These harbors of the British
dominions
are
the ports of France.
the ports of France.
Edmund Burke
?
?
LETTER III.
397
would have warmed and enlightened the universe;
but, unluckily, irritable philosophy, the most irritable of all things, was put into a passion, and provoked into ambition abroad and tyranny at home. They find all this very natural and very justifiable.
They choose to forget that other nations, struggling
for freedom, have been attacked by their neighbors,
or that'their neighbors have otherwise interfered in
their affairs. Often have neighbors interfered in favor of princes against their rebellious subjects, and
often in favor of subjects against their prince. Such
cases fill half the pages of history; yet never were
they used as an apology, much less as a justification,
for atrocious cruelty in princes, or for general massacre and confiscation on the part of revolted subjects, - never as a politic cause for suffering any such powers to aggrandize themselves without limit
and without measure. A thousand times have we
seen it asserted in public prints and pamphlets, that,
if the nobility and priesthood of France had stayed
at home, their property never would have been confiscated. One would think that none of the clergy
had been robbed previous to their deportation, or
that their deportation had, on their part, been a voluntary act. One would think that the nobility and
gentry, and merchants and bankers, who stayed at
home, had enjoyed their property in security and
repose. The assertors of these positions well know
that the lot of thousands who remained at home was
far more terrible, that the most cruel imprisonment
was only a harbinger of a cruel and ignominious
death, and that in this mother country of freedom
there were no less than three hundred thousand at
one time in prison. I go no further. I instance
? ? ? ? 398 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
only these representations of the party, as staring
indications of partiality to that sect to whose dominion they would have left this country nothing to oppose but her own naked force, and consequently subjected us, on every reverse of fortune, to the imminent danger of falling under those very evils, in that very system, which are attributed, not to its own
nature, but to the perverseness of others. There is
nothing in the world so difficult as to put men in
a state of judicial neutrality. A leaning there must
ever be, and it is of the first importance to any nation to observe to what side that leaning inclines, --
whether to our own community, or to one with which
it is in a state of hostility.
Men are rarely without some sympathy in the
sufferings of others; but in the immense and diversified mass of human misery, which may be pitied,
but cannot be relieved, in the gross, the mind must
make a choice. Our sympathy is always more forcibly attracted towards the misfortunes of certain
persons, and in certain descriptions: and this sympathetic attraction discovers, beyond a possibility of
mistake, our mental affinities and elective affections.
It is a much surer proof than the strongest declaration of a real connection and of an overruling bias
in the mind. I am told that the active sympathies
of this party have been chiefly, if not wholly, attracted to the sufferings of the patriarchal rebels
who were amongst the promulgators of the maxims
of the French Revolution, and who have suffered
from their apt and forward scholars some part of
the evils which they had themselves so liberally distributed to all the other parts of the community.
Some of these men, flying from the knives which
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 399
they had sharpened against their country and its
laws, rebelling against the very powers they had set
over themselves by their rebellion against their sovereign, given up by those very armies to whose faithful attachment they trusted for their safety and support, after they had completely debauched all
military fidelity in its source, -- some of these men,
I say, had fallen into the hands of the head of thlat
family the most illustrious person of which they
had three times cruelly imprisoned, and delivered in
that state of captivity to those hands from which
they were able to relieve neither her, nor their owli
nearest and most venerable kindred. One of these
men, connected with this country by no circumstance
of birth, -- not related to any distinguished families
here, - recommended by no service, - endeared to
this nation by no act or even expression of kindness, - comprehended in no league or common
cause, -- embraced by no laws of public hospitality, -- this man was the only one to be found in
Europe, in whose favor the British nation, passing
judgment without hearing on its almost only ally,
was to force (and that not by soothing interposition,
but with every reproach for inhumanity, cruelty, and
breach of the laws of war) from prison. We were to
release him from that prison out of which, in abuse
of the lenity of government amidst its rigor, and in
violation of at least an understood parole, lie had
attempted an escape, - an escape excusable, if you
will, but naturally productive of strict and vigilant
confinement. The earnestness of gentlemen to free
this person was the more extraordinary because there
was full as little in him to raise admiration, from
any eminent qualities he possessed, as there was to
? ? ? ? 400 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
excite an interest, from any that were amiable. A
person not only of no real civil or literary talents,
but of no specious appearance of either, -- and in
his military profession not marked as a leader in
any one act of able or successful enterprise, unless
his leading on (or his following) the allied army of
Alnazonian and male cannibal Parisians to Versailles,
on the famous 5th of October, 1789, is to make his
glory. Any other exploit of his, as a general, I
never heard of. But the triumph of general fraternity was but the more signalized by the total want
of particular claims in that case, - and by postponing
all such claims in a case where they really existed,
where they stood embossed, and in a manner forced
themselves on the view of common, shortsighted benevolence. Whilst, for its improvement, the humanity of these gentlemen was thus on its travels, and had got as far off as Olmiitz, they never thought of
a place and a person much nearer to them, or of
moving an instruction to Lord Malmesbury in favor of their own suffering countryman, Sir Sydney
Smith.
This officer, having attempted, with great gallantry, to cut out a vessel from one of the enemy's harbors, was taken after an obstinate resistance, - such as obtained him the marked respect of those who
were witnesses of his valor, and knew the circumstances in which it was displayed. Upon his arrival at Paris, he was instantly thrown into prison,
where the nature of his situation will best be understood by knowing that amongst its mitigations
was the permission to walk occasionally in the court
and to enjoy the privilege of shaving himself. On
the old system of feelings and principles, his suffer
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 401
ings might have been entitled to consideration, and,
even in a comparison with those of Citizen La Fayette, to a priority in the order of compassion. If
the ministers had neglected to take any steps in his
favor, a declaration of the sense of the House of
Commons would have stimulated them to their duty.
If they had caused a representation to be made, such
a proceeding would have added force to it. If reprisal should be thought advisable, the address of
the House would have given an additional sanction
to a measure which would have been, indeed, justifiable without any other sanction than its own reason. But no. Nothing at all like it. In fact, the merit of
Sir Sydney Smith, and his claim on British compassion, was of a kind altogether different from that which interested so deeply the authors of the motion in favor of Citizen La Fayette. In my humble opinion,, Captain Sir Sydney Smith has another sort of merit
with the British nation, and something of a higher
claim on British humanity, than Citizen La Fayette.
Faithful, zealous, and ardent in the service of his king
and country, - full of spirit, - full of resources,
going out of the beaten road, but going right, because
his uncommon enterprise was not conducted by a vulgar judgment, -- in his profession Sir Sydney Smith might be considered as a distinguished person, if any
person could well be distinguished in a service inl
which scarce a commander can be named without:
putting you in mind of some action of intrepidity,
skill, and vigilance that has given them a fair title to
contend with any men and in- any age. But I will say
nothing farther of the merits of Sir Sydney Smith:
the mortal animosity of the Regicide enemy supersedes all other panegyric. Their hatred is a judgment. VOL. V. 26
? ? ? ? 402 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
in his favor without appeal. At present he is lodged
in the tower of the Temple, the last prison of Louis
the Sixteenth, and the last but one of Marie Antoinette of Austria, - the prison of Louis the Seventeeltl, - the prison of Elizabeth of Bourbon. There
he lies, unpitied by the grand philanthropy, to meditate upon the fate of those who are faithful to their
king and country. Whilst this prisoner, secluded from
ilntcrcourse, was indulging in these cheering reflections, he might possibly have had the further consolation of learning (by means of the insolent exultation
of his guards) that there was an English ambassador
at Paris; he might have had the proud comfort of
hearing that this ambassador had the honor of passing his mornings in respectful attendance at the office of a Regicide pettifogger, and that in the evening he relaxed in the almusements of the opera, and in the spectacle of an audience totally new, - an audience in which he had the pleasure of seeing about
him not a single face that he could formerly have
known in Paris, but, in the place of that company,
one indeed more than equal to it in display of gayety,
splendor, and luxury, - a set of abandoned wretches,
squandering in insolent riot the spoils of their bleeding country: a subject of profound reflection both to
the prisoner and to the ambassador.
Whether all the matter upon which I have grounded my opinion of this last party be fully authenticated or not must be left to those who have had the
opportunity of a nearer view of its conduct, and who
have been more attentive in their perusal of the writings which have appeared in its favor. But for my
part, I have never heard the gross facts on which I
ground my idea of their marked partiality to the
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 403
reigning tyranny in France in any part denied. I
am not surprised at all this. Opinions, as they sometimes follow, so they frequently guide and direct the
affections; and men may become more attached to
the country of their principles than to the country of
their birth. What I have stated here is only to mark
the spirit which seems to me, though in somewhat
different ways, to actuate our great party-leaders,
and to trace this first pattern of a negotiation to its
true source.
Such is the present state of our public councils.
Well might I be ashamed of what seems to be a censure of two great factions, with the two most eloquent men which this country ever saw at the head of them, if I had found that either of them could
support their conduct by any example in the history
of their country. I should very much prefer their
judgment to my own, if I were not obliged, by an
infinitely overbalancing weight of authority, to prefer the collected wisdom of ages to the abilities of
any two men living. -- I return to the Declaration,
with which the history of the abortion of a treaty
with the Regicides is closed.
After such an elaborate display had been made of
the injustice and insolence of an enemy who seems
to have been irritated by every one of the means
which had been commonly used with effect to soothe
the rage of intemperate power, the natural result
would be, that the scabbard in which we in vain
attempted to plunge our sword should have been
thrown away with scorn. It would have been natural, that, rising in the fulness of their might, insulted majesty, despised dignity, violated justice, rejected supplication, patience goaded into fury, would have
? ? ? ? 404 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
poured out all the length of the reins upon all the
wrath which they had so long restrained. It might
have been expected, that, emulous of the glory of the
youthful hero * in alliance with him, touched by the
example of what one man well formed and well
placed may do in the most desperate state of affairs, convinced there is a courage of the cabinet full as powerful and far less vulgar than that of
the field, our minister would have changed the whole
line of that unprosperous prudence which hitherto
had produced all the effects of the blindest temerity. If he found his situation full of danger, (and
I do not deny that it is perilous in the extreme,)
he must feel that it is also full of glory, and that
he is placed on a stage than which no muse of fire
that had ascended the highest heaven of invention
could imagine anything more awful and august. It
was hoped that in this swelling scene in which he
moved, with some of the first potentates of Europe
for his fellow-actors, and with so many of the rest for
the anxious spectators of a part which, as he plays
it, determines forever their destiny and his own, like
Ulysses in the unravelling point of the epic story,
he would have thrown off his patience and his rags
together, and, stripped of unworthy disguises, he
would have stood forth in the form and in the attitude of an hero. On that day it was thought he would have assumed the port of Mars; that he would
bid to be brought forth from their hideous kennel
(where his scrupulous tenderness had too long immured them) those impatient dogs of war whose fierce regards affright even the minister of vengeance that feeds them; that he would let them
* The Archduke Charles of Austria.
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 405
loose, in famine, fever, plagues, and death, upon a
guilty race, to whose frame, and to all whose habit,
order, peace, religion, and virtue are alien and abhorrent. It was expected that he would at last have
thought of active and effectual war; that he would
no longer amuse the British lion in the chase of mice
and rats; that he would no longer employ the whole
naval power of Great Britain, once the terror of the
world, to prey upon the miserable remains of a peddling commerce, which the enemy did not regard,
and from which none could profit. It was expected that he would have reasserted the justice of his
cause; that he would have reanimated whatever remained to him of his allies, and endeavored to recover those whom their fears had led astray; that he would have rekindled the martial ardor of his
citizens; that he would have held out to them the
example of their ancestry, the assertor of Europe,
and the scourge of French ambition; that he would
have reminded them of a posterity, which, if this
nefarious robbery, under the fraudulent name and
false color of a government, should in full power
be seated in the heart of Europe, must forever be
consigned to vice, impiety, barbarism, and the most
ignominious slavery of body and mind. In so holy
a cause it was presumed that he would (as in the
beginning of the war he did) have opened all the
temples, and with prayer, with fasting, and with supplication, (better directed than to the grim Moloch
of Regicide in France,) have called upon us to raise
that united cry which has so often stormed heaven,
and with a pious violence forced down blessings upon
a repentant people. It was hoped, that, when he. had
invoked upon his endeavors the favorable regard of
? ? ? ? 406 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
the Protector of the human race, it would be seen
that his menaces to the enemy and his prayers to the
Almighty were not followed, but accompanied, with
correspondent action. It was hoped that his shrilling trumpet should be heard, not to announce a show, but to sound a charge.
Such a conclusion to such a declaration and such
a speech would have been a thing of course,- so
much a thing of course, that I will be bold to say,
if in any ancient history, the Roman for instance,
(supposing that ill Romne the matter of such a detail could have been furnished,) a consul had gone through such a long train of proceedings, and that
there was a chasm in the manuscripts by which we
had lost the conclusion of the speech and the subsequent part of the narrative, all critics would agree that a Freinshemius would have been thought to
have managed the supplementary business of a continuator most unskilfully, and to have supplied the hiatus most improbably, if he had not filled up the
gaping space in a manner somewhat similar (though
better executed) to what I have imagined. But too
often different is rational conjecture from melancholy
fact. This exordiurn, as contrary to all the rules of
rhetoric as to those more essential rules of policy
which our situation would dictate, is intended as a
prelude to a deadening and disheartening proposition; as if all that a minister had to fear in a war of his own conducting was, that the people should pursue it with too ardent a zeal. Such a tone as I guessed the minister would have taken, I am very
sure, is the true, unsuborned, unsophisticated language of genuine, natural feeling, under the smart of patience exhausted and abused. Such a conduct as
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 407
the facts stated in the Declaration gave room to expect is that which true wisdom would have dictated under the impression of those genuine feelings.
Never was there a jar or discord between genuine
sentiment and sound policy. Never, no, never, did
Nature say one thing and Wisdom say another. Nor
are sentiments of elevation in themselves turgid and
unnatural. Nature is never more truly herself than
in her grandest forms. The Apollo of Belvedere (if
the universal robber has yet left him at Belvedere)
is as much in Nature as any figure from the pencil
of Rembrandt or any clown in the rustic revels of
Teniers. Indeed, it is when a great nation is in great
difficulties that minds must exalt themselves to the
occasion, or all is lost. Strong passion under the
direction of a feeble reason feeds a low fever, which
serves only to destroy the body that entertains it.
But vehement passion does not always indicate an
infirm judgment. It often accompanies, and actuates, and is even auxiliary to a powerful understanding; and when they both conspire and act harmoniously, their force is great to destroy disorder within and to repel injury from abroad. If ever there was
a time that calls on us for no vulgar conception of
things, and for exertions in no vulgar strain, it is the
awful hour that Providence has now appointed to this
nation. Every little measure is a great error, and
every great error will bring on no small ruin. Nothing can be directed above the mark that we must aim
at: everything below it is absolutely thrown away.
Except with the addition of the unheard-of insult
offered to our ambassador by his rude expulsion, we
are never to forget that the point on which the negotiation with De la Croix broke off was exactly that
? ? ? ? 408 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
which had stifled in its cradle the negotiation we had
attempted with Barthelemy. Each of these transactions concluded with a manifesto upon our part; but the last of our manifestoes very materially differed
from the first. The first Declaration stated, that
" nothing was left but to prosecute a war equally just
and necessary. " In the second the justice and necessity of the war is dropped: the sentence importing that nothing was left but the prosecution of such a
war disappears also. Instead of this resolution to
prosecute the war, we sink into a whining lamentation on the abrupt termination of the treaty. We have nothing left but the last resource of female
weakness, of helpless infancy, of doting decrepitude,
-wailing and lamentation. We cannot even utter
a sentiment of vigor; --" his Majesty has only to
lament. " A poor possession, to be left to a great
monarch! Mark the effect produced on our coullcils by continued insolence and inveterate hostility. We grow more malleable under their blows. In reverential silence we smother the cause and origin of the war. On that fundamental article of faith we
leave every one to abound in his own sense. In the
minister's speech, glossing on the Declaration, it is
indeed mentioned, but very feebly. The lines are
so faintly drawn as hardly to be traced. They only
make a part of our consolation in the circumstances
which we so dolefully lament. We rest our merits on the humility, the earnestness of solicitation,
and the perfect good faith of those submissions which
have been used to persuade our Regicide enemies
to grant us some sort of peace. Not a word is said
which might not have been full as well said, and
much better too, if the British nation had appeared
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 409
in the simple character of a penitent convinced of
his errors and offences, and offering, by penances, by
pilgrimages, and by all the modes of expiation ever
devised by anxious, restless guilt, to make all the
atonement in his miserable power.
The Declaration ends, as I have before quoted it,
with a solemn voluntary pledge, the most fuill and
the most solemn that ever was given, of our resolution (if so it may be called) to enter again into the
very same course. It requires nothing more of the
Regicides than to furnish some sort of excuse, some
sort of colorable pretext, for our renewing the supplications of innocence at the feet of guilt. It leaves
the moment of negotiation, a most important moment,
to the choice of the enemy. He is to regulate it according to the convenience of his affairs. He is to
bring it forward at that time when it may best serve
to establish his authority at home and to extend his
power abroad. A dangerous assurance for this nation to give, whether it is broken or whether it is
kept. As all treaty was broken off, and broken off in
the manner we have seen, the field of future conduct
ought to be reserved free and unincumbered to our
future discretion. As to the sort of condition prefixed to the pledge, namely, " that the enemy should
be disposed to enter into the work of general pacification with the spirit of reconciliation and equity,"
this phraseology cannot possibly be considered otherwise than as so many words thrown in to fill the sentence and to round it to the ear. We prefixed the same plausible conditions to any renewal of the negotiation, in our manifesto on the rejection of our
proposals at Basle. We did not consider those conditions as binding. We opened a much more serious
? ? ? ? 410 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
negotiation without any sort of regard to them; and
there is no new negotiation which we can possibly
open upon fewer indications of conciliation and equity
than were to be discovered when we entered into our
last at Paris. Any of the slightest pretences, any
of the most loose, formal, equivocating expressions,
would justify us, under the peroration of this piece,
in again sending the last or some other Lord Malmnesbury to Paris.
I hope I misunderstand this pledge, - or that we
shall show no more regard to it than we have done to
all the faith that we have plighted to vigor and resolution in our former Declaration. If I am to understand the conclusion of the Declaration to be what unfortunately it seems to me, we make an engagement with the enemy, without any correspondent
engagement on his side. We seem to have cut ourselves off from any benefit which an intermediate
state of things might furnish to enable us totally to
overturn that power, so little connected with moderation and justice. By holding out no hope, either to
the justly discontented in France, or to ally foreign
power, and leaving the recommencement of all treaty
to this identical junto of assassins, we do in effect
assure and guaranty to them the full possession of
the rich fruits of their confiscations, of their murders
of men, women, and children, and of all the multiplied, endless, nameless iniquities by which they
have obtained their power. We guaranty to them
the possession of a country, such and so situated
as France, round, entire, immensely perhaps augmented.
" Well," some will say, " in this case we have only
submitted to the nature of things. " The nature of
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 411
things is, I admit, a sturdy adversary. This might
be alleged as a plea for our attempt at a treaty. But
what plea of that kind can be alleged, after the treaty
was dead and gone, in favor of this posthumous Declaration? No necessity has driven us to that pledge.
It is without a counterpart even in expectation. And
what can be stated to obviate the evil which that solitary engagement must produce on the understandings
or the fears of men? I ask, what have the Regicides
promised you in return, in case you should show what
they would call dispositions to conciliation and equity,
whilst you are giving that pledge from the throne,
and engaging Parliament to counter-secure it? It is
an awful consideration. It was on the very day of
the date of this wonderful pledge,* in which we assumed the Directorial government as lawful, and in
which we engaged ourselves to treat with them whenever they pleased, - it was on that very day the Regicide fleet was weighing anchor from one of your harbors, where it had remained four days in perfect
quiet.
These harbors of the British dominions are
the ports of France. They are of no use but to protect an enemy from your best allies, the storms of
heaven and his own rashness. Had the West of
Ireland been an unportuous coast, the French naval
power would have been undone. The enemy uses
the moment for hostility, without the least regard to
your filture dispositions of equity and conciliation.
They go out of what were once your harbors, and
they return to them at their pleasure. Eleven days
they had the full use of Bantry Bay, and at length
their fleet returns from their harbor of Bantry to
their harbor of Brest. Whilst you are invoking the
* Dec. 27, 1796.
? ? ? ? 412 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
propitious spirit of Regicide equity and conciliation,
they answer you with an attack. They turn out
the pacific bearer of your "how do you dos," Lord
Malmesbury; and they return your visit, and their
"thanks for your obliging inquiries," by their old
practised assassin, Hoche. They come to attack --
what? A town, a fort, a naval station? They come
to attack your king, your Constitution, and the very
being of that Parliament which was holding out to
them these pledges, together with the entireness of
the empire, the laws, liberties, and properties of all
the people. We know that they meditated the very
same invasion, and for the very same purposes, upon
this kingdom, and, had the coast been as opportune,
would have effected it.
Whilst you are in vain torturing your invention to
assure them of your sincerity and good faith, they
have left no doubt concerning their good faith and
their sincerity towards those to whom they have engaged their honor. To their power they have been true to the only pledge they have ever yet given to
you, or to any of yours: I mean the solemn engagement which they entered into with the deputation of traitors who appeared at their bar, from England
and from Ireland, in 1792. They have been true
and faithful to the engagement which they had made
more largely, -- that is, their engagement to give
effectual aid to insurrection and treason, wherever
they might appear in the world. We have seen the
British Declaration. This is the counter Declaration
of the Directory. This is the reciprocal pledge which
Regicide amity gives to the conciliatory pledges of
kings. But, thank God, such pledges cannot exist
single. They have no counterpart; and if they had,
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 413
the enemy's conduct cancels such declarations,and, I trust, along with them, cancels everything of
mischief and dishonor that they contain.
There is one thing in this business which appears
to be wholly unaccountable, or accountable on a supposition I dare not entertain for a moment. I cannot help asking, Why all this pains to clear the British nation of ambition, perfidy, and the insatiate
thirst of war? At what period of time was it that
our country has deserved that load of infamy of
which nothing but preternatural humiliation in language and conduct can serve to clear us? If we
have deserved this kind of evil fame from anything
we have done in a state of prosperity, I am sure that
it is not an abject conduct in adversity that can clear
our reputation. Well is it known that ambition can
creep as well as soar. The pride of no person in a
flourishing condition is more justly to be dreaded
than that of him who is mean and cringing under a
doubtful and unprosperous fortune. But it seems it
was thought necessary to give some out-of-the-way
proofs of our sincerity, as well as of our freedom
from ambition. Is, then, fraud and falsehood become
the distinctive character of Englishmen? Whenever
your enemy chooses to accuse you of perfidy and ill
faith, will you put it into his power to throw you into the purgatory of self-humiliation? Is his charge
equal to the finding of the grand jury of Europe, and
sufficient to put you upon your trial? But on that
trial I will defend the English ministry. I am sorry
that on some points I have, on the principles I have
always opposed, so good a defence to make. They
were not the first to begin the war. They did not
excite the general confederacy in Europe, which was
? ? ? ? 414 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
so properly formed on the alarm given by the Jacobinism of France. They did not begin with an hostile aggression on the Regicides, or any of their allies. These parricides of their own country, disciplining
themselves for foreign by domestic violence, were
the first to attack a power that was our ally by nature, by habit, and by the sanction of multiplied
treaties. Is it not true that they were the first to
declare war upon this kingdom? Is every word in
the declaration from Downing Street concerning their
conduct, and concerning ours and that of our allies,
so obviously false that it is necessary to give sonme
new-invented proofs of our good faith in order to expunge the memory of all this perfidy?
We know that over-laboring a point of this kind
has the direct contrary effect from what we wish.
We know that there is a legal presumption against
men, quando se nimis purgitant; and if a charge of
ambition is not refuted by an affected humility, certainly the character of fraud and perfidy is still
less to be washed away by indications of meanness.
Fraud and prevarication are servile vices. They
sometimes grow out of the necessities, always out
of the habits, of slavish and degenerate spirits; and
on the theatre of the world, it is not by assuming the
mask of a Davus or a Geta that an actor will obtain
credit for manly simplicity and a liberal openness of
proceeding. It is an erect countenance, it is a firm
adherence to principle, it is a power of resisting false
shame and frivolous fear, that assert our good faith
and honor, and assure to us the confidence of man
kind. Therefore all these negotiations, and all the
declarations with which they were preceded and followed, can only serve to raise presumptions against
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 415
that good faith and public integrity the fame of which
to preserve inviolate is so much the interest and duty
of every nation.
The pledge is all engagement "to all Europe. "
This is the more extraordinary, because it is a pledge
which no power in Europe, whom I have yet heard
of, has thought proper to require at our hands. I
am not in the secrets of office, and therefore I may
be excused for proceeding upon probabilities and exterior indications. I have surveyed all Europe from the east to the west, from the north to the south, ill
search of this call upon us to purge ourselves of," subtle duplicity and a Punic style " in our proceedings. I have not heard that his Excellency the Ottoman
ambassador has expressed his doubts of the British
sincerity in our negotiation with the most unchristian
republic lately set up at our door. What sympathy
in that quarter may have introduced a remonstrance
upon the want of faith in this nation I cannot positively say. If it exists, it is in Turkish or Arabic,
and possibly is not yet translated. But none of the nations which compose the old Christian world have I yet heard as calling upon us for those judicial purgations and ordeals, by fire and water, which we have chosen to go through;- for the other great proof, by
battle, we seem to decline.
For whose use, entertainment, or instruction are
all those overstrained and overlabored proceedings in
council, in negotiation, and in speeches in Parliament
intended? What royal cabinet is to be enriched with
these high-finished pictures of the arrogance of the
sworn enemies of kings and the meek patience of a
British administration? In what heart is it intended
to kindle pity towards our multiplied mortifications
? ? ? ? 416 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
and disgraces? At best it is superfluous. What nation is unacquainted with the haughty disposition of
the common enemy of all nations? It has been more
than seen, it has been felt, -not only by those who
have been the victims of their imperious rapacity,
but, in a degree, by those very powers who have consented to establish this robbery, that they might be
able to copy it, and with impunity to make new usurpations of their own.
The King of Prussia has hypothecated in trust to
the Regicides his rich and fertile territories on the
Rhine, as a pledge of his zeal and affection to the
cause of liberty and equality. He has seen them
robbed with unbounded liberty and with the most levelling equality. The woods are wasted, the country
is ravaged, property is confiscated, and the people are
put to bear a double yoke, in the exactions of a tyrannical government and in the contributions of an hostile irruption. Is it to satisfy the Court of Berlin that the Court of London is to give the same sort of
pledge of its sincerity and good faith to the French
Directory? It is'not that heart full of sensibility, it
is not Lucchesini, the milister of his Prussian Majesty, the late ally of England, and the present ally of
its enemy, who has demanded this pledge of our sincerity, as the price of the renewal of the long lease
of his sincere friendship to this kingdom.
It is not to our enemy, the now faithful ally of
Regicide, late the faithful ally of Great Britain, the
Catholic king, that we address our doleful lamentation: it is not to the Prince of Peace, whose declaration of war was one of the first auspicious omens of general tranquillity, which our dove-like ambassador,
with the olive-branch in his beak, was saluted with at
his entrance into the ark of clean birds at Paris.
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 417
Surely it is not to the Tetrarch of Sardinia, now
the faithful ally of a power who has seized upon all
his fortresses and confiscated the oldest dominions of
his house, - it is not to this once powerful, once respected, and once cherished ally of Great Britain, that
we mean to prove the sincerity of the peace which we
offered to make at his expense. . Or is it to him we
are to prove the arrogance of the power who, under
the name of friend, oppresses him, and the poor remains of his subjects, with all the ferocity of the most
cruel enemy?
It is not to Holland, under the name of ain ally,.
laid under a permanent military contribution, filled,
with their double garrison of barbarous Jacobin troops'
and ten times more barbarous Jacobin clubs and assemblies, that we find ourselves obliged to give this
pledge.
Is it to Genoa that we make this kind promise, -
a state which the Regicides were to defend in a favorable neutrality, but whose neutrality has been, by the
gentle influence of Jacobin authority, forced into the
trammels of an alliance, -whose alliance has been
secured by the admission of French garrisons, - and
whose peace has been forever ratified by a forced declaration of war against ourselves?
It is not the Grand Duke of Tuscany who claims:
this declaration, -- not the Grand Duke, who for his
early sincerity, for his love of peace, and for his entire confidence in the amity of the assassins of his
house, has been complimented in the British Parliament with the name of " the wisest sovereign in Europe": it is not this pacific Solomon, or his philosophic, cudgelled ministry, cudgelled by English and by French, whose wisdom and philosophy between
VOL. V. 27
? ? ? ? 418 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
them have placed Leghorn in the hands of the ehiemy
of the Austrian family, and driven the only profitable commerce of Tuscany from its only port: it is
not this sovereign, a far more able statesman than
any of the Medici in whose chair he sits, it is not the
philosopher Carletti, more ably speculative than Galileo, imore profoundly politic than Machiavel, that
call upon us so loudly to give the same happy proofs
of the same good faith to the republic always the
same, always one and indivisible.
It is not Venice, whose principal cities the enemy
has appropriated to himself, and scornfully desired
the state to indemnify itself from the Emperor, that
we wish to convince of the pride and the despotism of
an enemy who loads us with his scoffs and buffets.
It is not for his Holiness we intend this consolatory declaration of our own weakness, and of the tyrannous temper of his grand enemy. That prince has known both the one and the other from the beginning. The artists of the French Revolution had given their very first essays and sketches of robbery and desolation against his territories, in a far more cruel
" murdering piece " than had ever entered into the
imagination of painter or poet. Without ceremony
they tore from his cherishing arms the possessions
which he held for five hundred years, undisturbed by
all the ambition of all the ambitious monarchs who
during that period have reigned in France. Is it to
him, in whose wrong we have in our late negotiation
ceded his now unhappy countries near the Rhone,
lately amongst the most flourishing (perhaps the
most flourishing for their extent) of all the countries
upon earth, that we are to prove the sincerity of our
resolution to make peace with the Republic of Bar
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 419
barism? That venerable potentate and pontiff is
sunk deep into the vale of years; he is half disarmed
by his peaceful character; his dominions are more
than half disarmed by a peace of two hundred years,
defended as they were, not by force, but by reverence: yet, in all these straits, we see him display,
amidst the recent ruins and the new defacements of
his plundered capital, along with the mild and decorated piety of the modern, all the spirit and magnanimity of ancient Rome. Does he, who, though himself unable to defend them, nobly refused to receive pecuniary compensations for the protection he
owed to his people of Avignon, Carpentras, and the
Venaissin, - does he want proofs of our good disposition to deliver over that people, without any security
for them, or any compensation to their sovereign, to
this cruel enemy? Does he want to be satisfied of
the sincerity of our humiliation to France, who has
seen his free, fertile, and happy city and state of
Bologna, the cradle of regenerated law, the seat of
sciences and of arts, so hideously metamorphosed,
whilst lie was crying to Great Britain for aid, and
offering to purchase that aid at any price? Is it
him, who sees that chosen spot of plenty and delight
converted into a Jacobin ferocious republic, dependent on the homicides of France, -- is it him, who,
from the miracles of his beneficent industry, has done
a work which defied the power of the Roman emperors, though with an enthralled world to labor for
them, - is it him, who has drained and cultivated the
Pontine Marshes, that we are to satisfy of our cordial
spirit of conciliation with those who, in their equity,
are restoring Holland again to the seas, whose maxims poison more than the exhalations of the most
? ? ? ? 420 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
deadly fens, and who turn all tile fertilities of Nature
and of Art into an howling desert? Is it to him that
we are to demonstrate the good faith of our submissions to the Cannibal Republic, -- to him, who is commanded to deliver up into their hands Ancona and Civita Vecchia, seats of commerce raised by the wise
and liberal labors and expenses of the present and late
pontiffs, ports not more belonging to the Ecclesiastical
State than to the commerce of Great Britain, thus
wresting from his hands the power of the keys of the
centre of Italy, as before they had taken possession of
the keys of the northern part from the hands of the
unhappy King of Sardinia, the natural ally of England? Is it to him we are to prove our good faith in
the peace which we are soliciting to receive from the
hands of his and our robbers, the enemies of all arts,
all sciences, all civilization, and all commerce?
Is it to the Cispadane or to the Transpadane republics, which have been forced to bow under the
galling yoke of French liberty, that we address all
these pledges of our sincerity and love of peace with
their unnatural parents?
Are we by this Declaration to satisfy the King of
Naples, whom we have left to struggle as he can,
after our abdication of Corsica, and the flight of the
whole naval force of England out of the whole circuit of the Mediterranean, abandoning our allies,
our commerce, and the honor of a nation once the
protectress of all other nations, because strengthened
by the independence and enriched by the commerce
of them all? By the express provisions of a recent
treaty, we had engaged with the King of Naples to
keep a naval force in the Mediterranean. But, good
God! was a treaty at all necessary for this? The
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 421
uniform policy of this kingdom as a state, and eminently sc as a commercial state, has at all times led us to keep a powerful squadron and a commodious
naval station in that central sea, which borders upon
and which connects a far greater number and variety of states, European, Asiatic, and African, than
any other. Without such a naval force, France
must become despotic mistress of that sea, and of
all the countries whose shores it washes. Our commerce must become vassal to her and dependent on her will. Since we are come no longer to trust to
our force in arms, but to our dexterity in negotiation, and begin to pay a desperate court to a proud
and coy usurpation, and have finally sent an ambassador to the Bourbon Regicides at Paris, the King
of Naples, who saw that no reliance was to be placed
on our engagements, or on anlly pledge of our adherence to our nearest and dearest interests, has been obliged to send his ambassador also to join the rest
of the squalid tribe of the representatives of degraded kings. This monarch, surely, does not want any proof of the sincerity of our amicable dispositions to
that amicable republic, into whose arms he has been
given by our desertion of him.
To look to the powers of the North. - It is not to
the Danish ambassador, insolently treated in his own
character and in ours. that we are to give proofs of
the Regicide arrogance, and of our disposition to
submit to it.
With regard to Sweden I cannot say much. The
French influence is struggling with her independence; and they who consider the manner in which
the ambassador of that power was treated not long
since at Paris, and the manner in which the father
? ? ? ? 122 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
of the present King of Sweden (himself the victim of
regicide principles and passions) would have looked
onI the present assassins of France, will not be very
prompt to believe that the young King of Sweden
has made this kind of requisition to the King of
Great Britain, and has given this kind of auspice of
his new government.
I speak last of the most important of all. It certainly was not the late Empress of Russia at whose
ilnstance we have given this pledge. It is not the
new Emperor, the inheritor of so much glory, and
placed in a situation of so much delicacy and difficulty for the preservation of that inheritance, who calls
on England, the natural ally of his domillions, to deprive herself of her power of action, and to bind herself to Franlce. France at no time, and in none of its fashions, least of all in its last, has been ever
looked upon as the friend either of Russia or of
Great Britain. Everything good, I trust, is to be
expected from this prince, - whatever may be without authority given out of an influence over his mind
possessed by that only potentate from whom he has
anything to apprehend or with whom he has much
even to discuss.
This sovereign knows, I have no doubt, and feels,
on what sort of bottom is to be laid the foundation
of a Russian throne. He knows what a rock of native granite is to form the pedestal of his statue who
is to emulate Peter the Great. His renown will be
ill continuing with ease and safety what his predecessor was obliged to achieve through mighty struggles.
He is sensible that his business is not to innovate,
out to secure and to establish, -- that reformations
at this day are attempts at best of ambiguous utility.
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 423
He will revere his father with the piety of a son, but
in his government he will imitate the policy of his
mother. His father, with many excellent qualities.
had a short reign, -because, being a native Russian,
he was unfortunately advised to act in the spirit of
a foreigner. His mother reigned over Russia threeand-thirty years with the greatest glory, - because,
with the disadvantage of being a foreigner born, she
made herself a Russian. A wise prince like the present will improve his country; but it will be cautiously and progressively, upon its own native groundwork of religion, manners, habitudes, and alliances. If I
prognosticate right, it is not the Emperor of Russia
that ever will call for extravagant proofs of our desire to reconcile ourselves to the irreconcilable enemy
of all thrones.
I do -not know why I should not include America
among the European powers,- because she is of European origin, and has not yet, like France, destroyed
all traces of manners, laws, opinions, and usages
which she drew from Europe. As long as that Europe shall have any possessions either in the southern
or the northern parts of that America, even separated
as it is by the ocean, it must be considered as a part
of the European system. It is not America, menaced
with internal ruin from the attempts to plant Jacobinism instead of liberty in that country, - it is not
America, whose independence is directly attacked by
the French, the enemies of the independence of all
nations, that calls upon us to give security by disarming ourselves in a treacherous peace. By such
a peace, we shall deliver the Americans, their liberty, and their order, without resource, to the mercy
of their imperious allies, who will have peace or neu
? ? ? ? 424 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
trality with no state which is not ready to join her
in war against England.
Having run round the whole circle of the Euro.
pean system, wherever it acts, I must affirm that all
the foreign powers who are not leagued with France
for the utter destruction of all balance through Europe and throughout the world demand other assurances from this kingdom than are given in that Declaration. They require assurances, not of the
sincerity of our good dispositions towards the usurpation in France, but of our affection towards the
college of the ancient states of Europe, and pledges
of our constancy, our fidelity, and of our fortitude
in resisting to the last the power that menaces them
all. The apprehension from which they wish to be
delivered cannot be from anything they dread in
the ambition of England. Our power must be their
strength. They hope more from us than they fear.
I am sure the only ground of their hope, and of our
hope, is in the greatness of mind hitherto shown by
the people of this nation, and its adherence to the
unalterable principles of its ancient policy, whatever
government may finally prevail in France. I have
entered into this detail of the wishes and expectations of the European powers, in order to point out
more clearly not so much what their disposition as
(a consideration of far greater importance) what
their situation demands, according as that situation
is related to the Regicide Republic and to this kingdom.
Then, if it is not to satisfy the foreign powers we
make this assurance, to what power at home is it
that we pay all this humiliating court? Not to the
old Whigs or to the ancient Tories of this kingdom,
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 425
-if any memory of such ancient divisions still exists amongst us.
would have warmed and enlightened the universe;
but, unluckily, irritable philosophy, the most irritable of all things, was put into a passion, and provoked into ambition abroad and tyranny at home. They find all this very natural and very justifiable.
They choose to forget that other nations, struggling
for freedom, have been attacked by their neighbors,
or that'their neighbors have otherwise interfered in
their affairs. Often have neighbors interfered in favor of princes against their rebellious subjects, and
often in favor of subjects against their prince. Such
cases fill half the pages of history; yet never were
they used as an apology, much less as a justification,
for atrocious cruelty in princes, or for general massacre and confiscation on the part of revolted subjects, - never as a politic cause for suffering any such powers to aggrandize themselves without limit
and without measure. A thousand times have we
seen it asserted in public prints and pamphlets, that,
if the nobility and priesthood of France had stayed
at home, their property never would have been confiscated. One would think that none of the clergy
had been robbed previous to their deportation, or
that their deportation had, on their part, been a voluntary act. One would think that the nobility and
gentry, and merchants and bankers, who stayed at
home, had enjoyed their property in security and
repose. The assertors of these positions well know
that the lot of thousands who remained at home was
far more terrible, that the most cruel imprisonment
was only a harbinger of a cruel and ignominious
death, and that in this mother country of freedom
there were no less than three hundred thousand at
one time in prison. I go no further. I instance
? ? ? ? 398 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
only these representations of the party, as staring
indications of partiality to that sect to whose dominion they would have left this country nothing to oppose but her own naked force, and consequently subjected us, on every reverse of fortune, to the imminent danger of falling under those very evils, in that very system, which are attributed, not to its own
nature, but to the perverseness of others. There is
nothing in the world so difficult as to put men in
a state of judicial neutrality. A leaning there must
ever be, and it is of the first importance to any nation to observe to what side that leaning inclines, --
whether to our own community, or to one with which
it is in a state of hostility.
Men are rarely without some sympathy in the
sufferings of others; but in the immense and diversified mass of human misery, which may be pitied,
but cannot be relieved, in the gross, the mind must
make a choice. Our sympathy is always more forcibly attracted towards the misfortunes of certain
persons, and in certain descriptions: and this sympathetic attraction discovers, beyond a possibility of
mistake, our mental affinities and elective affections.
It is a much surer proof than the strongest declaration of a real connection and of an overruling bias
in the mind. I am told that the active sympathies
of this party have been chiefly, if not wholly, attracted to the sufferings of the patriarchal rebels
who were amongst the promulgators of the maxims
of the French Revolution, and who have suffered
from their apt and forward scholars some part of
the evils which they had themselves so liberally distributed to all the other parts of the community.
Some of these men, flying from the knives which
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 399
they had sharpened against their country and its
laws, rebelling against the very powers they had set
over themselves by their rebellion against their sovereign, given up by those very armies to whose faithful attachment they trusted for their safety and support, after they had completely debauched all
military fidelity in its source, -- some of these men,
I say, had fallen into the hands of the head of thlat
family the most illustrious person of which they
had three times cruelly imprisoned, and delivered in
that state of captivity to those hands from which
they were able to relieve neither her, nor their owli
nearest and most venerable kindred. One of these
men, connected with this country by no circumstance
of birth, -- not related to any distinguished families
here, - recommended by no service, - endeared to
this nation by no act or even expression of kindness, - comprehended in no league or common
cause, -- embraced by no laws of public hospitality, -- this man was the only one to be found in
Europe, in whose favor the British nation, passing
judgment without hearing on its almost only ally,
was to force (and that not by soothing interposition,
but with every reproach for inhumanity, cruelty, and
breach of the laws of war) from prison. We were to
release him from that prison out of which, in abuse
of the lenity of government amidst its rigor, and in
violation of at least an understood parole, lie had
attempted an escape, - an escape excusable, if you
will, but naturally productive of strict and vigilant
confinement. The earnestness of gentlemen to free
this person was the more extraordinary because there
was full as little in him to raise admiration, from
any eminent qualities he possessed, as there was to
? ? ? ? 400 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
excite an interest, from any that were amiable. A
person not only of no real civil or literary talents,
but of no specious appearance of either, -- and in
his military profession not marked as a leader in
any one act of able or successful enterprise, unless
his leading on (or his following) the allied army of
Alnazonian and male cannibal Parisians to Versailles,
on the famous 5th of October, 1789, is to make his
glory. Any other exploit of his, as a general, I
never heard of. But the triumph of general fraternity was but the more signalized by the total want
of particular claims in that case, - and by postponing
all such claims in a case where they really existed,
where they stood embossed, and in a manner forced
themselves on the view of common, shortsighted benevolence. Whilst, for its improvement, the humanity of these gentlemen was thus on its travels, and had got as far off as Olmiitz, they never thought of
a place and a person much nearer to them, or of
moving an instruction to Lord Malmesbury in favor of their own suffering countryman, Sir Sydney
Smith.
This officer, having attempted, with great gallantry, to cut out a vessel from one of the enemy's harbors, was taken after an obstinate resistance, - such as obtained him the marked respect of those who
were witnesses of his valor, and knew the circumstances in which it was displayed. Upon his arrival at Paris, he was instantly thrown into prison,
where the nature of his situation will best be understood by knowing that amongst its mitigations
was the permission to walk occasionally in the court
and to enjoy the privilege of shaving himself. On
the old system of feelings and principles, his suffer
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 401
ings might have been entitled to consideration, and,
even in a comparison with those of Citizen La Fayette, to a priority in the order of compassion. If
the ministers had neglected to take any steps in his
favor, a declaration of the sense of the House of
Commons would have stimulated them to their duty.
If they had caused a representation to be made, such
a proceeding would have added force to it. If reprisal should be thought advisable, the address of
the House would have given an additional sanction
to a measure which would have been, indeed, justifiable without any other sanction than its own reason. But no. Nothing at all like it. In fact, the merit of
Sir Sydney Smith, and his claim on British compassion, was of a kind altogether different from that which interested so deeply the authors of the motion in favor of Citizen La Fayette. In my humble opinion,, Captain Sir Sydney Smith has another sort of merit
with the British nation, and something of a higher
claim on British humanity, than Citizen La Fayette.
Faithful, zealous, and ardent in the service of his king
and country, - full of spirit, - full of resources,
going out of the beaten road, but going right, because
his uncommon enterprise was not conducted by a vulgar judgment, -- in his profession Sir Sydney Smith might be considered as a distinguished person, if any
person could well be distinguished in a service inl
which scarce a commander can be named without:
putting you in mind of some action of intrepidity,
skill, and vigilance that has given them a fair title to
contend with any men and in- any age. But I will say
nothing farther of the merits of Sir Sydney Smith:
the mortal animosity of the Regicide enemy supersedes all other panegyric. Their hatred is a judgment. VOL. V. 26
? ? ? ? 402 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
in his favor without appeal. At present he is lodged
in the tower of the Temple, the last prison of Louis
the Sixteenth, and the last but one of Marie Antoinette of Austria, - the prison of Louis the Seventeeltl, - the prison of Elizabeth of Bourbon. There
he lies, unpitied by the grand philanthropy, to meditate upon the fate of those who are faithful to their
king and country. Whilst this prisoner, secluded from
ilntcrcourse, was indulging in these cheering reflections, he might possibly have had the further consolation of learning (by means of the insolent exultation
of his guards) that there was an English ambassador
at Paris; he might have had the proud comfort of
hearing that this ambassador had the honor of passing his mornings in respectful attendance at the office of a Regicide pettifogger, and that in the evening he relaxed in the almusements of the opera, and in the spectacle of an audience totally new, - an audience in which he had the pleasure of seeing about
him not a single face that he could formerly have
known in Paris, but, in the place of that company,
one indeed more than equal to it in display of gayety,
splendor, and luxury, - a set of abandoned wretches,
squandering in insolent riot the spoils of their bleeding country: a subject of profound reflection both to
the prisoner and to the ambassador.
Whether all the matter upon which I have grounded my opinion of this last party be fully authenticated or not must be left to those who have had the
opportunity of a nearer view of its conduct, and who
have been more attentive in their perusal of the writings which have appeared in its favor. But for my
part, I have never heard the gross facts on which I
ground my idea of their marked partiality to the
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 403
reigning tyranny in France in any part denied. I
am not surprised at all this. Opinions, as they sometimes follow, so they frequently guide and direct the
affections; and men may become more attached to
the country of their principles than to the country of
their birth. What I have stated here is only to mark
the spirit which seems to me, though in somewhat
different ways, to actuate our great party-leaders,
and to trace this first pattern of a negotiation to its
true source.
Such is the present state of our public councils.
Well might I be ashamed of what seems to be a censure of two great factions, with the two most eloquent men which this country ever saw at the head of them, if I had found that either of them could
support their conduct by any example in the history
of their country. I should very much prefer their
judgment to my own, if I were not obliged, by an
infinitely overbalancing weight of authority, to prefer the collected wisdom of ages to the abilities of
any two men living. -- I return to the Declaration,
with which the history of the abortion of a treaty
with the Regicides is closed.
After such an elaborate display had been made of
the injustice and insolence of an enemy who seems
to have been irritated by every one of the means
which had been commonly used with effect to soothe
the rage of intemperate power, the natural result
would be, that the scabbard in which we in vain
attempted to plunge our sword should have been
thrown away with scorn. It would have been natural, that, rising in the fulness of their might, insulted majesty, despised dignity, violated justice, rejected supplication, patience goaded into fury, would have
? ? ? ? 404 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
poured out all the length of the reins upon all the
wrath which they had so long restrained. It might
have been expected, that, emulous of the glory of the
youthful hero * in alliance with him, touched by the
example of what one man well formed and well
placed may do in the most desperate state of affairs, convinced there is a courage of the cabinet full as powerful and far less vulgar than that of
the field, our minister would have changed the whole
line of that unprosperous prudence which hitherto
had produced all the effects of the blindest temerity. If he found his situation full of danger, (and
I do not deny that it is perilous in the extreme,)
he must feel that it is also full of glory, and that
he is placed on a stage than which no muse of fire
that had ascended the highest heaven of invention
could imagine anything more awful and august. It
was hoped that in this swelling scene in which he
moved, with some of the first potentates of Europe
for his fellow-actors, and with so many of the rest for
the anxious spectators of a part which, as he plays
it, determines forever their destiny and his own, like
Ulysses in the unravelling point of the epic story,
he would have thrown off his patience and his rags
together, and, stripped of unworthy disguises, he
would have stood forth in the form and in the attitude of an hero. On that day it was thought he would have assumed the port of Mars; that he would
bid to be brought forth from their hideous kennel
(where his scrupulous tenderness had too long immured them) those impatient dogs of war whose fierce regards affright even the minister of vengeance that feeds them; that he would let them
* The Archduke Charles of Austria.
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 405
loose, in famine, fever, plagues, and death, upon a
guilty race, to whose frame, and to all whose habit,
order, peace, religion, and virtue are alien and abhorrent. It was expected that he would at last have
thought of active and effectual war; that he would
no longer amuse the British lion in the chase of mice
and rats; that he would no longer employ the whole
naval power of Great Britain, once the terror of the
world, to prey upon the miserable remains of a peddling commerce, which the enemy did not regard,
and from which none could profit. It was expected that he would have reasserted the justice of his
cause; that he would have reanimated whatever remained to him of his allies, and endeavored to recover those whom their fears had led astray; that he would have rekindled the martial ardor of his
citizens; that he would have held out to them the
example of their ancestry, the assertor of Europe,
and the scourge of French ambition; that he would
have reminded them of a posterity, which, if this
nefarious robbery, under the fraudulent name and
false color of a government, should in full power
be seated in the heart of Europe, must forever be
consigned to vice, impiety, barbarism, and the most
ignominious slavery of body and mind. In so holy
a cause it was presumed that he would (as in the
beginning of the war he did) have opened all the
temples, and with prayer, with fasting, and with supplication, (better directed than to the grim Moloch
of Regicide in France,) have called upon us to raise
that united cry which has so often stormed heaven,
and with a pious violence forced down blessings upon
a repentant people. It was hoped, that, when he. had
invoked upon his endeavors the favorable regard of
? ? ? ? 406 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
the Protector of the human race, it would be seen
that his menaces to the enemy and his prayers to the
Almighty were not followed, but accompanied, with
correspondent action. It was hoped that his shrilling trumpet should be heard, not to announce a show, but to sound a charge.
Such a conclusion to such a declaration and such
a speech would have been a thing of course,- so
much a thing of course, that I will be bold to say,
if in any ancient history, the Roman for instance,
(supposing that ill Romne the matter of such a detail could have been furnished,) a consul had gone through such a long train of proceedings, and that
there was a chasm in the manuscripts by which we
had lost the conclusion of the speech and the subsequent part of the narrative, all critics would agree that a Freinshemius would have been thought to
have managed the supplementary business of a continuator most unskilfully, and to have supplied the hiatus most improbably, if he had not filled up the
gaping space in a manner somewhat similar (though
better executed) to what I have imagined. But too
often different is rational conjecture from melancholy
fact. This exordiurn, as contrary to all the rules of
rhetoric as to those more essential rules of policy
which our situation would dictate, is intended as a
prelude to a deadening and disheartening proposition; as if all that a minister had to fear in a war of his own conducting was, that the people should pursue it with too ardent a zeal. Such a tone as I guessed the minister would have taken, I am very
sure, is the true, unsuborned, unsophisticated language of genuine, natural feeling, under the smart of patience exhausted and abused. Such a conduct as
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 407
the facts stated in the Declaration gave room to expect is that which true wisdom would have dictated under the impression of those genuine feelings.
Never was there a jar or discord between genuine
sentiment and sound policy. Never, no, never, did
Nature say one thing and Wisdom say another. Nor
are sentiments of elevation in themselves turgid and
unnatural. Nature is never more truly herself than
in her grandest forms. The Apollo of Belvedere (if
the universal robber has yet left him at Belvedere)
is as much in Nature as any figure from the pencil
of Rembrandt or any clown in the rustic revels of
Teniers. Indeed, it is when a great nation is in great
difficulties that minds must exalt themselves to the
occasion, or all is lost. Strong passion under the
direction of a feeble reason feeds a low fever, which
serves only to destroy the body that entertains it.
But vehement passion does not always indicate an
infirm judgment. It often accompanies, and actuates, and is even auxiliary to a powerful understanding; and when they both conspire and act harmoniously, their force is great to destroy disorder within and to repel injury from abroad. If ever there was
a time that calls on us for no vulgar conception of
things, and for exertions in no vulgar strain, it is the
awful hour that Providence has now appointed to this
nation. Every little measure is a great error, and
every great error will bring on no small ruin. Nothing can be directed above the mark that we must aim
at: everything below it is absolutely thrown away.
Except with the addition of the unheard-of insult
offered to our ambassador by his rude expulsion, we
are never to forget that the point on which the negotiation with De la Croix broke off was exactly that
? ? ? ? 408 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
which had stifled in its cradle the negotiation we had
attempted with Barthelemy. Each of these transactions concluded with a manifesto upon our part; but the last of our manifestoes very materially differed
from the first. The first Declaration stated, that
" nothing was left but to prosecute a war equally just
and necessary. " In the second the justice and necessity of the war is dropped: the sentence importing that nothing was left but the prosecution of such a
war disappears also. Instead of this resolution to
prosecute the war, we sink into a whining lamentation on the abrupt termination of the treaty. We have nothing left but the last resource of female
weakness, of helpless infancy, of doting decrepitude,
-wailing and lamentation. We cannot even utter
a sentiment of vigor; --" his Majesty has only to
lament. " A poor possession, to be left to a great
monarch! Mark the effect produced on our coullcils by continued insolence and inveterate hostility. We grow more malleable under their blows. In reverential silence we smother the cause and origin of the war. On that fundamental article of faith we
leave every one to abound in his own sense. In the
minister's speech, glossing on the Declaration, it is
indeed mentioned, but very feebly. The lines are
so faintly drawn as hardly to be traced. They only
make a part of our consolation in the circumstances
which we so dolefully lament. We rest our merits on the humility, the earnestness of solicitation,
and the perfect good faith of those submissions which
have been used to persuade our Regicide enemies
to grant us some sort of peace. Not a word is said
which might not have been full as well said, and
much better too, if the British nation had appeared
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 409
in the simple character of a penitent convinced of
his errors and offences, and offering, by penances, by
pilgrimages, and by all the modes of expiation ever
devised by anxious, restless guilt, to make all the
atonement in his miserable power.
The Declaration ends, as I have before quoted it,
with a solemn voluntary pledge, the most fuill and
the most solemn that ever was given, of our resolution (if so it may be called) to enter again into the
very same course. It requires nothing more of the
Regicides than to furnish some sort of excuse, some
sort of colorable pretext, for our renewing the supplications of innocence at the feet of guilt. It leaves
the moment of negotiation, a most important moment,
to the choice of the enemy. He is to regulate it according to the convenience of his affairs. He is to
bring it forward at that time when it may best serve
to establish his authority at home and to extend his
power abroad. A dangerous assurance for this nation to give, whether it is broken or whether it is
kept. As all treaty was broken off, and broken off in
the manner we have seen, the field of future conduct
ought to be reserved free and unincumbered to our
future discretion. As to the sort of condition prefixed to the pledge, namely, " that the enemy should
be disposed to enter into the work of general pacification with the spirit of reconciliation and equity,"
this phraseology cannot possibly be considered otherwise than as so many words thrown in to fill the sentence and to round it to the ear. We prefixed the same plausible conditions to any renewal of the negotiation, in our manifesto on the rejection of our
proposals at Basle. We did not consider those conditions as binding. We opened a much more serious
? ? ? ? 410 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
negotiation without any sort of regard to them; and
there is no new negotiation which we can possibly
open upon fewer indications of conciliation and equity
than were to be discovered when we entered into our
last at Paris. Any of the slightest pretences, any
of the most loose, formal, equivocating expressions,
would justify us, under the peroration of this piece,
in again sending the last or some other Lord Malmnesbury to Paris.
I hope I misunderstand this pledge, - or that we
shall show no more regard to it than we have done to
all the faith that we have plighted to vigor and resolution in our former Declaration. If I am to understand the conclusion of the Declaration to be what unfortunately it seems to me, we make an engagement with the enemy, without any correspondent
engagement on his side. We seem to have cut ourselves off from any benefit which an intermediate
state of things might furnish to enable us totally to
overturn that power, so little connected with moderation and justice. By holding out no hope, either to
the justly discontented in France, or to ally foreign
power, and leaving the recommencement of all treaty
to this identical junto of assassins, we do in effect
assure and guaranty to them the full possession of
the rich fruits of their confiscations, of their murders
of men, women, and children, and of all the multiplied, endless, nameless iniquities by which they
have obtained their power. We guaranty to them
the possession of a country, such and so situated
as France, round, entire, immensely perhaps augmented.
" Well," some will say, " in this case we have only
submitted to the nature of things. " The nature of
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 411
things is, I admit, a sturdy adversary. This might
be alleged as a plea for our attempt at a treaty. But
what plea of that kind can be alleged, after the treaty
was dead and gone, in favor of this posthumous Declaration? No necessity has driven us to that pledge.
It is without a counterpart even in expectation. And
what can be stated to obviate the evil which that solitary engagement must produce on the understandings
or the fears of men? I ask, what have the Regicides
promised you in return, in case you should show what
they would call dispositions to conciliation and equity,
whilst you are giving that pledge from the throne,
and engaging Parliament to counter-secure it? It is
an awful consideration. It was on the very day of
the date of this wonderful pledge,* in which we assumed the Directorial government as lawful, and in
which we engaged ourselves to treat with them whenever they pleased, - it was on that very day the Regicide fleet was weighing anchor from one of your harbors, where it had remained four days in perfect
quiet.
These harbors of the British dominions are
the ports of France. They are of no use but to protect an enemy from your best allies, the storms of
heaven and his own rashness. Had the West of
Ireland been an unportuous coast, the French naval
power would have been undone. The enemy uses
the moment for hostility, without the least regard to
your filture dispositions of equity and conciliation.
They go out of what were once your harbors, and
they return to them at their pleasure. Eleven days
they had the full use of Bantry Bay, and at length
their fleet returns from their harbor of Bantry to
their harbor of Brest. Whilst you are invoking the
* Dec. 27, 1796.
? ? ? ? 412 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
propitious spirit of Regicide equity and conciliation,
they answer you with an attack. They turn out
the pacific bearer of your "how do you dos," Lord
Malmesbury; and they return your visit, and their
"thanks for your obliging inquiries," by their old
practised assassin, Hoche. They come to attack --
what? A town, a fort, a naval station? They come
to attack your king, your Constitution, and the very
being of that Parliament which was holding out to
them these pledges, together with the entireness of
the empire, the laws, liberties, and properties of all
the people. We know that they meditated the very
same invasion, and for the very same purposes, upon
this kingdom, and, had the coast been as opportune,
would have effected it.
Whilst you are in vain torturing your invention to
assure them of your sincerity and good faith, they
have left no doubt concerning their good faith and
their sincerity towards those to whom they have engaged their honor. To their power they have been true to the only pledge they have ever yet given to
you, or to any of yours: I mean the solemn engagement which they entered into with the deputation of traitors who appeared at their bar, from England
and from Ireland, in 1792. They have been true
and faithful to the engagement which they had made
more largely, -- that is, their engagement to give
effectual aid to insurrection and treason, wherever
they might appear in the world. We have seen the
British Declaration. This is the counter Declaration
of the Directory. This is the reciprocal pledge which
Regicide amity gives to the conciliatory pledges of
kings. But, thank God, such pledges cannot exist
single. They have no counterpart; and if they had,
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 413
the enemy's conduct cancels such declarations,and, I trust, along with them, cancels everything of
mischief and dishonor that they contain.
There is one thing in this business which appears
to be wholly unaccountable, or accountable on a supposition I dare not entertain for a moment. I cannot help asking, Why all this pains to clear the British nation of ambition, perfidy, and the insatiate
thirst of war? At what period of time was it that
our country has deserved that load of infamy of
which nothing but preternatural humiliation in language and conduct can serve to clear us? If we
have deserved this kind of evil fame from anything
we have done in a state of prosperity, I am sure that
it is not an abject conduct in adversity that can clear
our reputation. Well is it known that ambition can
creep as well as soar. The pride of no person in a
flourishing condition is more justly to be dreaded
than that of him who is mean and cringing under a
doubtful and unprosperous fortune. But it seems it
was thought necessary to give some out-of-the-way
proofs of our sincerity, as well as of our freedom
from ambition. Is, then, fraud and falsehood become
the distinctive character of Englishmen? Whenever
your enemy chooses to accuse you of perfidy and ill
faith, will you put it into his power to throw you into the purgatory of self-humiliation? Is his charge
equal to the finding of the grand jury of Europe, and
sufficient to put you upon your trial? But on that
trial I will defend the English ministry. I am sorry
that on some points I have, on the principles I have
always opposed, so good a defence to make. They
were not the first to begin the war. They did not
excite the general confederacy in Europe, which was
? ? ? ? 414 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
so properly formed on the alarm given by the Jacobinism of France. They did not begin with an hostile aggression on the Regicides, or any of their allies. These parricides of their own country, disciplining
themselves for foreign by domestic violence, were
the first to attack a power that was our ally by nature, by habit, and by the sanction of multiplied
treaties. Is it not true that they were the first to
declare war upon this kingdom? Is every word in
the declaration from Downing Street concerning their
conduct, and concerning ours and that of our allies,
so obviously false that it is necessary to give sonme
new-invented proofs of our good faith in order to expunge the memory of all this perfidy?
We know that over-laboring a point of this kind
has the direct contrary effect from what we wish.
We know that there is a legal presumption against
men, quando se nimis purgitant; and if a charge of
ambition is not refuted by an affected humility, certainly the character of fraud and perfidy is still
less to be washed away by indications of meanness.
Fraud and prevarication are servile vices. They
sometimes grow out of the necessities, always out
of the habits, of slavish and degenerate spirits; and
on the theatre of the world, it is not by assuming the
mask of a Davus or a Geta that an actor will obtain
credit for manly simplicity and a liberal openness of
proceeding. It is an erect countenance, it is a firm
adherence to principle, it is a power of resisting false
shame and frivolous fear, that assert our good faith
and honor, and assure to us the confidence of man
kind. Therefore all these negotiations, and all the
declarations with which they were preceded and followed, can only serve to raise presumptions against
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 415
that good faith and public integrity the fame of which
to preserve inviolate is so much the interest and duty
of every nation.
The pledge is all engagement "to all Europe. "
This is the more extraordinary, because it is a pledge
which no power in Europe, whom I have yet heard
of, has thought proper to require at our hands. I
am not in the secrets of office, and therefore I may
be excused for proceeding upon probabilities and exterior indications. I have surveyed all Europe from the east to the west, from the north to the south, ill
search of this call upon us to purge ourselves of," subtle duplicity and a Punic style " in our proceedings. I have not heard that his Excellency the Ottoman
ambassador has expressed his doubts of the British
sincerity in our negotiation with the most unchristian
republic lately set up at our door. What sympathy
in that quarter may have introduced a remonstrance
upon the want of faith in this nation I cannot positively say. If it exists, it is in Turkish or Arabic,
and possibly is not yet translated. But none of the nations which compose the old Christian world have I yet heard as calling upon us for those judicial purgations and ordeals, by fire and water, which we have chosen to go through;- for the other great proof, by
battle, we seem to decline.
For whose use, entertainment, or instruction are
all those overstrained and overlabored proceedings in
council, in negotiation, and in speeches in Parliament
intended? What royal cabinet is to be enriched with
these high-finished pictures of the arrogance of the
sworn enemies of kings and the meek patience of a
British administration? In what heart is it intended
to kindle pity towards our multiplied mortifications
? ? ? ? 416 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
and disgraces? At best it is superfluous. What nation is unacquainted with the haughty disposition of
the common enemy of all nations? It has been more
than seen, it has been felt, -not only by those who
have been the victims of their imperious rapacity,
but, in a degree, by those very powers who have consented to establish this robbery, that they might be
able to copy it, and with impunity to make new usurpations of their own.
The King of Prussia has hypothecated in trust to
the Regicides his rich and fertile territories on the
Rhine, as a pledge of his zeal and affection to the
cause of liberty and equality. He has seen them
robbed with unbounded liberty and with the most levelling equality. The woods are wasted, the country
is ravaged, property is confiscated, and the people are
put to bear a double yoke, in the exactions of a tyrannical government and in the contributions of an hostile irruption. Is it to satisfy the Court of Berlin that the Court of London is to give the same sort of
pledge of its sincerity and good faith to the French
Directory? It is'not that heart full of sensibility, it
is not Lucchesini, the milister of his Prussian Majesty, the late ally of England, and the present ally of
its enemy, who has demanded this pledge of our sincerity, as the price of the renewal of the long lease
of his sincere friendship to this kingdom.
It is not to our enemy, the now faithful ally of
Regicide, late the faithful ally of Great Britain, the
Catholic king, that we address our doleful lamentation: it is not to the Prince of Peace, whose declaration of war was one of the first auspicious omens of general tranquillity, which our dove-like ambassador,
with the olive-branch in his beak, was saluted with at
his entrance into the ark of clean birds at Paris.
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 417
Surely it is not to the Tetrarch of Sardinia, now
the faithful ally of a power who has seized upon all
his fortresses and confiscated the oldest dominions of
his house, - it is not to this once powerful, once respected, and once cherished ally of Great Britain, that
we mean to prove the sincerity of the peace which we
offered to make at his expense. . Or is it to him we
are to prove the arrogance of the power who, under
the name of friend, oppresses him, and the poor remains of his subjects, with all the ferocity of the most
cruel enemy?
It is not to Holland, under the name of ain ally,.
laid under a permanent military contribution, filled,
with their double garrison of barbarous Jacobin troops'
and ten times more barbarous Jacobin clubs and assemblies, that we find ourselves obliged to give this
pledge.
Is it to Genoa that we make this kind promise, -
a state which the Regicides were to defend in a favorable neutrality, but whose neutrality has been, by the
gentle influence of Jacobin authority, forced into the
trammels of an alliance, -whose alliance has been
secured by the admission of French garrisons, - and
whose peace has been forever ratified by a forced declaration of war against ourselves?
It is not the Grand Duke of Tuscany who claims:
this declaration, -- not the Grand Duke, who for his
early sincerity, for his love of peace, and for his entire confidence in the amity of the assassins of his
house, has been complimented in the British Parliament with the name of " the wisest sovereign in Europe": it is not this pacific Solomon, or his philosophic, cudgelled ministry, cudgelled by English and by French, whose wisdom and philosophy between
VOL. V. 27
? ? ? ? 418 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
them have placed Leghorn in the hands of the ehiemy
of the Austrian family, and driven the only profitable commerce of Tuscany from its only port: it is
not this sovereign, a far more able statesman than
any of the Medici in whose chair he sits, it is not the
philosopher Carletti, more ably speculative than Galileo, imore profoundly politic than Machiavel, that
call upon us so loudly to give the same happy proofs
of the same good faith to the republic always the
same, always one and indivisible.
It is not Venice, whose principal cities the enemy
has appropriated to himself, and scornfully desired
the state to indemnify itself from the Emperor, that
we wish to convince of the pride and the despotism of
an enemy who loads us with his scoffs and buffets.
It is not for his Holiness we intend this consolatory declaration of our own weakness, and of the tyrannous temper of his grand enemy. That prince has known both the one and the other from the beginning. The artists of the French Revolution had given their very first essays and sketches of robbery and desolation against his territories, in a far more cruel
" murdering piece " than had ever entered into the
imagination of painter or poet. Without ceremony
they tore from his cherishing arms the possessions
which he held for five hundred years, undisturbed by
all the ambition of all the ambitious monarchs who
during that period have reigned in France. Is it to
him, in whose wrong we have in our late negotiation
ceded his now unhappy countries near the Rhone,
lately amongst the most flourishing (perhaps the
most flourishing for their extent) of all the countries
upon earth, that we are to prove the sincerity of our
resolution to make peace with the Republic of Bar
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 419
barism? That venerable potentate and pontiff is
sunk deep into the vale of years; he is half disarmed
by his peaceful character; his dominions are more
than half disarmed by a peace of two hundred years,
defended as they were, not by force, but by reverence: yet, in all these straits, we see him display,
amidst the recent ruins and the new defacements of
his plundered capital, along with the mild and decorated piety of the modern, all the spirit and magnanimity of ancient Rome. Does he, who, though himself unable to defend them, nobly refused to receive pecuniary compensations for the protection he
owed to his people of Avignon, Carpentras, and the
Venaissin, - does he want proofs of our good disposition to deliver over that people, without any security
for them, or any compensation to their sovereign, to
this cruel enemy? Does he want to be satisfied of
the sincerity of our humiliation to France, who has
seen his free, fertile, and happy city and state of
Bologna, the cradle of regenerated law, the seat of
sciences and of arts, so hideously metamorphosed,
whilst lie was crying to Great Britain for aid, and
offering to purchase that aid at any price? Is it
him, who sees that chosen spot of plenty and delight
converted into a Jacobin ferocious republic, dependent on the homicides of France, -- is it him, who,
from the miracles of his beneficent industry, has done
a work which defied the power of the Roman emperors, though with an enthralled world to labor for
them, - is it him, who has drained and cultivated the
Pontine Marshes, that we are to satisfy of our cordial
spirit of conciliation with those who, in their equity,
are restoring Holland again to the seas, whose maxims poison more than the exhalations of the most
? ? ? ? 420 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
deadly fens, and who turn all tile fertilities of Nature
and of Art into an howling desert? Is it to him that
we are to demonstrate the good faith of our submissions to the Cannibal Republic, -- to him, who is commanded to deliver up into their hands Ancona and Civita Vecchia, seats of commerce raised by the wise
and liberal labors and expenses of the present and late
pontiffs, ports not more belonging to the Ecclesiastical
State than to the commerce of Great Britain, thus
wresting from his hands the power of the keys of the
centre of Italy, as before they had taken possession of
the keys of the northern part from the hands of the
unhappy King of Sardinia, the natural ally of England? Is it to him we are to prove our good faith in
the peace which we are soliciting to receive from the
hands of his and our robbers, the enemies of all arts,
all sciences, all civilization, and all commerce?
Is it to the Cispadane or to the Transpadane republics, which have been forced to bow under the
galling yoke of French liberty, that we address all
these pledges of our sincerity and love of peace with
their unnatural parents?
Are we by this Declaration to satisfy the King of
Naples, whom we have left to struggle as he can,
after our abdication of Corsica, and the flight of the
whole naval force of England out of the whole circuit of the Mediterranean, abandoning our allies,
our commerce, and the honor of a nation once the
protectress of all other nations, because strengthened
by the independence and enriched by the commerce
of them all? By the express provisions of a recent
treaty, we had engaged with the King of Naples to
keep a naval force in the Mediterranean. But, good
God! was a treaty at all necessary for this? The
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 421
uniform policy of this kingdom as a state, and eminently sc as a commercial state, has at all times led us to keep a powerful squadron and a commodious
naval station in that central sea, which borders upon
and which connects a far greater number and variety of states, European, Asiatic, and African, than
any other. Without such a naval force, France
must become despotic mistress of that sea, and of
all the countries whose shores it washes. Our commerce must become vassal to her and dependent on her will. Since we are come no longer to trust to
our force in arms, but to our dexterity in negotiation, and begin to pay a desperate court to a proud
and coy usurpation, and have finally sent an ambassador to the Bourbon Regicides at Paris, the King
of Naples, who saw that no reliance was to be placed
on our engagements, or on anlly pledge of our adherence to our nearest and dearest interests, has been obliged to send his ambassador also to join the rest
of the squalid tribe of the representatives of degraded kings. This monarch, surely, does not want any proof of the sincerity of our amicable dispositions to
that amicable republic, into whose arms he has been
given by our desertion of him.
To look to the powers of the North. - It is not to
the Danish ambassador, insolently treated in his own
character and in ours. that we are to give proofs of
the Regicide arrogance, and of our disposition to
submit to it.
With regard to Sweden I cannot say much. The
French influence is struggling with her independence; and they who consider the manner in which
the ambassador of that power was treated not long
since at Paris, and the manner in which the father
? ? ? ? 122 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
of the present King of Sweden (himself the victim of
regicide principles and passions) would have looked
onI the present assassins of France, will not be very
prompt to believe that the young King of Sweden
has made this kind of requisition to the King of
Great Britain, and has given this kind of auspice of
his new government.
I speak last of the most important of all. It certainly was not the late Empress of Russia at whose
ilnstance we have given this pledge. It is not the
new Emperor, the inheritor of so much glory, and
placed in a situation of so much delicacy and difficulty for the preservation of that inheritance, who calls
on England, the natural ally of his domillions, to deprive herself of her power of action, and to bind herself to Franlce. France at no time, and in none of its fashions, least of all in its last, has been ever
looked upon as the friend either of Russia or of
Great Britain. Everything good, I trust, is to be
expected from this prince, - whatever may be without authority given out of an influence over his mind
possessed by that only potentate from whom he has
anything to apprehend or with whom he has much
even to discuss.
This sovereign knows, I have no doubt, and feels,
on what sort of bottom is to be laid the foundation
of a Russian throne. He knows what a rock of native granite is to form the pedestal of his statue who
is to emulate Peter the Great. His renown will be
ill continuing with ease and safety what his predecessor was obliged to achieve through mighty struggles.
He is sensible that his business is not to innovate,
out to secure and to establish, -- that reformations
at this day are attempts at best of ambiguous utility.
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 423
He will revere his father with the piety of a son, but
in his government he will imitate the policy of his
mother. His father, with many excellent qualities.
had a short reign, -because, being a native Russian,
he was unfortunately advised to act in the spirit of
a foreigner. His mother reigned over Russia threeand-thirty years with the greatest glory, - because,
with the disadvantage of being a foreigner born, she
made herself a Russian. A wise prince like the present will improve his country; but it will be cautiously and progressively, upon its own native groundwork of religion, manners, habitudes, and alliances. If I
prognosticate right, it is not the Emperor of Russia
that ever will call for extravagant proofs of our desire to reconcile ourselves to the irreconcilable enemy
of all thrones.
I do -not know why I should not include America
among the European powers,- because she is of European origin, and has not yet, like France, destroyed
all traces of manners, laws, opinions, and usages
which she drew from Europe. As long as that Europe shall have any possessions either in the southern
or the northern parts of that America, even separated
as it is by the ocean, it must be considered as a part
of the European system. It is not America, menaced
with internal ruin from the attempts to plant Jacobinism instead of liberty in that country, - it is not
America, whose independence is directly attacked by
the French, the enemies of the independence of all
nations, that calls upon us to give security by disarming ourselves in a treacherous peace. By such
a peace, we shall deliver the Americans, their liberty, and their order, without resource, to the mercy
of their imperious allies, who will have peace or neu
? ? ? ? 424 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
trality with no state which is not ready to join her
in war against England.
Having run round the whole circle of the Euro.
pean system, wherever it acts, I must affirm that all
the foreign powers who are not leagued with France
for the utter destruction of all balance through Europe and throughout the world demand other assurances from this kingdom than are given in that Declaration. They require assurances, not of the
sincerity of our good dispositions towards the usurpation in France, but of our affection towards the
college of the ancient states of Europe, and pledges
of our constancy, our fidelity, and of our fortitude
in resisting to the last the power that menaces them
all. The apprehension from which they wish to be
delivered cannot be from anything they dread in
the ambition of England. Our power must be their
strength. They hope more from us than they fear.
I am sure the only ground of their hope, and of our
hope, is in the greatness of mind hitherto shown by
the people of this nation, and its adherence to the
unalterable principles of its ancient policy, whatever
government may finally prevail in France. I have
entered into this detail of the wishes and expectations of the European powers, in order to point out
more clearly not so much what their disposition as
(a consideration of far greater importance) what
their situation demands, according as that situation
is related to the Regicide Republic and to this kingdom.
Then, if it is not to satisfy the foreign powers we
make this assurance, to what power at home is it
that we pay all this humiliating court? Not to the
old Whigs or to the ancient Tories of this kingdom,
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 425
-if any memory of such ancient divisions still exists amongst us.
