Nor is it every contribution, called voluntary, which
is according to the free will of the giver.
is according to the free will of the giver.
Edmund Burke
447
could be more fair than to lay open to an enemy all
that you wished to obtain, and the price you meant
to pay for it, and to desire him to imitate your ilgenuous proceeding, and in the same manner to open his
honest heart to you? Here was no want of fair dealing, but there was too evidently a fault of another
kind: there was much weakness, -there was an eager and impotent desire of associating with this unsocial power, and of attempting the connection by any means. however manifestly feeble and ineffectual.
The event was committed to chance, --that is, to
such a manifestation of tile desire of France for peace
as would induce the Directory to forget the advantages they had in the system of barter. Accordingly,
the general desire for such a peace was triumphantly reported from the moment that Lord Malmesbury
had set his foot on shore at Calais.
It has been said that the Directory was compelled
against its will to accept the basis of barter (as if that
had tended to accelerate the work of pacification! )
by the voice of all France. Had this been the case,
the Directors would have continued to listen to that
voice to which it seems they were so obedient: they
would have proceeded with the negotiation upon that
basis. But the fact is, that they instantly broke up
the negotiation, as soon as they had obliged our ambassador to violate all the principles of treaty, and
weakly, rashly, and unguardedly to expose, without
any counter proposition, the whole of our project
with regard to ourselves and our allies, and without
holding out the smallest hope that they would admit
the smallest part of our pretensions.
When they had thus drawn from us all that they
could draw out, they expelled Lord Malmesbury, and
? ? ? ? 448 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
they appealed, for the propriety of their conduct, to
that very France which we thought proper to suppose
had driven them to this fine concession: and I do not
find that in either division of the family of thieves,
the younger branch, or the elder, or in any other
body whatsoever, there was any indignation excited,
or any tumult raised, or anything like the virulence
of opposition which was shown to the king's ministers
here, on account of that transaction.
Notwithstanding all this, it seems a hope is still entertained that the Directory will have that tenderness
for the carcass of their country, by whose very distemper, and on whose festering wounds, like vermin,
they are fed, that these pious patriots will of themselves come into a more moderate and reasonable way
of thinking and acting. In the name of wonder,
what has inspired our ministry with this hope any
more than with their former expectations?
Do these hopes only arise from continual disappointment? Do they grow out of the usual grounds
of despair? What is there to encourage them, in the
conduct or even in the declarations of the ruling powers in France, from the first formation of their mischievous republic to the hour in which I write? Is not the Directory composed of the same junto? . Are
they not the identical men who, from the base and
sordid vices which belonged to their original place
and situation, aspired to the dignity of crimes, - and
from the dirtiest, lowest, most fraudulent, and most
knavish of chicaners, ascended in the scale of robbery,
sacrilege, and assassination in all its forms, till at last
they had imbrued their impious hands in the blood
of their sovereign? Is it from these men that we are
to hope for this paternal tenderness to their country,
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 449
and this sacred regard for the peace and happiness of
all nations?
But it seems there is still another lurking hope,
akin to that which duped us so egregiously before,
when our delightful basis was accepted: we still
flatter ourselves that the public voice of France will
compel this Directory to more moderation. Whence
does this hope arise? What public voice is there ill
France? There are, indeed, some writers, who, since
this monster of a Directory has obtained a great, regular, military force to guard them, are indulged in a
sufficient liberty of writing; and some of them write
well, undoubtedly. But the world knows that int
France there is no public, -that the country is&
composed but of two descriptions, audacious tyrants.
and trembling slaves. The contests between the tyrants is the only vital principle that can be discerned
in France. The only thing which there appears like
spirit is amongst their late associates, and fastest
friends of the Directory, - the more furious and
untamable part of the Jacobins. This discontented
member of the faction does almost balance the reigning divisions, and it threatens every moment to predominate. For the present, however, the dread of their fury forms some sort of security to their fellows,
who now exercise' a more regular and therefore a
somewhat less ferocious tyranny. Most of the slaves
choose a quiet, however reluctant, submission to those
who. are somewhat satiated with blood, and who, like
wolves, are a little more tame from being a little less
hungry, in preference to an irruption of the famished
devourers who are prowling and howling about the
fold.
This circumstance assures some degree of perma --
VOL. V. 29
? ? ? ? 450 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEAtE.
nence to the power of those whom we know to be
permanently our rancorous and implacable enemies.
But to those very enemies who have sworn our destruction we have ourselves given a further and far
better security, by rendering the cause of the royalists desperate. Those brave and virtuous, but unfortunate adherents to the ancient Constitution of their country, after the miserable slaughters which
have been made in that body, after all their losses
by emigration, are still numerous, but unable to exert themselves against the force of the usurpation
evidently countenanced and upheld by those very
princes who had called them to arm for the support
of the legal monarchy. Where, then, after chasing
these fleeting hopes of ours from point to point of the
political horizon; are they at last really found? Not
where, under Providence, the hopes of Englishmen
used to be placed, in our own courage and in our
own virtues, but in the moderation and virtue' of the
most atrocious monsters that have ever disgraced
and plagued mankind.
The only excuse to be made for all our mendicant diplomacy is the same as in the case of all
other mendicancy, namely, that it has been founded
on absolute necessity. This deserves consideration.
Necessity, as it has no law, so it has no shame. But
moral necessity is not like metaphysical, or even
physical. In that category it is a word of loose signification, and conveys different ideas to different minds.
To the low-minded, the slightest necessity becomes
an invincible necessity. "The slothful man saith,
There is a lion in the way, and I shall be devoured in
the streets. " But when the necessity pleaded is not
in the nature of things, but in the vices of him who
? ? ? ? LETTER J[I. 451
alleges it, the whining tones of commonplace beggarly rhetoric produce nothing but indignationl: because they indicate a desire of keeping up a dishonorable
existence, without utility to others, and without dignity to itself; because they aim at obtaining the dues of labor without industry, and by frauds would draw
from the compassion of others what men ought to owe
to their own spirit and their own exertions.
I am thoroughly satisfied, that, if we degrade curselves, it is the degradation which will subject us to
the yoke of necessity, and not that it is necessity
which has brought on our degradation. In this same
chaos, where light and darkness are struggling together, the open subscription of last year, with all
its circumstances, must have given us no little glimmering of hope: not (as I have heard it was vainly discoursed) that the loan could prove a crutch to a
lame negotiation abroad, and that the whiff and wind
of it must at once have disposed the enemies of all
tranquillity to a desire for peace. Judging on the
face of facts, if on them it had any effect at all, it had
the direct contrary effect; for very soon after the
loan became public at Paris, the negotiation ended,
and our ambassador was ignominiously expelled. My
view of this was different: I liked the loan, not from
the influence which it might have on the enemy, but
on account of the temper which it indicated in our
own people. This alone is a consideration of any
importance; because all calculation formed upon a
supposed relation of the habitudes of others to our
own, under the present circumstances, is weak and
fallacious. The adversary must be judged, not by
what we are, or by what we wish him to be, but by
what we must know he actually is: unless we choose
? ? ? ? 452 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
to shut our eyes and our ears to the uniform tenor of
all his discourses, and to his uniform course in all
his actions. We may be deluded; but we cannot
pretend that we have been disappointed. The old
rule of Ne te qucesiveris extra is a precept as available in policy as it is in morals. Let us leave off
speculating upon the disposition and the wants of the
enemy. Let us descend into our own bosoms; let
us ask ourselves what are our duties, and what are
our means of discharging them. In what heart are
you at home? How far may an English minister
confide in the affections, in the confidence, in the
force of an English people? Wlat does he find us,
when lie puts us to the proof of what English interest
and English honor demand? It is as furnishing an
answer to these questions that I consider the circumstances of the loan. The effect on the enemy is not
in what he may speculate on our resources, but in
what he shall feel from our arms.
The circumstances of the loan have proved beyond
a doubt three capital points, which, if they are properly used, may be advantageous to the future liberty
and happiness of mankind. In the first place, the
loan demonstrates, in regard to instrumental resources, the competency of this kingdom to the assertion of the common cause, and to the maintenance and superintendence of that which it is its duty and
its glory to hold and to watch over, --the balance
of power throughout the Christian world. Secondly,
it brings to light what, under the most discouraging
appearances, I always reckoned on: that, with its
ancient physical force, not only unimpaired, but augmented, its ancient spirit is still alive in the British
nation. It proves that for their application there is
? ? ? ? . LETTER III. 453
a spirit equal to the resources, for its energy above
them. It proves that there exists, though not always
visible, a spirit which never fails to come forth, whenever it is ritually invoked, -- a spirit which will give
no equivocal response, but such as will hearten the
timidity and fix the irresolution of hesitating prudence,- a spirit which will be ready to perform all
the tasks that shall be imposed upon it by public honlor. Thirdly, the loan displays an abundant confidence in his Majesty's government, as administered by his present servants, in the prosecution of a war
which the people consider, not as a war made on the
suggestion of ministers, and to answer the purposes
of the ambition or pride of statesmen, but as a war
of their own, and in defence of that very property
which they expend for its support,-a war for that
order of things from which everything valuable that
they possess is derived, and in which order alone it
can possibly be maintained.
I hear, in derogation of the value of the fact from
which I draw inferences so favorable to the spirit of
the people and to its just expectation from ministers,
that the eighteen million loan is to be considered in
no other light than as taking advantage of a very
lucrative bargain held out to the subscribers. I do
not in truth believe it. All the circumstances which
attended the subscription strongly spoke a different
language. Be it, however, as these detractors say.
This with me derogates little, or rather nothing at all,
from the political value and importance of the fact.
I should be very sorry, if the transaction was not such
a bargain; otherwise it would not have been a fair
one. A corrupt and improvident loan, like everything else corrupt or prodigal, cannot be too much
? ? ? ? 454 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
condemned; but there is a short-sighted parsimony
still more fatal than an unforeseeing expense. The
value of money must be judged, like everything else,
from its rate at market. To force that market, or
any market, is of all things the most dangerous. For
a small temporary benefit, the spring of all public
credit might be relaxed forever. The moneyed menl
have a right to look to advantage in the investment
of their property. To advance their money, they risk
it; and the risk is to be included in the price. If
they were to incur a loss, that loss would amount to
a tax on that peculiar species of property. In effect,
it would be the most unjust and impolitic of all
things, -- unequal taxation. It would throw upon
one description of persons in the community that
burden which ought by fair and equitable distributionl to rest upon the whole. None on account of their dignity should be exempt; none (preserving
due proportion) on account of the scantiness of their
means. The moment a man is exempted from the
maintenance of the community, he is in a sort separated from it, - he loses the place of a citizen.
So it is in all taxation. But in a bargain, when
terms of loss are looked for by the borrower from the
lender, compulsion, or what virtually is compulsion,
introduces itself into the place of treaty. When compulsion may be at all used by a state in borrowing the occasion must determine. But the compulsion
ought to be known, and well defined, and well distinlguished; for otherwise treaty only weakens the elergy of compulsion, while compulsion destroys the
freedom of a bargain. The advantage of both is lost
by thle confusion of things in their nature utterly ulnsociable. It would be to introduce compulsion into
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 455
that in which freedom and existence are the same: I
mean credit. The moment that shame or fear or
force are directly or indirectly applied to a loan, credit perishes.
There must be some impulse, besides public spirit,
to put private interest into motion along with it.
Moneyed men ought to be allowed to set a value on
their money: if they did not, there could be no moneyed men. This desire of accumulation is a principle without which the means of their service to the state could not exist. The love of lucre, though
sometimes carried to a ridiculous, sometimes to a
vicious excess, is the grand cause of prosperity to all
states. In this natural, this reasonable, this powerful,
this prolific principle, it is for the satirist to expose
the ridiculous,- it is for the moralist to censure the
vicious,- it is for the sympathetic heart to reprobate
the hard and cruel, -it is for the judge to animadvert on the fraud, the extortion, and the oppression;
but it is for the statesman to employ it as he finds it,
with all its concomitant excellencies, with all its imperfections on its head. It is his part, in this case, as
it is in all other cases, where he is to make use of
the general energies of Nature, to take them as he
finds them.
After all, it is a great mistake to imagine, as too
commonly, almost indeed generally, it is imagined,
that the public borrower and the private lender are
two adverse parties, with different and contending
interests, and that what is given to the one is wholly
taken from the other. Constituted as our system of
finance and taxation is, the interests of the contracting
parties cannot well be separated, whatever they may
reciprocally intend. He who is the hard lender of to
? ? ? ? 456 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
day to-morrow is the generous contributor to his own
payment. For example, the last loan is raised on
public taxes, which are designed to produce annually
two millions sterling. At first view, this is an annuity of two millions dead charge upon the public in favor of certain moneyed men; but inspect the thing more nearly, follow the stream in its meanders, and
you will find that there is a good deal of fallacy in
this state of things.
I take it, that whoever considers any man's expenditure of his income, old or new, (I speak of certain
classes in life,) will find a full third of it to go in
taxes, direct or indirect. If so, this new-created income of two millions will probably furnish 665,0001.
(I avoid broken numbers) towards the payment of
its own interest, or to the sinking of its own capital. So it is with the whole of the public debt. Suppose it any given sum, it is a fallacious estimate of the affairs of a nation to consider it as a mere burden. To a degree it is so without question, but not
wholly so, nor anything like it. If the income from
the interest be spent, the above proportion returns
again into the public stock; insomuch that, taking
the interest of the whole debt to be twelve million
three hundred thousand pound, (it is something
more,) not less than a sum of four million one hundred thousand pound comes back again to the public
through the channel of imposition. If the whole
or any part of that income be saved, so much new
capital is generated, - the infallible operation of
which is to lower the value of money, and consequently to conduce towards the improvement of public credit.
I take the expenditure of the capitalist, not the
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 457
value of the capital, as my standard; because it is
the standard upon which, amongst us, property, as
an object of taxation, is rated. Inll this country, land
and offices only excepted, we raise no faculty tax.
We preserve the faculty from the expense. Our
taxes, for the far greater portion, fly over the heads
of the lowest classes. They escape too, who, with
better ability, voluntarily subject themselves to the
harsh discipline of a rigid necessity. With us, labor
and frugality, the parents of riches, are spared, and
wisely too. The moment men cease to augment the
common stock, the moment they no longer enrich it
by their industry or their self-denial, their luxury
and even their ease are obliged to pay contribution
to the public; not because they are vicious principles, but because they are unproductive; If, in fact, the interest paid by the public had not thus revolved
again into its own fund, if this secretion had not
again been absorbed into the mass of blood, it would
have been impossible for the nation to have existed
to this time under such a debt. But under the debt
it does exist and flourish; and this flourishing state
of existence in no small degree is owing to the contribution from the debt to the payment. Whatever, therefore, is taken from that capital by too close a
bargain is but a delusive advantage: it is so much
lost to the public in another way. This matter cannot, on the one side or the other, be metaphysically pursued to the extreme; but it is a consideration
of which, in all discussions of this kind, we ought
never wholly to lose sight.
It is never, therefore, wise to quarrel with the interested views of men, whilst they are combined with the public interest and promote it: it is our business
? ? ? ? 458 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
to tie the knot, if possible, closer. Resources that are
derived from extraordinary virtues, as such virtues
are rare, so they must be unproductive. It is a good
thing for a moneyed man to pledge his property on
the welfare of his country: he shows that he places
his treasure where his heart is; and revolving in
this circle, we know, that, "wherever a man's treasure is, there his heart will be also. " For these reasons, and on these principles, I have been sorry to see the attempts which have been made, with more
good meaning than foresight and consideration, towards raising the annual interest of this loan by private contributions. Wherever a regular revenue is established, there voluntary contribution can answer
no purpose but to disorder and disturb it in its
course. To recur to such aids is, for so much, to
dissolve the community, and to return to a state
of unconnected Nature. And even if such a supply
should be productive in a degree commensurate to
its object, it must also be productive of much vexation and much oppression. Either the citizens by
the proposed duties pay their proportion according
to some rate made by public authority, or they do
not. If the law be well made, and the contributions
founded on just proportions, everything superadded
by something that is not as regular as law, and as
uniform in its operation, will become more or less
out of proportion. If, on the contrary, the law be
not made upon proper calculation, it is a disgrace
to the public wisdom, which fails in skill to assess
the citizen in just measure and according to his
means. But the hand of authority is not always the
most heavy hand. It is obvious that men may be
oppressed by many ways besides those which take
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 459
their course from the supreme power of the state.
Suppose the payment to be wholly discretionary.
Whatever has its origin in caprice is sure not to
improve in its progress, nor to end in reason. It is
impossible for each private individual to have ally
measure conformable to the particular condition of
each of his fellow-citizens, or to the general exigencies of his country. 'T is a random shot at best.
When men proceed in this irregular mode, the
first contributor is apt to grow peevish with his neighbors. He is but too well disposed to measure their
means by his own envy, and not by the real state of
their fortunes, which he can rarely know, and which
it may in them be an act of the grossest imprudence
to reveal. Hence the odium and lassitude with which
people will look upon a provision for the public which
is bought by discord at the expense of social quiet,
Hence the bitter heart-burnings, and the war of
tongues, which is so often the prelude to other wars.
Nor is it every contribution, called voluntary, which
is according to the free will of the giver. A false
shame, or a false glory, against his feelings and his
judgment, may tax an individual to the detriment
of his family and in wrong of his creditors. A pretence of public spirit may disable him from the performance of his private duties; it may disable him even from paying the legitimate contributions which
he is to furnish according to the prescript of law.
But what is the most dangerous of all is that malignant disposition to which this mode of contribution
evidently tends, and which at length leaves the comparatively indigent to judge of the wealth, and to
prescribe to the opulent, or those whom they conceive to be such, the use they are to make of their
? ? ? ? 460 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
fortunes. From thence it is but one step to the subversion of all property.
Far, very far, am I from supposing that such
things enter into the purposes of those excellent persons whose zeal hasled them to this kind of measure; but the measure itself will lead them beyond their intention, and what is begun with the best designs bad men will perversely improve to the worst
of their purposes. An ill-founded plausibility in
great affairs is a real evil. In France we have seen
the wickedest and most foolish of men, the constitution-mongers of 1789, pursuing this very course, and
ending in this very event. These projectors of deception set on foot two modes of voluntary contribution
to the state. The first they called patriotic gifts.
These, for the greater part, were not more ridiculous
in the mode than contemptible in the project. The
other, which they called the patriotic contribution,
was expected to amount to a fourth of the fortunes
of individuals, but at their own will and on their
own estimate; but this contribution threatening to
fall infinitely short of their hopes, they soon made
it compulsory, both in the rate and in the levy, beginning in fraud, and ending, as all the frauds of
power end, in plain violence. All these devices to
produce an involuntary will were under the pretext
of relieving the more indigent classes; but the priiiciple of voluntary contribution, however delusive, being once established, these lower classes first, and then all classes, were encouraged to throw off the
regular, methodical payments to the state, as so
many badges of slavery. Tllus all regular revenue
failing, these impostors, raising thel superstructure on
the same cheats with whichl tlhey had laid tile founda
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 461
tion of their greatness, and not content with a portion of the possessions of the rich, confiscated the
whole, and, to prevent them from reclaiming their
rights, murdered the proprietors. The whole of the
process has passed before our eyes, and been conducted, indeed, with a greater degree of rapidity
than could be expected.
AMy opinion, then, is, that public contributions
ought only to be raised by the public will. By the
judicious form of our Constitution, the public contribution is in its name and substance a grant. In
its origin it is truly voluntary: not voluntary according to the irregular, unsteady, capricious will of individuals, but according to the will and wisdom of
the whole popular mass, in the only way in which
will and wisdom Call go together. This voluntary
grant obtaining in its progress the force of a law,
a general necessity, which takes away all merit, and
consequently all jealousy from individuals, compresses, equalizes, and satisfies the whole, suffering no man to judge of his neighbor or to arrogate anything to
himself. If their will complies with their obligation,
the great end is answered in the happiest mode;
if the will resists the burden, every one loses a great
part of his own will as a common lot. After all,
perhaps, contributions raised by a charge on luxury, or that degree of convenience which approaches
so near as to be confounded with luxury, is the only mode of contribution which may be with truth
termed voluntary.
I might rest here, and take the loan I speak of as
leading to a solution of that question which I proposed in my first letter: " Whether the inability of
the country to prosecute the war did necessitate a
? ? ? ? 462 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
submission to the indignities and the'calamities of
a peace with the Regicide power? " But give me
leave to pursue this point a little further.
I know that it has been a cry usual on this occasion, as it has been upon occasions where such a cry could have less apparent justification, that great distress and misery have been the consequence of this war, by the burdens brought and laid upon the people. But to know where the burden really lies,
and where it presses, we must divide the people.
As to the common people, their stock is in their persons and in their earnings. I deny that the stock of their persons is diminished in a greater proportion
than the common sources of populousness abundantly
fill up: I mean constant employment; proportioned
pay according to the produce of the soil, and, where
the soil fails, according to the operation of the general capital; plentiful nourishment to vigorous labor; comfortable provision to decrepit age, to orphan infancy, and to accidental malady. I say nothing to
the policy of the provision for the poor, in all the variety of faces under which it presents itself. This is the matter of another inquiry. I only just speak of
it as of a fact, taken with others, to support me in my
denial that hitherto any one of the ordinary sources
of the increase of mankind is dried up by this war.
I affirm, what I can well prove, that the waste has
been less than the supply. To say that in war no
man must be killed is to say that there ought to be no
war. This they may say who wish to talk idly, and
who would display their humanity at the expense of
their honesty or their understanding. If more lives
are lost in this war than necessity requires, they are
lost by misconduct or mistake; but if the hostility be
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 463
just, the error is to be corrected, the war is not to be
abandoned.
That the stock of the common people, in numbers,
is not lessened, any more than the causes are impaired, is manifest, without being at the pains of an
actual numeration. An improved and improving
agriculture, which implies a great augmentation of
labor, has not yet found itself at a stand, no, not for
a single moment, for want of the necessary hands,
either in the settled progress of husbandry or il the
occasional pressure of harvests. I have even reason
to believe that there has been a much smaller importation, or the demand of it, from a neighboring kingdom, than in former times, when agriculture was more limited in its extent and its means, and when
the time was a season of profound peace. On the
contrary, the prolific fertility of country life has
poured its superfluity of population into the canals,
and into other public works, which of late years have
been undertaken to so amazing an extent, and which
have not only not been discontinued, but, beyond all
expectation, pushed on with redoubled vigor, in a war
that calls for so many of our men and so much of our
riches. An increasing capital calls for labor, and all
increasing population answers to the call. Our manufactures, augmented both for the supply of foreign
and domestic consumption, reproducing, with the
means of life, the multitudes which they use and
waste, (and which many of them devour much more
surely and much more largely than the war,) have
always found the laborious hand ready for the liberal
pay. That the price of the soldier is highly raised
is true. In part this rise may be owing to some
measures not so well considered in the beginning of
? ? ? ? 464 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
this war; but the grand cause has been the reluctance of that class of people front whom the soldiery is taken to enter into a military life, - not that, but,
once entered into, it has its conveniences, and even
its pleasures. I have seldom known a soldier who,
at the intercession of his friends, and at their no
small charge, had been redeemed from that discipline, that in a short time was not eager to return to it again. But the true reason is the abundant occupation and the augmented stipend found in towns and villages and farms, which leaves a smaller
number of persons to be disposed of. The price of
men for new and untried ways of life must bear a
proportion to the profits of that mode of existence
from whence they are to be bought.
So far as to the stock of the common people, as it
consists in their persons. As to the other part, which
consists in their earnings, I have to say, that the rates
of wages are very greatly augmented almost through
the kingdom. In the parish where I live it has been
raised from seven to nine shillings in the -week, for
the same laborer, performing the same task, and no
greater. Except something in the malt taxes and
the duties upon sugars, I do not know any one tax
imposed for very many years past which affects the
laborer in any degree whatsoever; while, on the
other hand, the tax upon houses not having more
than seven windows (that is, upon cottages) was
repealed the very year before the commencement of
the present war. Onl the whole, I am satisfied that
the humblest class, and that class which touches the
most nearly on the lowest, out of which it is conltinually emerging, and to which it is continually falling, receives far more from public impositions than it pays.
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 465
That class receives two million sterling annually from
the classes above it. It pays to no such amount towards any public contribution.
I hope it is not necessary for me to take notice of
that language, so ill suited to the persons to whom it
has been attributed, and so unbecoming the place in
which it is said to have been uttered, concerning the
present war as the cause of the high price of provisions during the greater part of the year 1796. 1 presume it is only to be ascribed to the intolerable
license with which the newspapers break not only
the rules of decorum in real life, but even the dramatic decorum, when they personate great men, and,, like bad poets, make the heroes of the piece talk more
like us Grub-Street scribblers than in a style consonant to persons of gravity and importance in the state. It was easy to demonstrate the cause, and'
the sole cause, of that rise in the grand article and
first necessary of life. It would appear that it had
no more connection with the war than the moderate
price to which all sorts of grain were reduced, soon
after the return of Lord Malmesbury, had with the
state of politics and the fate of his Lordship's treaty.
I have quite as good reason (that is, no reason at all),
to attribute this abundance to the longer continuance
of the war as the gentlemen who personate leading:
members of Parliament have had for giving the en --
hanced price to that war, at a more early period of
its duration. Oh, the folly of us poor creatures, who,
in the midst of our distresses or our escapes, are ready
to claw or caress one another, upon matters that so
seldom depend on our wisdom or our weakness, on
our good or evil conduct towards each other!
An untimely shower or an unseasonable drought,
VOL. V. 30
? ? ? ? 466 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
a frost too long continued or too suddenly broken up
with rain and tempest, the blight of the spring or the
smut of the harvest will do more to cause the distress
of the belly than all the contrivances of all statesmen
can do to relieve it. Let government protect and encourage industry, secure property, repress violence, and discountenance fraud, it is all that they have to
do. In other respects, the less they meddle in these
affairs, the better; the rest is in the hands of our
Master and theirs. We are in a constitution of things
wherein " modo sol nimius, modo corripit imber. " --
But I will push this matter no further. As I have
said a good deal upon it at various times during my
public service, and have lately written something on
it, which may yet see the light, I shall content myself
now with observing that. the vigorous and laborious
class of life has lately got, from the bon-ton of the humanity of this day, the name of the " laboring poor. " We have heard many plans for the relief of the " laboring poor. " This puling jargon is not as innocent
as it is foolish. In meddling with great affairs, weakness is never innoxious. Hitherto the name of poor
(in the sense in which it is used to excite compassion)
has not been used for those who can, but for those
who cannot labor, --for the sick and infirm, for orphan infancy, for languishing and decrepit age; but when we affect to pity, as poor, those who must labor
or the world cannot exist, we are trifling with the condition of mankind. It is the common doom of man, that he must eat his bread by the sweat of his brow,
-that is, by the sweat of his body or the sweat of his
mind. If this toil was inflicted as a curse, it is, as
might be expected, from the curses of the Father of
all blessings; it is tempered with many alleviations,
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 467
many comforts. Every attempt to fly from it, and to
refuse the very terms of our existence, becomes much
more truly a curse; and heavier pains and penalties
fall upon those who would elude the tasks which are
put upon them by the great Master Workman of the
world, who, in His dealings with His creatures, sympathizes with their weakness, and, speaking of a creation
wrought by mere will out of nothing, speaks of six
days of labor and one of rest. I do not call a healthy
young man, cheerful in his mind and vigorous in his
arms, I cannot call such a man poor; I cannot pity
my kind as a kind, merely because they are men.
This affected pity only tends to dissatisfy them with
their condition, and to teach them to seek resources
where no resources are to be found, in something else
than their own industry and frugality and sobriety.
Whatever may be the intention (which, because I do
not know, I cannot dispute) of those who would discontent mankind by this strange pity, they act towards us, in the consequences, as if they were our worst enemies.
In turning our view from the lower to the higher
classes, it will not be necessary for me to show at any
length that the stock of the latter, as it consists in
their numbers, has not yet suffered any material
diminution. I have not seen or heard it asserted;
I have no reason to believe it: there is no want of
officers, that I have ever understood, for the new
ships which we commission, or the new regiments
which we raise. In the nature of things, it is not
with their persons that the higher classes principally
pay their contingent to the demands of war. There
is another, and not less important part, which rests
with almost exclusive weight upon them. They fuirnish the means
? ? ? ? 468 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE. "how War may, best upheld,
Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, In all her equipage. "
Not that they are exempt from contributing also by their personal service in the fleets and armies of their country. They do contribute, and in their full and
fair proportion, according to the relative proportion of their numbers in the community. They contribute
all the mind that actuates the whole machine. The
fortitude required of them is very different from the
unthinking alacrity of the common soldier or common sailor in the face of danger and death: it is not
a passion, it is not an impulse, it is not a sentiment;
it is a cool, steady, deliberate principle, always present, always equable, - having no connection with
anger, - tempering honor with prudence, -- incited,
invigorated, and sustained by a generous love of
fame, -informed, moderated, and directed by an
enlarged knowledge of its own great public ends, --
flowing in one blended stream from the opposite
sources of the heart and the head, -- carrying in itself its own commission, and proving its title to every other command by the first and most difficult command, that of the bosom in which it resides: it
is a fortitude which unites with the courage of the
field the more exalted and refined courage of the
council, --which knows as well to retreat as to advance, -- which can conquer as well by delay as by
the rapidity of a march or the impetuosity of an at
tack, - which can be, with Fabius, the brack cloud
that lowers on the tops of the mountains, or, with
Scipio, the thunderbolt of war, --which, undismayed
by false shame, can patiently endure the severest
trial that a gallant spirit call undergo, in the taunts
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 469
and provocations of the enemy, the suspicions, the
cold respect, and "mouth honor" of those from
whom it should meet a cheerful obedience, --which,
undisturbed by false humanity, can calmly assume
that most awful moral responsibility of deciding when
victory may be too dearly purchased by the loss of a
single life, and when the safety and glory of their
country may demand the certain sacrifice of thousands. Different stations of command may call for
different modifications of this fortitude, but the character ought to be the same in all. And never, in the
most "palmy state" of our martial renown, did it
shine with brighter lustre than in the present san'
guinary and ferocious hostilities, wherever the British arms have been carried. But in this most arduous and momentous conflict, which from its nature
should have roused us to new and unexampled efforts, I know not how it has been that we have never
put forth half the strength which we have exerted
in ordinary wars. In the fatal battles which have
drenched the Continent with blood and shaken the
system of Europe to pieces, we have never had any
considerable army, of a magnitude to be compared
to the least of those by which in former times we so
gloriously asserted our place as protectors, not oppressors, at the head of the great commonwealth of
Europe. We have never manfully met the danger il
front; and when the enemy, resigning to us our natural dominion of the ocean, and abandoning the defence of his distant possessions to the infernal eiergy of the destroying principles which he had planted there for the subversion of the neighboring colonies,
drove forth, by one sweeping law of unprecedented
despotism, his armed multitudes on every side, to
? ? ? ? 470 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
overwhelm the countries and states which had for
centuries stood the firm barriers against the ambition of France, we drew back the arm of our military force, which had never been more than half
raised to oppose him. From that time we have been
combating only with the other arm of our naval power, -the right arm of England, I admit,-but which
struck almost unresisted, with blows that could never
reach the heart of the hostile mischief. From that
time, without a single effort to regain those outworks
which ever till now we so strenuously maintained, as
the strong frontier of our own dignity and safety no
less than the liberties of Europe,- with but one feeble attempt to succor those brave, faithful, and numerous allies, whom, for the first time since the days of our Edwards and Henrys, we now have in the
bosom of France itself, -- we have been intrenching
and fortifying and garrisoning ourselves at home, we
have been redoubling security on security to protect
ourselves from invasion, which has now first become
to us a serious object of alarm and terror. Alas!
the few of us who have protracted life in any measure near to the extreme limits of our short period
have been condemned to see strange things, - new
systems of policy, new principles, and not only new
men, but what might appear a new species of men.
I believe that any person who was of age to take a
part in public affairs forty years ago (if the intermediate space of time were expunged from his memory)
would hardly credit his senses, when he should hear
from the highest authority that an army of two hundred thousand men was kept up in this island, and
that in the neighboring island there were at least
fourscore thousand more. But when he had recov
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 471
ered from his surprise on being told of this army,
which has not its parallel, what must be his astonishment to be told again that this mighty force was
kept up for the mere purpose of an inert and passive defence, and that in its far greater part it was
disabled by its constitution and very essence from
defending us against an enemy by any one preventive stroke or any one operation of active hostility?
What must his reflections be, on learning further,
that a fleet of five hundred men of war, the best appointed, and to the full as ably commanded as this
country ever had upon the sea, was for the greater
part employed in carrying on the same system of
unenterprising defence? What must be the sentiments and feelings of one who remembers the former energy of England, when he is given to understand that these two islands, with their extensive and everywhere vulnerable coast, should be considered as a garrisoned sea-town? What would such
a man, what would any man think, if the. garrison
of so strange a fortress should be such, and so feebly
commanded, as never to make a sally, -- and that,
contrary to all which has hitherto been seen in war,
an infinitely inferior army, with the shattered relics
of an almost annihilated navy, ill-found and illmanned, may with safety besiege this superior garrison, and, without hazarding the life of a man, ruin
the place, merely by the menaces and false appearances of an attack? Indeed, indeed, my dear friend,
I look upon this matter of our defensive system as
much the most important of all considerations at
this moment. It has oppressed me with many anxious thoughts, which, more than any bodily distemper, have sunk me to the condition in which you
? ? ? ? 472 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
know that I am. Should it please Providence tc
restore to me even the late' weak remains of my
strength, I propose to make this matter the subject
of a particular discussion. I only mean here to ar
gue, that the mode of conducting the war on our
part, be it good or bad, has prevented even the comlmon havoc of war in our population, and especially
among that class whose duty and privilege of superiority it is to lead the way amidst the perils and
slaughter of the field of battle.
The other causes which sometimes affect the numbers of the lower classes, but which I have shown not
to have existed to any such degree during this war,
-- penury, cold, hunger, nakedness, -- do not easily
reach the higher orders of society. I do not dread
for them the slightest taste of these calamities from
the distress and pressure of the war. They have
much more to dread in that way from the confiscations, the rapines, the burnings, and the massacres that may follow in the train of a peace which
shall establish the devastating and depopulating principles and example of the French Regicides in security and triumph and dominion. Ill the ordinary
course of human affairs, any check to population
among men in ease and opulence is less to be apprehended from what they may suffer than from
what they enjoy. Peace is more likely to be injurious to them in that respect than war. The excesses of delicacy, repose, and satiety are as unfavorable as the extremes of hardship, toil, and want to the increase and multiplication of our kind. I1ndeed, the abuse of the bounties of Nature, much
more surely than any partial privation of them,
tends to intercept that precious boon of a second
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 473
and dearer life in our progeny, which was bestowed
in the first great command to man from the All-Gracious Giver of all,- whose name be blessed, whether He gives or takes away! His hand, in every page
of His book, has written the lesson of moderation.
Our physical well-being, our moral worth, our social
happiness, our political tranquillity, all depend on
that control of all our appetites and passions which
the ancients designed by the cardinal virtue of temperance.
The only real question to our present purpose,
with regard to the higher classes, is, How stands the
account of their stock, as it consists in wealth of
every description? Have the burdens of the war
compelled them to curtail any part of their former
expenditure? --which, I have before observed, affords the only standard of estimating property as
an object of taxation. Do they enjoy all the same
conveniences, the same comforts, the same elegancies, the same luxuries, in the same or in as many different modes as they did before the war?
In the last eleven years there have been no less
than three solemn inquiries into the finances of
the kingdom, by three different committees of your
House. The first was in the year 1786. On that
occasion, I remember, the report of the committee
was examined, and sifted and bolted to the bran, by
a gentleman whose keen and powerful talents I have
ever admired. He thought there was not sufficient
evidence to warrant the pleasing representation which
the committee had made of our national prosperity.
He did not believe that our public revenue could
continue to be so productive as they had assumed.
He even went the length of recording his own inferences of doubt in a set of resolutions which now
? ? ? ? 474 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
stand upon your journals. And perhaps the retrospect on which the report proceeded did not go far
enough back to allow any sure and satisfactory average for a ground of solid calculation. But what was
the event?
could be more fair than to lay open to an enemy all
that you wished to obtain, and the price you meant
to pay for it, and to desire him to imitate your ilgenuous proceeding, and in the same manner to open his
honest heart to you? Here was no want of fair dealing, but there was too evidently a fault of another
kind: there was much weakness, -there was an eager and impotent desire of associating with this unsocial power, and of attempting the connection by any means. however manifestly feeble and ineffectual.
The event was committed to chance, --that is, to
such a manifestation of tile desire of France for peace
as would induce the Directory to forget the advantages they had in the system of barter. Accordingly,
the general desire for such a peace was triumphantly reported from the moment that Lord Malmesbury
had set his foot on shore at Calais.
It has been said that the Directory was compelled
against its will to accept the basis of barter (as if that
had tended to accelerate the work of pacification! )
by the voice of all France. Had this been the case,
the Directors would have continued to listen to that
voice to which it seems they were so obedient: they
would have proceeded with the negotiation upon that
basis. But the fact is, that they instantly broke up
the negotiation, as soon as they had obliged our ambassador to violate all the principles of treaty, and
weakly, rashly, and unguardedly to expose, without
any counter proposition, the whole of our project
with regard to ourselves and our allies, and without
holding out the smallest hope that they would admit
the smallest part of our pretensions.
When they had thus drawn from us all that they
could draw out, they expelled Lord Malmesbury, and
? ? ? ? 448 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
they appealed, for the propriety of their conduct, to
that very France which we thought proper to suppose
had driven them to this fine concession: and I do not
find that in either division of the family of thieves,
the younger branch, or the elder, or in any other
body whatsoever, there was any indignation excited,
or any tumult raised, or anything like the virulence
of opposition which was shown to the king's ministers
here, on account of that transaction.
Notwithstanding all this, it seems a hope is still entertained that the Directory will have that tenderness
for the carcass of their country, by whose very distemper, and on whose festering wounds, like vermin,
they are fed, that these pious patriots will of themselves come into a more moderate and reasonable way
of thinking and acting. In the name of wonder,
what has inspired our ministry with this hope any
more than with their former expectations?
Do these hopes only arise from continual disappointment? Do they grow out of the usual grounds
of despair? What is there to encourage them, in the
conduct or even in the declarations of the ruling powers in France, from the first formation of their mischievous republic to the hour in which I write? Is not the Directory composed of the same junto? . Are
they not the identical men who, from the base and
sordid vices which belonged to their original place
and situation, aspired to the dignity of crimes, - and
from the dirtiest, lowest, most fraudulent, and most
knavish of chicaners, ascended in the scale of robbery,
sacrilege, and assassination in all its forms, till at last
they had imbrued their impious hands in the blood
of their sovereign? Is it from these men that we are
to hope for this paternal tenderness to their country,
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 449
and this sacred regard for the peace and happiness of
all nations?
But it seems there is still another lurking hope,
akin to that which duped us so egregiously before,
when our delightful basis was accepted: we still
flatter ourselves that the public voice of France will
compel this Directory to more moderation. Whence
does this hope arise? What public voice is there ill
France? There are, indeed, some writers, who, since
this monster of a Directory has obtained a great, regular, military force to guard them, are indulged in a
sufficient liberty of writing; and some of them write
well, undoubtedly. But the world knows that int
France there is no public, -that the country is&
composed but of two descriptions, audacious tyrants.
and trembling slaves. The contests between the tyrants is the only vital principle that can be discerned
in France. The only thing which there appears like
spirit is amongst their late associates, and fastest
friends of the Directory, - the more furious and
untamable part of the Jacobins. This discontented
member of the faction does almost balance the reigning divisions, and it threatens every moment to predominate. For the present, however, the dread of their fury forms some sort of security to their fellows,
who now exercise' a more regular and therefore a
somewhat less ferocious tyranny. Most of the slaves
choose a quiet, however reluctant, submission to those
who. are somewhat satiated with blood, and who, like
wolves, are a little more tame from being a little less
hungry, in preference to an irruption of the famished
devourers who are prowling and howling about the
fold.
This circumstance assures some degree of perma --
VOL. V. 29
? ? ? ? 450 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEAtE.
nence to the power of those whom we know to be
permanently our rancorous and implacable enemies.
But to those very enemies who have sworn our destruction we have ourselves given a further and far
better security, by rendering the cause of the royalists desperate. Those brave and virtuous, but unfortunate adherents to the ancient Constitution of their country, after the miserable slaughters which
have been made in that body, after all their losses
by emigration, are still numerous, but unable to exert themselves against the force of the usurpation
evidently countenanced and upheld by those very
princes who had called them to arm for the support
of the legal monarchy. Where, then, after chasing
these fleeting hopes of ours from point to point of the
political horizon; are they at last really found? Not
where, under Providence, the hopes of Englishmen
used to be placed, in our own courage and in our
own virtues, but in the moderation and virtue' of the
most atrocious monsters that have ever disgraced
and plagued mankind.
The only excuse to be made for all our mendicant diplomacy is the same as in the case of all
other mendicancy, namely, that it has been founded
on absolute necessity. This deserves consideration.
Necessity, as it has no law, so it has no shame. But
moral necessity is not like metaphysical, or even
physical. In that category it is a word of loose signification, and conveys different ideas to different minds.
To the low-minded, the slightest necessity becomes
an invincible necessity. "The slothful man saith,
There is a lion in the way, and I shall be devoured in
the streets. " But when the necessity pleaded is not
in the nature of things, but in the vices of him who
? ? ? ? LETTER J[I. 451
alleges it, the whining tones of commonplace beggarly rhetoric produce nothing but indignationl: because they indicate a desire of keeping up a dishonorable
existence, without utility to others, and without dignity to itself; because they aim at obtaining the dues of labor without industry, and by frauds would draw
from the compassion of others what men ought to owe
to their own spirit and their own exertions.
I am thoroughly satisfied, that, if we degrade curselves, it is the degradation which will subject us to
the yoke of necessity, and not that it is necessity
which has brought on our degradation. In this same
chaos, where light and darkness are struggling together, the open subscription of last year, with all
its circumstances, must have given us no little glimmering of hope: not (as I have heard it was vainly discoursed) that the loan could prove a crutch to a
lame negotiation abroad, and that the whiff and wind
of it must at once have disposed the enemies of all
tranquillity to a desire for peace. Judging on the
face of facts, if on them it had any effect at all, it had
the direct contrary effect; for very soon after the
loan became public at Paris, the negotiation ended,
and our ambassador was ignominiously expelled. My
view of this was different: I liked the loan, not from
the influence which it might have on the enemy, but
on account of the temper which it indicated in our
own people. This alone is a consideration of any
importance; because all calculation formed upon a
supposed relation of the habitudes of others to our
own, under the present circumstances, is weak and
fallacious. The adversary must be judged, not by
what we are, or by what we wish him to be, but by
what we must know he actually is: unless we choose
? ? ? ? 452 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
to shut our eyes and our ears to the uniform tenor of
all his discourses, and to his uniform course in all
his actions. We may be deluded; but we cannot
pretend that we have been disappointed. The old
rule of Ne te qucesiveris extra is a precept as available in policy as it is in morals. Let us leave off
speculating upon the disposition and the wants of the
enemy. Let us descend into our own bosoms; let
us ask ourselves what are our duties, and what are
our means of discharging them. In what heart are
you at home? How far may an English minister
confide in the affections, in the confidence, in the
force of an English people? Wlat does he find us,
when lie puts us to the proof of what English interest
and English honor demand? It is as furnishing an
answer to these questions that I consider the circumstances of the loan. The effect on the enemy is not
in what he may speculate on our resources, but in
what he shall feel from our arms.
The circumstances of the loan have proved beyond
a doubt three capital points, which, if they are properly used, may be advantageous to the future liberty
and happiness of mankind. In the first place, the
loan demonstrates, in regard to instrumental resources, the competency of this kingdom to the assertion of the common cause, and to the maintenance and superintendence of that which it is its duty and
its glory to hold and to watch over, --the balance
of power throughout the Christian world. Secondly,
it brings to light what, under the most discouraging
appearances, I always reckoned on: that, with its
ancient physical force, not only unimpaired, but augmented, its ancient spirit is still alive in the British
nation. It proves that for their application there is
? ? ? ? . LETTER III. 453
a spirit equal to the resources, for its energy above
them. It proves that there exists, though not always
visible, a spirit which never fails to come forth, whenever it is ritually invoked, -- a spirit which will give
no equivocal response, but such as will hearten the
timidity and fix the irresolution of hesitating prudence,- a spirit which will be ready to perform all
the tasks that shall be imposed upon it by public honlor. Thirdly, the loan displays an abundant confidence in his Majesty's government, as administered by his present servants, in the prosecution of a war
which the people consider, not as a war made on the
suggestion of ministers, and to answer the purposes
of the ambition or pride of statesmen, but as a war
of their own, and in defence of that very property
which they expend for its support,-a war for that
order of things from which everything valuable that
they possess is derived, and in which order alone it
can possibly be maintained.
I hear, in derogation of the value of the fact from
which I draw inferences so favorable to the spirit of
the people and to its just expectation from ministers,
that the eighteen million loan is to be considered in
no other light than as taking advantage of a very
lucrative bargain held out to the subscribers. I do
not in truth believe it. All the circumstances which
attended the subscription strongly spoke a different
language. Be it, however, as these detractors say.
This with me derogates little, or rather nothing at all,
from the political value and importance of the fact.
I should be very sorry, if the transaction was not such
a bargain; otherwise it would not have been a fair
one. A corrupt and improvident loan, like everything else corrupt or prodigal, cannot be too much
? ? ? ? 454 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
condemned; but there is a short-sighted parsimony
still more fatal than an unforeseeing expense. The
value of money must be judged, like everything else,
from its rate at market. To force that market, or
any market, is of all things the most dangerous. For
a small temporary benefit, the spring of all public
credit might be relaxed forever. The moneyed menl
have a right to look to advantage in the investment
of their property. To advance their money, they risk
it; and the risk is to be included in the price. If
they were to incur a loss, that loss would amount to
a tax on that peculiar species of property. In effect,
it would be the most unjust and impolitic of all
things, -- unequal taxation. It would throw upon
one description of persons in the community that
burden which ought by fair and equitable distributionl to rest upon the whole. None on account of their dignity should be exempt; none (preserving
due proportion) on account of the scantiness of their
means. The moment a man is exempted from the
maintenance of the community, he is in a sort separated from it, - he loses the place of a citizen.
So it is in all taxation. But in a bargain, when
terms of loss are looked for by the borrower from the
lender, compulsion, or what virtually is compulsion,
introduces itself into the place of treaty. When compulsion may be at all used by a state in borrowing the occasion must determine. But the compulsion
ought to be known, and well defined, and well distinlguished; for otherwise treaty only weakens the elergy of compulsion, while compulsion destroys the
freedom of a bargain. The advantage of both is lost
by thle confusion of things in their nature utterly ulnsociable. It would be to introduce compulsion into
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 455
that in which freedom and existence are the same: I
mean credit. The moment that shame or fear or
force are directly or indirectly applied to a loan, credit perishes.
There must be some impulse, besides public spirit,
to put private interest into motion along with it.
Moneyed men ought to be allowed to set a value on
their money: if they did not, there could be no moneyed men. This desire of accumulation is a principle without which the means of their service to the state could not exist. The love of lucre, though
sometimes carried to a ridiculous, sometimes to a
vicious excess, is the grand cause of prosperity to all
states. In this natural, this reasonable, this powerful,
this prolific principle, it is for the satirist to expose
the ridiculous,- it is for the moralist to censure the
vicious,- it is for the sympathetic heart to reprobate
the hard and cruel, -it is for the judge to animadvert on the fraud, the extortion, and the oppression;
but it is for the statesman to employ it as he finds it,
with all its concomitant excellencies, with all its imperfections on its head. It is his part, in this case, as
it is in all other cases, where he is to make use of
the general energies of Nature, to take them as he
finds them.
After all, it is a great mistake to imagine, as too
commonly, almost indeed generally, it is imagined,
that the public borrower and the private lender are
two adverse parties, with different and contending
interests, and that what is given to the one is wholly
taken from the other. Constituted as our system of
finance and taxation is, the interests of the contracting
parties cannot well be separated, whatever they may
reciprocally intend. He who is the hard lender of to
? ? ? ? 456 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
day to-morrow is the generous contributor to his own
payment. For example, the last loan is raised on
public taxes, which are designed to produce annually
two millions sterling. At first view, this is an annuity of two millions dead charge upon the public in favor of certain moneyed men; but inspect the thing more nearly, follow the stream in its meanders, and
you will find that there is a good deal of fallacy in
this state of things.
I take it, that whoever considers any man's expenditure of his income, old or new, (I speak of certain
classes in life,) will find a full third of it to go in
taxes, direct or indirect. If so, this new-created income of two millions will probably furnish 665,0001.
(I avoid broken numbers) towards the payment of
its own interest, or to the sinking of its own capital. So it is with the whole of the public debt. Suppose it any given sum, it is a fallacious estimate of the affairs of a nation to consider it as a mere burden. To a degree it is so without question, but not
wholly so, nor anything like it. If the income from
the interest be spent, the above proportion returns
again into the public stock; insomuch that, taking
the interest of the whole debt to be twelve million
three hundred thousand pound, (it is something
more,) not less than a sum of four million one hundred thousand pound comes back again to the public
through the channel of imposition. If the whole
or any part of that income be saved, so much new
capital is generated, - the infallible operation of
which is to lower the value of money, and consequently to conduce towards the improvement of public credit.
I take the expenditure of the capitalist, not the
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 457
value of the capital, as my standard; because it is
the standard upon which, amongst us, property, as
an object of taxation, is rated. Inll this country, land
and offices only excepted, we raise no faculty tax.
We preserve the faculty from the expense. Our
taxes, for the far greater portion, fly over the heads
of the lowest classes. They escape too, who, with
better ability, voluntarily subject themselves to the
harsh discipline of a rigid necessity. With us, labor
and frugality, the parents of riches, are spared, and
wisely too. The moment men cease to augment the
common stock, the moment they no longer enrich it
by their industry or their self-denial, their luxury
and even their ease are obliged to pay contribution
to the public; not because they are vicious principles, but because they are unproductive; If, in fact, the interest paid by the public had not thus revolved
again into its own fund, if this secretion had not
again been absorbed into the mass of blood, it would
have been impossible for the nation to have existed
to this time under such a debt. But under the debt
it does exist and flourish; and this flourishing state
of existence in no small degree is owing to the contribution from the debt to the payment. Whatever, therefore, is taken from that capital by too close a
bargain is but a delusive advantage: it is so much
lost to the public in another way. This matter cannot, on the one side or the other, be metaphysically pursued to the extreme; but it is a consideration
of which, in all discussions of this kind, we ought
never wholly to lose sight.
It is never, therefore, wise to quarrel with the interested views of men, whilst they are combined with the public interest and promote it: it is our business
? ? ? ? 458 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
to tie the knot, if possible, closer. Resources that are
derived from extraordinary virtues, as such virtues
are rare, so they must be unproductive. It is a good
thing for a moneyed man to pledge his property on
the welfare of his country: he shows that he places
his treasure where his heart is; and revolving in
this circle, we know, that, "wherever a man's treasure is, there his heart will be also. " For these reasons, and on these principles, I have been sorry to see the attempts which have been made, with more
good meaning than foresight and consideration, towards raising the annual interest of this loan by private contributions. Wherever a regular revenue is established, there voluntary contribution can answer
no purpose but to disorder and disturb it in its
course. To recur to such aids is, for so much, to
dissolve the community, and to return to a state
of unconnected Nature. And even if such a supply
should be productive in a degree commensurate to
its object, it must also be productive of much vexation and much oppression. Either the citizens by
the proposed duties pay their proportion according
to some rate made by public authority, or they do
not. If the law be well made, and the contributions
founded on just proportions, everything superadded
by something that is not as regular as law, and as
uniform in its operation, will become more or less
out of proportion. If, on the contrary, the law be
not made upon proper calculation, it is a disgrace
to the public wisdom, which fails in skill to assess
the citizen in just measure and according to his
means. But the hand of authority is not always the
most heavy hand. It is obvious that men may be
oppressed by many ways besides those which take
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 459
their course from the supreme power of the state.
Suppose the payment to be wholly discretionary.
Whatever has its origin in caprice is sure not to
improve in its progress, nor to end in reason. It is
impossible for each private individual to have ally
measure conformable to the particular condition of
each of his fellow-citizens, or to the general exigencies of his country. 'T is a random shot at best.
When men proceed in this irregular mode, the
first contributor is apt to grow peevish with his neighbors. He is but too well disposed to measure their
means by his own envy, and not by the real state of
their fortunes, which he can rarely know, and which
it may in them be an act of the grossest imprudence
to reveal. Hence the odium and lassitude with which
people will look upon a provision for the public which
is bought by discord at the expense of social quiet,
Hence the bitter heart-burnings, and the war of
tongues, which is so often the prelude to other wars.
Nor is it every contribution, called voluntary, which
is according to the free will of the giver. A false
shame, or a false glory, against his feelings and his
judgment, may tax an individual to the detriment
of his family and in wrong of his creditors. A pretence of public spirit may disable him from the performance of his private duties; it may disable him even from paying the legitimate contributions which
he is to furnish according to the prescript of law.
But what is the most dangerous of all is that malignant disposition to which this mode of contribution
evidently tends, and which at length leaves the comparatively indigent to judge of the wealth, and to
prescribe to the opulent, or those whom they conceive to be such, the use they are to make of their
? ? ? ? 460 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
fortunes. From thence it is but one step to the subversion of all property.
Far, very far, am I from supposing that such
things enter into the purposes of those excellent persons whose zeal hasled them to this kind of measure; but the measure itself will lead them beyond their intention, and what is begun with the best designs bad men will perversely improve to the worst
of their purposes. An ill-founded plausibility in
great affairs is a real evil. In France we have seen
the wickedest and most foolish of men, the constitution-mongers of 1789, pursuing this very course, and
ending in this very event. These projectors of deception set on foot two modes of voluntary contribution
to the state. The first they called patriotic gifts.
These, for the greater part, were not more ridiculous
in the mode than contemptible in the project. The
other, which they called the patriotic contribution,
was expected to amount to a fourth of the fortunes
of individuals, but at their own will and on their
own estimate; but this contribution threatening to
fall infinitely short of their hopes, they soon made
it compulsory, both in the rate and in the levy, beginning in fraud, and ending, as all the frauds of
power end, in plain violence. All these devices to
produce an involuntary will were under the pretext
of relieving the more indigent classes; but the priiiciple of voluntary contribution, however delusive, being once established, these lower classes first, and then all classes, were encouraged to throw off the
regular, methodical payments to the state, as so
many badges of slavery. Tllus all regular revenue
failing, these impostors, raising thel superstructure on
the same cheats with whichl tlhey had laid tile founda
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 461
tion of their greatness, and not content with a portion of the possessions of the rich, confiscated the
whole, and, to prevent them from reclaiming their
rights, murdered the proprietors. The whole of the
process has passed before our eyes, and been conducted, indeed, with a greater degree of rapidity
than could be expected.
AMy opinion, then, is, that public contributions
ought only to be raised by the public will. By the
judicious form of our Constitution, the public contribution is in its name and substance a grant. In
its origin it is truly voluntary: not voluntary according to the irregular, unsteady, capricious will of individuals, but according to the will and wisdom of
the whole popular mass, in the only way in which
will and wisdom Call go together. This voluntary
grant obtaining in its progress the force of a law,
a general necessity, which takes away all merit, and
consequently all jealousy from individuals, compresses, equalizes, and satisfies the whole, suffering no man to judge of his neighbor or to arrogate anything to
himself. If their will complies with their obligation,
the great end is answered in the happiest mode;
if the will resists the burden, every one loses a great
part of his own will as a common lot. After all,
perhaps, contributions raised by a charge on luxury, or that degree of convenience which approaches
so near as to be confounded with luxury, is the only mode of contribution which may be with truth
termed voluntary.
I might rest here, and take the loan I speak of as
leading to a solution of that question which I proposed in my first letter: " Whether the inability of
the country to prosecute the war did necessitate a
? ? ? ? 462 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
submission to the indignities and the'calamities of
a peace with the Regicide power? " But give me
leave to pursue this point a little further.
I know that it has been a cry usual on this occasion, as it has been upon occasions where such a cry could have less apparent justification, that great distress and misery have been the consequence of this war, by the burdens brought and laid upon the people. But to know where the burden really lies,
and where it presses, we must divide the people.
As to the common people, their stock is in their persons and in their earnings. I deny that the stock of their persons is diminished in a greater proportion
than the common sources of populousness abundantly
fill up: I mean constant employment; proportioned
pay according to the produce of the soil, and, where
the soil fails, according to the operation of the general capital; plentiful nourishment to vigorous labor; comfortable provision to decrepit age, to orphan infancy, and to accidental malady. I say nothing to
the policy of the provision for the poor, in all the variety of faces under which it presents itself. This is the matter of another inquiry. I only just speak of
it as of a fact, taken with others, to support me in my
denial that hitherto any one of the ordinary sources
of the increase of mankind is dried up by this war.
I affirm, what I can well prove, that the waste has
been less than the supply. To say that in war no
man must be killed is to say that there ought to be no
war. This they may say who wish to talk idly, and
who would display their humanity at the expense of
their honesty or their understanding. If more lives
are lost in this war than necessity requires, they are
lost by misconduct or mistake; but if the hostility be
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 463
just, the error is to be corrected, the war is not to be
abandoned.
That the stock of the common people, in numbers,
is not lessened, any more than the causes are impaired, is manifest, without being at the pains of an
actual numeration. An improved and improving
agriculture, which implies a great augmentation of
labor, has not yet found itself at a stand, no, not for
a single moment, for want of the necessary hands,
either in the settled progress of husbandry or il the
occasional pressure of harvests. I have even reason
to believe that there has been a much smaller importation, or the demand of it, from a neighboring kingdom, than in former times, when agriculture was more limited in its extent and its means, and when
the time was a season of profound peace. On the
contrary, the prolific fertility of country life has
poured its superfluity of population into the canals,
and into other public works, which of late years have
been undertaken to so amazing an extent, and which
have not only not been discontinued, but, beyond all
expectation, pushed on with redoubled vigor, in a war
that calls for so many of our men and so much of our
riches. An increasing capital calls for labor, and all
increasing population answers to the call. Our manufactures, augmented both for the supply of foreign
and domestic consumption, reproducing, with the
means of life, the multitudes which they use and
waste, (and which many of them devour much more
surely and much more largely than the war,) have
always found the laborious hand ready for the liberal
pay. That the price of the soldier is highly raised
is true. In part this rise may be owing to some
measures not so well considered in the beginning of
? ? ? ? 464 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
this war; but the grand cause has been the reluctance of that class of people front whom the soldiery is taken to enter into a military life, - not that, but,
once entered into, it has its conveniences, and even
its pleasures. I have seldom known a soldier who,
at the intercession of his friends, and at their no
small charge, had been redeemed from that discipline, that in a short time was not eager to return to it again. But the true reason is the abundant occupation and the augmented stipend found in towns and villages and farms, which leaves a smaller
number of persons to be disposed of. The price of
men for new and untried ways of life must bear a
proportion to the profits of that mode of existence
from whence they are to be bought.
So far as to the stock of the common people, as it
consists in their persons. As to the other part, which
consists in their earnings, I have to say, that the rates
of wages are very greatly augmented almost through
the kingdom. In the parish where I live it has been
raised from seven to nine shillings in the -week, for
the same laborer, performing the same task, and no
greater. Except something in the malt taxes and
the duties upon sugars, I do not know any one tax
imposed for very many years past which affects the
laborer in any degree whatsoever; while, on the
other hand, the tax upon houses not having more
than seven windows (that is, upon cottages) was
repealed the very year before the commencement of
the present war. Onl the whole, I am satisfied that
the humblest class, and that class which touches the
most nearly on the lowest, out of which it is conltinually emerging, and to which it is continually falling, receives far more from public impositions than it pays.
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 465
That class receives two million sterling annually from
the classes above it. It pays to no such amount towards any public contribution.
I hope it is not necessary for me to take notice of
that language, so ill suited to the persons to whom it
has been attributed, and so unbecoming the place in
which it is said to have been uttered, concerning the
present war as the cause of the high price of provisions during the greater part of the year 1796. 1 presume it is only to be ascribed to the intolerable
license with which the newspapers break not only
the rules of decorum in real life, but even the dramatic decorum, when they personate great men, and,, like bad poets, make the heroes of the piece talk more
like us Grub-Street scribblers than in a style consonant to persons of gravity and importance in the state. It was easy to demonstrate the cause, and'
the sole cause, of that rise in the grand article and
first necessary of life. It would appear that it had
no more connection with the war than the moderate
price to which all sorts of grain were reduced, soon
after the return of Lord Malmesbury, had with the
state of politics and the fate of his Lordship's treaty.
I have quite as good reason (that is, no reason at all),
to attribute this abundance to the longer continuance
of the war as the gentlemen who personate leading:
members of Parliament have had for giving the en --
hanced price to that war, at a more early period of
its duration. Oh, the folly of us poor creatures, who,
in the midst of our distresses or our escapes, are ready
to claw or caress one another, upon matters that so
seldom depend on our wisdom or our weakness, on
our good or evil conduct towards each other!
An untimely shower or an unseasonable drought,
VOL. V. 30
? ? ? ? 466 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
a frost too long continued or too suddenly broken up
with rain and tempest, the blight of the spring or the
smut of the harvest will do more to cause the distress
of the belly than all the contrivances of all statesmen
can do to relieve it. Let government protect and encourage industry, secure property, repress violence, and discountenance fraud, it is all that they have to
do. In other respects, the less they meddle in these
affairs, the better; the rest is in the hands of our
Master and theirs. We are in a constitution of things
wherein " modo sol nimius, modo corripit imber. " --
But I will push this matter no further. As I have
said a good deal upon it at various times during my
public service, and have lately written something on
it, which may yet see the light, I shall content myself
now with observing that. the vigorous and laborious
class of life has lately got, from the bon-ton of the humanity of this day, the name of the " laboring poor. " We have heard many plans for the relief of the " laboring poor. " This puling jargon is not as innocent
as it is foolish. In meddling with great affairs, weakness is never innoxious. Hitherto the name of poor
(in the sense in which it is used to excite compassion)
has not been used for those who can, but for those
who cannot labor, --for the sick and infirm, for orphan infancy, for languishing and decrepit age; but when we affect to pity, as poor, those who must labor
or the world cannot exist, we are trifling with the condition of mankind. It is the common doom of man, that he must eat his bread by the sweat of his brow,
-that is, by the sweat of his body or the sweat of his
mind. If this toil was inflicted as a curse, it is, as
might be expected, from the curses of the Father of
all blessings; it is tempered with many alleviations,
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 467
many comforts. Every attempt to fly from it, and to
refuse the very terms of our existence, becomes much
more truly a curse; and heavier pains and penalties
fall upon those who would elude the tasks which are
put upon them by the great Master Workman of the
world, who, in His dealings with His creatures, sympathizes with their weakness, and, speaking of a creation
wrought by mere will out of nothing, speaks of six
days of labor and one of rest. I do not call a healthy
young man, cheerful in his mind and vigorous in his
arms, I cannot call such a man poor; I cannot pity
my kind as a kind, merely because they are men.
This affected pity only tends to dissatisfy them with
their condition, and to teach them to seek resources
where no resources are to be found, in something else
than their own industry and frugality and sobriety.
Whatever may be the intention (which, because I do
not know, I cannot dispute) of those who would discontent mankind by this strange pity, they act towards us, in the consequences, as if they were our worst enemies.
In turning our view from the lower to the higher
classes, it will not be necessary for me to show at any
length that the stock of the latter, as it consists in
their numbers, has not yet suffered any material
diminution. I have not seen or heard it asserted;
I have no reason to believe it: there is no want of
officers, that I have ever understood, for the new
ships which we commission, or the new regiments
which we raise. In the nature of things, it is not
with their persons that the higher classes principally
pay their contingent to the demands of war. There
is another, and not less important part, which rests
with almost exclusive weight upon them. They fuirnish the means
? ? ? ? 468 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE. "how War may, best upheld,
Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, In all her equipage. "
Not that they are exempt from contributing also by their personal service in the fleets and armies of their country. They do contribute, and in their full and
fair proportion, according to the relative proportion of their numbers in the community. They contribute
all the mind that actuates the whole machine. The
fortitude required of them is very different from the
unthinking alacrity of the common soldier or common sailor in the face of danger and death: it is not
a passion, it is not an impulse, it is not a sentiment;
it is a cool, steady, deliberate principle, always present, always equable, - having no connection with
anger, - tempering honor with prudence, -- incited,
invigorated, and sustained by a generous love of
fame, -informed, moderated, and directed by an
enlarged knowledge of its own great public ends, --
flowing in one blended stream from the opposite
sources of the heart and the head, -- carrying in itself its own commission, and proving its title to every other command by the first and most difficult command, that of the bosom in which it resides: it
is a fortitude which unites with the courage of the
field the more exalted and refined courage of the
council, --which knows as well to retreat as to advance, -- which can conquer as well by delay as by
the rapidity of a march or the impetuosity of an at
tack, - which can be, with Fabius, the brack cloud
that lowers on the tops of the mountains, or, with
Scipio, the thunderbolt of war, --which, undismayed
by false shame, can patiently endure the severest
trial that a gallant spirit call undergo, in the taunts
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 469
and provocations of the enemy, the suspicions, the
cold respect, and "mouth honor" of those from
whom it should meet a cheerful obedience, --which,
undisturbed by false humanity, can calmly assume
that most awful moral responsibility of deciding when
victory may be too dearly purchased by the loss of a
single life, and when the safety and glory of their
country may demand the certain sacrifice of thousands. Different stations of command may call for
different modifications of this fortitude, but the character ought to be the same in all. And never, in the
most "palmy state" of our martial renown, did it
shine with brighter lustre than in the present san'
guinary and ferocious hostilities, wherever the British arms have been carried. But in this most arduous and momentous conflict, which from its nature
should have roused us to new and unexampled efforts, I know not how it has been that we have never
put forth half the strength which we have exerted
in ordinary wars. In the fatal battles which have
drenched the Continent with blood and shaken the
system of Europe to pieces, we have never had any
considerable army, of a magnitude to be compared
to the least of those by which in former times we so
gloriously asserted our place as protectors, not oppressors, at the head of the great commonwealth of
Europe. We have never manfully met the danger il
front; and when the enemy, resigning to us our natural dominion of the ocean, and abandoning the defence of his distant possessions to the infernal eiergy of the destroying principles which he had planted there for the subversion of the neighboring colonies,
drove forth, by one sweeping law of unprecedented
despotism, his armed multitudes on every side, to
? ? ? ? 470 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
overwhelm the countries and states which had for
centuries stood the firm barriers against the ambition of France, we drew back the arm of our military force, which had never been more than half
raised to oppose him. From that time we have been
combating only with the other arm of our naval power, -the right arm of England, I admit,-but which
struck almost unresisted, with blows that could never
reach the heart of the hostile mischief. From that
time, without a single effort to regain those outworks
which ever till now we so strenuously maintained, as
the strong frontier of our own dignity and safety no
less than the liberties of Europe,- with but one feeble attempt to succor those brave, faithful, and numerous allies, whom, for the first time since the days of our Edwards and Henrys, we now have in the
bosom of France itself, -- we have been intrenching
and fortifying and garrisoning ourselves at home, we
have been redoubling security on security to protect
ourselves from invasion, which has now first become
to us a serious object of alarm and terror. Alas!
the few of us who have protracted life in any measure near to the extreme limits of our short period
have been condemned to see strange things, - new
systems of policy, new principles, and not only new
men, but what might appear a new species of men.
I believe that any person who was of age to take a
part in public affairs forty years ago (if the intermediate space of time were expunged from his memory)
would hardly credit his senses, when he should hear
from the highest authority that an army of two hundred thousand men was kept up in this island, and
that in the neighboring island there were at least
fourscore thousand more. But when he had recov
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 471
ered from his surprise on being told of this army,
which has not its parallel, what must be his astonishment to be told again that this mighty force was
kept up for the mere purpose of an inert and passive defence, and that in its far greater part it was
disabled by its constitution and very essence from
defending us against an enemy by any one preventive stroke or any one operation of active hostility?
What must his reflections be, on learning further,
that a fleet of five hundred men of war, the best appointed, and to the full as ably commanded as this
country ever had upon the sea, was for the greater
part employed in carrying on the same system of
unenterprising defence? What must be the sentiments and feelings of one who remembers the former energy of England, when he is given to understand that these two islands, with their extensive and everywhere vulnerable coast, should be considered as a garrisoned sea-town? What would such
a man, what would any man think, if the. garrison
of so strange a fortress should be such, and so feebly
commanded, as never to make a sally, -- and that,
contrary to all which has hitherto been seen in war,
an infinitely inferior army, with the shattered relics
of an almost annihilated navy, ill-found and illmanned, may with safety besiege this superior garrison, and, without hazarding the life of a man, ruin
the place, merely by the menaces and false appearances of an attack? Indeed, indeed, my dear friend,
I look upon this matter of our defensive system as
much the most important of all considerations at
this moment. It has oppressed me with many anxious thoughts, which, more than any bodily distemper, have sunk me to the condition in which you
? ? ? ? 472 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
know that I am. Should it please Providence tc
restore to me even the late' weak remains of my
strength, I propose to make this matter the subject
of a particular discussion. I only mean here to ar
gue, that the mode of conducting the war on our
part, be it good or bad, has prevented even the comlmon havoc of war in our population, and especially
among that class whose duty and privilege of superiority it is to lead the way amidst the perils and
slaughter of the field of battle.
The other causes which sometimes affect the numbers of the lower classes, but which I have shown not
to have existed to any such degree during this war,
-- penury, cold, hunger, nakedness, -- do not easily
reach the higher orders of society. I do not dread
for them the slightest taste of these calamities from
the distress and pressure of the war. They have
much more to dread in that way from the confiscations, the rapines, the burnings, and the massacres that may follow in the train of a peace which
shall establish the devastating and depopulating principles and example of the French Regicides in security and triumph and dominion. Ill the ordinary
course of human affairs, any check to population
among men in ease and opulence is less to be apprehended from what they may suffer than from
what they enjoy. Peace is more likely to be injurious to them in that respect than war. The excesses of delicacy, repose, and satiety are as unfavorable as the extremes of hardship, toil, and want to the increase and multiplication of our kind. I1ndeed, the abuse of the bounties of Nature, much
more surely than any partial privation of them,
tends to intercept that precious boon of a second
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 473
and dearer life in our progeny, which was bestowed
in the first great command to man from the All-Gracious Giver of all,- whose name be blessed, whether He gives or takes away! His hand, in every page
of His book, has written the lesson of moderation.
Our physical well-being, our moral worth, our social
happiness, our political tranquillity, all depend on
that control of all our appetites and passions which
the ancients designed by the cardinal virtue of temperance.
The only real question to our present purpose,
with regard to the higher classes, is, How stands the
account of their stock, as it consists in wealth of
every description? Have the burdens of the war
compelled them to curtail any part of their former
expenditure? --which, I have before observed, affords the only standard of estimating property as
an object of taxation. Do they enjoy all the same
conveniences, the same comforts, the same elegancies, the same luxuries, in the same or in as many different modes as they did before the war?
In the last eleven years there have been no less
than three solemn inquiries into the finances of
the kingdom, by three different committees of your
House. The first was in the year 1786. On that
occasion, I remember, the report of the committee
was examined, and sifted and bolted to the bran, by
a gentleman whose keen and powerful talents I have
ever admired. He thought there was not sufficient
evidence to warrant the pleasing representation which
the committee had made of our national prosperity.
He did not believe that our public revenue could
continue to be so productive as they had assumed.
He even went the length of recording his own inferences of doubt in a set of resolutions which now
? ? ? ? 474 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
stand upon your journals. And perhaps the retrospect on which the report proceeded did not go far
enough back to allow any sure and satisfactory average for a ground of solid calculation. But what was
the event?
