I think his manifest attempt to
overturn
the
balance of Europe a good ground of war.
balance of Europe a good ground of war.
Edmund Burke
"
Such is the law of civil vicinity. Now where there
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 323
is no constituted judge, as between independent states
there is not, the vicinage itself is the natural judge.
It is, preventively, the assertor of its own rights, or,
remedially, their avenger. Neighbors are presumed
to take cognizance of each other's acts. " Vicini vicinorum facta prcesumuntur scire. " This principle,
which, like the rest, is as true of nations as of individual men, has bestowed on the grand vicinage
of Europe a duty to know and a right to prevent
any capital innovation which may amount to the
erection of a dangerous nuisance. * Of the importance of that innovation, and the mischief of that
nuisance, they are, to be sure, bound to judge not
litigiously: but it is in their competence to judge.
They have uniformly acted on this right. What in
civil society is a ground of action in politic society
is a ground of war. But the exercise of that competent jurisdiction is a matter of moral prudence.
As suits in civil society, so war in the political, must
ever be a matter of great deliberation. It is not this
or that particular proceeding, picked out here and
there, as a subject of quarrel, that will do. There
must be an aggregate of mischief. There must be
marks of deliberation; there must be traces of design; there must be indications of malice; there
must be tokens of ambition. There must be force
in the body where they exist; there must be energy
in the mind. When all these circumstances combine,
or the important parts of them, the duty of the vicin* " This state of things cannot exist in France, without involving all the surrounding powers in one common danger,- without giving
them the right, without imposing it upon them as a duty, to stop the
progress of an evil which. . . . attacks the fundamental principles
by which mankind is united in the bonds of civil society. " - Declaration, 29th Oct. , 1793.
? ? ? ? 324 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
ity calls for the exercise of its competence: and the
rules of prudence do not restrain, but demand it.
In describing the nuisance erected by so pestilential a manufactory, by the construction of so infamous a brothel, by digging a night-cellar for such thieves, murderers, and house-breakers as never infested the world, I am so far from aggravating, that
I have fallen infinitely short of the evil. No man
who has attended to the particulars of what has been
done in France, and combined them with the principles there asserted, can possibly doubt it. When
I compare with this great cause of nations the trifling
points of honor, the still more contemptible points of
interest, the light ceremonies, the undefinable punctilios, the disputes about precedency, the lowering or
the hoisting of a sail, the dealing in a hundred or
two of wildcat-skins on the other side of the globe,
which have often kindled up the flames of war between nations, I stand astonished at those persons
who do not feel a resentment, not more natural than
politic, at the atrocious insults that this monstrous
compound offers to the dignity of every nation, and
who are not alarmed with what it threatens to their
safety.
I have therefore been decidedly of opinion, with
our declaration at Whitehall in the beginning of this
war, that the vicinage of Europe had not only a
right, but an indispensable duty and an exigent
interest, to denunciate this new work, before it had
produced the danger we have so sorely felt, and
which we shall long feel. The example of what is
done by France is too important not to have a vast
and extensive influence; and that example, backed
with its power, must bear with great force on those
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 325
who are near it, especially on those who shall recognize the pretended republic on the principle upon which it now stands. It is not an old structure,
which you have found as it is, and are not to dispute
of the original end and design with which it had been
so fashioned. It is a recent wrong, and can plead no
prescription. It violates the rights upon which not
only the community of France, but those on which
all communities are founded. The principles on
which they proceed are general principles, and are
as true in England as in any other country. They
who (though with the purest intentions) recognize
the authority of these regicides and robbers upon
principle justify their acts, and establish them as
precedents. It is a question not between France
and England; it is a question between property and
force. The property claims; and its claim has been
allowed. The property of the nation is the nation.
They who massacre, plunder, and expel the body
of the proprietary are murderers and robbers. The
state, in its essence, must be moral and just: and it
may be so, though a tyrant or usurper should be
accidentally at the head' of it. This is a thing to be
lamented: but this notwithstanding, the body of the
commonwealth may remain in all its integrity and be
perfectly sound in its composition. The present case
is different. It is not a revolution in government.
It is not the victory of party over party. It is a
destruction and decomposition of the whole society;
which never can be made of right by any faction,
however powerful, nor without terrible consequences
to all about it, both in the act and in the example.
This pretended republic is founded in crimes, and
exists by wrong and robbery; and wrong and rob
? ? ? ? 326 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
bery, far from a title to anything, is war with mankind. To be at peace with robbery is to be an accomplice with it.
Mere locality does not constitute a body politic.
Had Cade and his gang got possession of London,
they would not have been the lord mayor, aldermen,
and common council. The body politic of France
existed in the majesty of its throne, in the dignity
of its nobility, in the honor of its gentry, in the sanctity of its clergy, in the reverence of its magistracy, in the weight and consideration due to its landed
property in the several bailliages, in the respect due
to its movable substance represented by the corporations of the kingdom. All these particular moleculce united form the great mass of what is truly the body
politic in all countries. They are so many deposits
and receptacles of justice; because they can only
exist by justice. Nation is a moral essence, not a
geographical arrangement, or a denomination of the
nomenclator. France, though out of her territorial
possession, exists; because the sole possible claimant,
I mean the proprietary, and the government to which
the proprietary adheres, exists and claims. God forbid, that if you were expelled from your house by ruffians and assassins, that I should call the material
walls, doors, and windows of the ancient and
honorable family of! Am I to transfer to the
intruders, who, not content to turn you out naked
to the world, would rob you of your very name, all
the esteem and respect I owe to you? The Regicides
in France are not France. France is out of her
bounds, but the kingdom is the same.
To illustrate my opinions on this subject, let us
suppose a case, which, after what has happened, we
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 327
cannot think absolutely impossible, though the augury is to be abominated, and the event deprecated
with our most ardent prayers. Let us suppose, then,
that our gracious sovereign was sacrilegiously murdered his exemplary queen, at the head of the matronage of this land, murdered in the same manner; that those princesses whose beauty and modest elegance are the ornaments of the country, and who
are the leaders and patterns of the ingenuous youth
of their sex, were put to a cruel and ignominious
death, with hundreds of others, mothers and daughters, ladies of the first distinction; that the Prince
of Wales and the Duke of York, princes the hope
and pride of the nation, with all their brethren, were
forced to fly from the knives of assassins; that the
whole body of our excellent clergy were either massacred or robbed of all and transported; the Christian religion, in all its denominations, forbidden and persecuted; the law totally, fundamentally, and in
all its parts, destroyed; the judges put to death
by revolutionary tribunals; the peers and commons
robbed to the last acre of their estates, massacred, if
they stayed, or obliged to seek life in flight, in exile, and in beggary; that the whole landed property
should share the very same fate; that every military
and naval officer of honor and rank, almost to a man,
should be placed in the same description of confiscation and exile; that the principal merchants and
bankers should be drawn out, as from an hen-coop,
for slaughter; that the citizens of our greatest and
most flourishing cities, when the hand and the machinery of the hangman were not found sufficient,
should have been collected in the public squares
and massacred by thousands with cannon; if three
? ? ? ? 328 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
hundred thousand others should have been doomed
to a situation worse than death in noisome and pestilential prisons. In such a case, is it in the faction of robbers I am to look for my country? Would this
be the England that you and I, and even strangers,
admired, honored, loved, and cherished? Would not
the exiles of England alone be my government and
my fellow-citizens? Would not their places of refuge be my temporary country? Would not all my duties and all my affections be there, and there'only?
Should I consider myself as a traitor to my country,
and deserving of death, if I knocked at the door and
heart of every potentate in Christendom to succor
my friends, and to avenge them on their enemies?
Could I in any way show myself more a patriot?
What should I think of those potentates who insulted
their suffering brethren, - who treated them as vagrants, or at least as mendicants, - and could find no allies, no friends, but in regicide murderers and
robbers? What ought I to think and feel, if, being
geographers instead of kings, they recognized the
desolated cities, the wasted fields, and the rivers
polluted with blood, of this geometrical measurement, as the honorable member of Europe called England? In that condition, what should we think
of Sweden, Denmark, or Holland, or whatever power
afforded us a churlish and treacherous hospitality,
if they should invite us to join the standard of our
king, our laws, and our religion, --if they should
give us a direct promise of protection, -- if, after all
this, taking advantage of our deplorable situation,
which left us no choice, they were to treat us as
the lowest and vilest of all mercenaries, --if they
were to send us far from the aid of our king and
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 329
our suffering country, to squander us away in the
most pestilential climates for a venal enlargement
of their own territories, for the purpose of trucking
them, when obtained, with those very robbers and
murderers they had called upon us to oppose with
our blood? What would be our sentiments, if in
that miserable service we were not to be considered
either as English, or as Swedes, Dutch, Danes, but
as outcasts of the human race? Whilst we were
fighting those battles of their interest and as their
soldiers, how should we feel, if we were to be excluded from all their cartels? How must we feel, if the
pride and flower of the English nobility and gentry,
who might escape the pestilential clime and the devouring sword, should, if taken prisoners, be delivered over as rebel subjects, to be condemned as rebels, as traitors, as the vilest of all criminals, by
tribunals formed of Maroon negro slaves, covered
over with the blood of their masters, who were
made free and organized into judges for their robberies and murders? What should we feel under
this inhuman, insulting, and barbarous protection
of Muscovites, Swedes, or Hollanders? Should we
not obtest Heaven, and whatever justice there is yet
on earth? Oppression makes wise men mad; but
the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which
is better than the sobriety of fools. Their cry is the
voice of sacred misery, exalted, not into wild raving, but into the sanctified frenzy of prophecy and
inspiration. In that bitterness of soul, in that indignation of suffering virtue, in that exaltation of despair, would not persecuted English loyalty cry out with an awful warning voice, and denounce the destruction that waits on monarchs who consider fidel
? ? ? ? 330 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
ity to them as the most degrading of all vices, who
suffer it to be punished as the most abominable of
all crimes, and who have no respect but for rebels,
traitors, regicides, and furious negro slaves, whose
crimes have broke their chains? Would not this
warm language of high indignation have more of
sound reason in it, more of real affection, more of
true attachment, than all the lullabies of flatterers
who would hush monarchs to sleep in the arms of
death? Let them be well convinced, that, if ever
this example should prevail in its whole extent, it
will have its full operation. Whilst kings stand firm
on their base, though under that base there is a surewrought mine, there will not be wanting to their levees a single person of those who are attached to
their fortune, and not to their persons or cause;
but hereafter none will support a tottering throne.
Some will fly for fear of being crushed under the
ruin; some will join in making it. They will seek,
in the destruction of royalty, fame and power and
wealth and the homage of kings, with Reubell, with
Carnot, with Revelliere, and with the Merlins and
the Talliens, rather' than suffer exile and beggary
with the Condes, or the Broglies, the Castries, the
D'Avarays, the S4rents, the Cazales, and the long line
of loyal, suffering, patriot nobility, or to be butchered with the oracles and the victims of the laws, the D'Ormessons, the D'Espremesnils, and the Malesherbes. This example we shall give, if, instead of adhering to our fellows in a cause which is an honor
to us all, we abandon the lawful government and
lawful corporate body of France, to hunt for a
shameful and ruinous fraternity with this odious
usurpation that disgraces civilized society and the
human race.
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 331
And is, then, example nothing? It is everything.
Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn
at no other. This war is a war against that example.
It is not a war for Louis the Eighteenth, or even for
the property, virtue, fidelity of France. It is a war
for George the Third, for Francis the Second, and for
all the dignity, property, honor, virtue, and religion
of England, of Germany, and of all nations.
I know that all I have said of the systematic unsociability of this new-invented species of republic, and the impossibility of preserving peace, is answered by
asserting that the scheme of manners, morals, and
even of maxims and principles of state, is of no weight
in a question of peace or war between communities.
This doctrine is supported by example. The case of
Algiers is cited, with an hint, as if it were the stronger
case. I should take no notice of this sort of inducement, if I had found it only where first it was. I do
not want respect for those from whom I first heard
it; but, having no controversy at present with them,
I only think it not amiss to rest on it a little, as I find
it adopted, with much more of the same kind, by several of those on whom such reasoning had formerly made no apparent impression. If it had no force to
prevent us from submitting to this necessary war, it
furnishes no better ground for our making an unnecessary and ruinous peace.
This analogical argument drawn from the case of
Algiers would lead us a good way. The fact is, we
ourselves with a little cover, others more directly,
pay a tribute to the Republic of Algiers. Is it meant
to reconcile us to the payment of a tribute to the
French Republic? That this, with other things
more ruinous, will be demanded hereafter, I little
? ? ? ? 332 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
doubt; but for the present this will not be avowed,
-- though our minds are to be gradually prepared
for it. In truth, the arguments from this case are
worth little, even to those who approve the buying
an Algerine forbearance of piracy. There are many
things which men do not approve, that they must do
to avoid a greater evil. To argue from thence that
they are to act in the same manner in all cases is
turning necessity into a law. Upon what is matter
of prudence, the argument concludes the contrary
way. Because we have done one humiliating act,
we ought with infinite caution to admit more acts of
the same nature, lest humiliation should become our
habitual state. Matters of prudence are under the
dominion of circumstances, and not of logical analogies. It is absurd to take it otherwise.
1, for one, do more than doubt the policy of this
kind of convention with Algiers. On those who think
as I do the argument ad hominem can make no sort
of impression. I know something of the constitution
and composition of this very extraordinay republic.
It has a constitution, I admit, similar to the present
tumultuous military tyranny of France, by which an
handful of obscure ruffians domineer over a fertile
country and a brave people. For the composition,
too, I admit the Algerine community resembles that
of France, - being formed out of the very scum, scandal, disgrace, and pest of the Turkish Asia. The
Grand Seignior, to disburden the country, suffers the
Dey to recruit in his dominions the corps of janizaries, or asaphs, which form the Directory and Council of Elders of the African Republic one and indivisible. But notwithstanding this resemblance, which I allow, I never shall so far injure the Janizarian Re
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 333
public of Algiers as to put it in comparison, for every
sort of crime, turpitude, and oppression, with the
Jacobin Republic of Paris. There is no question
with me to which of the two I should choose to be a
neighbor or a subject. But. situated as I am, I am
in no danger of becoming to Algiers either the one
or the other. It is not so in my relation to the atheistical fanatics of France. I am their neighbor; I
may become their subject. Have the gentlemen who
borrowed this happy parallel no idea of the different
conduct to be held with regard to the very same evil
at an immense distance and when it is at your door?
when its power is enormous, as when it is comparatively as feeble as its distance is remote? when there
is a barrier of language and usages, which prevents
corruption through certain old correspondences and
habitudes, from the contagion of the horrible novelties that are introduced into everything else? I can
contemplate without dread a royal or a national tiger
on the borders of Pegu. I can look at him with an
easy curiosity, as prisoner within bars in the menagerie of the Tower. But if, by Habeas Corpus, or otherwise, he was to come into the lobby of the House of Commons whilst your door was open, any of you
would be more stout than wise who would not gladly
make your escape out of the back windows. I certainly should dread more from a wild-cat in my bedchamber than from all the lions that roar in the deserts behind Algiers. But in this parallel it is the
cat that is at a distance, and the lions and tigers that
are in our antechambers and our lobbies. Algiers
is not near; Algiers is not powerful; Algiers is not
our neighbor; Algiers is not infectious. Algiers,
whatever it may be, is an old creation; and we have
? ? ? ? 334 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
good data to calculate all the mischief to be apprehended from it. When I find Algiers transferred to Calais, I will tell you what I think of that point. In
the mean time, the case quoted from the Algerine
Reports will not apply as authority. We shall put it
out of court; and so far as that goes, let the counsel
for the Jacobin peace take nothing by their motion.
When we voted, as you and I did, with many
more whom you and I respect and love, to resist this
enemy, we were providing for dangers that were
direct, home, pressing, and not remote, contingent,
uncertain, and formed upon loose analogies. We
judged of the danger with which we were menaced
by Jacobin France from the whole tenor of her conduct, not from one or two doubtful or detached acts or expressions. I not only concurred in the idea of
combining with Europe in this war, but to the best
of my power even stimulated ministers to that conjunction of interests and of efforts. I joined them with all my soul, on the principles contained in that
manly and masterly state-paper which I have two or
three times referred to,* and may still more frequently hereafter. The diplomatic collection never was more enriched than with this piece. The historic
facts justify every stroke of the master. "Thus
painters write their names at Co. "
Various persons may concur in the same measure
on various grounds. They may be various, without
being contrary to or exclusive of each other. I
thought the insolent, unprovoked aggression of the
Regicide upon our ally of Holland a good ground of
war.
I think his manifest attempt to overturn the
balance of Europe a good ground of war. As a good
* Declaration, Whitehall, Oct. 29, 1793.
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 335
ground of war I consider his declaration of war on
his Majesty and his kingdom. But though I have
taken all these to my aid, I consider them as nothing
more than as a sort of evidence to indicate the treasonable mind within. Long before their acts of
aggression and their declaration of war, the faction
in France had assumed a form, had adopted a body
of principles and maxims, and had regularly and
systematically acted on them, by which she virtually
had put herself in a posture which was in itself a
declaration of war against mankind.
It is said by the Directory, in their several manifestoes, that we of the people are tumultuous for
peace, and that ministers pretend negotiation to
amuse us. This they have learned from the language of many amongst ourselves, whose conversations have been one main cause of whatever extent the opinion for peace with Regicide may be. But
I, who think the ministers unfortunately to be but
too serious in their proceedings, find myself obliged
to say a little more on this subject of the popular
opinion.
Before our opinions are quoted against ourselves,
it is proper, that, from our serious deliberation, they
may be worth quoting. It is without reason we
praise the wisdom of our Constitution in putting under the discretion of the crown the awful trust of
war and peace, if the ministers of the crown virtually
return it again into our bands. The trust was placed
there as a sacred deposit, to secure us against popular rashness in plunging into wars, and against the
effects of popular dismay, disgust, or lassitude, in
getting out of them as imprudently as we might first
engage in them. To have no other measure in judg.
? ? ? ? 336 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
ing of those great objects than our momentary opinions and desires is to throw us back upon that very democracy which, in this part, our Constitution was
formed to avoid.
It is no excuse at all for a minister who at our
desire takes a measure contrary to our safety, that it
is our own act. He who does not stay the hand of
suicide is guilty of murder. On our part, I say, that
to be instructed is not to be degraded or enslaved.
Information is an advantage to us; and we have a
right to demand it. He that is bound to act in the
dark cannot be said to act freely. When it appears
evident to our governors that our desires and our
interests are at variance, they ought not to gratify
the former at the expense of the latter. Statesmen
are placed on an eminence, that they may have a
larger horizon than we can possibly command. They
have a whole before them, which we can contemplate
only in the parts, and often without the necessary
relations. Ministers are not only our natural rulers,
but our natural guides. Reason, clearly and manfully delivered, has in itself a mighty force; but
reason in the mouth of legal authority is, I may
fairly say, irresistible.
I admit that reason of state will not, in many circumstances, permit the disclosure of the true ground of a public proceeding. In that case silence is manly,
and it is wise. It is fair to call for trust, when the
principle of reason itself suspends its public use. I
take the distinction to be this: the ground of a particular measure making a part of a plan it is rarely proper to divulge; all the broader grounds of policy,
on which the general plan is to be adopted, ought
as rarely to be concealed. They who have not the
? ? ? ? LETTER 1. 337
whole cause before them, call them politicians, call
them people, call them what you will, are no judges.
The difficulties of the case, as well as its fair side,
ought to be presented. This ought to be done; and
it is all that can be done. When we have our true
situation distinctly presented to us, if then we resolve, with a blind and headlong violence, to resist
the admonitions of our friends, and to cast ourselves
into the hands of our potent and irreconcilable foes,
then, and not till then, the ministers stand acquitted
before God and man for whatever may come.
Lamenting, as I do, that the matter has not had:
so full and free a discussion as it requires, I mean tQo
omit none of the points which seem to me necessary
for consideration, previous to an arrangement which
is forever to decide the form and the fate of Europe.
In the course, therefore, of what I shall have the honor to address to you, I propose the following questions to your serious thoughts. -1. Whether the present
system, which stands for a government, in France, be
such as in peace and war affects the neighboring
states in a manner different from the internal government that formerly prevailed in that country? -- 2. Whether that system,. supposing its views hostile to,
other nations, possesses any means of being hurtful to
them peculiar to itself? 3. Whether there has been
lately such a change in France as to alter the nature
of its system, or its effect upon other powers? - 4.
Whether any public declarations or engagements exist, on the part of the allied powers, which stand in
the way of a treaty of peace which supposes the right
and confirms the power of the Regicide faction in
France? - 5. What the state of the other powers of
Europe will be with respect to each other and their
VOL. V. 22
? ? ? ? 338 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
colonies, on the conclusion of a Regicide peace? - 6.
Whether we are driven to the absolute necessity of
making that kind of peace?
These heads of inquiry will enable us to make the
application of the several matters of fact and topics
of argument, that occur in this vast discussion, to
certain fixed principles. I do not mean to confine
myself to the order in which they stand. I shall discuss them in such a manner as shall appear to me the best adapted for showing their mutual bearings and
relations. Here, then, I close the public matter of
my letter; but before I have done, let me say one
word in apology for myself.
In wishing this nominal peace not to be precipitated, I am sure no man living is less disposed to blame the present ministry than I am. Some of my oldest
friends (and I wish I could" say it of more of them)
make a part in that ministry. There are some, indeed, "whom my dim eyes in vain explore. " In my mind, a greater calamity could not have fallen on
the public than the exclusion of one of them. But I
drive away that, with other melancholy thoughts.
A great deal ought to be said upon that subject, or
nothing. As to the distinguished persons to whom
my friends who remain are joined, if benefits nobly and generously conferred' ought to procure good wishes, they are entitled to my best vows; and they
have them all. They have administered to me the
only consolation I am capable of receiving, which is,
Ito know that no individual will suffer by my thirty
years' service to the public. If things should give
qs the comparative happiness of a struggle, I shall
be found, I was going to say fighting, (that would be
foolish,) but dying, by the side of Mr. Pitt. I must
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 339
add, that, if anything defensive in our domestic system can possibly save us from the disasters of a Regicide peace, he is the man to save us. If the finances in such a case can be repaired, he is the man to re
pair them. If I should lament any of his acts, it is
only when they appear to me to have no resemblance
to acts of his. But let him not have a confidence in
himself which no human abilities can warrant. His
abilities are fully equal (and that is to say much for
any man) to those which are opposed to him. But if
we look to him as our security against the consequences of a Regicide peace, let us be assured that a Regicide peace and a constitutional ministry are terms that will not agree. With a Regicide peace the king
cannot long have a minister to serve him, nor the
minister a king to serve. If the Great Disposer, in
reward of the royal and the private virtues of our
sovereign, should call him from the calamitous spectacles which will attend a state of amity with Regicide, his successor will surely see them, unless the same Providence greatly anticipates the course of Nature. Thinking thus, (and not, as I conceive, on
light grounds,) I dare not flatter the reigning sovereign, nor ally minister he has or can have, nor his
successor apparent, nor any of those who may be
called to serve him, with what appears to me a false
state of their situation. We cannot have them and
that peace together.
I do not forget that there had been a considerable
difference between several of our friends (with my insignificant self) and the great man at the head of
ministry, in an early stage of these discussions. But
I am sure there was a period in which we agreed better in the danger of a Jacobin existence in France.
? ? ? ? 340 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE
At one time he and all Europe seemed to feel it.
But why am not I converted with so many great powers and so many great ministers? It is because I am old and slow. I am in this year, 1796, only where
all the powers of Europe were in 1793. I cannot
move with this precession of the equinoxes, which is
preparing for us the return of some very old, I am
afraid no golden era, or the commencement of some
new era that must be denominated from some new
metal. In this crisis I must hold my tongue or I
must speak with freedom. Falsehood and delusion
are allowed in no case whatever: but, as in the exert
cise of all the virtues, there is an economy of truth.
It is a sort of temperance, by which a man speaks
truth with measure, that he may speak it the longer.
But as the same rules do not hold in all cases, what
would be right for you, who may presume on a series
of years before you, would have no sense for me, who
cannot, without absurdity, calculate on six months of
life. What I say I must say at once. Whatever I
write is in its nature testamentary. It may have the
weakness, but it has the sincerity, of a dying declaration. For the few days I have to linger here I
am removed completely from the busy scene of the
world; but I hold myself to be still responsible for
everything that I have done whilst I continued on the
place of action. If the rawest tyro in politics has
been influenced by the authority of my gray hairs,
and led by anything in my speeches or my writings
to enter into this war, he has a right to call upon me
to know why I have changed my opinions, or why,
when those I voted with have adopted better notions,
I persevere in exploded error.
When I seem not to acquiesce in the acts of those
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 341
I respect in every degree short of superstition, I am
obliged to give my reasons fully. I cannot set my
authority against their authority. But to exert reason is not to revolt against authority. Reason and authority do not move in the same parallel. That
reason is an amicus curice who speaks de piano, not
pro tribunali. It is a friend who makes an usefiul
suggestion to the court, without questioning its jurisdiction. Whilst he acknowledges its competence, he promotes its efficiency. I shall pursue the plan I
have chalked out in my letters that follow this.
? ? ? ? LETTER II.
ON THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION AS IT REGARDS OTHER NATIONS.
M/Y DEAR SIR,- I closed my first letter with
serious matter, and I hope it has employed
your thoughts. The system of peace must have a
reference to the system of the war. On that ground,
I must therefore again recall your mind to our original opinions, which time and events have not taught me to vary.
My ideas and my principles led me, in this contest,
to encounter France, not as a state, but as a faction.
The vast territorial extent of that country, its immense population, its riches of production, its riches
of commerce and convention, the whole aggregate
mass of what in ordinary cases constitutes the force
of a state, to me were but objects of secondary consideration. They might be balanced; and they have been often more than balanced. Great as these
things are, they are not what make the faction formidable. It is the faction that makes them truly dreadful. That faction is the evil spirit that possesses the body of France,-that informs it as a
soul, -- that stamps upon its ambition, and upon all
its pursuits, a characteristic mark, which strongly
distinguishes them from the same general passions
and the same general views in other men and in
other communities. It is that spirit which inspires
? ? ? ? LETTER II. 343
into them a new, a pernicious, a desolating activity.
Constituted as France was ten years ago, it was not
in that France to shake, to shatter, and to overwhelm
Europe in the manner that we behold. A sure destruction impends over those infatuated princes who, in the conflict with this new and unheard-of power,
proceed as if they were engaged in a war that bore
a resemblance to their former contests, or that they
can make peace in the spirit of their former arrange
ments of pacification. Here the beaten path is thevery reverse of the safe road.
As to me, I was always steadily of opinion that this
disorder was not in its nature intermittent. I conceived that the contest, once begun, could not be laid down again, to be resumed at our discretion, but that
our first struggle with this evil would also be our last.
I never thought we could make peace with the system; because it was not for the sake of an object we pursued in rivalry with each other, but with the system itself that we were at war. As I understood the matter, we were at war, not with its conduct, blrt
with its existence, - convinced that its existence and
its hostility were the same.
The faction is not local or territorial. It is a geleral evil. Where it least appears in action, it is still
full of life. In its sleep it recruits its strength and
prepares its exertion. Its spirit lies deep in the corruptions of our common nature. The social order which restrains it feeds it. It exists in every country in Europe, and among all orders of men in every country,' who look up to France as to a common
head. The centre is there. The circumference is
the world of Europe, wherever the race of Europe
may be settled. Everywhere else the faction is mili
? ? ? ? 344 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
tant; in France it is triumphant. In France is the
bank of deposit and the bank of circulation of all the
pernicious principles that are forming in every state.
It will be a folly scarcely deserving of pity, and too
mischievous for contempt, to think of restraining it
in any other country whilst it is predominant there.
War, instead of being the cause of its force, has suspenied its operation. It has given a reprieve, at
least, to the Christian world.
The true nature of a Jacobin war, in the beginling, was by most of the Christian powers felt, acknowledged, and even in the most precise manner
declared. In the joint manifesto published by the
Emperor and the King of Prussia, on the 4th of August, 1792, it is expressed in the clearest terms, and
on principles which could not fail, if they had adhered to them, of classing those monarchs with the
first benefactors of mankind. This manifesto was
published, as they themselves express it, "to lay
open to the present generation, as well as to posterity, their motives, their intentions, and the disinterestedness of their personal views: taking up arms for the purpose of preserving social and political order
amongst all civilized nations, and to secure to each
state its religion, happiness, independence, territories.
and real constitution. " -" On this ground they hoped
that all empires and all states would be unanimous,
and, becoming the firm guardians of the happiness
of mankind, that they could not fail to unite their
efforts to rescue a numerous nation from its own fury,
to preserve Europe from the return of barbarism, and
the universe from the subversion and anarchy with
which it was threatened. " The whole of that noble
performance ought to be read at the first meeting of
? ? ? ? LETTER II. 345
any congress which may assemble for the purpose of
pacification. In that piece " these powers expressly
renounce all views of personal aggrandizement," and
confine themselves to objects worthy of so generous,
so heroic, and so perfectly wise and politic an enterprise. It was to the principles of this confederation,
and to no other, that we wished our sovereign and
our country to accede, as a part of the commonwealth
of Europe. To these principles, with some trifling
exceptions and limitations, they did fully accede. *
And all our friends who took office acceded to the
ministry, (whether wisely or not,) as I always understood the matter, on the faith and on the principles
of that declaration.
As long as these powers flattered themselves that
the menace of force would produce the effect of force,
they acted on those declarations; but when their menaces failed of success, their efforts took a new direction. It did not appear to them that virtue and heroism ought to be purchased by millions of rixdollars. It is a dreadful truth, but it is a truth that
cannot be concealed: in ability, in dexterity, in the
distinctness of their views, the Jacobins are our superiors. They saw the thing right from the very beginning. Whatever were the first motives to the war among politicians, they saw that in its spirit, and for
its objects, it was a civil war; and as such they pursued it. It is a war between the partisans of the
ancient civil, moral, and political order of Europe
against a sect of fanatical and ambitious atheists
which means to change them all. It is not France
extending a foreign empire over other nations: it is
a sect aiming at universal empire, and beginning with
* See Declaration, Whitehall, Oct. 29, 1793.
Such is the law of civil vicinity. Now where there
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 323
is no constituted judge, as between independent states
there is not, the vicinage itself is the natural judge.
It is, preventively, the assertor of its own rights, or,
remedially, their avenger. Neighbors are presumed
to take cognizance of each other's acts. " Vicini vicinorum facta prcesumuntur scire. " This principle,
which, like the rest, is as true of nations as of individual men, has bestowed on the grand vicinage
of Europe a duty to know and a right to prevent
any capital innovation which may amount to the
erection of a dangerous nuisance. * Of the importance of that innovation, and the mischief of that
nuisance, they are, to be sure, bound to judge not
litigiously: but it is in their competence to judge.
They have uniformly acted on this right. What in
civil society is a ground of action in politic society
is a ground of war. But the exercise of that competent jurisdiction is a matter of moral prudence.
As suits in civil society, so war in the political, must
ever be a matter of great deliberation. It is not this
or that particular proceeding, picked out here and
there, as a subject of quarrel, that will do. There
must be an aggregate of mischief. There must be
marks of deliberation; there must be traces of design; there must be indications of malice; there
must be tokens of ambition. There must be force
in the body where they exist; there must be energy
in the mind. When all these circumstances combine,
or the important parts of them, the duty of the vicin* " This state of things cannot exist in France, without involving all the surrounding powers in one common danger,- without giving
them the right, without imposing it upon them as a duty, to stop the
progress of an evil which. . . . attacks the fundamental principles
by which mankind is united in the bonds of civil society. " - Declaration, 29th Oct. , 1793.
? ? ? ? 324 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
ity calls for the exercise of its competence: and the
rules of prudence do not restrain, but demand it.
In describing the nuisance erected by so pestilential a manufactory, by the construction of so infamous a brothel, by digging a night-cellar for such thieves, murderers, and house-breakers as never infested the world, I am so far from aggravating, that
I have fallen infinitely short of the evil. No man
who has attended to the particulars of what has been
done in France, and combined them with the principles there asserted, can possibly doubt it. When
I compare with this great cause of nations the trifling
points of honor, the still more contemptible points of
interest, the light ceremonies, the undefinable punctilios, the disputes about precedency, the lowering or
the hoisting of a sail, the dealing in a hundred or
two of wildcat-skins on the other side of the globe,
which have often kindled up the flames of war between nations, I stand astonished at those persons
who do not feel a resentment, not more natural than
politic, at the atrocious insults that this monstrous
compound offers to the dignity of every nation, and
who are not alarmed with what it threatens to their
safety.
I have therefore been decidedly of opinion, with
our declaration at Whitehall in the beginning of this
war, that the vicinage of Europe had not only a
right, but an indispensable duty and an exigent
interest, to denunciate this new work, before it had
produced the danger we have so sorely felt, and
which we shall long feel. The example of what is
done by France is too important not to have a vast
and extensive influence; and that example, backed
with its power, must bear with great force on those
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 325
who are near it, especially on those who shall recognize the pretended republic on the principle upon which it now stands. It is not an old structure,
which you have found as it is, and are not to dispute
of the original end and design with which it had been
so fashioned. It is a recent wrong, and can plead no
prescription. It violates the rights upon which not
only the community of France, but those on which
all communities are founded. The principles on
which they proceed are general principles, and are
as true in England as in any other country. They
who (though with the purest intentions) recognize
the authority of these regicides and robbers upon
principle justify their acts, and establish them as
precedents. It is a question not between France
and England; it is a question between property and
force. The property claims; and its claim has been
allowed. The property of the nation is the nation.
They who massacre, plunder, and expel the body
of the proprietary are murderers and robbers. The
state, in its essence, must be moral and just: and it
may be so, though a tyrant or usurper should be
accidentally at the head' of it. This is a thing to be
lamented: but this notwithstanding, the body of the
commonwealth may remain in all its integrity and be
perfectly sound in its composition. The present case
is different. It is not a revolution in government.
It is not the victory of party over party. It is a
destruction and decomposition of the whole society;
which never can be made of right by any faction,
however powerful, nor without terrible consequences
to all about it, both in the act and in the example.
This pretended republic is founded in crimes, and
exists by wrong and robbery; and wrong and rob
? ? ? ? 326 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
bery, far from a title to anything, is war with mankind. To be at peace with robbery is to be an accomplice with it.
Mere locality does not constitute a body politic.
Had Cade and his gang got possession of London,
they would not have been the lord mayor, aldermen,
and common council. The body politic of France
existed in the majesty of its throne, in the dignity
of its nobility, in the honor of its gentry, in the sanctity of its clergy, in the reverence of its magistracy, in the weight and consideration due to its landed
property in the several bailliages, in the respect due
to its movable substance represented by the corporations of the kingdom. All these particular moleculce united form the great mass of what is truly the body
politic in all countries. They are so many deposits
and receptacles of justice; because they can only
exist by justice. Nation is a moral essence, not a
geographical arrangement, or a denomination of the
nomenclator. France, though out of her territorial
possession, exists; because the sole possible claimant,
I mean the proprietary, and the government to which
the proprietary adheres, exists and claims. God forbid, that if you were expelled from your house by ruffians and assassins, that I should call the material
walls, doors, and windows of the ancient and
honorable family of! Am I to transfer to the
intruders, who, not content to turn you out naked
to the world, would rob you of your very name, all
the esteem and respect I owe to you? The Regicides
in France are not France. France is out of her
bounds, but the kingdom is the same.
To illustrate my opinions on this subject, let us
suppose a case, which, after what has happened, we
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 327
cannot think absolutely impossible, though the augury is to be abominated, and the event deprecated
with our most ardent prayers. Let us suppose, then,
that our gracious sovereign was sacrilegiously murdered his exemplary queen, at the head of the matronage of this land, murdered in the same manner; that those princesses whose beauty and modest elegance are the ornaments of the country, and who
are the leaders and patterns of the ingenuous youth
of their sex, were put to a cruel and ignominious
death, with hundreds of others, mothers and daughters, ladies of the first distinction; that the Prince
of Wales and the Duke of York, princes the hope
and pride of the nation, with all their brethren, were
forced to fly from the knives of assassins; that the
whole body of our excellent clergy were either massacred or robbed of all and transported; the Christian religion, in all its denominations, forbidden and persecuted; the law totally, fundamentally, and in
all its parts, destroyed; the judges put to death
by revolutionary tribunals; the peers and commons
robbed to the last acre of their estates, massacred, if
they stayed, or obliged to seek life in flight, in exile, and in beggary; that the whole landed property
should share the very same fate; that every military
and naval officer of honor and rank, almost to a man,
should be placed in the same description of confiscation and exile; that the principal merchants and
bankers should be drawn out, as from an hen-coop,
for slaughter; that the citizens of our greatest and
most flourishing cities, when the hand and the machinery of the hangman were not found sufficient,
should have been collected in the public squares
and massacred by thousands with cannon; if three
? ? ? ? 328 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
hundred thousand others should have been doomed
to a situation worse than death in noisome and pestilential prisons. In such a case, is it in the faction of robbers I am to look for my country? Would this
be the England that you and I, and even strangers,
admired, honored, loved, and cherished? Would not
the exiles of England alone be my government and
my fellow-citizens? Would not their places of refuge be my temporary country? Would not all my duties and all my affections be there, and there'only?
Should I consider myself as a traitor to my country,
and deserving of death, if I knocked at the door and
heart of every potentate in Christendom to succor
my friends, and to avenge them on their enemies?
Could I in any way show myself more a patriot?
What should I think of those potentates who insulted
their suffering brethren, - who treated them as vagrants, or at least as mendicants, - and could find no allies, no friends, but in regicide murderers and
robbers? What ought I to think and feel, if, being
geographers instead of kings, they recognized the
desolated cities, the wasted fields, and the rivers
polluted with blood, of this geometrical measurement, as the honorable member of Europe called England? In that condition, what should we think
of Sweden, Denmark, or Holland, or whatever power
afforded us a churlish and treacherous hospitality,
if they should invite us to join the standard of our
king, our laws, and our religion, --if they should
give us a direct promise of protection, -- if, after all
this, taking advantage of our deplorable situation,
which left us no choice, they were to treat us as
the lowest and vilest of all mercenaries, --if they
were to send us far from the aid of our king and
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 329
our suffering country, to squander us away in the
most pestilential climates for a venal enlargement
of their own territories, for the purpose of trucking
them, when obtained, with those very robbers and
murderers they had called upon us to oppose with
our blood? What would be our sentiments, if in
that miserable service we were not to be considered
either as English, or as Swedes, Dutch, Danes, but
as outcasts of the human race? Whilst we were
fighting those battles of their interest and as their
soldiers, how should we feel, if we were to be excluded from all their cartels? How must we feel, if the
pride and flower of the English nobility and gentry,
who might escape the pestilential clime and the devouring sword, should, if taken prisoners, be delivered over as rebel subjects, to be condemned as rebels, as traitors, as the vilest of all criminals, by
tribunals formed of Maroon negro slaves, covered
over with the blood of their masters, who were
made free and organized into judges for their robberies and murders? What should we feel under
this inhuman, insulting, and barbarous protection
of Muscovites, Swedes, or Hollanders? Should we
not obtest Heaven, and whatever justice there is yet
on earth? Oppression makes wise men mad; but
the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which
is better than the sobriety of fools. Their cry is the
voice of sacred misery, exalted, not into wild raving, but into the sanctified frenzy of prophecy and
inspiration. In that bitterness of soul, in that indignation of suffering virtue, in that exaltation of despair, would not persecuted English loyalty cry out with an awful warning voice, and denounce the destruction that waits on monarchs who consider fidel
? ? ? ? 330 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
ity to them as the most degrading of all vices, who
suffer it to be punished as the most abominable of
all crimes, and who have no respect but for rebels,
traitors, regicides, and furious negro slaves, whose
crimes have broke their chains? Would not this
warm language of high indignation have more of
sound reason in it, more of real affection, more of
true attachment, than all the lullabies of flatterers
who would hush monarchs to sleep in the arms of
death? Let them be well convinced, that, if ever
this example should prevail in its whole extent, it
will have its full operation. Whilst kings stand firm
on their base, though under that base there is a surewrought mine, there will not be wanting to their levees a single person of those who are attached to
their fortune, and not to their persons or cause;
but hereafter none will support a tottering throne.
Some will fly for fear of being crushed under the
ruin; some will join in making it. They will seek,
in the destruction of royalty, fame and power and
wealth and the homage of kings, with Reubell, with
Carnot, with Revelliere, and with the Merlins and
the Talliens, rather' than suffer exile and beggary
with the Condes, or the Broglies, the Castries, the
D'Avarays, the S4rents, the Cazales, and the long line
of loyal, suffering, patriot nobility, or to be butchered with the oracles and the victims of the laws, the D'Ormessons, the D'Espremesnils, and the Malesherbes. This example we shall give, if, instead of adhering to our fellows in a cause which is an honor
to us all, we abandon the lawful government and
lawful corporate body of France, to hunt for a
shameful and ruinous fraternity with this odious
usurpation that disgraces civilized society and the
human race.
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 331
And is, then, example nothing? It is everything.
Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn
at no other. This war is a war against that example.
It is not a war for Louis the Eighteenth, or even for
the property, virtue, fidelity of France. It is a war
for George the Third, for Francis the Second, and for
all the dignity, property, honor, virtue, and religion
of England, of Germany, and of all nations.
I know that all I have said of the systematic unsociability of this new-invented species of republic, and the impossibility of preserving peace, is answered by
asserting that the scheme of manners, morals, and
even of maxims and principles of state, is of no weight
in a question of peace or war between communities.
This doctrine is supported by example. The case of
Algiers is cited, with an hint, as if it were the stronger
case. I should take no notice of this sort of inducement, if I had found it only where first it was. I do
not want respect for those from whom I first heard
it; but, having no controversy at present with them,
I only think it not amiss to rest on it a little, as I find
it adopted, with much more of the same kind, by several of those on whom such reasoning had formerly made no apparent impression. If it had no force to
prevent us from submitting to this necessary war, it
furnishes no better ground for our making an unnecessary and ruinous peace.
This analogical argument drawn from the case of
Algiers would lead us a good way. The fact is, we
ourselves with a little cover, others more directly,
pay a tribute to the Republic of Algiers. Is it meant
to reconcile us to the payment of a tribute to the
French Republic? That this, with other things
more ruinous, will be demanded hereafter, I little
? ? ? ? 332 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
doubt; but for the present this will not be avowed,
-- though our minds are to be gradually prepared
for it. In truth, the arguments from this case are
worth little, even to those who approve the buying
an Algerine forbearance of piracy. There are many
things which men do not approve, that they must do
to avoid a greater evil. To argue from thence that
they are to act in the same manner in all cases is
turning necessity into a law. Upon what is matter
of prudence, the argument concludes the contrary
way. Because we have done one humiliating act,
we ought with infinite caution to admit more acts of
the same nature, lest humiliation should become our
habitual state. Matters of prudence are under the
dominion of circumstances, and not of logical analogies. It is absurd to take it otherwise.
1, for one, do more than doubt the policy of this
kind of convention with Algiers. On those who think
as I do the argument ad hominem can make no sort
of impression. I know something of the constitution
and composition of this very extraordinay republic.
It has a constitution, I admit, similar to the present
tumultuous military tyranny of France, by which an
handful of obscure ruffians domineer over a fertile
country and a brave people. For the composition,
too, I admit the Algerine community resembles that
of France, - being formed out of the very scum, scandal, disgrace, and pest of the Turkish Asia. The
Grand Seignior, to disburden the country, suffers the
Dey to recruit in his dominions the corps of janizaries, or asaphs, which form the Directory and Council of Elders of the African Republic one and indivisible. But notwithstanding this resemblance, which I allow, I never shall so far injure the Janizarian Re
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 333
public of Algiers as to put it in comparison, for every
sort of crime, turpitude, and oppression, with the
Jacobin Republic of Paris. There is no question
with me to which of the two I should choose to be a
neighbor or a subject. But. situated as I am, I am
in no danger of becoming to Algiers either the one
or the other. It is not so in my relation to the atheistical fanatics of France. I am their neighbor; I
may become their subject. Have the gentlemen who
borrowed this happy parallel no idea of the different
conduct to be held with regard to the very same evil
at an immense distance and when it is at your door?
when its power is enormous, as when it is comparatively as feeble as its distance is remote? when there
is a barrier of language and usages, which prevents
corruption through certain old correspondences and
habitudes, from the contagion of the horrible novelties that are introduced into everything else? I can
contemplate without dread a royal or a national tiger
on the borders of Pegu. I can look at him with an
easy curiosity, as prisoner within bars in the menagerie of the Tower. But if, by Habeas Corpus, or otherwise, he was to come into the lobby of the House of Commons whilst your door was open, any of you
would be more stout than wise who would not gladly
make your escape out of the back windows. I certainly should dread more from a wild-cat in my bedchamber than from all the lions that roar in the deserts behind Algiers. But in this parallel it is the
cat that is at a distance, and the lions and tigers that
are in our antechambers and our lobbies. Algiers
is not near; Algiers is not powerful; Algiers is not
our neighbor; Algiers is not infectious. Algiers,
whatever it may be, is an old creation; and we have
? ? ? ? 334 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
good data to calculate all the mischief to be apprehended from it. When I find Algiers transferred to Calais, I will tell you what I think of that point. In
the mean time, the case quoted from the Algerine
Reports will not apply as authority. We shall put it
out of court; and so far as that goes, let the counsel
for the Jacobin peace take nothing by their motion.
When we voted, as you and I did, with many
more whom you and I respect and love, to resist this
enemy, we were providing for dangers that were
direct, home, pressing, and not remote, contingent,
uncertain, and formed upon loose analogies. We
judged of the danger with which we were menaced
by Jacobin France from the whole tenor of her conduct, not from one or two doubtful or detached acts or expressions. I not only concurred in the idea of
combining with Europe in this war, but to the best
of my power even stimulated ministers to that conjunction of interests and of efforts. I joined them with all my soul, on the principles contained in that
manly and masterly state-paper which I have two or
three times referred to,* and may still more frequently hereafter. The diplomatic collection never was more enriched than with this piece. The historic
facts justify every stroke of the master. "Thus
painters write their names at Co. "
Various persons may concur in the same measure
on various grounds. They may be various, without
being contrary to or exclusive of each other. I
thought the insolent, unprovoked aggression of the
Regicide upon our ally of Holland a good ground of
war.
I think his manifest attempt to overturn the
balance of Europe a good ground of war. As a good
* Declaration, Whitehall, Oct. 29, 1793.
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 335
ground of war I consider his declaration of war on
his Majesty and his kingdom. But though I have
taken all these to my aid, I consider them as nothing
more than as a sort of evidence to indicate the treasonable mind within. Long before their acts of
aggression and their declaration of war, the faction
in France had assumed a form, had adopted a body
of principles and maxims, and had regularly and
systematically acted on them, by which she virtually
had put herself in a posture which was in itself a
declaration of war against mankind.
It is said by the Directory, in their several manifestoes, that we of the people are tumultuous for
peace, and that ministers pretend negotiation to
amuse us. This they have learned from the language of many amongst ourselves, whose conversations have been one main cause of whatever extent the opinion for peace with Regicide may be. But
I, who think the ministers unfortunately to be but
too serious in their proceedings, find myself obliged
to say a little more on this subject of the popular
opinion.
Before our opinions are quoted against ourselves,
it is proper, that, from our serious deliberation, they
may be worth quoting. It is without reason we
praise the wisdom of our Constitution in putting under the discretion of the crown the awful trust of
war and peace, if the ministers of the crown virtually
return it again into our bands. The trust was placed
there as a sacred deposit, to secure us against popular rashness in plunging into wars, and against the
effects of popular dismay, disgust, or lassitude, in
getting out of them as imprudently as we might first
engage in them. To have no other measure in judg.
? ? ? ? 336 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
ing of those great objects than our momentary opinions and desires is to throw us back upon that very democracy which, in this part, our Constitution was
formed to avoid.
It is no excuse at all for a minister who at our
desire takes a measure contrary to our safety, that it
is our own act. He who does not stay the hand of
suicide is guilty of murder. On our part, I say, that
to be instructed is not to be degraded or enslaved.
Information is an advantage to us; and we have a
right to demand it. He that is bound to act in the
dark cannot be said to act freely. When it appears
evident to our governors that our desires and our
interests are at variance, they ought not to gratify
the former at the expense of the latter. Statesmen
are placed on an eminence, that they may have a
larger horizon than we can possibly command. They
have a whole before them, which we can contemplate
only in the parts, and often without the necessary
relations. Ministers are not only our natural rulers,
but our natural guides. Reason, clearly and manfully delivered, has in itself a mighty force; but
reason in the mouth of legal authority is, I may
fairly say, irresistible.
I admit that reason of state will not, in many circumstances, permit the disclosure of the true ground of a public proceeding. In that case silence is manly,
and it is wise. It is fair to call for trust, when the
principle of reason itself suspends its public use. I
take the distinction to be this: the ground of a particular measure making a part of a plan it is rarely proper to divulge; all the broader grounds of policy,
on which the general plan is to be adopted, ought
as rarely to be concealed. They who have not the
? ? ? ? LETTER 1. 337
whole cause before them, call them politicians, call
them people, call them what you will, are no judges.
The difficulties of the case, as well as its fair side,
ought to be presented. This ought to be done; and
it is all that can be done. When we have our true
situation distinctly presented to us, if then we resolve, with a blind and headlong violence, to resist
the admonitions of our friends, and to cast ourselves
into the hands of our potent and irreconcilable foes,
then, and not till then, the ministers stand acquitted
before God and man for whatever may come.
Lamenting, as I do, that the matter has not had:
so full and free a discussion as it requires, I mean tQo
omit none of the points which seem to me necessary
for consideration, previous to an arrangement which
is forever to decide the form and the fate of Europe.
In the course, therefore, of what I shall have the honor to address to you, I propose the following questions to your serious thoughts. -1. Whether the present
system, which stands for a government, in France, be
such as in peace and war affects the neighboring
states in a manner different from the internal government that formerly prevailed in that country? -- 2. Whether that system,. supposing its views hostile to,
other nations, possesses any means of being hurtful to
them peculiar to itself? 3. Whether there has been
lately such a change in France as to alter the nature
of its system, or its effect upon other powers? - 4.
Whether any public declarations or engagements exist, on the part of the allied powers, which stand in
the way of a treaty of peace which supposes the right
and confirms the power of the Regicide faction in
France? - 5. What the state of the other powers of
Europe will be with respect to each other and their
VOL. V. 22
? ? ? ? 338 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
colonies, on the conclusion of a Regicide peace? - 6.
Whether we are driven to the absolute necessity of
making that kind of peace?
These heads of inquiry will enable us to make the
application of the several matters of fact and topics
of argument, that occur in this vast discussion, to
certain fixed principles. I do not mean to confine
myself to the order in which they stand. I shall discuss them in such a manner as shall appear to me the best adapted for showing their mutual bearings and
relations. Here, then, I close the public matter of
my letter; but before I have done, let me say one
word in apology for myself.
In wishing this nominal peace not to be precipitated, I am sure no man living is less disposed to blame the present ministry than I am. Some of my oldest
friends (and I wish I could" say it of more of them)
make a part in that ministry. There are some, indeed, "whom my dim eyes in vain explore. " In my mind, a greater calamity could not have fallen on
the public than the exclusion of one of them. But I
drive away that, with other melancholy thoughts.
A great deal ought to be said upon that subject, or
nothing. As to the distinguished persons to whom
my friends who remain are joined, if benefits nobly and generously conferred' ought to procure good wishes, they are entitled to my best vows; and they
have them all. They have administered to me the
only consolation I am capable of receiving, which is,
Ito know that no individual will suffer by my thirty
years' service to the public. If things should give
qs the comparative happiness of a struggle, I shall
be found, I was going to say fighting, (that would be
foolish,) but dying, by the side of Mr. Pitt. I must
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 339
add, that, if anything defensive in our domestic system can possibly save us from the disasters of a Regicide peace, he is the man to save us. If the finances in such a case can be repaired, he is the man to re
pair them. If I should lament any of his acts, it is
only when they appear to me to have no resemblance
to acts of his. But let him not have a confidence in
himself which no human abilities can warrant. His
abilities are fully equal (and that is to say much for
any man) to those which are opposed to him. But if
we look to him as our security against the consequences of a Regicide peace, let us be assured that a Regicide peace and a constitutional ministry are terms that will not agree. With a Regicide peace the king
cannot long have a minister to serve him, nor the
minister a king to serve. If the Great Disposer, in
reward of the royal and the private virtues of our
sovereign, should call him from the calamitous spectacles which will attend a state of amity with Regicide, his successor will surely see them, unless the same Providence greatly anticipates the course of Nature. Thinking thus, (and not, as I conceive, on
light grounds,) I dare not flatter the reigning sovereign, nor ally minister he has or can have, nor his
successor apparent, nor any of those who may be
called to serve him, with what appears to me a false
state of their situation. We cannot have them and
that peace together.
I do not forget that there had been a considerable
difference between several of our friends (with my insignificant self) and the great man at the head of
ministry, in an early stage of these discussions. But
I am sure there was a period in which we agreed better in the danger of a Jacobin existence in France.
? ? ? ? 340 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE
At one time he and all Europe seemed to feel it.
But why am not I converted with so many great powers and so many great ministers? It is because I am old and slow. I am in this year, 1796, only where
all the powers of Europe were in 1793. I cannot
move with this precession of the equinoxes, which is
preparing for us the return of some very old, I am
afraid no golden era, or the commencement of some
new era that must be denominated from some new
metal. In this crisis I must hold my tongue or I
must speak with freedom. Falsehood and delusion
are allowed in no case whatever: but, as in the exert
cise of all the virtues, there is an economy of truth.
It is a sort of temperance, by which a man speaks
truth with measure, that he may speak it the longer.
But as the same rules do not hold in all cases, what
would be right for you, who may presume on a series
of years before you, would have no sense for me, who
cannot, without absurdity, calculate on six months of
life. What I say I must say at once. Whatever I
write is in its nature testamentary. It may have the
weakness, but it has the sincerity, of a dying declaration. For the few days I have to linger here I
am removed completely from the busy scene of the
world; but I hold myself to be still responsible for
everything that I have done whilst I continued on the
place of action. If the rawest tyro in politics has
been influenced by the authority of my gray hairs,
and led by anything in my speeches or my writings
to enter into this war, he has a right to call upon me
to know why I have changed my opinions, or why,
when those I voted with have adopted better notions,
I persevere in exploded error.
When I seem not to acquiesce in the acts of those
? ? ? ? LETTER I. 341
I respect in every degree short of superstition, I am
obliged to give my reasons fully. I cannot set my
authority against their authority. But to exert reason is not to revolt against authority. Reason and authority do not move in the same parallel. That
reason is an amicus curice who speaks de piano, not
pro tribunali. It is a friend who makes an usefiul
suggestion to the court, without questioning its jurisdiction. Whilst he acknowledges its competence, he promotes its efficiency. I shall pursue the plan I
have chalked out in my letters that follow this.
? ? ? ? LETTER II.
ON THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION AS IT REGARDS OTHER NATIONS.
M/Y DEAR SIR,- I closed my first letter with
serious matter, and I hope it has employed
your thoughts. The system of peace must have a
reference to the system of the war. On that ground,
I must therefore again recall your mind to our original opinions, which time and events have not taught me to vary.
My ideas and my principles led me, in this contest,
to encounter France, not as a state, but as a faction.
The vast territorial extent of that country, its immense population, its riches of production, its riches
of commerce and convention, the whole aggregate
mass of what in ordinary cases constitutes the force
of a state, to me were but objects of secondary consideration. They might be balanced; and they have been often more than balanced. Great as these
things are, they are not what make the faction formidable. It is the faction that makes them truly dreadful. That faction is the evil spirit that possesses the body of France,-that informs it as a
soul, -- that stamps upon its ambition, and upon all
its pursuits, a characteristic mark, which strongly
distinguishes them from the same general passions
and the same general views in other men and in
other communities. It is that spirit which inspires
? ? ? ? LETTER II. 343
into them a new, a pernicious, a desolating activity.
Constituted as France was ten years ago, it was not
in that France to shake, to shatter, and to overwhelm
Europe in the manner that we behold. A sure destruction impends over those infatuated princes who, in the conflict with this new and unheard-of power,
proceed as if they were engaged in a war that bore
a resemblance to their former contests, or that they
can make peace in the spirit of their former arrange
ments of pacification. Here the beaten path is thevery reverse of the safe road.
As to me, I was always steadily of opinion that this
disorder was not in its nature intermittent. I conceived that the contest, once begun, could not be laid down again, to be resumed at our discretion, but that
our first struggle with this evil would also be our last.
I never thought we could make peace with the system; because it was not for the sake of an object we pursued in rivalry with each other, but with the system itself that we were at war. As I understood the matter, we were at war, not with its conduct, blrt
with its existence, - convinced that its existence and
its hostility were the same.
The faction is not local or territorial. It is a geleral evil. Where it least appears in action, it is still
full of life. In its sleep it recruits its strength and
prepares its exertion. Its spirit lies deep in the corruptions of our common nature. The social order which restrains it feeds it. It exists in every country in Europe, and among all orders of men in every country,' who look up to France as to a common
head. The centre is there. The circumference is
the world of Europe, wherever the race of Europe
may be settled. Everywhere else the faction is mili
? ? ? ? 344 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
tant; in France it is triumphant. In France is the
bank of deposit and the bank of circulation of all the
pernicious principles that are forming in every state.
It will be a folly scarcely deserving of pity, and too
mischievous for contempt, to think of restraining it
in any other country whilst it is predominant there.
War, instead of being the cause of its force, has suspenied its operation. It has given a reprieve, at
least, to the Christian world.
The true nature of a Jacobin war, in the beginling, was by most of the Christian powers felt, acknowledged, and even in the most precise manner
declared. In the joint manifesto published by the
Emperor and the King of Prussia, on the 4th of August, 1792, it is expressed in the clearest terms, and
on principles which could not fail, if they had adhered to them, of classing those monarchs with the
first benefactors of mankind. This manifesto was
published, as they themselves express it, "to lay
open to the present generation, as well as to posterity, their motives, their intentions, and the disinterestedness of their personal views: taking up arms for the purpose of preserving social and political order
amongst all civilized nations, and to secure to each
state its religion, happiness, independence, territories.
and real constitution. " -" On this ground they hoped
that all empires and all states would be unanimous,
and, becoming the firm guardians of the happiness
of mankind, that they could not fail to unite their
efforts to rescue a numerous nation from its own fury,
to preserve Europe from the return of barbarism, and
the universe from the subversion and anarchy with
which it was threatened. " The whole of that noble
performance ought to be read at the first meeting of
? ? ? ? LETTER II. 345
any congress which may assemble for the purpose of
pacification. In that piece " these powers expressly
renounce all views of personal aggrandizement," and
confine themselves to objects worthy of so generous,
so heroic, and so perfectly wise and politic an enterprise. It was to the principles of this confederation,
and to no other, that we wished our sovereign and
our country to accede, as a part of the commonwealth
of Europe. To these principles, with some trifling
exceptions and limitations, they did fully accede. *
And all our friends who took office acceded to the
ministry, (whether wisely or not,) as I always understood the matter, on the faith and on the principles
of that declaration.
As long as these powers flattered themselves that
the menace of force would produce the effect of force,
they acted on those declarations; but when their menaces failed of success, their efforts took a new direction. It did not appear to them that virtue and heroism ought to be purchased by millions of rixdollars. It is a dreadful truth, but it is a truth that
cannot be concealed: in ability, in dexterity, in the
distinctness of their views, the Jacobins are our superiors. They saw the thing right from the very beginning. Whatever were the first motives to the war among politicians, they saw that in its spirit, and for
its objects, it was a civil war; and as such they pursued it. It is a war between the partisans of the
ancient civil, moral, and political order of Europe
against a sect of fanatical and ambitious atheists
which means to change them all. It is not France
extending a foreign empire over other nations: it is
a sect aiming at universal empire, and beginning with
* See Declaration, Whitehall, Oct. 29, 1793.
