No More Learning

Here I recognize the voice of a British plenipotentiary: I begin to feel proud of my country. But,
alas! the short date of human elevation! The accents of dignity died upon his tongue. This author
will not assure us of his sentiments for the whole of
a pamphlet; but, in the sole energetic part of it, he
does not continue the same through an whole sentence, if it happens to be of any sweep or compass.
In the very womb of tl. is last sentence, pregnant, as
it should seem, with a Hercules, there is formed a
little bantling of the mortal race, a degenerate, puny
parenthesis, that totally frustrates our most sanguine
views and expectations, and disgraces the whole gestation. Here -is this destructive parenthesis: " UI1less some adequate compensation be secured to us. " To us! The Christian world may shift for itself, Europe may groan in slavery, we may be dishonored by
receiving law from an enemy,- but all is well, provided the compensation to us be adequate. To what
are we reserved? An adequate compensation "for
the sacrifice of powers the most nearly connected
with us "; - an adequate compensation "for the
direct or indirect annexation to France of all the
ports of the Continent from Dunkirk to Hamburg ";
-an adequate compensation "for the abandonment
of the independence of Europe "! Would that, when
all our manly sentiments are thus changed, our manly
language were changed along with them, and that the
English tongue were not employed to utter what our
ancestors never dreamed could enter into an English
heart!
But let us consider this matter of adequate compensation. Who is to furnish it? From what funds
is it to be drawn? Is it by another treaty of com
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 77
merce? I have no objections to treaties of commerce
upon principles of commerce. Traffic for traffic, -
all is fair. But commerce in exchange for empire,
for safety, for glory! We set out in our dealing with
a miserable cheat upon ourselves. I know it may
be said, that we may prevail on this proud, philosophical, military Republic, which looks down with
contempt on trade, to declare it unfit for the sovereign of nations to be eundem negotiatorem et dominum:
that, in virtue of this maxim of her state, the English
in France may be permitted, as the Jews are in Poland and in Turkey, to execute all the little inglorious occupations,- to be the sellers of new and the buyers of old clothes, to be their brokers and factors, and to be employed in casting up their debits
and credits, whilst the master Republic cultivates the
arts of empire, prescribes the forms of peace to nations, and dictates laws to a subjected world. But
are we quite sure, that, when we have surrendered
half Europe to them in hope of this compensation,
the Republic will confer upon us those privileges of
dishonor? Are we quite certain that she will permit
us to farm the guillotine, --to contract for the provision of her twenty thousand Bastiles, - to furnish
transports for the myriads of her exiles to Guiana, -
to become commissioners for her naval stores, - or to
engage for the clothing of those armies which are to
subdue the poor relics of Christian Europe? No!
She is bespoke by the Jew subjects of her own Amsterdam for all these services.
But if these, or matters similar, are not the
compensations the Remarker demands, and that on
consideration he finds them neither adequate nor certain, who else is to be the chapman, and to furnish
? ? ? ? 78 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
the purchase-money, at this market, of all the grand
principles of empire, of law, of civilization, of morals,
and of religion, where British faith and honor are to
be sold by inch of candle? Who is to be the dedecorumn pretiosus emptor? Is it the navis Hispance miagister? Is it to be furnished by the Prince of Peace? Unquestionably. Spain as yet possesses mines of
gold and silver, and may give us in pesos duros arl
adequate compensation for our honor and our virtue
When these things are at all to be sold, they are thil
vilest commodities at market.
It is full as singular as any of the other singu
larities in this work, that the Remarker, talking s.
much as lie does of cessions and compensations
passes by Spain in his general settlement, as if ther(
were no such country on the globe, -- as if there
were no Spain in Europe, no Spain in America. But
this great matter of political deliberation cannot be
put out of our thoughts by his silence. She has furnished compensations, - not to you, but to France.
The Regicide Republic and the still nominally subsisting monarchy of Spain are united, - and are united
upon a principle of jealousy, if not of bitter enmity,
to Great Britain. The noble writer has here another
matter for meditation. It is not from Dunklrirk to
Hamburg that the ports are in the hands of France:
they are in the hands of France from Hamburg to
Gibraltar. How long the new dominion will last I
cannot tell; but France the Republic has conquered
Spain, and the ruling party in that court acts by her
orders and exists by her power.
The noble writer, in his views into futurity, has
forgotten to look back to the past. If he chooses it,
he may recollect, that, on the prospect of the death
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 79
of Philip the Fourth, and still more on the event, all
Europe was moved to its foundations. In the treaties of partition that first were entered into, and in the war that afterwards blazed out to prevent those
crowns from beirng actually or virtually ulited in the
House of Bourbon, the predominance of France in
Spain, and above all, in the Spanish Indies, was the
great object of all these movements in the cabinet
and in the field. The Grand Alliance was formed
upon that apprehension. On that apprehension the
mighty war was continued during such a number of
years as the degenerate and pusillanimous impatience
of our dwindled race can hardly bear to have reckoned: a war equal, within a few years, in duration, and not, perhaps, inferior in bloodshed, to any of those
great contests for empire which in history make the
most awful matter of recorded memory.
Ad confligendum venientibus undique Poenis,
Omnia cum belli trepido concussa tumultu
Horrida contremucrc sub altis etheris auris,
In dubioque fuit sub utrorum regna cadendum
Omnibus humanis esset terrhque marique. When this war was ended, (I cannot stay now to
examine how,) the object of the war was the object
of the treaty. When it was found impracticable, or
less desirable than before, wholly to exclude a branch
of the Bourbon race from that immense succession,
the point of Utrecht was to prevent the mischiefs to
arise from the influence of the greater upon the lesser branch. IHis Lordship is a great member of the diplomatic body; he has, of course, all the fulndamental treaties which make the public statute law
of Europe by heart: and, indeed, no active member
of Parliament ought to be ignorant of their general
? ? ? ? 80 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
tenor and leading provisions. In the treaty which
closed that war, and of which it is a fundamental
part, because relating to the whole policy of the compact, it was agreed that Spain should not give anything from her territory in the West Indies to France.
This article, apparently onerous to Spain, was in truth
highly beneficial. But, oh, the blindness of the greatest statesman to the infinite and unlooked-for combinations of things which lie hid in the dark prolific
womb of futurity! The great trunk of Bourbon is
cut down; the withered branch is worked up into the
construction of a French Regicide Republic. Here
we have formed a new, unlooked-for, monstrous, heterogeneous alliance, - a double-natured monster, republic above and monarchy below. There is no centaur of fiction, no poetic satyr of the woods, nothing short of the hieroglyphic monsters of Egypt, dog in
head and mall in body, that can give an idea of it.
None of these things can subsist in Nature (so, at
least, it is thought); but the moral world admits
monsters which the physical rejects.
In this metamorphosis, the first thing done by
Spain, in the honey-moon of her new servitude, was,
with all the hardihood of pusillanimity, utterly to
defy the most solemn treaties with Great Britain
and the guaranty of Europe. She has yielded the
largest and fairest part of one of the largest and fairest islands in the West Illdies, perhaps on the globe,
to the usurped powers of France. She completes the
title of those powers to the whole of that important
central island of Hispaniola. She has solemnly surrendered to the regicides and butchers of the Bourbon family what that court never ventured, perhaps
never wished, to bestow on the patriarchal stock of
her own august house.
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 81
The noble negotiator takes no notice of this portentous junction and this audacious surrender. The
effect is no less than the total subversion of the bal
ance of power in the West Indies, and indeed everywhere else. This arrangement, considered ill itself,
but much more as it indicates a complete union of
France with Spain, is truly alarming. Does he feel
nothing of the change this makes in that part of his
description of the state of France where he supposes
her not able to face one of our detached squadrons?
Does he feel nothing for the condition of Portugal
under this new coalition? Is it for this state of
things he recommends our junction in that common
alliance as a remedy? It is surely already monstrous
enough. We see every standing principle of policy,
every old governing opinion of nations, completely
gone, and with it the foundation of all their establishmnents. Can Spain keep herself internally where
she is, with this connection? Does he dream that
Spain, unchristian, or even uncatholic, can exist as
a monarchy? This author indulges himself in speculations of the division of the French Republic. I
only say, that with much greater reason he might
speculate on the republicanism and the subdivision
of Spain.
It is not peace with France which secures that feeble government; it is that peace which, if it shall continue, decisively ruins Spain. Such a peace is not the peace which the remnant of Christianity celebrates at
this holy season. In it there is no glory to God on
high, and not the least tincture of good-will to man.
What things we have lived to see! The King of
Spain in a group of Moors, Jews, and Renegadoes;
and the clergy taxed to pay for his conversion! The
VOL. VI. 6
? ? ? ? 82 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
Catholic King in the strict embraces of the most
Unchristianl Republic! I hope we shall never see
his Apostolic Majesty, his Faithful Majesty, and the
King, Defender of the Faith, added to that unhallowed and impious fraternity.
The noble author has glimpses of the consequences
of peace, as well as I. He feels for the colonies of
Great Britain, one of the principal resources of our
commerce and our naval power, if piratical France
shall be established, as he knows she must be, in
the West Indies, if we sue for peace on such terms
as they may condescend to grant us. He feels that
their very colonial system for the interior is not compatible with the existence of our colonies. I tell him,
and doubt not I shall be able to demonstrate, that,
being what she is, if she possesses a rock there, we
cannot be safe. Has this author had in his view the
transactions between the Regicide Republic and the
yet nominally subsisting monarchy of Spain?
I bring this matter under your Lordship's consideration, that you may have a more complete view
than this author chooses to give of the true France
you have to deal with, as to its nature, and to its
force and its disposition. Mark it, my Lord, France,
in giving her law to Spain, stipulated for none of
her indemnities in Europe, no enlargement whatever
of her frontier. Whilst we are looking for indemnities from France, betraying our own safety in a
sacrifice of the independence of Europe, France secures hers by the most important acquisition of territory ever made in the West Indies since their first settlement. She appears (it is only in appearance)
to give up the frontier of Spain; and she is compen
sated, not in appearance, but in reality, by a territory
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 83
that makes a dreadful frontier to the colonies of
Great Britain.
It is sufficiently alarming that she is to have the
possession of this great island. But all the Spanish
colonies, virtually, are hers. Is there so puny a
whipster in the petty form of the school of politics
who can be at a loss for the fate of the British colonies, when he combines the French and Spanish consolidation with the known critical and dubious dispositions of the United States of America, as they are at present, but which, when a peace is made, when
the basis of a Regicide ascendency in Spaill is laid,
will no longer be so good as dubious and critical?
But I go a great deal further; and on much consideration of the condition and circumstances of the
West Indies, and of the genius of this new republic. ,
as it has operated and is likely to operate on them,
I say, that, if a single rock in the West Indies is in
the hands of this transatlantic Morocco, we have not
an hour's safety there.
The Remarker, though he slips aside from the
main consideration, seems aware that this arrangement, standing as it does, in the West Indies, leaves
us at the mercy of the new coalition, or rather at the
mercy of the sole guiding part of it. He does not,
indeed, adopt a supposition such as I make, who am
confident that anything which can give them a single good port and opportune piratical station there
would lead to our ruin: the author proceeds upon an
idea that the Regicides may be an existing and considerable territorial power in the West Indies, and,
of course, her piratical system more dangerous and
as real. However, for that desperate case he has
an easy remedy; but, surely, in his whole shop there
? ? ? ? 84 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
is nothing so extraordinary. It is, that we three,
France, Spain, and England, (there are no other of
any moment,) should adopt some " analogy in the
interior systems of government in the several islands
which we may respectively retain after the closing of
the war. " This plainly can be done only by a convention between the parties; and I believe it would
be the first war ever made to terminate in an analogy of the interior government of any country, or
any parts of such countries. Such a partnership in
domestic. government is, I think, carrying fraternity
as far as it will go.
It will be an affront to your sagacity to pursue
this matter into all its details: suffice it to say, that,
if this convention for analogous domestic government
is made, it immediately gives a right for the residence of a consul (in all likelihood some negro or
man of color) in every one of your islands; a Regicide ambassador in London will be at all your meetings of West India merchants and planters, and, in effect, in all our colonial councils. Not one order
of Council can hereafter be made, or any one act of
Parliament relative to the West India colonies even
be agitated, which will not always afford reasons for
protests and perpetual interference; the Regicide Republic will become an integral part of the colonial
legislature, and, so far as the colonies are concerned,
of the British too. But it will be still worse: as all
our domestic affairs are interlaced more or less intimately with our external, this intermeddling must
everywhere insinuate itself into all other interior
transactions, and produce a copartnership in our domestic concerns of every description.
Suclh are the plain, inevitable consequences of this
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 85
arrangement of a system of analogous interior government. On the other hand, without it, the author assures us, and in this I heartily agree with him,
"'that the correspondence and communications between the neighboring colonies will be great, that the disagreements will be incessant, and that causes
even of national quarrels will arisefrom day to day. "
Most true. But, for the reasons I have given, the
case, if possible, will be worse by the proposed remedy, by the triple fraternal interior analogy, -- an analogy itself most fruitful, and more foodful than
the old Ephesian statue with the three tier of breasts.
Your Lordship must also observe how infinitely this
business must be complicated by our interference in
the slow-paced Saturnian movements of Spain and
the rapid parabolic flights of Franlce. But such is
the disease, -such is the cure, -such is, and must
be, the effect of Regicide vicinity.
But what astonishes me is, that the negotiator,
who has certainly an exercised understanding, did
not see that every person habituated to such meditations must necessarily pursue the train of thought further than he has carried it, and must ask himself
whether what he states so truly of the necessity of
our arranging an analogous interior government, in
consequence of the vicinity of our possessions, in the
West Indies, does not as extensively apply, and much
more forcibly, to the circumstance of our much nearer
vicinity with the parent and author of this mischief.
I defy even his acuteness and ingenuity to show me
any one point in which the cases differ, except that
it is plainly more necessary in Europe than in America. Indeed, the further we trace the details of the proposed peace, the more your Lordship will be satis
? ? ? ? 86 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
fled that I have not been guilty of any abuse of terms,
when I use indiscriminately (as I always do, in speaking of arrangements with Regicide) the words peace
and fraternity. An analogy between our interior governments must be the consequence. The noble negotiator sees it as well as I do. I deprecate this Jacobin interior analogy. But hereafter, perhaps, I may say a good deal more upon this part of the subject.
The noble lord insists on very little more than on
the excellence of their Constitution, the hope of their
dwindling into little republics, and this close copartnership in government. I hear of others, indeed,
that offer by other arguments to reconcile us to this
peace and fraternity. The Regicides, they say, have
renounced the creed of the Rights of Man, and declared equality a chimera. This is still more strange
than all the rest. They have apostatized from their
apostasy. They are renegadoes from that impious
faith for which they subverted the ancient government, murdered their king, and imprisoned, butch
ered, confiscated, and banished their fellow-subjects,
and to which they forced every man to swear at the
peril of his life. And now, to reconcile themselves
to the world, they declare this creed; bought by so
much blood, to be an imposture and a chimera. I
have no doubt that they always thought it to be so,
when they were destroying everything at home and
abroad for its establishment. It is no strange thing,
to those who look into the nature of corrupted man,
to find a violent persecutor a perfect unbeliever of his
own creed. But this is the very first time that any
man or set of men were hardy enough to attempt to
lay the ground of confidence in them by an acknowledgment of their own falsehood, fraud, hypocrisy,
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 87
treachery, heterodox doctrine, persecution, and cruelty. Everything we hear from them is new, and,
to use a phrase of their own, revolutionary; everything supposes a total revolution in all the principles of reason, prudence, and moral feeling. If possible, this their recantation of the chief parts in the canon of the Rights of Man is more infamous and
causes greater horror than their originally promulgating and forcing down the throats of mankind
that symbol of all evil. It is raking too much into
the dirt and ordure of human nature to say more
of it.
I hear it said, too, that they have lately declared
in favor of property. This is exactly of the same sort
with the former. What need had they to make this
declaration, if they did not know that by their doctrines and practices they had totally subverted all
property? What government of Europe, either in
its origin or its continuance, has thought it necessary to declare itself in favor of property? The more
recent ones were formed for its protection against
former violations; the old consider the inviolability of property and their own existence as one and
the same thing, and that a proclamation for its safety
would be sounding an alarm on its danger. But the
Regicide banditti knew that this was not the first
time they have been obliged to give such assurances, and had as often falsified them. They knew,
that, after butchering hundreds of men, women,
and children, for no other cause than to lay hold
on their property, such a declaration might have a
chance of encouraging other nations to run the risk
of establishing a commercial house amongst them.
It is notorious, that these very Jacobins, upon an
? ? ? ? 88 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
alarm of the shopkeeper of Paris, made this declaration in favor of property. These brave fellows
received the apprehensions expressed on that head
with indignation, and said that property could be
in no danger, because all the world knew it was
under the protection of the sans-culottes.
At what
period did they not give this assurance? Did they
not give it, when they fabricated their first Constitution? Did they not then solemnly declare it one
of the rights of a citizen (a right, of course, only declared, and not then fabricated) to depart from his
country, and choose another domicilium, without detriment to his property? Did they not declare that
no property should be confiscated from the children
for the crime of the parent? Can they now declare
more fully their respect for property than they did
at that time? And yet was there ever known such
horrid violences and confiscations as instantly followed under the very persons now in power, many
of them leading members of that Assembly, and all
of them violators of that engagement which was the
very basis of their republic, - confiscations in which
hundreds of men, women, and children, not guilty
of one act of duty in resisting their usurpation, were
involved? This keeping of their old is, then, to give
us a confidence in their new engagements. But examine the matter, and you will see that the prevaricating sons of violence give no relief at all, where at all it can be wanted. They renew their old fraudulent declaration against confiscations, and then they
expressly exclude all adherents to their ancient lawful government from any benefit of it: that is to say,
they promise that they will secure all their brother
plunderers in their share of the common plunder.
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 89
The fear of being robbed by every new succession
of robbers, who do not keep even the faith of that
kind of society, absolutely required that they should
give security to the dividends of spoil, else they could
not exist a moment. But it was necessary, in giving
security to robbers, that honest men should be deprived of all hope of restitution; and thus their interests were made utterly and eternally incompatible. So that it appears that this boasted security of property is nothing more than a seal put upon its destruction; this ceasing of confiscation is to secure the confiscators against the innocent proprietors. That
very thing which is held out to you as your cure is
that which makes your malady, and renders it, if
once it happens, utterly incurable. You, my Lord,
who possess a considerable, though not an invidious
estate, may be well assured, that, if, by being engaged, as you assuredly would be, in the defenice
of your religion, your king, your order, your laws,
and liberties, that estate should be put under confiscation, the property would be secured, but in the
same manner, at your expense.
But, after all, for what purpose are we told of this
reformation in their principles, and what is the policy of all this softening in ours, which is to be produced by their example? It is not to soften us to suffering innocence and virtue, but to mollify us to
the crimes and to the society of robbers and ruffians.
But I trust that our countrymen will not be softened to that kind of crimes and criminals; for, if we
should, our hearts will be hardened to everything
which has a claim on our benevolence. A kind
Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the
unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve our
? ? ? ? 90 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
selves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear
cruelty are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancor produces
an indifference which is half an approbation. They
never will love where they ought to love, who do not
hate where they ought to hate.
There is another piece of policy, not more laudable
than this, in reading these moral lectures, which lessens our hatred to criminals and our pity to sufferers
by insinuating that it has been owing to their fault
or folly that the latter have become the prey of the
former. By flattering us that we are not subject to
the same vices and follies, it induces a confidence
that we shall not suffer the same evils by a contact
with the infamous gang of robbers who have thus
robbed and butchered our neighbors before our faces.
We must not be flattered to our ruin. Our vices
are the same as theirs, neither more nor less. If
any faults we had, which wanted this French example to call us to a " softening of character, and a review of our social relations and duties," there is yet
no sign that we have commenced our reformation.
We seem, by the best accounts I have from the world,
to go on just as formerly, " some to undo, and some
to be undone. " There is no change at all: and if
we are not bettered by the sufferings of war, this
peace, which, for reasons to himself best known, the
author fixes as the period of our reformation, must
have something very extraordinary in it; because
hitherto ease, opulence, and their concomitant pleasure have never greatly disposed mankind to that serious reflection and review which the author supposes to be the result of the approaching peace with vice
and crime. I believe he forms a right estimate of
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 91
the nature of this peace, and that it will want many
of those circumstances which formerly characterized
that state of things.
If I am right in my ideas of this new republic, the
different states of peace and war will make no difference in her pursuits. It is not an enemy of accident
that we have to deal with. Enmity to us, and to all
civilized nations, is wrought into the very stamina of
its Constitution. It was made to pursue the purposes of that fundamental enmity. The design will
go on regularly in every position and in every relation. Their hostility is to break us to their dominion; their amity is to debauch us to their principles. In the former, we are to contend with their force; in
the latter, with their intrigues. But we stand in a
very different posture of defence in the two situations. In war, so long as government is supported,
we fight with the whole united force of the kingdom.
When under the name of peace the war of intrigue
begins, we do not contend against our enemies with
the whole force of the kingdom. No, - we shall
have to fight, (if it should be a fight at all, and not
an ignominious surrender of everything which has
made our country venerable in our eyes and dear
to our hearts,) we shall have to fight with but a
portion of our strength against the whole of theirs.
Gentlemen who not long since thought with us, but
who now recommend a Jacobin peace, were at that
time sufficiently aware of the existence of a dangerous Jacobin faction within this kingdom. Awhile
ago they seemed to be tremblingly alive to the number of those who composed it, to their dark subtlety,
to their fierce audacity, to their admiration of everything that passes in France, to their eager desire of a
? ? ? ? 92 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
close communication with the mother faction there.
At this moment, when the question is upon the opening of that communication, not a word of our English Jacobins. That faction is put out of sight and out
of thought. "It vanished at the crowing of the
cock. " Scarcely had the Gallic harbinger of peace
and light begun to utter his lively notes, than all the
cackling of us poor Tory geese to alarm the garrison
of the Capitol was forgot. * There was enough of
indemnity before. Now a complete act of oblivion
is passed about the Jacobins of England, though one
would naturally imagine it would make a principal
object in all fair deliberation upon the merits of a
project of amity with the Jacobins of France. But
however others may choose to forget the faction, the
faction does not choose to forget itself, nor, however
gentlemen may choose to flatter themselves, it does
not forget them.
Never, in any civil contest, has a part been taken
with more of the warmth, or carried on with more of
the arts of a party. The Jacobins are worse than lost
to their country. Their hearts are abroad. Their
sympathy with the Regicides of France is complete.
Just as in a civil contest, they exult in all their victories, they are dejected and mortified in all their defeats. Nothing that the Regicides can do (and
they have labored hard for the purpose) can alienate
them from their cause. You and I, my dear Lord,
have often observed on the spirit of their conduct.
When the Jacobins of France, by their studied, deliberated, catalogued files of murders with the poniard, the sabre, and the tribunal, have shocked whatever
Hic auratis volitans argenteus anser
Porticibus GALLOS in limine adesse canebat.
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 93
remained of human sensibility in our breasts, then it
was they distinguished the resources of party policy.
They did not venture directly to confront the public
sentiment; for a very short time they seemed to partake of it. They began with a' reluctant and sorrowful confession; they deplored the stains which tarnished the lustre of a good cause. After keeping
a decent time of retirement, in a few days crept out
an apology for the excesses of men cruelly irritated
by the attacks of unjust power. Grown bolder, as
the first feeling of mankind decayed and the color
of these horrors began to fade upon the imagination,
they proceeded from apology to defence. They urged,
but still deplored, the absolute necessity of such a
proceeding. Then they made a bolder stride, and
marched from defence to recrimination. They attempted to assassinate the memory of those whose
bodies their friends had massacred, and to consider
their murder as a less formal act of justice. They
endeavored even to debauch our pity, and to suborn
it in favor of cruelty. They wept over the lot of
those who were driven by the crimes of aristocrats to
republican vengeance. Every pause of their cruelty
they considered as a return of their natural sentiments of benignity and justice. Then they had recourse to history, and found out all the recorded cruelties that deform the annals of the world, in order that the massacres of the Regicides might pass
for a common event, and even that the most merciful of princes, who suffered by their hands, should
bear the iniquity of all the tyrants who have at any
time infested the earth. In order to reconcile us the
better to this republican tyranny, they confounded
the bloodshed of war with the murders of peace;
? ? ? ? 94 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
and they computed how much greater prodigality of
blood was exhibited in battles and in the storm of
cities than in the frugal, well-ordered massacres of the
revolutionary tribunals of France.
As to foreign powers, so long as they were conjoined with Great Britain in this contest, so long
they were treated as the most abandoned tyrants,
and, indeed, the basest of the human race. The moment any of them quits the cause of this government, and of all governments, he is rehabilitated, his honor is restored, all attainders are purged. The
friends of Jacobins are no longer despots; the betrayers of the common cause are no longer traitors.
That you may not doubt that they look oil this war
as a civil war, and the Jacobins of France as of their
party, and that they look upon us, though locally
their countrymen, in reality as enemies, they have
never failed to run a parallel between our late civil
war and this war with the Jacobins of France. They
justify their partiality to those Jacobins by the partiality which was shown by several here to the Colonies, and they sanction their cry for peace with the Regicides of France by some of our propositions for
peace with the English in America.
This I do not mention as entering into the controversy how far they are right or wrong in this parallel, but to show that they do make it, and that they
do consider themselves as of a party with the Jacobins
of France. You cannot forget their constant correspondence with the Jacobins, whilst it was in their
power to carry it on. When the communication is
again opened, the interrupted correspondence will
commence. We cannot be blind to the advantage
which such a party affords to Regicide France in all
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 95
her views, - and, on the other hand, what an advantage Regicide France holds out to the views of the
republican party in England. Slightly as they have
considered their subject, I think this can hardly have
escaped the writers of political ephemerides for any
month or year. They have told us much of the
amendment of the Regicides of Frallce, and of their
returning honor and generosity. Have they told
anything of the reformation and of the returning
loyalty of the Jacobins of England? Have they told
us of their gradual softening towards royalty? Have
they told us what measures they are taking for " putting the crown in commission," and what approximations of any kind they are making towards the old Constitution of their country? Nothing of this. The
silence of these writers is dreadfully expressive. They
dare not touch the subject. But it is not annihilated by their silence, nor by our indifference. It is
but too plain that our Constitution cannot exist with
such a communication. Our humanity, our manners,
our morals, our religion, cannot stand with such a
communication. The Constitution is made by those
things, and for those things: without them it cannot
exist; and without them it is no matter whether it
exists or not.
It was an ingenious Parliamentary Christmas play,
by which, in both Houses, you anticipated the holidays; it was a relaxation from your graver employment; it was a pleasant discussion you had, which part of the family of the Constitution was the elder
branch, - whether one part did not exist prior to the
others, and whether it might exist and flourish, if
"the others were cast into the fire. "* In order to
* See debates in Parliament upon motions made in both Houses
? ? ? ? 96 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
make this Saturnalian amusement general in the fam:
ily, you sent it down stairs, that judges and juries
might partake of the entertainment. The unfortunate antiquary and augur who is the butt of all this sport may suffer in the roistering horse-play and practical jokes of the servants' hall. But whatever may become of him, the discussion itself, and the timing it,
put me in mind of what I have read. (where I do not
recollect,) that the subtle nation of the Greeks were
busily employed, in the Church of Santa Sophia, in
a dispute of mixed natural philosophy, metaphysics,
and theology, whether the light on Mount Tabor was
created or uncreated, and were ready to massacre
the holders of the unfashionable opinion, at the very
moment when the ferocious enemy of all philosophy
and religion, Mahomet the Second, entered through
a breach into the capital of the Christian world. I
may possibly suffer much more than Mr. Reeves (I
shall certainly give much more general offence) for
breaking in upon this constitutional amusement concerning the created or uncreated nature of the two Houses of Parliament, and by calling their attention
to a problem which may entertain them less, but
which concerns them a great deal more, - that is,
whether, with this Gallic Jacobin fraternity, which
they are desired by some writers to court, all the
parts of the government, about whose combustible
or incombustible qualities they are contending, may
" not be cast into the fire " together. He is a strange
visionary (but he is nothing worse) who fancies that
any one part of our Constitution, whatever right of
primogeniture it may claim, or whatever astrologers
for prosecuting Mr. Reeves for a libel upon the Constitution, Dec. ,
1795.
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 97
may divine from its horoscope, can possibly survive
the others. As they have lived, so they will die, together. I must do justice to the impartiality of the Jacobins. I have not observed amongst them the least
predilection for any of those parts. If there has been
any difference in their malice, I think they have
shown a worse disposition to the House of Commons
than to the crown. As to the House of Lords, they
do not speculate at all about it, and for reasons that
are too obvious to detail.
The question will be concerning the effect of this
French fraternity on the whole mass. Have we anything to apprehend from Jacobin communication, or have we not? If we have not, is it by our experience before the war that we are to presume that after the war no dangerous communion can exist between
those who are well affected to the new Constitution
of France and ill affected to the old Constitution
here?
In conversation I have not yet found nor heard of
any persons, except those who undertake to instruct
the public, so unconscious of the actual state of things,
or so little prescient of the future, who do not shudder all over and feel a secret horror at the approach of this communication. I' do not except from this
observation those who are willing, more than I find
myself disposed, to submit to this fraternity. Never
has it been mentioned in my hearing, or from what I
can learn in my inquiry, without the suggestion of
an Alien Bill, or some other measures of the same
nature, as a defence against its manifest mischief.
Who does not see the utter insufficiency of such a
remedy, if such a remedy could be at all adopted?
We expel suspected foreigners from hence; and we
VOL. VI. 7
? ? ? ? 98 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
suffer every Englishman to pass over into France to
be initiated in all the infernal discipline of the place,
to cabal and to be corrupted by every means of cabal
and of corruption, and then to return to England,
charged with their worst dispositions and designs.
In France he is out of the reach of your police; and
when he returns to England, one such English emissary is worse than a legion of French, who are either tongue-tied, or whose speech betrays them. But the
worst aliens are the ambassador and his train. These
you cannot expel without a proof (always difficult)
of direct practice against the state. A French ambassador, at the head of a French party, is an evil which we have never experienced. The mischief is
by far more visible than the remedy. But, after all,
every such measure as an Alien Bill is a measure of
hostility, a preparation for it, or a cause of dispute
that shall bring it on. In effect, it is fundamentally
contrary to a relation of amity, whose essence is a
perfectly free communication. Everything done to
prevent it will provoke a foreign war. Everything,
when we let it proceed, will produce domestic distraction. We shall be in a perpetual dilemma. But
it is easy to see which side of the dilemma will be
taken. The same temper which brings us to solicit
a Jacobin peace will induce us to temporize with all
the evils of it. By degrees our minds will be made
to our circumstances. The novelty of such things,
which produces half the horror and all the disgust,
will be worn off. Our ruin will be disguised in profit, and the sale of a few wretched baubles will bribe
a degenerate people to barter away the most precious
jewel of their souls. Our Constitution is not made
for this kind of warfare. It provides greatly for our
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 99
happiness, it furnishes few means for our defence.
It is formed, in a great measure, upon the principle
of jealousy of the crown, - and as things stood, when
it took that turn, with very great reason. I go farther: it must keep alive some part of that fire of jealousy eternally and chastely burning, or it cannot be
the British Constitution. At various periods we have
had tyranny in this country, more than enough. We
have had rebellions with more or less justification.
Some of our kings have made adulterous connections
abroad, and trucked away for foreign gold the interests and glory of their crown. But, before this time,
our liberty has never been corrupted. I mean to say,
that it has never been debauched from its domestic
relations. To this time it has been English liberty,
and English liberty only. Our love of liberty and
our love of our country were not distinct things.
Liberty is now, it seems, put upon a larger and more
liberal bottom. We are men, --and as menl, undoubtedly, nothing human is foreign to us. We cannot be too liberal in our general wishes for the happiness of'our kind.