- See A View of the Relative State of Great Britain and
France at the Commencement of the Year 1796.
France at the Commencement of the Year 1796.
Edmund Burke
?
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. But in all questions on the mode of procuring it for any particular community,
we ought to be fearful of admitting those who have
no interest in it, or who have, perhaps, an interest
against it, into the consultation. Above all, we cannot be too cautious in our communication with those
who seek their happiness by other roads than those
of humanity, morals, and religion, and whose liberty
consists, and consists alone, in being free from those
restraints which are imposed by the virtues upon the
passions.
When we invite danger from a confidence in defensive measures, we ought, first of all, to be sure that
? ? ? ? 100 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
it is a species of danger against which any defensive measures that can be adopted will be sufficient. Next, we ought to know that the spirit of our laws,
or that our own dispositions, which are stronger than
laws, are susceptible of all those defensive measures
which the occasion may require. A third consideration is, whether these measures will not bring more odium than strength to government; and the last,
whether the authority that makes them, in a general corruption of manners and principles, can insure their execution. Let no one argue, from the state
of things, as he sees them at present, concerning what
will be the means and capacities of government, when
the time arrives which shall call for remedies commensurate to enormous evils.
It is an obvious truth, that no constitution can defend itself: it must be defended by the wisdom and fortitude of men. These are what no constitution
can give: they are the gifts of God; and He alone
knows whether we shall possess such gifts at the time
we stand in need of them. Constitutions furnish
the civil means of getting at the natural: it is all
that in this case they can do. But our Constitution
has more impediments than helps. Its excellencies,
when they come to be put to this sort of proof, may
be found among its defects.
Nothing looks more awful and imposing than an
ancient fortification. Its lofty, embattled walls, its
bold, projecting, rounded towers, that pierce the sky,
strike the imagination and promise inexpugnable
strength. But they are the very things that make
its weakness. You may as well think of opposing
one of these old fortresses to the mass (of artillery
brought by a French irruption into the field as to
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 101
think of resisting by your old laws and your old
forms the new destruction which the corps of Jacobin
engineers of to-day prepare for all such forms and all
such laws. Besides the debility and false principle of
their construction to resist the present modes of attack, the fortress itself is in ruinous repair, and there is a practicable breach in every part of it.
Such is the work. But miserable works have been
defended by the constancy of the garrison. Weatherbeaten ships have been brought safe to port by the spirit and alertness of the crew. But it is here that
we shall eminently fail. The day that, by their consent, the seat of Regicide has its place among the thrones of Europe, there is no longer a motive for
zeal in their favor; it will at best be cold, unimpassioned, dejected, melancholy duty. The glory will seem all on the other side. The friends of the crown
will appear, not as champions, but as victims; discountenanced, mortified, lowered, defeated. they will fall into listlessness and indifference. They will leave
things to take their course, enjoy the present hour,
and submit to the common fate.
Is it only an oppressive nightmare with which we
have been loaded? is it, then, all a frightful dream,
and are there no regicides in the world? Have we
not heard of that prodigy of a ruffian who would not
suffer his benignant sovereign, with his hands tied
behind him, and stripped for execution, to say one
parting word to his deluded people, - of Santerre,
who commanded the drums and trumpets to strike
up to stifle his voice, and dragged him backward to
the machine of murder? This nefarious villain (for
a few days I may call him so) stands high in France,
as in a republic of robbers and murderers he ought.
? ? ? ? 102 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
What hinders this monster from being sent as ambassador to convey to his Majesty the first compliments of his brethren, the Regicide Directory? They have none that can represent them more properly. I
anticipate the day of his arrival. He will make his
public entry into London on one of the pale horses
of his brewery. As he knows that we are pleased
with the Paris taste for the orders of knighthood,*
he will fling a bloody sash across his shoulders, with
the order of the holy guillotine surmounting the
crown appendant to the riband. Thus adorned, he
will proceed from Whitechapel to the further end of
Pall Mall, all the music of London playing the Marseillaise Hymn before him, and escorted by a chosen
detachment of the Legion de l'. Echafaud. It were
only to be wished that no ill-fated loyalist, for the
imprudence of his zeal, may stand in the pillory at
Charing Cross, under the statue of King Charles the
First, at the time of this grand procession, lest some
of the rotten eggs which the Constitutional Society
shall let fly at his indiscreet head may hit the virtuous murderer of his king. They might soil the
state dress which the ministers of so many crowned
heads have admired, and in which Sir Clement Cotterel is to introduce him at St. James's.
If Santerre cannot be spared from the constitutional butcheries at home, Tallien may supply his
place, and, in point of figure, with advantage. He
has been habituated to commissions; and he is as
well qualified as Santerre for this. Nero wished
* " In the costume assumed by the members of the legislative body
we almost behold the revival of the extinguished insignia of knighthood," &c. , &c.
- See A View of the Relative State of Great Britain and
France at the Commencement of the Year 1796.
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 103
the Roman people had but one neck. The wish of
the more exalted Tallien, when he sat in judgment,
was, that his sovereign had eighty-three heads, that
he might send one to every one of the Departments.
Tallien will make an excellent figure at Guildhall
at the next Sheriff's feast. He may open the ball
with my Lady Mayoress. But this will be after
lie has retired from the public table, and gone into
the private room for the enjoyment of more social
and unreserved conversation with the ministers of
state and the judges of the bench. There these ministers and magistrates will hear him entertain the worthy aldermen with an instructing and pleasing
narrative of the manner in which he made the rich
citizens of Bordeaux squeak, and gently led them
by the public credit of the guillotine to disgorge
their anti-revolutionary pelf.
All this will be the display, and the town-talk,
when our regicide is on a visit of ceremony. At
home nothing will equal the pomp and splendor of
the Hotel de la Republique. There another scene of
gaudy grandeur will be opened. When his Citizen
Excellency keeps the festival, which every citizen is
ordered to observe, for the glorious execution of
Louis the Sixteenth, and renews his oath of detestation of kings, a grand ball of course will be given on the occasion. Then what a hurly-burly! what
a crowding! what a glare of a thousand flambeaux
in the square! what a clamor of footmen contending at the door! what a rattling of a thousand coaches of duchesses, countesses, and Lady Marys,
choking the way, and overturning each other, in a
struggle who should be first to pay her court to the
Citoyenne, the spouse of the twenty-first husband, he
? ? ? ? 104 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
the husband of the thirty-first wife, and to hail her
in the rank of honorable matrons before the four
days' duration of marriage is expired i- Morals, as
they were, decorum, the great outguard of the sex,
and the proud sentiment of honor, which makes virtue more respectable, where it is, and conceals human frailty, where virtue may not be, will be banished
from this land of propriety, modesty, and reserve.
We had before an ambassador from the most Christian King. We shall have then one, perhaps two, as lately, from the most Anti-Christian Republic. His
chapel will be great and splendid, formed on the
model of the Temple of Reason at Paris; while the
famous ode of the infamous Chenier will be sung,
and a prostitute of the street adored as a goddess.
We shall then have a French ambassador without
a suspicion of Popery. One good it will have: it
will go some way in quieting the minds of that
synod of zealous Protestant lay elders who govern
Ireland on the pacific principles of polemic theology,
and who now, from dread of the Pope, cannot take
a cool bottle of claret, or enjoy an innocent Parliamentary job, with any tolerable quiet.
So far as to the French communication here:
what will be the effect of our communication there?
We know that our new brethren, whilst they everywhere shut up the churches, increased in Paris, at
one time at least fourfold, the opera-houses, the playhouses, the public shows of all kinds; and even in their state of indigence and distress, no expense was
spared for their equipment and decoration. They
were made an affair of state. There is no invention
of seduction, never wholly wanting in that place,
that has not been increased, - brothels, gaming.
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 105
houses, everything. And there is no doubt, but,
when they are settled in a triumphant peace, they
will carry all these arts to their utmost perfection,
and cover them with every species of imposing magnificence. They have all along avowed them as a
part of their policy; and whilst they corrupt youlg
minds through pleasure, they form them to crimes.
Every idea of corporal gratification is carried to the
highest excess, and wooed with all the elegance that
belongs to the senses. All elegance of mind and mallners is banished. A theatrical, bombastic, windy
phraseology of heroic virtue, blended and mingled
up with a worse dissoluteness, and joined to a murderous and savage ferocity, forms the tone and idiom of their language and their manners. Any one, who attends to all their own descriptions, narratives, and dissertations, will find in that whole place
more of the air of a body of assassins, banditti, housebreakers, and outlawed smugglers, joined to that of
a gang of strolling players expelled from and exploded orderly theatres, with their prostitutes in a
brothel, at their debauches and bacchanals, than anything of the refined and perfected virtues, or the polished, mitigated vices of a great capital.
Is it for this benefit we open " the usual relations
of peace and amity "? Is it for this our youth of
both sexes are to form themselves by travel? Is it
for this that with expense and pains we form their
lisping infant accents to the language of France? I
shall be told that this abominable medley is made
rather to revolt young and ingenuous minds. So it is
in the description. So perhaps it may in reality to a
chosen few. So it may be, when the magistrate, the
law, and the church frown on such manners, and the
? ? ? ? 106 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
wretches to whom they belong, -when they are
chased from the eye of day, and the society of civil
life, into night-cellars and caves and woods. But when
these men themselves are the magistrates, --when all
the consequence, weight, and authority of a great nation adopt them, - when we see them conjoined with
victory, glory, power, and dominion, and homage paid
to them by every government, - it is not possible that
the downhill should not be slid into, recommended
by everything which has opposed it. Let it be remembered that no young man can go to any part of
Europe without taking this place of pestilential contagion in his way; and whilst the less active part
of the community will be debauched by this travel,
whilst children are poisoned at these schools, our
trade will put the finishing hand to our ruin. No
factory will be settled in France, that will not become
a club of complete French Jacobins. The minds of
young men of that description will receive a taint in
their religion, their morals, and their politics, which
they will in a short time communicate to the whole
kingdom.
Whilst everything prepares the body to debauch
and the mind to crime, a regular church of avowed
atheism, established by law, with a direct and sanguinary persecution of Christianity, is formed to prevent all amendment and remorse. Conscience is formally deposed fiom its dominion over the mind.
What fills the measure of horror is, that schools of
atheism are set up at the public charge in every part
of the country. That some English parents will be
wicked enough to send their children to such schools
there is no doubt. Better this island should be sunk
to the bottom of the sea than that (so far as human
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 107
infirmity admits) it should not be a country of relig.
ion and morals!
With all these causes of corruption, we may well
judge what the general fashion of mind will be
through both sexes and all conditions. Such spectacles and such examples will overbear all the laws
that ever blackened the cumbrous volumes of our
statutes. When royalty shall have disavowed itself,
- when it shall have relaxed all the principles of its
own support, - when it has rendered the system of
Regicide fashionable, and received it as triumphant,
in the very persons who have consolidated that system by the perpetration of every crime, who have
not only massacred the prince, but the very laws
and magistrates which were the support of royalty,
and slaughtered with an indiscriminate proscription,
without regard to either sex or age, every person
that was suspected of an inclination to king, law,
or magistracy, -- I say, will any one dare to be
loyal? Will any one presume, against both authority and opinion, to hold up this unfashionable, antiquated, exploded Constitution? The Jacobin faction in England must grow in
strength and audacity; it will be supported by other intrigues and supplied by other resources than
yet we have seen in action. Confounded at its
growth, the government may fly to Parliament for
its support. But who will answer for the temper
of a House of Oommons elected under these circumstar. ces? Who will answer for the courage of a
House of Commons to arm the crown with the extraordinary powers that it may demand? But the
ministers will not venture to ask half of what they
know they want. They will lose half of that half
? ? ? ? 108 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
in the contest; and when they have obtained their
nothing, they will be driven by the cries of faction
either to demolish the feeble works they have thrown
up in a hurry, or, in effect, to abandon them. As to
the House of Lords, it is not worth mentioning. The
peers ought naturally to be the pillars of the crown;
but when their titles are rendered contemptible, and
their property invidious, and a part of their weakness, and not of their strength, they will be found so
many degraded and trembling individuals, who will
seek by evasion to put off the evil day of their ruin.
Both Houses will be in perpetual oscillation between
abortive attempts at energy and still more unsuccessful attempts at compromise. You will be impatient of your disease, and abhorrent of your remedy. A spirit of subterfuge and a tone of apology will enter into all your proceedings, whether of law or
legislation. Your judges, who now sustain so masculine an authority, will appear more on their trial
than the culprits they have before them. The awful frown of criminal justice will be smoothed into
the silly smile of seduction. Judges will think to insinuate and soothe the accused into conviction and
condemnation, and to wheedle to the gallows the
most artful of all delinquents. But they will not
be so wheedled. They will not submit even to the
appearance of persons on their trial. Their claim
to this exemption will be admitted. The place in
which some of the greatest names which ever distinguished the history of this country have stood
will appear beneath their dignity. The criminal
will climb from the dock to the side-bar, and take
his place and his tea with the counsel. From the
bar of the counsel, by a natural progress, he will as
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 109
cend to the boench, which long before had been virtually abandoned. They who escape from justice
will not suffer a question upon reputation. They
will take the crown of the causeway; they will be
revered as martyrs; they will triumph as conquerors.
Nobody will dare to censure that popular part of
the tribunal whose only restraint on misjudgment
is the censure of the public. They who find fault
with the decision will be represented as enemies to
the institution. Juries that convict for the crown
will be loaded with obloquy. The juries who acquit
will be held up as models of justice. If Parliament
orders a prosecution, and fails, (as fail it will,) it
will be treated to its face as guilty of a conspiracy
maliciously to prosecute. Its care in discovering a
conspiracy against the state will be treated as a
forged plot to destroy the liberty of the subject:
every such discovery, instead of strengthening government, will weaken its reputation.
In this state things will be suffered to proceed, lest
measures of vigor should precipitate a crisis. The
timid will act thus from character, the wise from necessity. Our laws had done all that the old condition of things dictated to render our judges erect and independent; but they will naturally fail on the side
upon which they had taken no precautions. The judicial magistrates will find themselves safe as against
the crown, whose will is not their tenure; the power
of executing their office will be held at the pleasure
of those who deal out fame or abuse as they think fit.
They will begin rather to consult their own repose
and their own popularity than the critical and perilous trust that is in their hands. They will speculate
on consequences, when they see at court an ambassa
? ? ? ? 110 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
dor whose robes are lined with a scarlet dyed in the
blood of judges. It is no wonder, nor are they to
blame, when they are to consider how they shall answer for their conduct to the criminal of to-day turned into the magistrate of to-morrow.
The press
The army
When thus the helm of justice is abandoned, an
universal abandonment of all other posts will succeed. Government will be for a while the sport of contending factions, who, whilst they fight with one
another, will all strike at her. She will be buffeted
and beat forward and backward by the conflict of
those billows, until at length, tumbling from the
Gallic coast, the victorious tenth wave shall ride, like
the bore, over all the rest, and poop the shattered,
weather-beaten, leaky, water-logged vessel, and sink
her to the bottom of the abyss.
Among other miserable remedies that have been
found in the materia medica of the old college, a
change of ministry will be proposed, and probably
will take place. They who go out can never long
with zeal and good-will support government in the
hands of those they hate. In a situation of fatal dependence on popularity, and without one aid from the little remaining power of the crown, it is not to be expected that they will take on them that odium which more or less attaches upon every exertion of strong
power. The ministers of popularity will lose all their
credit at a stroke, if they pursue any of those means
necessary to give life, vigor, and consistence to government. They will be considered as venal wretches, apostates, recreant to all their own principles, acts,
and declarations. They cannot preserve their credit,
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 111
but by betraying that authority of which they are the
guardians.
To be sure, no prognosticating symptoms of these
things have as yet appeared, -nothing even resembling their beginnings. May they never appear! May these prognostications of the author be justly
laughed at and speedily forgotten! If nothing as
yet to cause them has discovered itself, let us consider, in the author's excuse, that we have not yet seen a Jacobin legation in England. The natural,
declared, sworn ally of sedition has not yet fixed
its head-quarters in London.
There never was a political contest, upon better
or worse grounds, that by the heat of party-spirit
may not ripen into civil confusion. If ever a party
adverse to the crown should be in a condition here
publicly to declare itself, and to divide, however unequally, the natural force of the kingdom, they are sure of an aid of fifty thousand men, at ten days'
warning, from the opposite coast of France. But
against this infusion of a foreign force the crown has
its guaranties, old and new. But I should be glad
to hear something said of the assistance which loyal
subjects in France have received from other powers
in support of that lawful government which secured
their lawful property. I should be glad to know, if
they are so disposed to a neighborly, provident, and
sympathetic attention to their public engagements,
by what means they are to come at us. Is it from
the powerful states of Holland we are to reclaim our
guaranty? Is it from the King of Prussia, and his
steady good affections, and his powerful navy, that
we are to look for the guaranty of our security? Is
it from the Netherlands, which the French may cover
? ? ? ? 112 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
with the swarms of their citizen-soldiers in twentyfour hours, that we are to look for this assistance? This is to suppose, too, that all these powers have no
views offensive or necessities defensive of their own.
They will cut out work for one another, and France
will cut out work for them all.
That the Christian religion cannot exist in this
country with such a fraternity will not, I think, be
disputed with me. On that religion, according to
our mode, all our laws and institutions stand, as
upon their base. That scheme is supposed in every
transaction of life; and if that were done away, everything else, as in France, must be changed along with it. Thus, religion perishing, and with it this
Constitution, it is a matter of endless meditation
what order of things would follow it. But what
disorder would fill the space between the present and
that which is to come, in the gross, is no matter of
doubtful conjecture. It is a great evil, that of a civil
war. But, in that state of things, a civil war, which
would give to good men and a good cause some
means of struggle, is a blessing of comparison that
England will not enjoy. The moment the struggle
begins, it ends. They talk of Mr. Hume's euthanasia
of the British Constitution gently expiring, without
a groan, in the paternal arms of a mere monarchy.
In a monarchy! - fine trifling indeed! - there is no
such euthanasia for the British Constitution.
The manuscript copy of this Letter ends here.
? ? ? ? A
LETTER
TO
THE EMPRESS OF RUSSIA. NOVEMBER I, I79I.
VOL1. VI. 8
? ? ? ? LETTER.
MADAM, --The Comte de Woronzow, your Imperial Majesty's minister, and Mr. Fawkener,
have informed me of the very gracious manner in
which your Imperial Majesty, and, after your example, the Archduke and Archduchess, have condescended to accept my humble endeavors in the service of that cause which connects the rights and duties of sovereigns with the true interest and happiness of their people.
If, confiding in titles derived from your own goodness, I venture to address directly to your Imperial
Majesty the expressions of my gratitude for so distinguished an honor, I hope it will not be thought a
presumptuous intrusion. I hope, too, that the willing homage I pay to the high and ruling virtues
which distinguish your Imperial Majesty, and which
form the felicity of so large a part of the world, will
not be looked upon as the language of adulation to
power and greatness. In my humble situation, I can
behold majesty in its splendor without being dazzled,
and I am capable of respecting it in its fall.
It is, Madam, from my strong sense of what is due. to dignity in undeserved misfortune, that I am led
to felicitate your Imperial Majesty on the use you
have lately made of your power. The princes and
nobility of France, who from honor and duty, from
blood and from principle, are attached to that un
? ? ? ?
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. But in all questions on the mode of procuring it for any particular community,
we ought to be fearful of admitting those who have
no interest in it, or who have, perhaps, an interest
against it, into the consultation. Above all, we cannot be too cautious in our communication with those
who seek their happiness by other roads than those
of humanity, morals, and religion, and whose liberty
consists, and consists alone, in being free from those
restraints which are imposed by the virtues upon the
passions.
When we invite danger from a confidence in defensive measures, we ought, first of all, to be sure that
? ? ? ? 100 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
it is a species of danger against which any defensive measures that can be adopted will be sufficient. Next, we ought to know that the spirit of our laws,
or that our own dispositions, which are stronger than
laws, are susceptible of all those defensive measures
which the occasion may require. A third consideration is, whether these measures will not bring more odium than strength to government; and the last,
whether the authority that makes them, in a general corruption of manners and principles, can insure their execution. Let no one argue, from the state
of things, as he sees them at present, concerning what
will be the means and capacities of government, when
the time arrives which shall call for remedies commensurate to enormous evils.
It is an obvious truth, that no constitution can defend itself: it must be defended by the wisdom and fortitude of men. These are what no constitution
can give: they are the gifts of God; and He alone
knows whether we shall possess such gifts at the time
we stand in need of them. Constitutions furnish
the civil means of getting at the natural: it is all
that in this case they can do. But our Constitution
has more impediments than helps. Its excellencies,
when they come to be put to this sort of proof, may
be found among its defects.
Nothing looks more awful and imposing than an
ancient fortification. Its lofty, embattled walls, its
bold, projecting, rounded towers, that pierce the sky,
strike the imagination and promise inexpugnable
strength. But they are the very things that make
its weakness. You may as well think of opposing
one of these old fortresses to the mass (of artillery
brought by a French irruption into the field as to
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 101
think of resisting by your old laws and your old
forms the new destruction which the corps of Jacobin
engineers of to-day prepare for all such forms and all
such laws. Besides the debility and false principle of
their construction to resist the present modes of attack, the fortress itself is in ruinous repair, and there is a practicable breach in every part of it.
Such is the work. But miserable works have been
defended by the constancy of the garrison. Weatherbeaten ships have been brought safe to port by the spirit and alertness of the crew. But it is here that
we shall eminently fail. The day that, by their consent, the seat of Regicide has its place among the thrones of Europe, there is no longer a motive for
zeal in their favor; it will at best be cold, unimpassioned, dejected, melancholy duty. The glory will seem all on the other side. The friends of the crown
will appear, not as champions, but as victims; discountenanced, mortified, lowered, defeated. they will fall into listlessness and indifference. They will leave
things to take their course, enjoy the present hour,
and submit to the common fate.
Is it only an oppressive nightmare with which we
have been loaded? is it, then, all a frightful dream,
and are there no regicides in the world? Have we
not heard of that prodigy of a ruffian who would not
suffer his benignant sovereign, with his hands tied
behind him, and stripped for execution, to say one
parting word to his deluded people, - of Santerre,
who commanded the drums and trumpets to strike
up to stifle his voice, and dragged him backward to
the machine of murder? This nefarious villain (for
a few days I may call him so) stands high in France,
as in a republic of robbers and murderers he ought.
? ? ? ? 102 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
What hinders this monster from being sent as ambassador to convey to his Majesty the first compliments of his brethren, the Regicide Directory? They have none that can represent them more properly. I
anticipate the day of his arrival. He will make his
public entry into London on one of the pale horses
of his brewery. As he knows that we are pleased
with the Paris taste for the orders of knighthood,*
he will fling a bloody sash across his shoulders, with
the order of the holy guillotine surmounting the
crown appendant to the riband. Thus adorned, he
will proceed from Whitechapel to the further end of
Pall Mall, all the music of London playing the Marseillaise Hymn before him, and escorted by a chosen
detachment of the Legion de l'. Echafaud. It were
only to be wished that no ill-fated loyalist, for the
imprudence of his zeal, may stand in the pillory at
Charing Cross, under the statue of King Charles the
First, at the time of this grand procession, lest some
of the rotten eggs which the Constitutional Society
shall let fly at his indiscreet head may hit the virtuous murderer of his king. They might soil the
state dress which the ministers of so many crowned
heads have admired, and in which Sir Clement Cotterel is to introduce him at St. James's.
If Santerre cannot be spared from the constitutional butcheries at home, Tallien may supply his
place, and, in point of figure, with advantage. He
has been habituated to commissions; and he is as
well qualified as Santerre for this. Nero wished
* " In the costume assumed by the members of the legislative body
we almost behold the revival of the extinguished insignia of knighthood," &c. , &c.
- See A View of the Relative State of Great Britain and
France at the Commencement of the Year 1796.
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 103
the Roman people had but one neck. The wish of
the more exalted Tallien, when he sat in judgment,
was, that his sovereign had eighty-three heads, that
he might send one to every one of the Departments.
Tallien will make an excellent figure at Guildhall
at the next Sheriff's feast. He may open the ball
with my Lady Mayoress. But this will be after
lie has retired from the public table, and gone into
the private room for the enjoyment of more social
and unreserved conversation with the ministers of
state and the judges of the bench. There these ministers and magistrates will hear him entertain the worthy aldermen with an instructing and pleasing
narrative of the manner in which he made the rich
citizens of Bordeaux squeak, and gently led them
by the public credit of the guillotine to disgorge
their anti-revolutionary pelf.
All this will be the display, and the town-talk,
when our regicide is on a visit of ceremony. At
home nothing will equal the pomp and splendor of
the Hotel de la Republique. There another scene of
gaudy grandeur will be opened. When his Citizen
Excellency keeps the festival, which every citizen is
ordered to observe, for the glorious execution of
Louis the Sixteenth, and renews his oath of detestation of kings, a grand ball of course will be given on the occasion. Then what a hurly-burly! what
a crowding! what a glare of a thousand flambeaux
in the square! what a clamor of footmen contending at the door! what a rattling of a thousand coaches of duchesses, countesses, and Lady Marys,
choking the way, and overturning each other, in a
struggle who should be first to pay her court to the
Citoyenne, the spouse of the twenty-first husband, he
? ? ? ? 104 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
the husband of the thirty-first wife, and to hail her
in the rank of honorable matrons before the four
days' duration of marriage is expired i- Morals, as
they were, decorum, the great outguard of the sex,
and the proud sentiment of honor, which makes virtue more respectable, where it is, and conceals human frailty, where virtue may not be, will be banished
from this land of propriety, modesty, and reserve.
We had before an ambassador from the most Christian King. We shall have then one, perhaps two, as lately, from the most Anti-Christian Republic. His
chapel will be great and splendid, formed on the
model of the Temple of Reason at Paris; while the
famous ode of the infamous Chenier will be sung,
and a prostitute of the street adored as a goddess.
We shall then have a French ambassador without
a suspicion of Popery. One good it will have: it
will go some way in quieting the minds of that
synod of zealous Protestant lay elders who govern
Ireland on the pacific principles of polemic theology,
and who now, from dread of the Pope, cannot take
a cool bottle of claret, or enjoy an innocent Parliamentary job, with any tolerable quiet.
So far as to the French communication here:
what will be the effect of our communication there?
We know that our new brethren, whilst they everywhere shut up the churches, increased in Paris, at
one time at least fourfold, the opera-houses, the playhouses, the public shows of all kinds; and even in their state of indigence and distress, no expense was
spared for their equipment and decoration. They
were made an affair of state. There is no invention
of seduction, never wholly wanting in that place,
that has not been increased, - brothels, gaming.
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 105
houses, everything. And there is no doubt, but,
when they are settled in a triumphant peace, they
will carry all these arts to their utmost perfection,
and cover them with every species of imposing magnificence. They have all along avowed them as a
part of their policy; and whilst they corrupt youlg
minds through pleasure, they form them to crimes.
Every idea of corporal gratification is carried to the
highest excess, and wooed with all the elegance that
belongs to the senses. All elegance of mind and mallners is banished. A theatrical, bombastic, windy
phraseology of heroic virtue, blended and mingled
up with a worse dissoluteness, and joined to a murderous and savage ferocity, forms the tone and idiom of their language and their manners. Any one, who attends to all their own descriptions, narratives, and dissertations, will find in that whole place
more of the air of a body of assassins, banditti, housebreakers, and outlawed smugglers, joined to that of
a gang of strolling players expelled from and exploded orderly theatres, with their prostitutes in a
brothel, at their debauches and bacchanals, than anything of the refined and perfected virtues, or the polished, mitigated vices of a great capital.
Is it for this benefit we open " the usual relations
of peace and amity "? Is it for this our youth of
both sexes are to form themselves by travel? Is it
for this that with expense and pains we form their
lisping infant accents to the language of France? I
shall be told that this abominable medley is made
rather to revolt young and ingenuous minds. So it is
in the description. So perhaps it may in reality to a
chosen few. So it may be, when the magistrate, the
law, and the church frown on such manners, and the
? ? ? ? 106 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
wretches to whom they belong, -when they are
chased from the eye of day, and the society of civil
life, into night-cellars and caves and woods. But when
these men themselves are the magistrates, --when all
the consequence, weight, and authority of a great nation adopt them, - when we see them conjoined with
victory, glory, power, and dominion, and homage paid
to them by every government, - it is not possible that
the downhill should not be slid into, recommended
by everything which has opposed it. Let it be remembered that no young man can go to any part of
Europe without taking this place of pestilential contagion in his way; and whilst the less active part
of the community will be debauched by this travel,
whilst children are poisoned at these schools, our
trade will put the finishing hand to our ruin. No
factory will be settled in France, that will not become
a club of complete French Jacobins. The minds of
young men of that description will receive a taint in
their religion, their morals, and their politics, which
they will in a short time communicate to the whole
kingdom.
Whilst everything prepares the body to debauch
and the mind to crime, a regular church of avowed
atheism, established by law, with a direct and sanguinary persecution of Christianity, is formed to prevent all amendment and remorse. Conscience is formally deposed fiom its dominion over the mind.
What fills the measure of horror is, that schools of
atheism are set up at the public charge in every part
of the country. That some English parents will be
wicked enough to send their children to such schools
there is no doubt. Better this island should be sunk
to the bottom of the sea than that (so far as human
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 107
infirmity admits) it should not be a country of relig.
ion and morals!
With all these causes of corruption, we may well
judge what the general fashion of mind will be
through both sexes and all conditions. Such spectacles and such examples will overbear all the laws
that ever blackened the cumbrous volumes of our
statutes. When royalty shall have disavowed itself,
- when it shall have relaxed all the principles of its
own support, - when it has rendered the system of
Regicide fashionable, and received it as triumphant,
in the very persons who have consolidated that system by the perpetration of every crime, who have
not only massacred the prince, but the very laws
and magistrates which were the support of royalty,
and slaughtered with an indiscriminate proscription,
without regard to either sex or age, every person
that was suspected of an inclination to king, law,
or magistracy, -- I say, will any one dare to be
loyal? Will any one presume, against both authority and opinion, to hold up this unfashionable, antiquated, exploded Constitution? The Jacobin faction in England must grow in
strength and audacity; it will be supported by other intrigues and supplied by other resources than
yet we have seen in action. Confounded at its
growth, the government may fly to Parliament for
its support. But who will answer for the temper
of a House of Oommons elected under these circumstar. ces? Who will answer for the courage of a
House of Commons to arm the crown with the extraordinary powers that it may demand? But the
ministers will not venture to ask half of what they
know they want. They will lose half of that half
? ? ? ? 108 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
in the contest; and when they have obtained their
nothing, they will be driven by the cries of faction
either to demolish the feeble works they have thrown
up in a hurry, or, in effect, to abandon them. As to
the House of Lords, it is not worth mentioning. The
peers ought naturally to be the pillars of the crown;
but when their titles are rendered contemptible, and
their property invidious, and a part of their weakness, and not of their strength, they will be found so
many degraded and trembling individuals, who will
seek by evasion to put off the evil day of their ruin.
Both Houses will be in perpetual oscillation between
abortive attempts at energy and still more unsuccessful attempts at compromise. You will be impatient of your disease, and abhorrent of your remedy. A spirit of subterfuge and a tone of apology will enter into all your proceedings, whether of law or
legislation. Your judges, who now sustain so masculine an authority, will appear more on their trial
than the culprits they have before them. The awful frown of criminal justice will be smoothed into
the silly smile of seduction. Judges will think to insinuate and soothe the accused into conviction and
condemnation, and to wheedle to the gallows the
most artful of all delinquents. But they will not
be so wheedled. They will not submit even to the
appearance of persons on their trial. Their claim
to this exemption will be admitted. The place in
which some of the greatest names which ever distinguished the history of this country have stood
will appear beneath their dignity. The criminal
will climb from the dock to the side-bar, and take
his place and his tea with the counsel. From the
bar of the counsel, by a natural progress, he will as
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 109
cend to the boench, which long before had been virtually abandoned. They who escape from justice
will not suffer a question upon reputation. They
will take the crown of the causeway; they will be
revered as martyrs; they will triumph as conquerors.
Nobody will dare to censure that popular part of
the tribunal whose only restraint on misjudgment
is the censure of the public. They who find fault
with the decision will be represented as enemies to
the institution. Juries that convict for the crown
will be loaded with obloquy. The juries who acquit
will be held up as models of justice. If Parliament
orders a prosecution, and fails, (as fail it will,) it
will be treated to its face as guilty of a conspiracy
maliciously to prosecute. Its care in discovering a
conspiracy against the state will be treated as a
forged plot to destroy the liberty of the subject:
every such discovery, instead of strengthening government, will weaken its reputation.
In this state things will be suffered to proceed, lest
measures of vigor should precipitate a crisis. The
timid will act thus from character, the wise from necessity. Our laws had done all that the old condition of things dictated to render our judges erect and independent; but they will naturally fail on the side
upon which they had taken no precautions. The judicial magistrates will find themselves safe as against
the crown, whose will is not their tenure; the power
of executing their office will be held at the pleasure
of those who deal out fame or abuse as they think fit.
They will begin rather to consult their own repose
and their own popularity than the critical and perilous trust that is in their hands. They will speculate
on consequences, when they see at court an ambassa
? ? ? ? 110 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
dor whose robes are lined with a scarlet dyed in the
blood of judges. It is no wonder, nor are they to
blame, when they are to consider how they shall answer for their conduct to the criminal of to-day turned into the magistrate of to-morrow.
The press
The army
When thus the helm of justice is abandoned, an
universal abandonment of all other posts will succeed. Government will be for a while the sport of contending factions, who, whilst they fight with one
another, will all strike at her. She will be buffeted
and beat forward and backward by the conflict of
those billows, until at length, tumbling from the
Gallic coast, the victorious tenth wave shall ride, like
the bore, over all the rest, and poop the shattered,
weather-beaten, leaky, water-logged vessel, and sink
her to the bottom of the abyss.
Among other miserable remedies that have been
found in the materia medica of the old college, a
change of ministry will be proposed, and probably
will take place. They who go out can never long
with zeal and good-will support government in the
hands of those they hate. In a situation of fatal dependence on popularity, and without one aid from the little remaining power of the crown, it is not to be expected that they will take on them that odium which more or less attaches upon every exertion of strong
power. The ministers of popularity will lose all their
credit at a stroke, if they pursue any of those means
necessary to give life, vigor, and consistence to government. They will be considered as venal wretches, apostates, recreant to all their own principles, acts,
and declarations. They cannot preserve their credit,
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 111
but by betraying that authority of which they are the
guardians.
To be sure, no prognosticating symptoms of these
things have as yet appeared, -nothing even resembling their beginnings. May they never appear! May these prognostications of the author be justly
laughed at and speedily forgotten! If nothing as
yet to cause them has discovered itself, let us consider, in the author's excuse, that we have not yet seen a Jacobin legation in England. The natural,
declared, sworn ally of sedition has not yet fixed
its head-quarters in London.
There never was a political contest, upon better
or worse grounds, that by the heat of party-spirit
may not ripen into civil confusion. If ever a party
adverse to the crown should be in a condition here
publicly to declare itself, and to divide, however unequally, the natural force of the kingdom, they are sure of an aid of fifty thousand men, at ten days'
warning, from the opposite coast of France. But
against this infusion of a foreign force the crown has
its guaranties, old and new. But I should be glad
to hear something said of the assistance which loyal
subjects in France have received from other powers
in support of that lawful government which secured
their lawful property. I should be glad to know, if
they are so disposed to a neighborly, provident, and
sympathetic attention to their public engagements,
by what means they are to come at us. Is it from
the powerful states of Holland we are to reclaim our
guaranty? Is it from the King of Prussia, and his
steady good affections, and his powerful navy, that
we are to look for the guaranty of our security? Is
it from the Netherlands, which the French may cover
? ? ? ? 112 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
with the swarms of their citizen-soldiers in twentyfour hours, that we are to look for this assistance? This is to suppose, too, that all these powers have no
views offensive or necessities defensive of their own.
They will cut out work for one another, and France
will cut out work for them all.
That the Christian religion cannot exist in this
country with such a fraternity will not, I think, be
disputed with me. On that religion, according to
our mode, all our laws and institutions stand, as
upon their base. That scheme is supposed in every
transaction of life; and if that were done away, everything else, as in France, must be changed along with it. Thus, religion perishing, and with it this
Constitution, it is a matter of endless meditation
what order of things would follow it. But what
disorder would fill the space between the present and
that which is to come, in the gross, is no matter of
doubtful conjecture. It is a great evil, that of a civil
war. But, in that state of things, a civil war, which
would give to good men and a good cause some
means of struggle, is a blessing of comparison that
England will not enjoy. The moment the struggle
begins, it ends. They talk of Mr. Hume's euthanasia
of the British Constitution gently expiring, without
a groan, in the paternal arms of a mere monarchy.
In a monarchy! - fine trifling indeed! - there is no
such euthanasia for the British Constitution.
The manuscript copy of this Letter ends here.
? ? ? ? A
LETTER
TO
THE EMPRESS OF RUSSIA. NOVEMBER I, I79I.
VOL1. VI. 8
? ? ? ? LETTER.
MADAM, --The Comte de Woronzow, your Imperial Majesty's minister, and Mr. Fawkener,
have informed me of the very gracious manner in
which your Imperial Majesty, and, after your example, the Archduke and Archduchess, have condescended to accept my humble endeavors in the service of that cause which connects the rights and duties of sovereigns with the true interest and happiness of their people.
If, confiding in titles derived from your own goodness, I venture to address directly to your Imperial
Majesty the expressions of my gratitude for so distinguished an honor, I hope it will not be thought a
presumptuous intrusion. I hope, too, that the willing homage I pay to the high and ruling virtues
which distinguish your Imperial Majesty, and which
form the felicity of so large a part of the world, will
not be looked upon as the language of adulation to
power and greatness. In my humble situation, I can
behold majesty in its splendor without being dazzled,
and I am capable of respecting it in its fall.
It is, Madam, from my strong sense of what is due. to dignity in undeserved misfortune, that I am led
to felicitate your Imperial Majesty on the use you
have lately made of your power. The princes and
nobility of France, who from honor and duty, from
blood and from principle, are attached to that un
? ? ? ?
