favorable to a commodious division and distribution of his matter.
? ? ? ? REFLECTIONS
ON
THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE.
DEAR SIR, -- You are pleased to call again, and
with some earnestness, for my thoughts on the
late proceedings in France. I will not give you reason to imagine that I think my sentiments of such
value as to wish myself to be solicited about them.
They are of too little consequence to be very anxiously either communicated or withheld. It was
from attention to you, and to you only, that I hesitated at the time when you first desired to receive them. In the first letter I had the honor to write to
you, and which at length I send, I wrote neither for
nor from any description of men; nor shall I in this.
My errors, if any, are my own. My reputation alone
is to answer for them.
You see, Sir, by the long letter I have transmitted
to you, that, though I do most heartily wish that
France may be animated by a spirit of rational liberty, and that I think you bound, in all honest policy,
to provide a permanent body in which that spirit may
reside, and an effectual organ by which it may act,
it is my misfortune to entertain great doubts concerning several material points in your late transactions. You imagined, when you wrote last, that I might
possibly be reckoned among the approvers of certain
? ? ? ? 236 REFLECTIONS ON THE
proceedings in France, from the solemn public seal
of sanction they have received from two clubs of gentlemen in London, called the Constitutional Society, and the Revolution Society.
I certainly have the honor to belong to more clubs
than one in which the Constitution of this kingdom
and the principles of the glorious Revolution are
held in high reverence; and I reckon myself among
the nMost forward in my zeal for maintaining that
Constitution and those principles in their utmost purity and vigor. It is because I do so that I think
it necessary for me that there should be no mistake.
Those who cultivate the memory of our Revolution,
and those who are attached to the Constitution of this
kingdom, will take good care how they are involved
with persons who, under the pretext of zeal towards
the Revolution and Constitution, too frequently wander from their true principles, and are ready on every occasion to depart from the firm, but cautious
and deliberate, spirit which produced the one and
which presides in the other. Before I proceed to answer the more material particulars in your letter, I shall beg leave to give you such information as I
have been able to obtain of the two clubs which have
thought proper, as bodies, to interfere in the concerns of France, --first assuring you that I am not,
and that I have never been, a member of either of
those societies.
The first, calling itself the Constitutional Society,
or Society for Constitutional Information, or by some
such title, is, I believe, of seven or eight years' standing. The institution of this society appears to be of a charitable, and so far of a laudable nature: it was
intended for the circulation, at the expense of the
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 237
members, of many books which few others would be
at the expense of buying, and which might lie on
the hands of the booksellers, to the great loss of an
useful body of men. Whether the books so charitably circulated were ever as charitably read is more
than I know. Possibly several of them have been
exported to France, and, like goods not in request
here, may with you have found a market. I have
heard much talk of the lights to be drawn from books
that are sent from hence. What improvements they
have had in their passage (as it is said some liquors
are meliorated by crossing the sea) I cannot tell;
but I never heard a man of common judgment or the:
least degree of information speak a word in praise.
of the greater part of the publications circulated bythat society; nor have their proceedings been accounted, except by some of themselves, as of any serious consequence.
Your National Assembly seems to entertain much,
the same opinion that I do of this poor charitable
club. As a nation, you reserved the whole stock of
your eloquent acknowledgments for the Revolution
Society, when their fellows in the Constitutional
were in equity entitled to some share. Since you;
have selected the Revolution Society as the great
object of your national thanks and praises, you will;
think me excusable in making its late conduct the
subject of my observations. The National Assembly
of France has given importance to these gentlemen
by adopting them; and they return the favor by acting as a committee in England for extending the
principles of the National Assembly. Henceforward
we must consider them as a kind of privileged persons, as no inconsiderable members in the diplomatic
? ? ? ? 238 REFLECTIONS ON THE
body. This is one among the revolutions which
have given splendor to obscurity and distinction to
undiscerned merit. Until very lately I do not recollect to have heard of this club. I am quite sure
that it never occupied a moment of my thoughts, --
nor, I believe, those of any person out of their own
set. I find, upon inquiry, that, on the anniversary
of the Revolution in 1688, a club of Dissenters, but
of what denomination I know not, have long had the
custom of hearing a sermon in one of their churches,
and that afterwards they spent the day cheerfully, as
other clubs do, at the tavern. But I never heard
that any public measure or political system, much
less that the merits of the constitution of any foreign
nation, had been the subject of a formal proceeding
at their festivals, until, to my inexpressible surprise,
I found them in a sort of public capacity, by a congratulatory address, giving an authoritative sanction to the proceedings of the National Assembly in France.
In the ancient principles and conduct of the club,
so far at least as they were declared, I see nothing to
which I could take exception. I think it very probable, that, for some purpose, new members may have
entered among them, - and that some truly Christian
politicians, who love to dispense benefits, but are
careful to conceal the hand which distributes the
dole, may have made them the instruments of their
pious designs. Whatever I may have reason to suspect concerning private management, I shall speak
of nothing as of a certainty but what is public.
For one, I should be sorry to be thought directly
or indirectly concerned in their proceedings. I certainly take my full share, along with the rest of the
? ? ?
night only, and to arrive here with the greatest dispatch. You sent ten mangoes for my master and
two for me, all of which I have delivered to my master, thinking that ten was not sufficient to present him with. I write this for your information, and salute
you with ten thousand respects.
I, Muttu Kistnah, of Madras Patnam, dubash, declare that I
perfectly understand the Gentoo language, and do most sol-
emnly affirm that the foregoing Muttu Kistnah.
is a true translation of the annexed paper writing from the
Gentoo language.
(Signed)
? ? ? ? SUBSTANCE OF THE SPEECH
IN THE
DEBATE ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS,
ON TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1790: COMPREHENDING
A DISCUSSION OF THE PRESENT SITUATION OF AFFAIRS IN FRANCE.
? ? ? ? SPEECH.
M R. BURKE'S speech on the report of the army
estimates has not been correctly stated in some
of the public papers. It is of consequence to him
not to be misunderstood. The matter which incidentally came into discussion is of the most serious
importance. It is thought that the heads and substance of the speech will answer the purpose sufficiently. If, in making the abstract, through defect of memory in the person who now gives it, any difference at all should be perceived from the speech as
it was spoken, it will not, the editor imagines, be
found in anything which may amount to a retraction of the opinions he then maintained, or to any
softening in the expressions in which they were conveyed.
Mr. Burke spoke a considerable time in answer to
various arguments, which had been insisted upon by
Mr. Grenville and Mr. Pitt, for keeping an increased
peace establishment, and against an improper jealousy of the ministers, in whom a full confidence,
subject to responsibility, ought to be placed, on account of their knowledge of the real situation of
affairs, the exact state of which it frequently happened that they could not disclose without violating
the constitutional and political secrecy necessary to
the well-being of their country.
? ? ? ? 214 SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES.
Mr. Burke said in substance, That confidence
might become a vice, and jealousy a virtue, according to circumstances. That confidence, of all public virtues, was the most dangerous, and jealousy in an
House of Commons, of all public vices, the most tolerable, - especially where the number and the charge of standing armies in time of peace was the question.
That in the annual Mutiny Bill the annual army
was declared to be for the purpose of preserving the
balance of power in Europe. The propriety of its
being larger or smaller depended, therefore, upon
the true state of that balance. If the increase of
peace establishments demanded of Parliament agreed
with the manifest appearance of the balance, confidence in ministers as to the particulars would be
very proper. If the increase was not at all supported
by any such appearance, he thought great jealousy
might be, and ought to be, entertained on that subject.
That he did not find, on a review of all Europe,
that, politically, we stood in the smallest degree of
danger from any one state or kingdom it contained,
nor that any other foreign powers than our own allies
were likely to obtain a considerable preponderance in
the scale.
That France had hitherto been our first object in
all considerations concerning the balance of power.
The presence or absence of France totally varied
every sort of speculation relative to that balance.
That France is at this time, in a political light, to
be considered as expunged out of the system of Europe. Whether she could ever appear in it again,
as a leading power, was not easy to determine; but
at present le considered France as not politically ex
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 215
isting; and most assuredly it would take up much
time to restore her to her former active existence:
Gallos quoque in bellis floruisse audivimus might possibly be the language of the rising generation. He did not mean to deny that it was our duty to keep
our eye on that nation, and to regulate our preparation by the symptoms of her recovery.
That it was to her strength, not to her form of government, which we were to attend; because republics,
as well as monarchies, were susceptible of ambition,
jealousy, and anger, the usual causes of war.
But if, while France continued in this swoon, we
should go on increasing our expenses, we should certainly make ourselves less a match for her when it
became our concern to arm.
It was said, that, as she had speedily fallen, she
might speedily rise again. He doubted this. That
the fall from an height was with an accelerated velocity; but to lift a weight up to that height again was
difficult, and opposed by the laws of physical and political gravitation.
In a political view, France was low indeed. She
had lost everything, even to her name.
Jacet ingens littore truncus,
Avolsumque humeris caput, et sine nomine corpus. *
ie was astonished at it; he was alarmed at it; he
trembled at the uncertainty of all human greatness.
* Mr. Burke probably had in his mind the remainder of the passage, and was filled with some congenial apprehensions:Thec finis Priami fatorum; hice exitus illum Sorte tulit,'rrojam incensam et prolapsa videntem
Pergama, tot quondam populis terrisque superbum
Regnatorem Asiae. Jacet ingens littore truncus,
Arolsumque humeris caput, et sine nomine corpus. . t me tum primum ssevus circumstetit horror:
Obstupui: subiit chari genitoris imago.
? ? ? ? 216 SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES.
Since the House had been prorogued in the summer much work was done in France. The French
had shown themselves the ablest architects of ruin
that had hitherto existed in the world. In that very
short space of time they had completely pulled down
to the ground their monarchy, their church, their nobility, their law, their revenue, their army, their navy, their commerce, their arts, and their manufactures.
They had done their business for us as rivals in a way
in which twenty Ramillies or Blenheims could never
have done it. Were we absolute conquerors, and
France to lie prostrate at our feet,. we should be
ashamed to send a commission to settle their affairs
which could impose so hard a law upon the French,
and so destructive of all their consequence as a nations
as that they had imposed upon themselves.
France, by the mere circumstance of its vicinity,
had been, and in a degree always must be, an object
of our vigilance, either with regard to her actual
power or to her influence and example. As to the
former he had spoken; as to the latter (her example) he should say a few words: for by this example
our friendship and our intercourse with that nation
had once been, and might again become, more dangerous to us than their worst hostility.
In the last century, Louis the Fourteenth had es:
tablished a greater and better disciplined military
force than ever had been before seen in Europe, and
with it a perfect despotism. Though that despotism
was proudly arrayed in manners, gallantry, splendor,
magnificence, and even covered over with the imposing robes of science, literature, and arts, it was, in government, nothing better than a painted and gilded
tyranny, --in religion, a hard, stern intolerance, the
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 217
fit companion and auxiliary to the despotic tyranny
which prevailed in its government. The same character of despotism insinuated itself into every court of
Europe, - the same spirit of disproportioned magnificence, - the same love of standing armies, above the
ability of the people. In particular, our then sovereigns, King Charles and King James, fell in love
with the government of their neighbor, so flattering
to the pride of kings. A similarity of sentiments
brought on connections equally dangerous to the in-. terests and liberties of their country. It were well
that the infection had gone no farther than the
throne. The admiration of a government flourishing and successful, unchecked in its operations, and
seeming, therefore, to compass its objects more speedily and effectually, gained something upon all ranks
of people. The good patriots of that day, however,
struggled against it. They sought nothing more
anxiously than to break off all communication with
France, and to beget a total alienation from its councils and its example, - which, by the animosity prevalent between the abettors of their religious system and the assertors of ours, was in some degree effected.
This day the evil is totally changed in France: but
there is an evil there. The disease is altered; but
the vicinity of the two countries remains, and must
remain; and the natural mental habits of mankind
are such, that the present distemper of France is far
more likely to be contagious than the old one: for it
is not quite easy to spread a passion for servitude
among the people; but in all evils of the opposite
kind our natural inclinations are flattered. In the
case of despotism, there is the vfdum crimen servitutis:
? ? ? ? 218 SPEECH ON THE ARMIY ESTIMATES.
in the last, the falsa SPECIES libertatis; and accordingly, as the historian says, pronis auribus accipitur.
In the last age we were in danger of being entangled by the example of France in the net of a relentless despotism. It is not necessary to say anything upon that example. It exists no longer. Our present danger from the example of a people whose
character knows no medium is, with regard to government, a danger from anarchy: a danger of being
led, through an admiration of successful fraud and
violence, to an imitation of the excesses of an irra-,
tional, unprincipled, proscribing, confiscating, plundering, ferocious, bloody, and tyrannical democracy.
On the side of religion, the danger of their example is
no longer from intolerance, but from atheism: a foul,
unnatural vice, foe to all the dignity and consolation
of mankind; which seems in France, for a long time,
to have been embodied into a faction, accredited, and
almost avowed.
These are our present dangers from France. But,
in his opinion, the very worst part of the example
set is in the late assumption of citizenship by the
army, and the whole of the arrangement, or rather
disarrangement, of their military.
He was sorry that his right honorable friend (Mr.
Fox) had dropped even a word expressive of exultation on that circumstance, or that he seemed of
opinion that the objection from standing armies was
at all lessened by it. He attributed this opinion of
Mr. Fox entirely to his known zeal for the best of all
causes, liberty. That it was with a pain inexpressible
he was obliged to have even the shadow of a difference with his friend, whose authority would always
be great with him, and with all thinking people, --
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES 219
Quce maxima semper censetur nobis, et ERIT quce maxima
semper; -his confidence in Mr. Fox was such, and so
ample, as to be almost implicit. That he was not
ashamed to avow that degree of docility. That, when
the choice is well made, it strengthens, instead of oppressing our intellect. That he who calls in the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own. He who
profits of a superior understanding raises his powers to
a level with the height of the superior understanding
he unites with. He had found the benefit of such a
junction, and would not lightly depart from it. He
wished almost, on all occasions, that his sentiments
were understood to be conveyed in Mr. Fox's words.
And that he wished, as amongst the greatest benefits
he could wish the country, an eminent share of power
to that right honorable gentleman; because he knew
that to his great and masterly understanding he had
joined the greatest possible degree of that natural
moderation which is the best corrective of power:
that he was of the most artless, candid, open, and benevolent disposition; disinterested in the extreme; of a temper mild and placable even to a fault; without one drop of gall in his whole constitution.
That the House must perceive, from his coming
forward to mark an expression or two of his best
friend, how anxious he was to keep the distemper
of France from the least countenance in England,
where he was sure some wicked persons had shown
a strong disposition to recommend an imitation of
the French spirit of reform. He was so strongly
opposed to any the least tendency towards the means
of introducing a democracy like theirs, as well as to
the end itself, that, much as it would afflict him, if
such a thing could be attempted, and that any friend
? ? ? ? 220 SPEECH OrA'rH1E ARMY ESTIMA3TES.
of his could concur in such measures, (he was far,
very far, from believing they could,) he would abandon his best friends, and join with his worst enemies,
to oppose either the means or the end, -and to resist
all violent exertions of the spirit of innovation, so distant from all principles of true and safe reformation:
a spirit well calculated to overturn states, but perfectly unfit to amend them.
That he was no enemy to reformation. Almost
every business in which he was much concerned,
from the first day he sat in that House to that hour,
was a business of reformation; and when he had not
been employed in correcting, he had been employed
in resisting abuses. Some traces of this spirit in
him now stand on their statute-book. In his opinion,
anything which unnecessarily tore to pieces the contexture of the state not only prevented all real reformation, but introduced evils which would call, but perhaps call in vain, for new reformation.
That he thought the French nation very unwise.
What they valued themselves on was a disgrace to
them. They had gloried (and some people in England had thought fit to take share in that glory) in
making a Revolution, as if revolutions were good
things in themselves. All the horrors and all the
crimes of the anarchy which led to their Revolution,
which attend its progress, and which may virtually
attend it in its establishment, pass for nothing with
the lovers of revolutions. The French have made
their way, through the destruction of their country,
to a bad constitution, when they were absolutely in
possession of a good one. They were in possession
of it the day the states met in separate orders. Their
business, had they been either virtuous or wise, or had
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 221
been left to their own judgment, was to secure the
stability and independence of the states, according
to those orders, under the monarch on the throne.
It was then their duty to redress grievances.
Instead of redressing grievances, and improving the
fabric of their state, to which they were called by
their monarch and sent by their country, they were
made to take a very different course. They first destroyed all the balances and counterpoises which serve
to fix the state and to give it a steady direction, and
which furnish sure correctives to any violent spirit
which may prevail in any of the orders. These bal-.
ances existed in their oldest constitution, and in the
constitution of this country, and in the constitution,
of all the countries in Europe. These they rashly
destroyed, and then they melted down the whole into
one incongruous, ill-connected mass.
When they had done this, they instantly, and with
the most atrocious perfidy and breach of all faith
among men, laid the axe to the root of all property, and consequently of all national prosperity, by
the principles they established and the example they
set, in confiscating all the possessions of the Church.
They made and recorded a sort of institute and digest
of anarchy, called the Rights of Man, in such a pedantic abuse of elementary principles as would have disgraced boys at school: but this declaration of rights. was worse than trifling and pedantic in them; as
by their name and authority they systematically destroyed every hold of authority by opinion, religious
or civil, on the minds of the people. By this mad
declaration they subverted the state, and brought on
such calamities as no country, without a long war,
has ever been known to suffer, and which may in
? ? ? ? 222 SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES.
the end produce such a war, and perhaps many
such.
With them the question was not between despotism and liberty. The sacrifice they made of the
peace and power of their country was not made on
the altar of freedom. Freedom, and a better security
for freedom than that they have taken, they might
hlave had without any sacrifice at all. They brought
themselves into all the calamities they suffer, not
that through them they might obtain a British constitution; they plunged themselves headlong into those
calamities to prevent themselves from settling into
that constitution, or into anything resembling it.
That, if they should perfectly succeed in what they
propose, as they are likely enough to do, and establish a democracy, or a mob of democracies, in a country circumstanced like France, they will establish a very bad government, a very bad species of tyranny.
That the worst effect of all their proceeding was on
their military, which was rendered an army for every
purpose but that of defence. That, if the question
was, whether soldiers were to forget they were citizens, as an abstract proposition, he could have no
difference about it; though, as it is usual, when abstract principles are to be applied, much was to be
thought on the manner of uniting the character of
citizen and soldier. But as applied to the events
which had happened in France, where the abstract
principle was clothed with its circumstances, he
thought that his friend would agree with him, that
what was done there furnished no matter of exultation, either in the act or the example. These soldiers
were not citizens, but base, hireling mutineers, and
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 223
mercenary, sordid deserters, wholly destitute of any
honorable principle. Their conduct was one of the
fruits of that anarchic spirit from the evils of which
a democracy itself was to be resorted to, by those who
were the least disposed to that form, as a sort of refuge. It was not an army in corps and with discipline,
and embodied under the respectable patriot citizens of
the state in resisting tyranny. Nothing like it. It was
the case of common soldiers deserting from their officers, to join a furious, licentious populace. It was a
desertion to a cause the real object of which was to
level all those institutions, and to break all those connections, natural and civil, that regulate and hold together the community by a chain of subordination: to raise soldiers against their officers, servants against
their masters, tradesmen against their customers, artificers against their employers, tenants against their
landlords, curates against their bishops, and children
against their parents. That this cause of theirs was
not an enemy to servitude, but to society.
He wished the House to consider how the members would like to have their mansions pulled down
and pillaged, their persons abused, insulted, and
destroyed, their title-deeds brought out and burned
before their faces, and themselves and their families
driven to seek refuge in every nation throughout
Europe, for no other reason than this, that, without
any fault of theirs, they were born gentlemen and
men of property, and were suspected of a desire to
preserve their consideration and their estates. The
desertion in France was to aid an abominable sedition, the very professed principle of which was an implacable hostility to nobility and gentry, and whose savage war-whoop was, "A I'Aristocrate! "-by which
? ? ? ? 224 SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES.
senseless, bloody cry they animated one another to
rapine and murder; whilst abetted by ambitious men
of another class, they were crushing everything respectable and virtuous in their nation, and to their
power disgracing almost every name by which we formerly knew there was such a country in the world
as France.
He knew too well, and he felt as much as any man,
how difficult it was to accommodate a standing army
to a free constitution, or to any constitution. An
armed disciplined body is, in its essence, dangerous
to liberty; undisciplined, it is ruinous to society. Its
component parts are in the latter case neither good
citizens nor good soldiers. What have they thought
of in France, under such a difficulty as almost puts
the human faculties to a stand? They have put their
army under such a variety of principles of duty, that
it is more likely to breed litigants, pettifoggers, and
mutineers than soldiers. * They have set up, to balance their crown army, another army, deriving under
another authority, called a municipal army,- a balance of armies, not of orders. These latter they have destroyed with every mark of insult and oppression.
States may, and they will best, exist with a partition
of civil powers. Armies cannot exist under a divided command. This state of things he thought
in effect a state of war, or at best but a truce, instead of peace, in the country.
What a dreadful thing is a standing army for the
conduct of the whole or any part of which no man is
responsible!
In the present state of the French crown
army, is the crown responsible for the whole of it? Is
there any general who can be responsible for the obe* They are sworn to obey the king, the nation, and the law.
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 225
dience of a brigade, any colonel for that of a regiment, any captain for that of a company? And as
to the municipal army, reinforced as it is by the new
citizen deserters, under whose command are they?
Have we not seen them, not led by, but dragging,
their nominal commander, with a rope about his
neck, when they, or those whom they accompanied,
proceeded to the most atrocious acts of treason and
murder? Are any of these armies? Are any of
these citizens?
We have in such a difficulty as that of fitting a
standing army to the state, he conceived, done much
better. We have not distracted our army by divided
principles of obedience. We have put them under a
single authority, with a simple (our common) oath
of fidelity; and we keep the whole under our annual
inspection. This was doing all that could be safely
done.
He felt some concern that this strange thing called
a Revolution in France should be compared with the
glorious event commonly called the Revolution in
England, and the conduct of the soldiery on that
occasion compared with the behavior of some of the
troops of France in the present instance. At that
period, the Prince of Orange, a prince of the bloodroyal in England, was called in by the flower of the English aristocracy to defend its ancient Constitution,
and not to level all distinctions. To this prince, so
invited, the aristocratic leaders who commanded the
troops went over with their several corps, in bodies,
to the deliverer of their country. Aristocratic leaders
brought up the corps of citizens who newly enlisted
in this cause. Military obedience changed its object;
but military discipline was not for a moment interVOL. III. 15
? ? ? ? 226 SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES.
rupted in its principle. The troops were ready for
war, but indisposed to mutiny. .
But as the conduct of the English armies was different, so was that of the whole English nation at
that time. In truth, the circumstances of our Revolution (as it is called) and that of France are just the
reverse of each other in almost every particular, and
in the whole spirit of the transaction. With us it
was the case of a legal monarch attempting arbitrary
power; in France it is the case of an arbitrary monarch beginning, from whatever cause, to legalize his
authority. The one was to be resisted, the other was
to be managed and directed; but in neither case was
the order of the state to be changed, lest government
might be ruined, which ought only to be corrected
and legalized. With us we got rid of the man, and
preserved the constituent parts of the state. There
they get rid of the constituent parts of the state, and
keep the man. What we did was in truth and substance, and in a constitutional light, a revolution, not
made, but prevented. We took solid securities; we
settled doubtful questions; we corrected anomalies
in our law. In the stable, fundamental parts of our
Constitution we made no revolution, -- no, nor any
alteration at all. We did not impair the monarchy.
Perhaps it might be shown that we strengthened it
very considerably. The nation kept the same ranks,
the same orders, the same privileges, the same franchises, the same rules for property, the same subordinations, the same order in the law, in the revenue, and in the magistracy, --the same lords, the same
commons, the same corporations, the same electors.
The Church was not impaired. Her estates, her
majesty, her splendor, her orders and gradations, con
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 227
tinued the same. She was preserved in her full
efficiency, and cleared only of a certain intolerance,
which was her weakness and disgrace. The Church
and the State were the same after the Revolution
that they were before, but better secured in every
part.
Was little done because a revolution was not made
in the Constitution? No! Everything was done; because we commenced with reparation, not with ruin.
Accordingly, the state flourished. Instead of lying
as dead, in a sort of trance, or exposed, as some
others, in an epileptic fit, to the pity or derision of
the world, for her wild, ridiculous, convulsive movements, impotent to every purpose but that of dashing
out her brains against the pavement, Great Britain
rose above the standard even of her former self.
An era of a more improved domestic prosperity then
commenced, and still continues, not only unimpaired,
but growing, under the wasting hand of time. All
the energies of the country were awakened. England never preserved a firmer countenance or a
more vigorous arm to all her enemies and to all
her rivals. Europe under her respired and revived.
Everywhere she appeared as the protector, assertor,
or avenger of liberty. A war was made and supported against fortune itself. The treaty of Ryswick,
which first limited the power of France, was soon after made; the grand alliance very shortly followed,
which shook to the foundations the dreadful power
which menaced the independence of mankind. The
states of Europe lay happy under the shade of a great
and free monarchy, which knew how to be great without endangering its own peace at home or the internal or external peace of any of its neighbors.
? ? ? ? 228 SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES.
Mr. Burke said he should have felt very unpleas
antly, if he had not delivered these sentiments. He
was near the end of his natural, probably still nearer
the end of his political career. That he was weak and
weary, and wished for rest. That he was little disposed to controversies, or what is called a detailed
opposition. That at his time of life, if he could not
do something by some sort of weight of opinion, natural or acquired, it was useless and indecorous to attempt anything by mere struggle. Turpe senex miles. That he had for that reason little attended the army
business, or that of the revenue, or almost any other
matter of detail, for some years past. That he had,
however, his task. He was far from condemning
such opposition; on the contrary, he most highly
applauded it, where a just occasion existed for it,
and gentlemen had vigor and capacity to pursue it.
Where a great occasion occurred, he was, and, while
he continued in Parliament, would be, amongst the
most active and the most earnest, - as he hoped he
had shown on a late event. With respect to the Constitution itself, he wished few alterations in it, - happy if he left it not the worse for any share he had
taken in its service.
Mr. Fox then rose, and declared, in substance,
that, so far as regarded the French army, he went
no farther than the general principle, by which that
army showed itself indisposed to be an instrument
in the servitude of their fellow-citizens, but did not
enter into the particulars of their conduct. He declared that he did not affect a democracy: that he
always thought any of the simple, unbalanced governments bad: simple monarchy, simple aristocracy,
? ? ? ? SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 229
slmlple democracy, - he held them all imperfect or
vicious; all were bad by themselves; the composition alone was good. That these had been always his principles, in which he had agreed with his friend Mr.
Burke, - of whom he had said many kind and flattering things, which Mr. Burke, I take it for granted,
will know himself too well to think he merits from
anything but Mr. Fox's acknowledged good-nature.
Mr. Fox thought, however, that, in many cases, Mr.
Burke was rather carried too far by his hatred to innovation.
Mr. Burke said, he well knew that these had been
Mr. Fox's invariable opinions; that they were a sure
ground for the confidence of his country. But he
had been fearful that cabals of very different intentions would be ready to make use of his great name, against his character and sentiments, in order to derive a credit to their destructive machinations.
Mr. Sheridan then rose, and made a lively and eloquent speech against Mr. Burke; in which, among other things, he said that Mr. Burke had libelled the
National Assembly of France, and had cast out reflections on such characters as those of the Marquis de La Fayette and Mr. Bailly.
Mr. Burke said, that he did not libel the National
Assembly of France, whom he considered very little
in the discussion of these matters. That he thought
all the substantial power resided in the republic of
Paris, whose authority guided, or whose example was
followed by, all the republics of France. The republic
of Paris had an army under their orders, and not
under those of the National Assembly.
N. B. As to the particular gentlemen, I do not
remember that Mr. Burke mentioned either of them,
? ? ? ? 230 SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES.
-- certainly not Mr. Bailly. He alluded, undoubtedly, to the case of the Marquis de La Fayette; but whether what he asserted of him be a libel on him
must be left to those who are acquainted with the
business.
Mr. Pitt concluded the debate with becoming gravity and dignity, and a reserve on both sides of the question, as related to France, fit for a person in a
ministerial situation. He said, that what he had
spoken only regarded France when she should unite,
which he rather thought she soon might, with the
liberty she had acquired, the blessings of law and order. He, too, said several civil things concerning the sentiments of Mr. Burke, as applied to this country.
? ? ? ? REFLECTIONS
ON THE
REVOLUTION IN FRANCE,
AND ON
THE PROCEEDINGS IN CERTAIN SOCIETIES IN LONDON RELATIVE TO THAT EVENT:
IN A LETTER
INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN SENT TO A GENTLEMAN IN PARIS.
I 790.
? ? ? ? IT may not be unnecessary to inform the reader
that the following Reflections had their origin
in a correspondence between the author and a very
young gentleman at Paris, who did him the honor of
desiring his opinion upon the important transactions
which then, and ever since have, so much occupied
the attention of all men. An answer was written
some time in the month of October, 1789; but it was
kept back upon prudential considerations. That letter is alluded to in the beginning of the following
sheets. It has been since forwarded to the person to
whom it was addressed. The reasons for the delay
in sending it were assigned in a short letter to the
same gentleman. This produced on his part a new
and pressing application for the author's sentiments.
The author began a second and more full discus.
sion on the subject. This he had some thoughts of
publishing early in the last spring; but the matter
gaining upon him, he found that what he had undertaken not only far exceeded the measure of a letter,
but that its importance required rather a more detailed consideration than at that time he had any leisure to bestow upon it. However, having thrown down his first thoughts in the form of a letter, and,
indeed, when he sat down to write, having intended
it for a private letter, he found it difficult to change
the form of address, when his sentiments had grown
into a greater extent and had received another direction. A different plan, he is sensible, mlight be
more favorable to a commodious division and distribution of his matter.
? ? ? ? REFLECTIONS
ON
THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE.
DEAR SIR, -- You are pleased to call again, and
with some earnestness, for my thoughts on the
late proceedings in France. I will not give you reason to imagine that I think my sentiments of such
value as to wish myself to be solicited about them.
They are of too little consequence to be very anxiously either communicated or withheld. It was
from attention to you, and to you only, that I hesitated at the time when you first desired to receive them. In the first letter I had the honor to write to
you, and which at length I send, I wrote neither for
nor from any description of men; nor shall I in this.
My errors, if any, are my own. My reputation alone
is to answer for them.
You see, Sir, by the long letter I have transmitted
to you, that, though I do most heartily wish that
France may be animated by a spirit of rational liberty, and that I think you bound, in all honest policy,
to provide a permanent body in which that spirit may
reside, and an effectual organ by which it may act,
it is my misfortune to entertain great doubts concerning several material points in your late transactions. You imagined, when you wrote last, that I might
possibly be reckoned among the approvers of certain
? ? ? ? 236 REFLECTIONS ON THE
proceedings in France, from the solemn public seal
of sanction they have received from two clubs of gentlemen in London, called the Constitutional Society, and the Revolution Society.
I certainly have the honor to belong to more clubs
than one in which the Constitution of this kingdom
and the principles of the glorious Revolution are
held in high reverence; and I reckon myself among
the nMost forward in my zeal for maintaining that
Constitution and those principles in their utmost purity and vigor. It is because I do so that I think
it necessary for me that there should be no mistake.
Those who cultivate the memory of our Revolution,
and those who are attached to the Constitution of this
kingdom, will take good care how they are involved
with persons who, under the pretext of zeal towards
the Revolution and Constitution, too frequently wander from their true principles, and are ready on every occasion to depart from the firm, but cautious
and deliberate, spirit which produced the one and
which presides in the other. Before I proceed to answer the more material particulars in your letter, I shall beg leave to give you such information as I
have been able to obtain of the two clubs which have
thought proper, as bodies, to interfere in the concerns of France, --first assuring you that I am not,
and that I have never been, a member of either of
those societies.
The first, calling itself the Constitutional Society,
or Society for Constitutional Information, or by some
such title, is, I believe, of seven or eight years' standing. The institution of this society appears to be of a charitable, and so far of a laudable nature: it was
intended for the circulation, at the expense of the
? ? ? ? REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 237
members, of many books which few others would be
at the expense of buying, and which might lie on
the hands of the booksellers, to the great loss of an
useful body of men. Whether the books so charitably circulated were ever as charitably read is more
than I know. Possibly several of them have been
exported to France, and, like goods not in request
here, may with you have found a market. I have
heard much talk of the lights to be drawn from books
that are sent from hence. What improvements they
have had in their passage (as it is said some liquors
are meliorated by crossing the sea) I cannot tell;
but I never heard a man of common judgment or the:
least degree of information speak a word in praise.
of the greater part of the publications circulated bythat society; nor have their proceedings been accounted, except by some of themselves, as of any serious consequence.
Your National Assembly seems to entertain much,
the same opinion that I do of this poor charitable
club. As a nation, you reserved the whole stock of
your eloquent acknowledgments for the Revolution
Society, when their fellows in the Constitutional
were in equity entitled to some share. Since you;
have selected the Revolution Society as the great
object of your national thanks and praises, you will;
think me excusable in making its late conduct the
subject of my observations. The National Assembly
of France has given importance to these gentlemen
by adopting them; and they return the favor by acting as a committee in England for extending the
principles of the National Assembly. Henceforward
we must consider them as a kind of privileged persons, as no inconsiderable members in the diplomatic
? ? ? ? 238 REFLECTIONS ON THE
body. This is one among the revolutions which
have given splendor to obscurity and distinction to
undiscerned merit. Until very lately I do not recollect to have heard of this club. I am quite sure
that it never occupied a moment of my thoughts, --
nor, I believe, those of any person out of their own
set. I find, upon inquiry, that, on the anniversary
of the Revolution in 1688, a club of Dissenters, but
of what denomination I know not, have long had the
custom of hearing a sermon in one of their churches,
and that afterwards they spent the day cheerfully, as
other clubs do, at the tavern. But I never heard
that any public measure or political system, much
less that the merits of the constitution of any foreign
nation, had been the subject of a formal proceeding
at their festivals, until, to my inexpressible surprise,
I found them in a sort of public capacity, by a congratulatory address, giving an authoritative sanction to the proceedings of the National Assembly in France.
In the ancient principles and conduct of the club,
so far at least as they were declared, I see nothing to
which I could take exception. I think it very probable, that, for some purpose, new members may have
entered among them, - and that some truly Christian
politicians, who love to dispense benefits, but are
careful to conceal the hand which distributes the
dole, may have made them the instruments of their
pious designs. Whatever I may have reason to suspect concerning private management, I shall speak
of nothing as of a certainty but what is public.
For one, I should be sorry to be thought directly
or indirectly concerned in their proceedings. I certainly take my full share, along with the rest of the
? ? ?
