No More Learning

Such was the state of the empire. The state of
our finances was worse, if possible. Every branch
of the revenue became less productive after the Revolution. Silver, not as now a sort of counter, but the body of the current coin, was reduced so low as
not to have above three parts in four of the value in
the shilling. In the greater part the value hardly
amounted to a fourth. It required a dead expense
of three millions sterling to renew the coinage. Public credit, that great, but ambiguous principle, which has so often been predicted as the cause of our certain ruin, but which for a century has been the constant companion, and often the means, of our
prosperity and greatness, had its origin, and was
cradled, I may say, in bankruptcy and beggary. At
this day we have seen parties contending to be admitted, at a moderate premium, to advance eighteen millions to the exchequer. For infinitely smaller
loans, the Chancellor of the Ex'chequer of that day,
Montagu, the father of public credit, counter-securing the state by the appearance of the city with the Lord Mayor of London at his side, was obliged, like
a solicitor for an hospital, to go cap in hand from
shop to shop, to borrow an hundred pound, and even
smaller sums. When made up in driblets as they
could, their best securities were at an interest of
twelve per cent. Even the paper of the Bank (now
at par with cash, and generally preferred to it) was
often at a discount of twenty per cent. By this the
state of the rest may be judged.
As to our commerce, the imports and exports of
the nation, now six-and-forty million, did not then
amount to ten. The inland trade, which is commonly passed by in this sort of estimates, but which,
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in part growing out of the foreign, and connected
with it, is more advantageous and more substantially
nutritive to the state, is not only grown in a proportion of near five to one as the foreign, but has been
augmented at least in a tenfold proportion. When
I came to England, I remember but one river navigation, the rate of carriage on which was limited by
an act of Parliament. It was made in the reign of
William the Third. I mean that of the Aire and
Calder. The rate was settled at thirteen pence. So
high a price demonstrated the feebleness of these bet
ginnings of our inland intercourse. In my time, one
of the longest and sharpest contests I remember in
your House, and which rather resembled a violent
contention amongst national parties than a local dispute, was, as well as I can recollect, to hold the price
up to threepence. Even this, which a very scanty
justice to the proprietors required, was done with
infinite difficulty. As to private credit, there were
not, as I believe, twelve bankers' shops at that time
out of London. In this their number, when I first
saw the country, I cannot be quite exact; but certainly those machines of domestic credit were then
very few. They are now in almost every markettown: and this circumstance (whether the thing be
carried to an excess or not) demonstrates the astonishing increase of private confidence, of general circulation, and of internal commerce, - an increase out of all proportion to the growth of the foreign
trade. Our naval strength in the time of King William's war was nearly matched by that of France;
and though conjoined with Holland, then a maritime
power hardly inferior to our own, even with that
force we were not always victorious. Though finally
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superior, the allied fleets experienced many unpleasant reverses on their own element. In two years
three thousand vessels were taken from the English
trade. On the Continent we lost almost every battle
we fought.
In 1697, (it is not quite an hundred years ago,) in
that state of things, amidst the general debasement
of the coin, the fall of the ordinary revenue, the
failure of all the extraordinary supplies, the ruin
of commerce, and the almost total extinction of an
infant credit, the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself, whom we have just seen begging from door to
door, came forward to move a resolution full of vigor, in which, far from being discouraged by the generally adverse fortune and the long continuance of the war, the Commons agreed to address the crown
in the following manly, spirited, and truly animating
style: -
"' This is the EIGHTH year in which your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons
in Parliament assembled, have assisted your Majesty
with large supplies for carrying on a just and necessary war, in defence of our religion, preservation of
our laws, and vindication of the rights and liberties
of the people of England. "
Afterwards they proceed in this manner: --
" And to show to your Majesty and all Christendom that the Commons of England will not be
amused or diverted from their firm resolutions of
obtaining by WAR a safe and honorable peace, we
do, in the name of all those we represent, renew
our assurances to your Majesty that this House will
support your Majesty and your government against
all your enemies, both at home and abroad, and that
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they will effectually assist you in the prosecution and
carrying on the present war against France. "
The amusement and diversion they speak of was
the suggestion of a treaty proposed by the enemy, and
announced from the throne. Thus the people of
England felt in the eighth, not in the fourth year of
the war. No sighing or panting after negotiation;
no motions from the opposition to force the ministry
into a peace; no messages from ministers to palsy
and deaden the resolution of Parliament or the spirit
of the nation. They did not so much as advise the
king to listen to the propositions of the enemy, nor
to seek for peace, but through the mediation of a
vigorous war. This address was moved in an hot, a
divided, a factious, and, in a great part, disaffected
House of Commons; and it was carried, nemine contradicente.
While that first war (which was ill smothered by
the Treaty of Ryswick) slept in the thin ashes of a
seeming peace, a new conflagration was in its immediate causes. A fresh and a far greater war was
in preparation. A year had hardly elapsed, when
arrangements were made for renewing the contest
with tenfold fury. The steps which were taken, at
that time, to compose, to reconcile, to unite, and to
discipline all Europe against the growth of France,
certainly furnish to a statesman the finest and most
interesting part in the history of that great period.
It formed the masterpiece of King William's policy,
dexterity, and perseverance. Full of the idea of
preserving not only a local civil liberty united with
order to our country, but to embody it in the political liberty, the order, and the independence of nations united under a natural head, the king called
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upon his Parliament to put itself into a posture " to
preserve to England the weight and influence it at pres.
ent had on the councils and affairs ABROAD. It will be
requisite Europe should see you will not be wanting
to yourselves. "
Baffled as that monarch was, and almost heartbroken at the disappointment he met with in the
mode he first proposed for that great end, he held on
his course. He was faithful to his object; and in
councils, as in arms, over and over again repulsed,
over and over again he returned to the charge. All
the mortifications he had suffered from the last Parliament, and the greater he had to apprehend from that
newly chosen, were not capable of relaxing the vigor
of his mind. He was in Holland when he combined
the vast plan of his foreign negotiations. When he
came to open his design to his ministers in England,
even the sober firmness of Somers, the undaunted resolution of Shrewsbury, and the adventurous spirit of
Montagu and Orford were staggered. They were not
yet mounted to the elevation of the king. The cabinet, then the regency, met on the subject at Tunbridge Wells, the 28th of August, 1698; and there, Lord Somers holding the pen, after expressing doubts
on the state of the Continent, which they ultimately
refer to the king, as best informed, they give him a
most discouraging portrait of the spirit of this nation.
" So far as relates to England," say these ministers,
"it would be want of duty not to give your Majesty
this clear account: that there is a deadness and want
of spirit in the nation universally, so as not at all to
be disposed to the thought of entering into a new war;
and that they seem to be tired out with taxes to a degree beyond what was discerned, till it appeared upon
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the occasion of the late elections. This is the truth
of the fact, upon which your Majesty will determine
what resolutions are proper to be'taken. "
His Majesty did determine, -- and did take and
pursue his resolution. In all the tottering imbecility of a new government, and with Parliament totally
unmanageable, he persevered. He persevered to expel the fears of his people by his fortitude, to steady
their fickleness by his constancy, to expand their
narrow prudence by his enlarged wisdom, to sink
their factious temper in his public spirit. In spite
of his people, he resolved to make them great and
glorious,- to make England, inclined to shrink into
her narrow self, the arbitress of Europe, the tutelary
angel of the human race. In spite of the ministers,
who staggered under the weight that his mind imposed upon theirs, unsupported as they felt themselves by the popular spirit, he infused into them his own soul, he renewed in them their ancient heart,
he rallied them in the same cause.
It required some time to accomplish this work.
The people were first gained, and, through them,
their distracted representatives. Under the influence of King William, Holland had rejected the allurements of every seduction, and had resisted the terrors of every menace. With Hannibal at her
gates, she had nobly and magnanimously refused all
separate treaty, or anything which might for a moment appear to divide her affection or her interest
o. ' even to distinguish her in identity from England.
Having settled the great point of the consolidation
(which he hoped would be eternal) of the countries
made for a common interest and common sentiment,
the king, in his message to both Houses, calls their
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attention to the affairs of the States General. The
House of Lords was perfectly sound, and entirely
impressed with the wisdom and dignity of the king's
proceedings. In answer to the message, which you
will observe was narrowed to a single point, (the danger of the States General,) after the usual professions
of zeal for his service, the Lords opened themselves
at large. They go far beyond the demands of the
message. They express themselves as follows.
" We take this occasion further to assure your Majesty we are very sensible of the great and imminent danger to which the States General are at present exposed; and we do perfectly agree with them in believing that their safety and ours are so inseparably united that
whatsoever is ruin to the one must be fatal to the other.
"And we humbly desire your Majesty will be
pleased not only to make good all the articles of any
former treaty to the States General, but that you will
enter into a strict league offensive and defensive with
them for our common preservation; and that you will
invite into it all princes and states who are concerned
in the present visible danger arising from the union of
France and Spain.
"And we further desire your Majesty, that you
will be pleased to enter into such alliances with the
Emperor as your Majesty shall think fit, pursuant
to the ends of the treaty of 1689: towards all which
we assure your Majesty of our hearty and sincere assistance; not doubting, but, whenever your Majesty
shall be obliged to engage for the defence of your
allies, and for securing the liberty and quiet of Europe, Almighty God will protect your sacred person
in so righteous a cause, and that the unanimity,
wealth, and courage of your subjects will carry your
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Majesty with honor and success through all the difficulties of a JUST WAR. "
The House of Commons was more reserved. The
late popular disposition was still in a great degree
prevalent in the representative, after it had been
made to change in the constituent body. The principle of the Grand Alliance was not directly recognized in the resolution of the Commons, nor the war announced, though they were well aware the alliance
was formed for the war. However, compelled by the
returning sense of the people, they went so far as
to fix the three great immovable pillars of the safety
and greatness of England, as they were then, as they
are now, and as they must ever be to the end of time.
They asserted in general terms the necessity of supporting Holland, of keeping united with our allies,
and maintaining the liberty of Europe; though they
restricted their vote to the succors stipulated by actual treaty. But now they were fairly embarked, they
were obliged to go with the course of the vessel; and
the whole nation, split before into an hundred adverse
factions, with a king at its head evidently declining
to his tomb, the whole nation, lords, commons, and
people, proceeded as one body informed by one soul.
Under the British union, the union of Europe was
consolidated; and it long held together with a degree
of cohesion, firmness, and fidelity not known before
or since in any political combination of that extent.
Just as the last hand was given to this immense
and complicated machine, the master workman died.
But the work was formed on true mechanical principles, and it was as truly wrought. It went by the
impulse it had received from the first mover. The
man was dead; but the Grand Alliance survived, in
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which King William lived and reigned. That heartless and dispirited people, whom Lord Somers had represented about two years before as dead in energy
and operation, continued that war, to which it was
supposed they were unequal in mind and in means,
for near thirteen years.
For what have I entered into all this detail? To
what purpose have I recalled your view to the end
of the last century? It has been done to show that
the British nation was then a great people, --to
point out how and by what means they came to be
exalted above the vulgar level, and to take that
lead which they assumed among mankind. To qualify us for that preeminence, we had then an high mind and a constancy unconquerable; we were thei
inspired with no flashy passions, but such as were
durable as well as warm, such as corresponded to
the great interests we had at stake. This force of
character was inspired, as all such spirit must ever
be, from above. Government gave the impulse. As
well may we fancy that of itself the sea will swell,
and that without winds the billows will insult the
adverse shore, as that the gross mass of the people
will be moved, and elevated, and continue by a
steady and permanent direction to bear upon one
point, without the influence of superior authority or
superior mind.
This impulse ought, in my opinion, to have been
given in this war; and it ought to have been continued to it at every instant. It is made, if ever war
was made, to touch all the great springs of action in
the human breast. It ought not to have been a war
of apology. The minister had, in this conflict, wherewithal to glory in success, to be consoled in adversity,
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 303
to hold high his principle in all fortunes. If it were
not given him to support the falling edifice, he ought
to bury himself under the ruins of the civilized
world. All the art of Greece and all the pride
and power of Eastern monarchs never heaped upon
their ashes so grand a monument.
There were days when his great mind was up to
the crisis of the world he is called to act in. * His
manly eloquence was equal to the elevated wisdom
of such sentiments. But the little have triumphed
over the great: an unnatural, (as it should seem,)
not an unusual victory. I am sure you cannot forget with how much uneasiness we heard, in conversation, the language of more than one gentleman at the opening of this contest,- " that he was willing to
try the war for a year or two, and, if it did not succeed, then to vote for peace. " As if war was a matter of experiment! As if you could take it up or lay
it down as an idle frolic! As if the dire goddess that
presides over it, with her murderous spear in her
hand and her Gorgon at her breast, was a coquette
to be flirted with! We ought with reverence to
approach that tremendous divinity, that loves courage, but commands counsel. War never leaves where
it found a nation. It is never to be entered into
without a mature deliberation, - not a deliberation
lengthened out into a perplexing indecision, but a
deliberation leading to a sure and fixed judgment.
When so taken up, it is not to be abandoned without
reason as valid, as fully and as extensively considered. Peace may be made as unadvisedly as war.
Nothing is so rash as fear; and the counsels of pusillanimity very rarely put off, whilst they are always
* See the Declaration.
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sure to aggravate, the evils from which they would
fly.
In that great war carried on against Louis the Fourteenth for near eighteen years, government spared no pains to satisfy the nation, that, though they were
to be animated by a desire of glory, glory was not
their ultimate object; but that everything dear to
them, in religion, in law, in liberty, everything which
as freemen, as Englishmen, and as citizens of the
great commonwealth of Christendom, they had at
heart, was then at stake. This was to know the
true art of gaining the affections and confidence of
an high-minded people; this was to understand human nature. A danger to avert a danger, a present inconvenience and suffering to prevent a foreseen
future and a worse calamity, - these are the motives
that belong to an animal who in his constitution is
at once adventurous and provident, circumspect and
daring, - whom his Creator has made, as the poet
says, " of large discourse, looking before and after. "
But never can a vehement and sustained spirit of
fortitude be kindled in a people by a war of calculation. It has nothing that can keep the mind erect under the gusts of adversity. Even where men are
willing, as sometimes they are, to barter their blood
for lucre, to hazard their safety for the gratification
of their avarice, the passion which animates them to
that sort of conflict, like all the shortsighted passions,
must see its objects distinct and near at hand. The
passions of the lower order are hungry and impatient. Speculative plunder, - contingent spoil, - future, long adjourned, uncertain booty, - pillage
which must enrich a late posterity, and which possibly may not reach to posterity at all, - these, for
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any length of time, will never support a mercenary
war. The people are in the right. The calculation
of profit in all such wars is false. On balancing the
account of such wars, ten thousand hogsheads of
sugar are purchased at ten thousand times their
price. The blood of man should never be shed but
to redeem the blood of man. It is well shed for our
family, for our friends, for our God, for our country,
for our kind. The rest is vanity; the rest is crime.
In the war of the Grand Alliance most of these
considerations voluntarily and naturally had their
part. Some were pressed into the service. The political interest easily went in the track of the natural sentiment. In the reverse course the carriage does not follow freely. I am sure the natural feeling,
as I have just said, is a far more predominant ingredient in this war than in that of any other that ever
was waged by this kingdom.
If the war made to prevent the union of two,
crowns upon one head was a just war, this, which is
made to prevent the tearing all crowns from all heads
which ought to wear them, and with the crowns to
smite off the sacred heads themselves, this is a just,
war.
If a war to prevent Louis the Fourteenth from imposing his religion was just, a war to prevent the
murderers of Louis the Sixteenth from imposing their
irreligion upon us is just: a war to prevent the, operation of a system which makes life without dignity
and death without hope is a just war.
If to preserve political independence and civil freedom to nations was a just ground of war, a war to
preserve national independence, property, liberty, life,
and honor from certain universal havoc is a war just,
VOL. V. 20
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necessary, manly, pious; and we are bound to persevere in it by every principle, divine and human, as long as the system which menaces them all, and all
equally, has an existence in the world.
You, who have looked at this matter with as fair
and impartial an eye as can be united with a feeling
heart, you will not think it an hardy assertion, when
I affirm that it were far better to be conquered by
any other nation than to have this faction for a neighbor. Before I felt myself authorized to say this, I considered the state of all the countries in Europe
for these last three hundred years, which have been
obliged to submit to a foreign law. In most of those
I found the condition of the annexed countries even
better, certainly not worse, than the lot of those which
were the patrimony of the conqueror. They wanted
some blessings, but they were free from many very
great evils. They were rich and tranquil. Such was
Artois, Flanders, Lorraine, Alsatia, under the old
government of France. Such was Silesia under the
King of Prussia.
They who are to live in the vicinity of this new fabric are to prepare to live in perpetual conspiracies and seditions, and to end at last in being
conquered, if not to her dominion, to her resemblance.
But when we talk of conquest by other nations, it is
only to put a case. This is the only power in Europe
by which it is possible we should be conquered. To
live under the continual dread of such immeasurable
evils is itself a grievous calamity. To live without
the dread of them is to turn the danger into the disaster. The influence' of such a France is equal to a war, its example more wasting than an hostile irruption. The hostility with any other power is separable and accidental: this power, by the very condition of
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its existence, by its very essential constitution, is in a
state of hostility with us, and with all civilized people. *
A government of the nature of that set up at our
very door has never been hitherto seen or even imagined in Europe. ~ What our relation to it will be
cannot be judged by other relations. It is a serious
thing to have a connection with a people who live only
under positive, arbitrary, and changeable institutions,
- and those not perfected nor supplied nor explained
by any common, acknowledged rule of moral science.
I remember, that, in one of my last conversations
with the late Lord Camden, we were struck much in
the same manner with the abolition in France of the
law as a science of methodized and artificial equity.
France, since her Revolution, is under the sway of a
sect whose leaders have deliberately, at one stroke,
demolished the whole body of that jurisprudence
which France had pretty nearly in common with other civilized countries. In that jurisprudence were
contained the elements and principles of the law of
nations, the great ligament of mankind. With the
law they have of course destroyed all seminaries in
which jurisprudence was taught, as well as all the
corporations established for its conservation. I have
not heard of any country, whether in Europe or Asia,
or even in Africa on this side of Mount Atlas, which
is wholly without some such colleges and such corporations, except France. No man, in a public or private concern, can divine by what rule or principle her judgments are to be directed: nor is there to be
found a professor in any university, or a practitioner
in any court, who will hazard an opinion of what is
* See Declaration, Whitehall, October 29, 1793.
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or is not law in France, in any case whatever. They
have not only annulled all their old treaties, but they
have renounced the law of nations, from whence
treaties have their force. With a fixed design they
have outlawed themselves, and to their power outlawed all other nations.
Instead of the religion and the law by which they
were in a great'politic communion with the Christian
world, they have constructed their republic on three
bases, all fundamentally opposite to those on which
the communities of Europe are built. Its foundation
is laid in Regicide, in Jacobinism, and in Atheism;
and it has joined to those principles a body of systematic manners which secures their operation.
If I am asked how I would be understood in the
use of these terms, Regicide, Jacobinism, Atheism,
and a system of correspondent manners, and their
establishment, I will tell you.
I call a commonwealth Regicide which lays it
down as a fixed law of Nature and a fundamental
right of man, that all government, not being a democracy, is an usurpation,* - that all kings, as such,
are usurpers, and, for being kings, may and ought to
be put to death, with their wives, families, and adherents. The commonwealth' which acts uniformly
upon those principles, and which, after abolishing
* Nothing could be more solemn than their promulgation of this
principle, as a preamble to the destructive code of their famous articles for the decomposition of society, into whatever country they should enter. ('La Convention Nationale, apres avoir entendu le
rapport de ses comites de finances, de la guerre, et diplomatiques
reunis, fidble au principe de souverainete de peuples, qui ne lui permet pas
de reconnoitre aucune institution qui y porte atteinte," &c. , &c. --Decret
sur le Rapport de Cambon, Dec. 18, 1792. And see the subsequent
proclamation.
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every festival of religion, chooses the most flagrant
act of a murderous regicide treason for a feast of
eternal commemoration, and which forces all her
people to observe it, --this. I call Regicide by Establishment.
Jacobinism is the revolt of the enterprising talents
of a country against its property. When private men
form themselves into associations for the purpose of
destroying the preexisting laws and institutions of
their country, -- when they secure to themselves an
army by dividing amongst the people of no property
the estates of the ancient and lawful proprietors,when a state recognizes those acts, -- when it does
not make confiscations for crimes, but makes crimes
for confiscations, - when it has its principal strength
and all its resources in such a violation of property,
- when it stands chiefly upon such a violation, massacring by judgments, or otherwise, those who make
any struggle for their old legal government, and their
legal, hereditary, or acquired possessions, -- I call
this Jacobinism by Establishment.
I call it Atheism by Establishment, when any state,
as such, shall not acknowledge the existence of God
as a moral governor of the world, -when it shall
offer to Him no religious or moral worship, - when
it shall abolish the Christian religion by a regular
decree, -when it shall persecute, with a cold, unrelenting, steady cruelty, by every mode of confiscation, imprisonment, exile, and death, all its ministers, - when it shall generally shut up or pull down churches, -- when the few buildings which remain
of this kind shall be opened only for the purpose of
making a profane apotheosis of monsters whose vices
and crimes have no parallel amongst men, and whom
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all other men consider as objects of general detestation and the severest animadversion of law. When,
in the place of that religion of social benevolence and
of individual self-denial, in mockery of all religion,
they institute impious, blasphemous, indecent theatric rites, in honor of their vitiated, perverted reason,
and erect altars to the personification of their own
corrupted and bloody republic, -when schools and
seminaries are founded at public expense to poison
mankind, from generation to generation, with the
horrible maxims of this impiety, -- when, wearied out
with incessant martyrdom, and the cries of a people
hungering and thirsting for religion, they permit it
only as a tolerated evil, - I call this Atheism by Establishment.
When to these establishments of Regicide, of Jacobinism, and of Atheism, you add the correspondent
system of manners, no doubt can be left on the mind
of a thinking man concerning their determined hostility to the human race. Manners are of more importance than laws. Upon them, in a great measure,
the laws depend. Tile law touches us but lere and
tllere, and now and theCl. MIanners are what vex or
soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize
or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in.
They give their whole form and color to our lives.
According to their quality, they aid morals, they
supply them, or they totally destroy them. Of this
the new French legislators were aware; therefore,
with the same method, and under the same authority, they settled a system of manners, the most licentious, prostitute, and abandoned that ever has been known, and at the same time the most coarse, rude,
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savage, and ferocious. Nothing in the Revolution,
no, not to a phrase or a gesture, not to the fashion
of a hat or a shoe, was left to accident. All has been
the result of design; all has been matter of institution. No mechanical means could be devised in favor of this incredible system of wickedness and vice, that has not been employed. The noblest passions,
the love of glory, the love of country, have been
debauched into means of its preservation and its
propagation. All sorts of shows and exhibitions,
calculated to inflame and vitiate the imagination and
pervert the moral sense, have been contrived. They
have sometimes brought forth five or six hundred
drunken women calling at the bar of the Assembly for
the blood of their own children, as being Royalists or
Constitutionalists. Sometimes they have got a body
of wretches, calling themselves fathers, to demand
the murder of their sons, boasting that Rome had
but one Brutus, but that they could show five hundred. There were instances in which they inverted
and retaliated the impiety, and produced sons who
called for the execution of their parents. The foundation of their republic is laid in moral paradoxes.
Their patriotism is always prodigy. All those instances to be found in history, whether real or fabulous, of a doubtful public spirit, at which morality
is perplexed, reason is staggered, and from which
aftrighted Nature recoils, are their chosen and almost
sole examples for the instruction of their youth.
The whole drift of their institution is contrary to
that of the wise legislators of all countries, who aimed
at improving instincts into morals, and at grafting the
virtues on the stock of the natural affections. They,
on the contrary, have omitted no pains to eradicate
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every benevolent and noble propensity in the mind
of men. In their culture it is a rule always to graft
virtues on vices. They think everything unworthy
of the name of public virtue, unless it indicates violence on the private. All their new institutions (and
with them everything is new) strike at the root of
our social nature. Other legislators, knowing that
marriage is the origin of all relations, and consequently the first element of all duties, have endeavored by every art to make it sacred. The Christian religion, by confining it to the pairs, and by rendering that relation indissoluble, has by these two things
done more towards the peace, happiness, settlement,
and civilization of the world than by any other part
in this whole scheme of Divine wisdom. The direct
contrary course has been taken in the synagogue of
Antichrist, - I mean in that forge and manufactory
of all evil, the sect which predominated in the Constituent Assembly of 1789. Those monsters employed
the same or greater industry to desecrate and degrade that state, which other legislators have used
to render it holy and honorable. By a strange, uncalled-for declaration, they pronounced that marriage
was no better than a common civil contract. It was
one of their ordinary tricks, to put their sentiments
into the mouths of certain personated characters,
which they theatrically exhibited at the bar of what
ought to be a serious assembly. One of these was
brought out in the figure of a prostitute, whom they
called by the affected name of " a mother without
being a wife. " This creature they made to call for
a repeal of the incapacities which in civilized states
are put upon bastards. The prostitutes of the Assembly gave to this their puppet the sanction of their
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 313
greater impudence. In consequence of the principles laid down, and the manners authorized, bastards
were not long after put on the footing of the issue of
lawful unions. Proceeding in the spirit of the first
authors of. their Constitution, succeeding Assemblies
went the full length of the principle, and gave a license to divorce at the mere pleasure of either party,
and at a month's notice. With them the matrimonial connection is brought into so degraded a state of
concubinage, that I believe none of the wretches in
London who keep warehouses of infamy would give
out one of their victims to private custody on so short
and insolent a tenure. There was, indeed, a kind of
profligate equity in giving to women the same licentious power. The reason they assigned was as infamous as the act: declaring that women had been too long under the tyranny of parents and of husbands.
It is not necessary to observe upon the horrible consequences of taking one half of the species wholly out
of the guardianship and protection of the other.
The practice of divorce, though in some countries
permitted, has been discouraged in all. In the East,
polygamy and divorce are in discredit; and the manners correct the laws. In Rome, whilst Rome was
in its integrity, the few causes allowed for divorce
amounted in effect to a prohibition. They were only
three. The arbitrary was totally excluded; and accordingly some hundreds of years passed without a
single example of that kind. When manners were
corrupted, the laws were relaxed; as the latter always follow the former, when they are not able to
regulate them or to vanquish them. Of this circumstance the legislators of vice and crime were pleased
to take notice, as an inducement to adopt their regu
? ? ? ? 314 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
lation: holding out an hope that the permission would
as rarely be made use of. They knew the contrary
to be true; and they had taken good care that the
laws should be well seconded by the manners. Their
law of divorce, like all their laws, had not for its object the relief of domestic uneasiness, but the total
corruption of all morals, the total disconnection of
social life.
It is a matter of curiosity to observe the operation
of this encouragement to disorder. I have before me
the Paris paper correspondent to the usual register
of births, marriages, and deaths. Divorce, happily, is
no regular head of registry amongst civilized nations.
With the Jacobins it is remarkable that divorce is
not only a regular head, but it has the post of honor.
It occupies the first place in the list. In the three
first months of the year 1793 the number of divorces
in that city amounted to 562; the marriages were
1785: so that the proportion of divorces to marriages
was not much less than one to three: a thing unexampled, I believe, among mankind. I caused anll inquiry to be made at Doctors' Commons concerning the number of divorces, and found that all the divorces (which, except by special. act of Parliament, are
separations, and not proper divorces) did not amount
in all those courts, and in an hundred years, to much
more than one fifth of those that passed in the single
city of Paris in three months. I followed up the inquiry relative to that city through several of the subsequent months, until I was tired, and found the proportions still the same. Since then I have heard
that they have declared for a revisal of these laws:
but I know of nothing done. It appears as if the
contract that renovates the world was under no law
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 315
at all. From this we may take our estimate of the
havoc that has been made through all the relations
of life. With the Jacobins of France, vague intercourse is without reproach; marriage is reduced to
the vilest concubinage; children are encouraged to
cut the throats of their parents; mothers are taught
that tenderness is no part of their character, and, to
demonstrate their attachment to their party, that they
ought to make no scruple to rake with their bloody
hands in the bowels of those who came from their
own.
To all this let us join the practice of cannibalism,
with which, in the proper terms, and with the greatest truth, their several factions accuse each other.
By cannibalism I mean their devouring, as a nutriment of their ferocity, some part of the bodies of
those they have murdered, their drinking the blood
of their victims, and forcing the victims themselves
to drink the blood of their kindred slaughtered before
their faces. By cannibalism I mean also to signify
all their nameless, unmanly, and abominable insults
on the bodies of those they slaughter.
As to those whom they suffer to die a natural
death, they do not permit them to enjoy the last
consolations of mankind, or those rights of sepulture
which indicate hope, and. which mere Nature has
taught to mankind, in all countries, to soothe the
afflictions and to cover the infirmity of mortal condition. They disgrace men in the entry into life, they vitiate and enslave them through the whole course
of it, and they deprive them of all comfort at the coInclusion of their dishonored and depraved existence. Endeavoring to persuade the people that they are no
better than beasts, the whole body of their institution
? ? ? ? 316 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
tends to make them beasts of prey, furious and savage. For this purpose the active part of them is disciplined into a ferocity which has no parallel. To this ferocity there is joined not one of the rude, unfashioned virtues which accompany the vices, where
the whole are left to grow up together in the rankness of uncultivated Nature. But nothing is left to
Nature in their systems.
The same discipline which hardens their hearts
relaxes their morals. Whilst courts of justice were
thrust out by revolutionary tribunals, and silent
churches were only the funeral monuments of departed religion, there were no fewer than nineteen
or twenty theatres, great and small, most of them
kept open at the public expense, and all of them
crowded every night. Among the gaunt, haggard
forms of famine and nakedness, amidst the yells of
murder, the tears of affliction, and the cries of despair, the song, the dance, the mimic scene, the buffoon laughter, went on as regularly as in the gay hour of festive peace. I have it from good authority, that under the scaffold of judicial murder, and
the gaping planks that poured down blood on the
spectators, the space was hired out for a show of
dancing dogs. I think, without concert, we have
made the very same remark, on reading some of their
pieces, which, being written for other purposes, let us
into a view of their social life. It struck us that the
habits of Paris had no resemblance to the finished
virtues, or to the polished vice, and elegant, though
not blameless luxury, of the capital of a great em
pire. Their society was more like that of a den of
outlaws upon a doubtful frontier, - of a lewd tavern
for the revels and debauches of banditti, assassins,
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 317
bravoes, smugglers, and their more desperate paramours, mixed with bombastic players, the refilse and rejected offal of strolling theatres, puffing out ill-sorted
verses about virtue, mixed with the licentious and
blasphemous songs proper to the brutal and hardened
course of life belonging to that sort of wretches. This
system of manners in itself is at war with all orderly
and moral society, and is in its neighborhood unsafe.
If great bodies of that kind were anywhere established
in a bordering territory, we should have a right to
demand of their governments the suppression of such
a nuisance. What are we to do, if the government
and the whole community is of the same description?
Yet that government has thought proper to invite
ours to lay by its unjust hatred, and to listen to the
voice of humanity as taught by their example.
The operation of dangerous and delusive first principles obliges us to have recourse to the true ones.
In the intercourse between nations, we are apt to rely too much on the instrumental part. We lay too much weight upon the formality of treaties and compacts. We do not act much more wisely, when we trust to the interests of men as guaranties of their
engagements. The interests frequently tear to pieces the engagements, and the passions trample upon both. Entirely to trust to either is to disregard our
own safety, or not to know mankind. Men are not
tied to one another by papers and seals. They are
led to associate by resemblances, by conformities, by
sympathies. It is with nations as with individuals.
Nothing is so strong a tie of amity between nation
and nation as correspondence in laws, customs, manners, and habits of life. They have more than the force of treaties in themselves. They are obligations
? ? ? ? 318 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
written in the heart. They approximate men to men
without their knowledge, and sometimes against their
intentions. The secret, unseen, but irrefragable bond
of habitual intercourse holds them together, even
when their perverse and litigious nature sets them to
equivocate, scuffle, and fight about the terms of their
written obligations.
As to war, if it be the means of wrong and violence,
it is the sole means of justice amongst nations. Nothing can banish it from the world. They who say otherwise, intending to impose upon us, do not impose upon themselves. But it is one of the greatest objects of human wisdom to mitigate those evils which
we are unable to remove. The conformity and analogy of which I speak, incapable, like everything else,
of preserving perfect trust and tranquillity among
men, has a strong tendency to facilitate accommodation, and to produce a generous oblivion of the rancor of their quarrels. With this similitude, peace is more of peace, and war is less of war. I will go further. There have been periods of time in which communities apparently in peace with each other have been more perfectly separated than in later times
many nations in Europe have been in the course of
long and bloody wars. The cause must be sought in
the similitude throughout Europe of religion, laws,
and manners.