No More Learning

The guide of human life led him astray. A silent
revolution in the moral world preceded the political,
and prepared it. It became of more importance than
ever what examples were given, and what measures
were adopted. Their causes no longer lurked in the
recesses of cabinets or in the private conspiracies of
the factious. They were no longer to be controlled
by the force and influence of the grandees, who for
? ? ? ? 380 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
merly had been able to stir up troubles by their discontents and to quiet them by their corruption. The
chain of subordination, even in cabal and sedition,
was broken in its most important links. It was
no longer the great and the populace. Other interests were formed, other dependencies, other connections, other communications. The middle classes had swelled far beyond their former proportion. Like
whatever is the most effectively rich and great in society, these classes became the seat of all the active
politics, and the preponderating weight to decide on
them. There were all the energies by which fortune
is acquired; there the consequence of their success.
There were all the talents which assert their pretensions, and are impatient of the place which settled society prescribes to them. These descriptions had got between the great and the populace; and the influence on the lower classes was with them. The spirit
of ambition had taken possession of this class as violently as ever it had done of any other. They felt
the importance of this situation. The correspondence
of the moneyed and the mercantile world, the literary intercourse of academies, but above all, the press,
of which they had in a manner entire possession,
made a kind of electric communication everywhere.
The press, in reality, has made every government, in
its spirit, almost democratic. Without the great, the
first movements in this revolution could not, perhaps,
have been given. But the spirit of ambition, now
for the first time connected with the spirit of speculation, was not to be restrained at will. There was
no longer any means of arresting a principle in its
course. When Louis the Sixteenth, under the influence of the enemies to monarchy, meant to found
? ? ? ? LETTER II. 381
but one republic, he set up two; when he meant to
take away half the crown of his neighbor, he lost the
whole of his own. Louis the Sixteenth could not
with impunity countenance a new republic. Yet between his throne and that dangerous lodgment for
an enemy, which he had erected, he had the whole
Atlantic for a ditch. He had for an outwork the
English nation itself, friendly to liberty, adverse to
that mode of it. He was surrounded by a rampart
of monarchies, most of them allied to him, and generally under his influence. Yet even thus secured,
a republic erected under his auspices, and dependent
on his power, became fatal to his throne. The very
money which he had lent to support this republic, by
a good faith which to him operated as perfidy, was
punctually paid to his enemies, and became a resource in the hands of his assassins.
With this example before their eyes, do any ministers in England, do any ministers in Austria, really
flatter themselves that they can erect, not on the remote shores of the Atlantic, but in their view, in
their vicinity, in absolute contact with one of them,
not a commercial, but a martial republic, --a republic not of simple husbandmen or fishermen, but of intriguers, and of warriors, - a republic of a character the most restless, the most enterprising, the most impious, the most fierce and bloody, the most hypocritical and perfidious, the most bold and daring,
that ever has been seen, or indeed that can be conceived to exist, without bringing on their own certain ruin? Such is the republic to which we are going to give
a place in civilized fellowship, -the republic which,
with joint consent, we are going to establish in the
? ? ? ? 382 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
centre of Europe, in a post that overlooks and commands every other state, and which eminently confronts and menaces this kingdom.
You cannot fail to observe that I speak as if the
allied powers were actually consenting, and not compelled by events, to the establishment of this faction
in France. The words have not escaped me. You
will hereafter naturally expect that I should make
them good. But whether in adopting this measure
we are madly active or weakly passive or pusillanimously panic-struck, the effects will be the same.
You may call this faction, which has eradicated the
monarchy, expelled the proprietary, persecuted religion, and trampled upon law,* --you may call this
France, if you please; but of the ancient France nothing remains but its central geography, its iron frontier, its spirit of ambition, its audacity of enterprise, its perplexing intrigue. These, and these alone, remain: and they remain heightened in their principle
and augmented in their means. All the former correctives,'whether of virtue or of weakness, which
existed in the old monarchy, are gone. No single
new corrective is to be found in the whole body
of the new institutions. How should such a thing
be found there, when everything has been chosen
with care and selection to forward all those ambitious designs and dispositions, not to control them?
The whole is a body of ways and means for the
supply of dominion, without one heterogeneous particle in it.
Here I suffer you to breathe, and leave to your
meditation what has occurred to me on the genius
and character of the French Revolution. From hav* See our Declaration.
? ? ? ? LETTER II. 383
ing this before us, we may be better able to determine on the first question I proposed, - that is, How
far nations called foreign are likely to be affected
with the system established within that territory. I
intended to proceed next on the question of her facilities, from the internal state of other nations, and particularly of this, for obtaining her ends; but I ought to be aware that my notions are controverted. I
mean, therefore, in my next letter, to take notice
of what in that way has been recommended to me
as the most deserving of notice. In the examination
of those pieces, I shall have occasion to discuss some
others of the topics to which I have called your attention. You know that the letters which I now send
to the press, as well as a part of what is to follow,
have been in their substance long since written. A
circumstance which your partiality alone could make
of importance to you, but which to the public is
of no importance at all, retarded their appearance.
The late events which press upon us obliged me to
make some additions, but no substantial change in
the matter.
This discussion, my friend, will be long. But the
matter is serious; and if ever the fate of the world
could be truly said to depend on a particular measure, it is upon this peace. For the present, farewell.
? ? ? ? LETTER III.
ON THE RUPTURE OF THE NEGOTIATION; THE TERMS
OF PEACE PROPOSED; AND THE RESOURCES OF
THE COUNTRY FOR THE CONTINUANCE OF THE
WAR.
DEAR SIR, -- I thank you for the bundle of statepapers which I received yesterday. I have travelled through the negotiation, - and a sad, founderous road it is. There is a sort of standing jest against my countrymen, -that one of them on his journey
having found a piece of pleasant road, he proposed
to his companion to go over it again. This proposal, with regard to the worthy traveller's final destination, was certainly a blunder. It was no blunder
as to his immediate satisfaction; for the way was
pleasant. In the irksome journey of the Regicide
negotiations it is otherwise: our "paths are not
paths of pleasantness, nor our ways the ways to
peace. " All our mistakes, (if such they are,) like
those of our ilibernian traveller, are mistakes of repetition; and they will be full as far from bringing
us to our place of rest as his well-considered project
was from forwarding him to his inn. Yet I see we
persevere. Fatigued with our former course, too
listless to explore a new one, kept in action by inertness, moving only because we have been in motion,
with a sort of plodding perseverance we resolve to
measure back again the very same joyless, hopeless,
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 385
and inglorious track. Backward and forward, - oscillation, not progression, - much going in a scanty
space, -- the travels of a postilion, miles enough to
circle the globe in one short stage, -we have been,
and we are yet to be, jolted and rattled over the
loose, misplaced stones and the treacherous hollows
of this rough, ill-kept, broken-up, treacherous French
causeway!
The Declaration which brings up the rear of the
papers laid before Parliament contains a review and
a reasoned summary of all our attempts and all our
failures, -- a concise, but correct narrative of the
painful steps taken to bring on the essay of a treaty
at Paris, - a clear exposure of all the rebuffs we re --
ceived in the progress of that experiment, - an honest confession of our departure from all the rules and,
all the principles of political negotiation, and of common prudence in the conduct of it, -- and to crown
the whole, a fair account of the atrocious manner in
which the Regicide enemies had broken up what had
been so inauspiciously begun and so feebly carried
on, by finally, and with all scorn, driving our suppliant ambassador out of the limits of their usurpation.
Even after all that I have lately seen, I was a little surprised at this exposure. A minute display of
hopes formed without foundation and of labors pursued without fruit is a thing not very flattering to
self-estimation. But truth has its rights, and it, will
assert them. The Declaration, after doing all this
with a mortifying candor, concludes the whole recapitulation. with an engagement still more extraordinary than all the unusual matter it contains. It says that "' His Majesty, who had entered into the
negotiation with good faith, who had suffered no imVOL. V. 25
? ? ? ? 386 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
pediment to prevent his prosecuting it with earnestness and sincerity, has now only to lament its abrupt
termination, and to renew in the face of all Europe
the solemn declaration, that, whenever his enemies
shall be disposed to enter on the work of general pacification in a spirit of conciliation and equity, nothing
shall be wanting on his part to contribute to the accomplishlment of that great object. "
If' the disrgusting detail of the accumulated insults
we have received, in what we have very properly
called our " solicitation" to a gang of felons and
murderers, had been produced as a proof of the utter
inefficacy of that mode of proceeding with that description of persons, I should have nothing at all to object
to it. It might furnish matter conclusive in argument and instructive in policy; but, with all due submission to high authority, and with all decent deference to superior lights, it does not seem quite clear to a discernment no better than mine that the premises
in that piece conduct irresistibly to the conclusion.
A labored display of the ill consequences which have
attended an uniform course of submission to every
mode of contumelious insult, with which the despotism of a proud, capricious, insulting, and implacable
foe has chosen to buffet our patience, does not appear
to my poor thoughts to be properly brought forth as
a preliminary to justify a resolution of persevering in
the very same kind of conduct, towards the very same
sort of person, and on the very same principles. We
state our experience, and then we come to the manly
resolution of acting in contradiction to it. All that
has passed at Paris, to the moment of our being
shamefully hissed off that stage, has been nothing
but a more solemn representation on the theatre of
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 387
the nation of what had been before in rehearsal at
Basle. As it is not only confessed by us, but made
a matter of charge on the enemy, that he had given
us no encouragement to believe there was a change in
his disposition or in his policy at any time subsequent
to the period of his rejecting our first overtures, there
seems to have been no assignable motive for sending
Lord Malmesbury to Paris, except to expose his hum.
bled country to the worst indignities, and the first of
the kind, as the Declaration very truly observes, that
have been known in the world of negotiation.
An honest neighbor of mine is not altogether unhappy in the application of an old common story to a present occasion. It may be said of my friend, what
Horace says of a neighbor of his, "' Garrit aniles ex re
fabellas. " Conversing on this strange subject, he told
me a current story of a simple English country squire,
who was persuaded by certain dilettanti of his acquaintance to see the world, and to become knowing in men and manners. Among other celebrated places,
it was recommended to him to visit Constantinople.
He took their advice. After various adventures, not
to our purpose to dwell upon, he happily arrived
at that famous city. As soon as he had a little
reposed himself from his fatigue, he took a walk
into the streets; but he had not gone far, before
" a malignant and a turbaned Turk" had his choler
roused by the careless and assured air with which
this infidel strutted about in the metropolis of true
believers. In this temper he lost no time in doing
to our traveller the honors of the place. The Turk
crossed over the way, and with perfect good-will gave
him two or three lusty kicks on the seat of honor.
To resent or to return the compliment in Turkey was
? ? ? ? 388 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
quite out of the question. Our traveller, since he
could not otherwise acknowledge this kind of favor,
received it with the best grace in the world: he
made one of his most ceremonious bows, and begged
the kicking Mussulman " to accept his perfect assurances of high consideration. " Our countryman was too wise to imitate Othello in the use of the dagger.
He thought it better, as better it was, to assuage his
bruised dignity with half a yard square of balmy diplomatic diachylon. In the disasters of their friends, people are seldom wanting in a laudable patience.
When they are such as do not threaten to end fatally,
they become even matter of pleasantry. The English
fellow-travellers of our sufferer, finding him a little
out of spirits, entreated him not to take so slight a
business so very seriously. They told him it was the
custom of the country; that every country had its
customs; that the Turkish manners were a little
rough, but that in the main the Turks were a goodnatured people; that what would have been a deadly affront anywhere else was only a little freedom there:
in short, they told him to think no more of the matter, and to try his fortune in another promenade. But the squire, though a little clownish, had some
home-bred sense. ' What! have I come, at all this
expense and trouble, all the way to Constantinople
only to be kicked? Without going beyond my own
stable, my groom, for half a crown, would have kicked
me to my heart's content. I don't mean to stay in
Constantinople eight-and-forty hours, nor ever to return to this rough, good-natured people, that have their own customs. "
In my opinion the squire was in the right. He was
satisfied with his first ramble and his first injuries.
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 389
But reason of state and common sense are two things.
If it were not for this difference, it might not appear
of absolute necessity, after having received a certain
quantity of buffetings by advance, that we should
send a peer of the realm to the scum of the earth to
collect the debt to the last farthing, and to receive,
with infinite aggravation, the same scorns which had
been paid to our supplication through a commoner:
but it was proper, I suppose, that the whole of our
country, in all its orders, should have a share of the
indignity, and, as in reason, that the higher orders
should touch the larger proportion.
This business was not ended because our dignity
was wounded, or because our patience was worn out
with contumely and scorn. . We had not disgorged
one particle of the nauseous doses with which we
were so liberally crammed by the mountebanks of
Paris in order to drug and diet us into perfect tameness. No, -we waited till the morbid strength of
our boulimia for their physic had exhausted the wellstored dispensary of their empiricism. It is impossible to guess at the term to which our forbearance would have extended. The Regicides were more
fatigued with giving blows than the callous cheek of
British diplomacy was hurt in receiving them. They
had no way left for getting rid of this mendicant
perseverance, but by sending for the beadle, and forcibly driving our embassy " of shreds and patches,"
with all its mumping cant, from the inhospitable door
of Cannibal Castle," Wlhere the gaunt mastiff, growling at the gate,
Affrights the beggar whom he longs to eat. "
I think we might have found, before the rude hand
of insolent office was on our shoulder, and the staff
? ? ? ? 390 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
of usurped authority brandished over our heads, that
contempt of the suppliant is not the best forwarder of
a suit, - that national disgrace is not the high-road to
security, much less to power and greatness. Patience,
indeed, strongly indicates the love of peace; but mere
love does not always lead to enrjoyment. It is the
power of winning that palm which insures our wearing it. Virtues have their place; and out of. their place they hardly deserve the name, -they pass into
the neighboring vice. The patience of fortitude and
the endurance of pusillanimity are things very different, as in their principle, so in their effects.
In truth, this Declaration, containing a narrative
of the first transaction of the kind (and I hope it will
be the last) in the intercourse of nations, as a composition, is ably drawn. It does credit to our official style. The report of the speech of the minister in a
great assembly, which I have read, is a comment upon the Declaration. Without inquiry how far that report is exact, (inferior I believe it may be to what
it would represent,) yet still it reads as a most eloquent and finished performance. Hardly one galling circumstance of the indignities offered by the Directory of Regicide to the supplications made to that junto in his Majesty's name has been spared. Every
one of the aggravations attendant on these acts of
outrage is, with wonderful perspicuity and order,
brought forward in its place, and in the manner most
fitted to produce its effect. They are turned to every
point of view in which they can be seen to the best
advantage. All the parts are so arranged as to point
out their relation, and to furnish a true idea of the
spirit of the whole transaction.
This speech may stand for a model. Never, for
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 391
the triumphal decoration of any theatre, not for the
decoration of those of Athens and Rome, or even of
this theatre of Paris, from the embroideries of Babylon or from the loom of the Gobelins, has there been sent any historic tissue so truly drawn, so closely and
so finely wrought, or in which the forms are brought
out in the rich purple of such glowing and blushing
colors. It puts me in mind of the piece of tapestry
with which Virgil proposed to adorn the theatre he
was to erect to Augustus upon the banks of the Mincio, who now hides his head in his reeds, and leads his slow and melancholy windings through banks
wasted by the barbarians of Gaul. He supposes that
the artifice is such, that the figures of the conquered
nations in his tapestry are made to play their part,
and are confounded in the machine,utque
Purpurea intexti tollant aulxea Britanni;
or, as Dryden translates it, somewhat paraphrastically, but not less in the spirit of the prophet than of the poet, --
" Where the proud theatres disclose the scene,
Which interwoven Britons seem to raise,
And show the triumph which their shame displays. "
It is something wonderful, that the sagacity shown
in the Declaration and the speech (and, so far as it
goes, greater was never shown) should have failed to
discover to the writer and to the speaker the inseparable relation between the parties to this transaction, and that nothing can be said to display the imperious
arrogance of a base enemy which does not describe
with equal force and equal truth the contemptible figure of an abject embassy to that imperious power. It is no less striking, that the same obvious re
? ? ? ? 392 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
flection should not occur to those gentlemen who
conducted the opposition to government. But their
thoughts were turned another way. They seem to
have been so entirely occupied with the defence of
the French Directory, so very eager in finding recriminatory precedents to justify every act of its intolerable insolence, so animated in their accusations of ministry for not having at the very outset made
concessions proportioned to the dignity of the great
victorious power we had offended, that everything
concerning the sacrifice in this business of national
honor, and of the most fundamental principles in the
policy of negotiation, seemed wholly to have escaped
them. To this fatal hour, the contention in Parliament appeared in another form, and was animated by
another spirit. For three hundred years and more,
we have had wars with what stood as government ill
France.
In all that period, the language of ministers,
whether of boast or of apology, was, that they had left
nothing undone for the assertion of the national honor,- the opposition, whether patriotically or factiously, contending that the ministers had been oblivious of the national glory, and had made improper sacrifices
of that public interest which they were bound not
only to preserve, but by all fair methods to augment.
This total change of tone on both sides of your House
forms itself no inconsiderable revolution; and I am
afraid it prognosticates others of still greater importance. The ministers exhausted the stores of their
eloquence in demonstrating that they had quitted the
safe, beaten highway of treaty between independent
powers, -that, to pacify the enemy, they had made
every sacrifice of the national dignity, - and that
they had offered to immolate at the same shrine the
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 393
most valuable of the national acquisitions. The opposition insisted that the victims were not fat nor fair
enough to be offered on the altars of blasphemed Regicide; and it was inferred from thence, that the sacrifical ministers, (who were a sort of intruders in the worship of the new divinity,) in their schismatical
devotion, had discovered more of hypocrisy than zeal.
They charged them with a concealed resolution to
persevere in what these gentlemen have (in perfect
consistency, indeed, with themselves, but most irreconcilably with fact and reason) called an unjust and
impolitic war.
That day was, I fear, the fatal term of local patriotism. On that day, I fear, there was an end of that
narrow scheme of relations called our country, with
all its pride, its prejudices, and its partial affections.
All the little quiet rivulets, that watered an humble,
a contracted, but not an unfruitful field, are to be
lost in the waste expanse, and boundless, barren
ocean of the homicide philanthropy of France. It is
no longer an object of terror, the aggrandizement of
a new power which teaches as a professor that philanthropy in the chair, whilst it propagates by arms
and establishes by conquest the comprehensive system of universal fraternity. In what light is all this
viewed in a great assembly? The party which takes
the lead there has no longer any apprehensions, except those that arise from not being admitted to the
closest and most confidential connections with the
metropolis of that fraternity. That reigning party
no longer touches on its favorite subject, the display
of those horrors that must attend the existence of a
power with such dispositions and principles, seated in
the heart of Europe. It is satisfied to find some loose,
? ? ? ? 394 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
ambiguous expressions in its former declarations,
which may set it free from its professions and engagements. It always speaks of peace with the Regicides
as a great and an undoubted blessing, and such a
blessing as, if obtained, promises, as much as any
human disposition of things can promise, security and
permanence. It holds out nothing at all definite towards this security. It only seeks, by a restoration
to some of their former owners of some fragments of
the general wreck of Europe, to find a plausible plea
for a present retreat from an embarrassing position.
As to the future, that party is content to leave it covered in a night of the most palpable obscurity. It
never once has entered into a particle of detail of
what our own situation, or that of other powers,
must be, under the blessings of the peace we seek.
This defect, to my power, I mean to supply, - that,
if any persons should still continue to think an attempt at foresight is any part of the duty of a statesman, I may contribute my trifle to the materials of his speculation.
As to the other party, the minority of to-day, possibly the majority of to-morrow, small in number, but
full of talents and every species of energy, which,
upon the avowed ground of being more acceptable to
France, is a candidate for the helm of this kingdom,
it has never changed from the beginning. It has
preserved a perennial consistency. This would be a
never failing source of true glory, if springing from
just and right; but it is truly dreadful, if it be an
arm of Styx, which springs out of the profoundest
depths of a poisoned soil. The French maxims were
by these gentlemen at no time condemned. I speak
of their language in the most moderate terms. There
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 395
are many who think that they have gone much further, that they have always magnified and extolled
the French maxims, - that, not in the least disgusted
or discouraged by the monstrous evils which have
attended these maxims from the moment of their
adoption both at home and abroad, they still continue to predict tliat in due time they must produce
the greatest good to the poor human race. They
obstinately persist in stating those evils as matter of
accident, as things wholly collateral to the system.
It is observed, that this party has never spoken of
an ally of Great Britain with the smallest degree ol
respect or regard: on the contrary, it has generally
mentioned them under opprobrious appellations, and
in such terms of contempt or execration as never had
been heard before, -- because no such would have formerly been permitted in our public assemblies. The moment, however, that any of those allies quitted
this obnoxious connection, the party has instantly
passed an act of indemnity and oblivion in their
favor. After this, no sort of censure on their conduct, no imputation on their character. From that
moment their pardon was sealed in a reverential and
mysterious silence. With the gentlemen of this minority, there is no ally, from one end of Europe to the other, with whom we ought not to be ashamed to act.
The whole college of the states of Europe is no better
than a gang of tyrants. With them all our connections were broken off at once. We ought to have cultivated France, and France alone, from the moment of her Revolution. On that happy change, all
our dread of that nation as a power was to cease.
She became in an instant dear to our affections and
one with our interests. All other nations we ought
? ? ? ? 396 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
to have commanded not to trouble her sacred throes,
whilst in labor to bring into an happy birth her abundant litter of constitutions. We ought to have acted under her auspices, in extending her salutary influence upon every side. From that moment England and France were become natural allies, and all the
other states natural enemies. The whole face of the
world was changed. What was it to us, if she acquired Holland and the Austrian Netherlands? By
her conquests she only enlarged the sphere of her
beneficence, she only extended the blessings of liberty to so many more foolishly reluctant nations. What was it to England, if, by adding these, among
the richest and most peopled countries of the world,
to her territories, she thereby left no possible link of
communication between us and any other power with
whom we could act against her? On this new system
of optimism, it is so much the better: so much the
further are we removed from the contact with infectious despotism. No longer a thought of a barrier
in the Netherlands to Holland against France. All
that is obsolete policy. It is fit that France should
have both Holland and the Austrian Netherlands too,
as a barrier to her against the attacks of despotism.
She cannot multiply her securities too much; and as
to our security, it is to be found in hers. Had we
cherished her from the beginning, and felt for her
when attacked, she, poor, good soul, would never
have invaded any foreign nation, never murdered
her sovereign and his family, never proscribed, never
exiled, never imprisoned, never been guilty of extrajudicial massacre or of legal murder. All would have been a golden age, full of peace, order, and
liberty, -and philosoplby, rayilg out from Europe,
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 397
would have warmed and enlightened the universe;
but, unluckily, irritable philosophy, the most irritable of all things, was put into a passion, and provoked into ambition abroad and tyranny at home. They find all this very natural and very justifiable.
They choose to forget that other nations, struggling
for freedom, have been attacked by their neighbors,
or that'their neighbors have otherwise interfered in
their affairs. Often have neighbors interfered in favor of princes against their rebellious subjects, and
often in favor of subjects against their prince. Such
cases fill half the pages of history; yet never were
they used as an apology, much less as a justification,
for atrocious cruelty in princes, or for general massacre and confiscation on the part of revolted subjects, - never as a politic cause for suffering any such powers to aggrandize themselves without limit
and without measure. A thousand times have we
seen it asserted in public prints and pamphlets, that,
if the nobility and priesthood of France had stayed
at home, their property never would have been confiscated. One would think that none of the clergy
had been robbed previous to their deportation, or
that their deportation had, on their part, been a voluntary act. One would think that the nobility and
gentry, and merchants and bankers, who stayed at
home, had enjoyed their property in security and
repose. The assertors of these positions well know
that the lot of thousands who remained at home was
far more terrible, that the most cruel imprisonment
was only a harbinger of a cruel and ignominious
death, and that in this mother country of freedom
there were no less than three hundred thousand at
one time in prison. I go no further. I instance
? ? ? ? 398 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
only these representations of the party, as staring
indications of partiality to that sect to whose dominion they would have left this country nothing to oppose but her own naked force, and consequently subjected us, on every reverse of fortune, to the imminent danger of falling under those very evils, in that very system, which are attributed, not to its own
nature, but to the perverseness of others. There is
nothing in the world so difficult as to put men in
a state of judicial neutrality. A leaning there must
ever be, and it is of the first importance to any nation to observe to what side that leaning inclines, --
whether to our own community, or to one with which
it is in a state of hostility.
Men are rarely without some sympathy in the
sufferings of others; but in the immense and diversified mass of human misery, which may be pitied,
but cannot be relieved, in the gross, the mind must
make a choice. Our sympathy is always more forcibly attracted towards the misfortunes of certain
persons, and in certain descriptions: and this sympathetic attraction discovers, beyond a possibility of
mistake, our mental affinities and elective affections.
It is a much surer proof than the strongest declaration of a real connection and of an overruling bias
in the mind. I am told that the active sympathies
of this party have been chiefly, if not wholly, attracted to the sufferings of the patriarchal rebels
who were amongst the promulgators of the maxims
of the French Revolution, and who have suffered
from their apt and forward scholars some part of
the evils which they had themselves so liberally distributed to all the other parts of the community.
Some of these men, flying from the knives which
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 399
they had sharpened against their country and its
laws, rebelling against the very powers they had set
over themselves by their rebellion against their sovereign, given up by those very armies to whose faithful attachment they trusted for their safety and support, after they had completely debauched all
military fidelity in its source, -- some of these men,
I say, had fallen into the hands of the head of thlat
family the most illustrious person of which they
had three times cruelly imprisoned, and delivered in
that state of captivity to those hands from which
they were able to relieve neither her, nor their owli
nearest and most venerable kindred. One of these
men, connected with this country by no circumstance
of birth, -- not related to any distinguished families
here, - recommended by no service, - endeared to
this nation by no act or even expression of kindness, - comprehended in no league or common
cause, -- embraced by no laws of public hospitality, -- this man was the only one to be found in
Europe, in whose favor the British nation, passing
judgment without hearing on its almost only ally,
was to force (and that not by soothing interposition,
but with every reproach for inhumanity, cruelty, and
breach of the laws of war) from prison. We were to
release him from that prison out of which, in abuse
of the lenity of government amidst its rigor, and in
violation of at least an understood parole, lie had
attempted an escape, - an escape excusable, if you
will, but naturally productive of strict and vigilant
confinement. The earnestness of gentlemen to free
this person was the more extraordinary because there
was full as little in him to raise admiration, from
any eminent qualities he possessed, as there was to
? ? ? ? 400 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
excite an interest, from any that were amiable. A
person not only of no real civil or literary talents,
but of no specious appearance of either, -- and in
his military profession not marked as a leader in
any one act of able or successful enterprise, unless
his leading on (or his following) the allied army of
Alnazonian and male cannibal Parisians to Versailles,
on the famous 5th of October, 1789, is to make his
glory. Any other exploit of his, as a general, I
never heard of. But the triumph of general fraternity was but the more signalized by the total want
of particular claims in that case, - and by postponing
all such claims in a case where they really existed,
where they stood embossed, and in a manner forced
themselves on the view of common, shortsighted benevolence. Whilst, for its improvement, the humanity of these gentlemen was thus on its travels, and had got as far off as Olmiitz, they never thought of
a place and a person much nearer to them, or of
moving an instruction to Lord Malmesbury in favor of their own suffering countryman, Sir Sydney
Smith.
This officer, having attempted, with great gallantry, to cut out a vessel from one of the enemy's harbors, was taken after an obstinate resistance, - such as obtained him the marked respect of those who
were witnesses of his valor, and knew the circumstances in which it was displayed. Upon his arrival at Paris, he was instantly thrown into prison,
where the nature of his situation will best be understood by knowing that amongst its mitigations
was the permission to walk occasionally in the court
and to enjoy the privilege of shaving himself. On
the old system of feelings and principles, his suffer
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 401
ings might have been entitled to consideration, and,
even in a comparison with those of Citizen La Fayette, to a priority in the order of compassion. If
the ministers had neglected to take any steps in his
favor, a declaration of the sense of the House of
Commons would have stimulated them to their duty.
If they had caused a representation to be made, such
a proceeding would have added force to it. If reprisal should be thought advisable, the address of
the House would have given an additional sanction
to a measure which would have been, indeed, justifiable without any other sanction than its own reason. But no. Nothing at all like it. In fact, the merit of
Sir Sydney Smith, and his claim on British compassion, was of a kind altogether different from that which interested so deeply the authors of the motion in favor of Citizen La Fayette. In my humble opinion,, Captain Sir Sydney Smith has another sort of merit
with the British nation, and something of a higher
claim on British humanity, than Citizen La Fayette.
Faithful, zealous, and ardent in the service of his king
and country, - full of spirit, - full of resources,
going out of the beaten road, but going right, because
his uncommon enterprise was not conducted by a vulgar judgment, -- in his profession Sir Sydney Smith might be considered as a distinguished person, if any
person could well be distinguished in a service inl
which scarce a commander can be named without:
putting you in mind of some action of intrepidity,
skill, and vigilance that has given them a fair title to
contend with any men and in- any age. But I will say
nothing farther of the merits of Sir Sydney Smith:
the mortal animosity of the Regicide enemy supersedes all other panegyric. Their hatred is a judgment. VOL. V. 26
? ? ? ? 402 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
in his favor without appeal. At present he is lodged
in the tower of the Temple, the last prison of Louis
the Sixteenth, and the last but one of Marie Antoinette of Austria, - the prison of Louis the Seventeeltl, - the prison of Elizabeth of Bourbon. There
he lies, unpitied by the grand philanthropy, to meditate upon the fate of those who are faithful to their
king and country. Whilst this prisoner, secluded from
ilntcrcourse, was indulging in these cheering reflections, he might possibly have had the further consolation of learning (by means of the insolent exultation
of his guards) that there was an English ambassador
at Paris; he might have had the proud comfort of
hearing that this ambassador had the honor of passing his mornings in respectful attendance at the office of a Regicide pettifogger, and that in the evening he relaxed in the almusements of the opera, and in the spectacle of an audience totally new, - an audience in which he had the pleasure of seeing about
him not a single face that he could formerly have
known in Paris, but, in the place of that company,
one indeed more than equal to it in display of gayety,
splendor, and luxury, - a set of abandoned wretches,
squandering in insolent riot the spoils of their bleeding country: a subject of profound reflection both to
the prisoner and to the ambassador.
Whether all the matter upon which I have grounded my opinion of this last party be fully authenticated or not must be left to those who have had the
opportunity of a nearer view of its conduct, and who
have been more attentive in their perusal of the writings which have appeared in its favor. But for my
part, I have never heard the gross facts on which I
ground my idea of their marked partiality to the
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 403
reigning tyranny in France in any part denied. I
am not surprised at all this. Opinions, as they sometimes follow, so they frequently guide and direct the
affections; and men may become more attached to
the country of their principles than to the country of
their birth. What I have stated here is only to mark
the spirit which seems to me, though in somewhat
different ways, to actuate our great party-leaders,
and to trace this first pattern of a negotiation to its
true source.
Such is the present state of our public councils.
Well might I be ashamed of what seems to be a censure of two great factions, with the two most eloquent men which this country ever saw at the head of them, if I had found that either of them could
support their conduct by any example in the history
of their country. I should very much prefer their
judgment to my own, if I were not obliged, by an
infinitely overbalancing weight of authority, to prefer the collected wisdom of ages to the abilities of
any two men living. -- I return to the Declaration,
with which the history of the abortion of a treaty
with the Regicides is closed.
After such an elaborate display had been made of
the injustice and insolence of an enemy who seems
to have been irritated by every one of the means
which had been commonly used with effect to soothe
the rage of intemperate power, the natural result
would be, that the scabbard in which we in vain
attempted to plunge our sword should have been
thrown away with scorn. It would have been natural, that, rising in the fulness of their might, insulted majesty, despised dignity, violated justice, rejected supplication, patience goaded into fury, would have
? ? ? ? 404 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
poured out all the length of the reins upon all the
wrath which they had so long restrained. It might
have been expected, that, emulous of the glory of the
youthful hero * in alliance with him, touched by the
example of what one man well formed and well
placed may do in the most desperate state of affairs, convinced there is a courage of the cabinet full as powerful and far less vulgar than that of
the field, our minister would have changed the whole
line of that unprosperous prudence which hitherto
had produced all the effects of the blindest temerity. If he found his situation full of danger, (and
I do not deny that it is perilous in the extreme,)
he must feel that it is also full of glory, and that
he is placed on a stage than which no muse of fire
that had ascended the highest heaven of invention
could imagine anything more awful and august. It
was hoped that in this swelling scene in which he
moved, with some of the first potentates of Europe
for his fellow-actors, and with so many of the rest for
the anxious spectators of a part which, as he plays
it, determines forever their destiny and his own, like
Ulysses in the unravelling point of the epic story,
he would have thrown off his patience and his rags
together, and, stripped of unworthy disguises, he
would have stood forth in the form and in the attitude of an hero. On that day it was thought he would have assumed the port of Mars; that he would
bid to be brought forth from their hideous kennel
(where his scrupulous tenderness had too long immured them) those impatient dogs of war whose fierce regards affright even the minister of vengeance that feeds them; that he would let them
* The Archduke Charles of Austria.
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 405
loose, in famine, fever, plagues, and death, upon a
guilty race, to whose frame, and to all whose habit,
order, peace, religion, and virtue are alien and abhorrent. It was expected that he would at last have
thought of active and effectual war; that he would
no longer amuse the British lion in the chase of mice
and rats; that he would no longer employ the whole
naval power of Great Britain, once the terror of the
world, to prey upon the miserable remains of a peddling commerce, which the enemy did not regard,
and from which none could profit. It was expected that he would have reasserted the justice of his
cause; that he would have reanimated whatever remained to him of his allies, and endeavored to recover those whom their fears had led astray; that he would have rekindled the martial ardor of his
citizens; that he would have held out to them the
example of their ancestry, the assertor of Europe,
and the scourge of French ambition; that he would
have reminded them of a posterity, which, if this
nefarious robbery, under the fraudulent name and
false color of a government, should in full power
be seated in the heart of Europe, must forever be
consigned to vice, impiety, barbarism, and the most
ignominious slavery of body and mind. In so holy
a cause it was presumed that he would (as in the
beginning of the war he did) have opened all the
temples, and with prayer, with fasting, and with supplication, (better directed than to the grim Moloch
of Regicide in France,) have called upon us to raise
that united cry which has so often stormed heaven,
and with a pious violence forced down blessings upon
a repentant people. It was hoped, that, when he. had
invoked upon his endeavors the favorable regard of
? ? ? ? 406 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
the Protector of the human race, it would be seen
that his menaces to the enemy and his prayers to the
Almighty were not followed, but accompanied, with
correspondent action. It was hoped that his shrilling trumpet should be heard, not to announce a show, but to sound a charge.
Such a conclusion to such a declaration and such
a speech would have been a thing of course,- so
much a thing of course, that I will be bold to say,
if in any ancient history, the Roman for instance,
(supposing that ill Romne the matter of such a detail could have been furnished,) a consul had gone through such a long train of proceedings, and that
there was a chasm in the manuscripts by which we
had lost the conclusion of the speech and the subsequent part of the narrative, all critics would agree that a Freinshemius would have been thought to
have managed the supplementary business of a continuator most unskilfully, and to have supplied the hiatus most improbably, if he had not filled up the
gaping space in a manner somewhat similar (though
better executed) to what I have imagined. But too
often different is rational conjecture from melancholy
fact. This exordiurn, as contrary to all the rules of
rhetoric as to those more essential rules of policy
which our situation would dictate, is intended as a
prelude to a deadening and disheartening proposition; as if all that a minister had to fear in a war of his own conducting was, that the people should pursue it with too ardent a zeal. Such a tone as I guessed the minister would have taken, I am very
sure, is the true, unsuborned, unsophisticated language of genuine, natural feeling, under the smart of patience exhausted and abused. Such a conduct as
? ? ? ? LETTER III. 407
the facts stated in the Declaration gave room to expect is that which true wisdom would have dictated under the impression of those genuine feelings.
Never was there a jar or discord between genuine
sentiment and sound policy. Never, no, never, did
Nature say one thing and Wisdom say another. Nor
are sentiments of elevation in themselves turgid and
unnatural. Nature is never more truly herself than
in her grandest forms. The Apollo of Belvedere (if
the universal robber has yet left him at Belvedere)
is as much in Nature as any figure from the pencil
of Rembrandt or any clown in the rustic revels of
Teniers. Indeed, it is when a great nation is in great
difficulties that minds must exalt themselves to the
occasion, or all is lost.