But
this great matter of political deliberation cannot be
put out of our thoughts by his silence.
this great matter of political deliberation cannot be
put out of our thoughts by his silence.
Edmund Burke
?
?
66 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
sis,- that their hostility to other nations has proceeded from their anarchy at home, and from the
prevalence of a populace which their government had
not strength enough to master. This I utterly deny. I insist upon it as a fact, that, in the daring
commencement of all their' hostilities, and their astonishing perseverance in them, so as never once,
in any fortune, high or low, to propose a treaty of
peace to any power in Europe, they have never been
actuated by the people: on the contrary, the people,
I will not say have been moved, but impelled by
them, and have generally acted under a compulsion,
of which most of us are as yet, thank God, unable
to form an adequate idea. The war against Austria
was formally declared by the unhappy Louis the Sixteenth; but who has ever considered Louis the Sixteenth, since the Revolution, to have been the government? The second Regicide Assembly, then the only government, was the author of that war; and neither
the nominal king nor the nominal people had anything to do with it, further than in a reluctant obedience. It is to delude ourselves, to consider the state
of France, since their Revollltion, as a state of anarchy: it is something far worse. Anarchy it is, undoubtedly, if compared with government pursuing
the peace, order, morals, and prosperity of the peo-;ple; but regarding only the power that has really
guided from the day of the Revolution to this time,
it has been of all governments the most absolute, despotic, and effective that has hitherto appeared on
earth. Never were the views and politics of ally
governmenlt pursued with half the regularity, sys-. tem, and method tllat a diligent observer must have,contemplated with amazement and terror in theirs.
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 67
Their state is not an anarchy, but a series of shortlived tyrannies. We do not call a republic with
annual magistrates an anarchy: theirs is that kind
of republic; but the succession is not effected by the
expiration of the term of the magistrate's service, but
by his murder. Every new magistracy, succeeding
by homicide, is auspicated by accusing its predecessors in the office of tyranny, and it continues by the
exercise of what they charged upon others.
This strong hand is the law, and the sole law, in
their state. I defy any person to show any other
law, -or if any such should be found on paper, that
it is in the smallest degree, or in any one instance,
regarded or practised. In all their successions, not
one magistrate, or one form of magistracy, has expired by a mere occasional popular tumult; everything has been the effect of the studied machinations
of the one revolutionary cabal, operating within itself upon itself. That cabal is all in' all. France
has no public; it is the only nation I ever heard of,
where the people are absolutely slaves, in the futllest sense, in all affairs, public and private, great
and small, even down to the minutest and most recondite parts of their household concerns. The helots
of Laconia, the regardants to the manor in Russia
and in Poland, even the negroes in the West Indies,
know nothing of so searching, so penetrating, so
heart-breaking a slavery. Much would these servile wretches call for our pity under that unheardof yoke, if for their perfidious and ulnatural rebellion, and for their murder of the mildest of all monarchs, they did not richly deserve a punishment
not greater than their crime.
On the whole, therefore, I take it to be a great
? ? ? ? 68 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
mistake to think that the want of power in the government furnished a natural cause of war; whereas the greatness of its power, joined to its use of that
power, the nature of its system, and the persons
who acted in it, did naturally call for a strong military resistance to oppose them, and rendered it not only just, but necessary. But at present I say no
more on the genius and character of the' power set
up in France. I may probably trouble you with it
more at large hereafter: this subject calls for a very
full exposure: at present it is enough for me, if I
point it out as a matter well worthy of consideration,
whether the true ground of hostility was not rightly
conceived very early in this war, and whether anything has happened to change that system, except our ill success in a war which in no principal instance
had its true destination as the object of its operations. That the war has succeeded ill in many cases
is undoubted; but then let us speak the truth, and
say we are defeated, exhausted, dispirited, and must
submit. This would be intelligible. The world would
be inclined to pardon the abject conduct of all undone nation. But let us not conceal from ourselves
our real situation, whilst, by every species of humiliation, we are but too strongly displaying our sense ot it to the enemy.
The writer of the Remarks in the Last Week of
October appears to think that the present government
in France contains many of the elements which, when
properly arranged, are known to form the best practical governments, - and that the system, whatever may become its particular form, is no longer likely
to be an obstacle to negotiation. If its form now be
no obstacle to such negotiation, I do not know why
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 69
it was ever so. Suppose that this government promised greater permanency than ally of the former, (a point on which I can form no judgment,) still a link
is wanting to couple the permanence of the government with the permanence of the peace. On this not one word is said: nor can there be, in my opilnion. This deficiency is made up by strengthening the first ringlet of the chain, that ought to be, but that
is not, stretched to connect the two propositions. All
seems to be done, if we can make out that the last
French edition of Regicide is like to prove stable.
As a prognostic of this stability, it is said to be accepted by the people. Here again I join issue with
the fraternizers, and positively deny the fact. Some
submission or other has been obtained, by some
means or other, to every government that hitherto
has been set up. And the same submission would,
by the same means, be obtained for any other project that the wit or folly of man could possibly devise. The Constitution of 1790 was universally received.
The Constitution which followed it, under the name
of a Convention, was universally submitted to. The
Constitution of 1793 was universally accepted. Unluckily, this year's Constitution, which was formed, and its genethliacon sung by the noble author while
it was yet in embryo, or was but just come bloody
from the womb, is the only one which in its very formation has been generally resisted by a very great and powerful party in many parts of the kingdom,
and particularly in the capital. It never had a popular choice even in show: those who arbitrarily
erected the new building out of the old materials of
their own Convention were obliged to send for an army to support their work: like brave gladiators, they
? ? ? ? 70 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
fought it out in the streets -of Paris, and even massacred each other in their house of assembly, in the
most edifying manner, and for the entertainment and
instruction of their Excellencies the foreign ambassadors, who had a box. ill this constitutional amphitheatre of a free people. At length, after a terrible struggle, the troops prevailed over the citizens. The citizen soldiers, the
ever-famed national guards, who had deposed and
murdered their sovereign, were disarmed by the inferior trumpeters of that rebellion. Twenty thousand
regular troops garrison Paris. Thus a complete mlilitary government is formed. It has the strenlgth, and
it may count on the stability, of that kitnd of power.
This power is to last as long as the Parisians think
proper. Every other ground of stability, but from
military force and terror, is clean out of the question. To secure them further, they have a strong
corps of irregulars, ready-armed. Thousands of
those hell-hounds called Terrorists, whom they had
shut up in prison, on their last Revolution, as the satellites of tyranny, are let loose on the people. The
whole of their government, in its origination, in its
continuance, in all its actions, and in all its resources,
is force, and nothing but force: a forced constitution,
a forced election, a forced subsistence, a forced requisition of soldiers, a forced loan of money.
They differ nothling from all the preceding usurpations, but that to the same odium a good deal more
of conte-npt is added. In this situation, notwithstanding all their military force, strengthened with
the undisciplined power of the Terrorists, and the
nearly general disarming of Paris, there would almost certainly have been before this an insurrection
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 71
against them, but for one cause. The people of
France languish for peace. They all despaired of obtaining it from the coalesced powers, whilst they had a gang of professed regicides at their head; and several of the least desperate republicans would have joined with better men to shake them wholly off, and
to produce something more ostensible, if they had not
been reiteratedly told that their sole hope of peace
was the very contrary to what they naturally imagined: that they must leave off their cabals and insurrections, which could serve no purpose but to
bring in that royalty which was wholly rejected by
the coalesced kings; that, to satisfy them, they must
tranquilly, if they could not cordially, submit themselves to the tyranny and the tyrants they despised and abhorred. Peace was held out by the allied
monarchies to the people of France, as a bounty for
supporting the Republic of Regicides. In fact, a coalition, begun for the avowed purpose of destroying that den of robbers, now exists only for their support.
If evil happens to the princes of Europe from'the success and stability of this infernal business, it is their own absolute crime.
We are to understand, however, (for sometimes
so the author hints,) that something stable in the
Constitution of Regicide was required for our amity
with it; but the noble Remarker is no more solicitous about this point than he is for the permanence
of the whole body of his October speculations. " If,"
says he, speaking of the Regicide, " they can obtain a
practicable constitution, even for a limited period of
time, they will be in a condition to reestablish the accustomed relations of peace and amity. " Pray let
us leave this bush-fighting. What is meant by a lirm
? ? ? ? 72 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
ited period of time? Does it mean the direct contrary
to the terms, an unlimited period? If it is a limited period, what limitation does he fix as a ground
for his opinion? Otherwise, his limitation is unlimited. If he only requires a constitution that will last
while the treaty goes on, ten days' existence will satisfy his demands. He knows that France never did
want a practicable constitution, nor a government,
which endured for a limited period of time. Her
constitutions were but too practicable; and short as
was their duration, it was but too long. They endured time enough for treaties which benefited themselves and have done infinite mischief to our cause. But, granting him his strange thesis, that hitherto
the mere form or the mere term of their constitutions, and not their indisposition, but their instability,
has been the cause of their not preserving the relations of amity, --how could a constitution which
might not last half an hour after the noble lord's
signature of the treaty, in the company in which he
must sign it, insure its observance? If you trouble
yourself at all with their constitutions, you are certainly more concerned with them after the treaty than
before it, as the observance of conventions is of infinitely more consequence than the making them.
Can anything be more palpably absurd and senseless
than to object to a treaty of peace for want of durability in constitutions which had an actual duration,
and to trust a constitution that at the time of the
writing had not so much as a practical existence?
There is no way of accounting for such discourse in
the mouths of men of sense, but by supposing that
they secretly entertain a hope that the very act of
having made a peace with the Regicides will give a
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 73
stability to the Regicide system. This will not clear
the discourse from the absurdity, but it will account
for the conduct, which such reasoning so ill defends.
What a roundabout way is this to peace, - to make
war for the destruction of regicides, and then to
give them peace in order to insure a stability that
will enable them to observe it! I say nothing of the
honor displayed in such a system. It is plain it militates with itself almost in all the parts of it. In one
part, it supposes stability in their Constitution, as a
ground of a stable peace; in another part, we are to
hope for peace in a different way,- that is, by splitting this brilliant orb into little stars, and this would
make the face of heaven so fine! No, there is no system upon which the peace which in humility we are
to supplicate can possibly stand.
I believe, before this time, that the mere form of a
constitution, in any country, never was fixed as the
sole ground of objecting to a treaty with it. With
other circumstances it may be of great moment.
What is incumbent on the assertors of the Fourth
Week of October system to prove is not whether
their then expected Constitution was likely to be stable or transitory, but whether it promised to this
country and its allies, and to the peace and settlement of all Europe, more good-will or more good faith
than any of the experiments which have gone before
it. On these points I would willingly join issue.
Observe first the manner in which the Remarker
describes (very truly, as I conceive) the people of
France under that auspicious government, and then
observe the conduct of that government to other nations. " The people without any established constitution; distracted by popular convulsions; in a state
? ? ? ? 74 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
of inevitable bankruptcy; without any commerce;
with their principal ports blockaded; and without
a fleet that could venture to face one of our detached
squadrons. " Admitting, as fiully as lie has stated it,
this condition of France, I would fainl know how he
reconciles this condition with his ideas of any kind of
a practicable constitution, or duration for a limited period, which are his sine qua non of peace. But passing by contradictions, as no fair objections to reasoning, this state of things would naturally, at other times, and in other governments, have produced a
disposition to peace, almost on any terms. But, in
that state of their country, did the Regicide government solicit peace or amity witlh other nations, or
even lay any specious grounds for it, in propositions
of affected moderation, or in the most loose and genleral conciliatory language? The direct contrary. It
was but a very few days before the noble writer had
commenced his Remarks, as if it were to refite ihim
by anticipation, that his France thought fit to lay out
a new territorial map of dominion, and to declare to
us and to all Europe what territories she was willing
to allot to her own empire, and what she is content
(during her good pleasure) to leave to others.
This their law of empire was promulgated without
any requisition on that subject, and proclaimed in a
style and upon principles which never had been heard
of in the annals of arrogance and ambition. She
prescribed the limits to her empire, not upon principles of treaty, convention, possession, usage, habitude,
the distinction of tribes, nations, or languages, but by
physical aptitudes. Having fixed herself as the arbiter of physical dominion, she construed the limits
of Nature by her convenience. That was Nature
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 75
which most extended and best secured the empire of
]France.
I need say no more on the insult offered not only
to all equity and justice, but to the common sense of
mankind, in deciding legal property by physical principles, and establishing thle convenlience of a party as a rule of public law. The noble advocate for peace
has, illdeed, perfectly well exploded this daring and
outrageous system of pride and tyranny. I am most
happy in commending him, when lie writes like himself. But hear still further and in the same good
strain the great patron and advocate of amity with
this accommnodating, mild, and unassuming power,
when lie reports to you the law they give, and its immediate effects: -" They amount," says lle, 1" to the sacrifice of powers that have been the most nearly
connected with us, - the direct or indirect annexation to France of all the ports of the Continent from Dunkirk to Hamburg, - an immense accession of
territory, - and, in one word, THE ABANDONMIENT OF
THE INDEPENDENCE OF EUROPE! " This is the LAW
(the author. and I use no different terms) which this
new government, almost as soon as it could cry in
the cradle, and as one of the very first acts by which
it auspicated its entrance into function, the pledge
it gives of the firmness of its policy, - such is the
law that this proud power prescribes to abject nations. What is the comment upon this law by the
great jurist who recommends us to the tribunal
whichl issued the decree? " An obedience to it
would be " (says lie) " dishonorable to us, and exhibit us to the present age and to posterity as
submitting to the law prescribed to us by our enemy. "
? ? ? ? 76 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
Here I recognize the voice of a British plenipotentiary: I begin to feel proud of my country. But,
alas! the short date of human elevation! The accents of dignity died upon his tongue. This author
will not assure us of his sentiments for the whole of
a pamphlet; but, in the sole energetic part of it, he
does not continue the same through an whole sentence, if it happens to be of any sweep or compass.
In the very womb of tl. is last sentence, pregnant, as
it should seem, with a Hercules, there is formed a
little bantling of the mortal race, a degenerate, puny
parenthesis, that totally frustrates our most sanguine
views and expectations, and disgraces the whole gestation. Here -is this destructive parenthesis: " UI1less some adequate compensation be secured to us. " To us! The Christian world may shift for itself, Europe may groan in slavery, we may be dishonored by
receiving law from an enemy,- but all is well, provided the compensation to us be adequate. To what
are we reserved? An adequate compensation "for
the sacrifice of powers the most nearly connected
with us "; - an adequate compensation "for the
direct or indirect annexation to France of all the
ports of the Continent from Dunkirk to Hamburg ";
-an adequate compensation "for the abandonment
of the independence of Europe "! Would that, when
all our manly sentiments are thus changed, our manly
language were changed along with them, and that the
English tongue were not employed to utter what our
ancestors never dreamed could enter into an English
heart!
But let us consider this matter of adequate compensation. Who is to furnish it? From what funds
is it to be drawn? Is it by another treaty of com
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 77
merce? I have no objections to treaties of commerce
upon principles of commerce. Traffic for traffic, -
all is fair. But commerce in exchange for empire,
for safety, for glory! We set out in our dealing with
a miserable cheat upon ourselves. I know it may
be said, that we may prevail on this proud, philosophical, military Republic, which looks down with
contempt on trade, to declare it unfit for the sovereign of nations to be eundem negotiatorem et dominum:
that, in virtue of this maxim of her state, the English
in France may be permitted, as the Jews are in Poland and in Turkey, to execute all the little inglorious occupations,- to be the sellers of new and the buyers of old clothes, to be their brokers and factors, and to be employed in casting up their debits
and credits, whilst the master Republic cultivates the
arts of empire, prescribes the forms of peace to nations, and dictates laws to a subjected world. But
are we quite sure, that, when we have surrendered
half Europe to them in hope of this compensation,
the Republic will confer upon us those privileges of
dishonor? Are we quite certain that she will permit
us to farm the guillotine, --to contract for the provision of her twenty thousand Bastiles, - to furnish
transports for the myriads of her exiles to Guiana, -
to become commissioners for her naval stores, - or to
engage for the clothing of those armies which are to
subdue the poor relics of Christian Europe? No!
She is bespoke by the Jew subjects of her own Amsterdam for all these services.
But if these, or matters similar, are not the
compensations the Remarker demands, and that on
consideration he finds them neither adequate nor certain, who else is to be the chapman, and to furnish
? ? ? ? 78 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
the purchase-money, at this market, of all the grand
principles of empire, of law, of civilization, of morals,
and of religion, where British faith and honor are to
be sold by inch of candle? Who is to be the dedecorumn pretiosus emptor? Is it the navis Hispance miagister? Is it to be furnished by the Prince of Peace? Unquestionably. Spain as yet possesses mines of
gold and silver, and may give us in pesos duros arl
adequate compensation for our honor and our virtue
When these things are at all to be sold, they are thil
vilest commodities at market.
It is full as singular as any of the other singu
larities in this work, that the Remarker, talking s.
much as lie does of cessions and compensations
passes by Spain in his general settlement, as if ther(
were no such country on the globe, -- as if there
were no Spain in Europe, no Spain in America.
But
this great matter of political deliberation cannot be
put out of our thoughts by his silence. She has furnished compensations, - not to you, but to France.
The Regicide Republic and the still nominally subsisting monarchy of Spain are united, - and are united
upon a principle of jealousy, if not of bitter enmity,
to Great Britain. The noble writer has here another
matter for meditation. It is not from Dunklrirk to
Hamburg that the ports are in the hands of France:
they are in the hands of France from Hamburg to
Gibraltar. How long the new dominion will last I
cannot tell; but France the Republic has conquered
Spain, and the ruling party in that court acts by her
orders and exists by her power.
The noble writer, in his views into futurity, has
forgotten to look back to the past. If he chooses it,
he may recollect, that, on the prospect of the death
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 79
of Philip the Fourth, and still more on the event, all
Europe was moved to its foundations. In the treaties of partition that first were entered into, and in the war that afterwards blazed out to prevent those
crowns from beirng actually or virtually ulited in the
House of Bourbon, the predominance of France in
Spain, and above all, in the Spanish Indies, was the
great object of all these movements in the cabinet
and in the field. The Grand Alliance was formed
upon that apprehension. On that apprehension the
mighty war was continued during such a number of
years as the degenerate and pusillanimous impatience
of our dwindled race can hardly bear to have reckoned: a war equal, within a few years, in duration, and not, perhaps, inferior in bloodshed, to any of those
great contests for empire which in history make the
most awful matter of recorded memory.
Ad confligendum venientibus undique Poenis,
Omnia cum belli trepido concussa tumultu
Horrida contremucrc sub altis etheris auris,
In dubioque fuit sub utrorum regna cadendum
Omnibus humanis esset terrhque marique. When this war was ended, (I cannot stay now to
examine how,) the object of the war was the object
of the treaty. When it was found impracticable, or
less desirable than before, wholly to exclude a branch
of the Bourbon race from that immense succession,
the point of Utrecht was to prevent the mischiefs to
arise from the influence of the greater upon the lesser branch. IHis Lordship is a great member of the diplomatic body; he has, of course, all the fulndamental treaties which make the public statute law
of Europe by heart: and, indeed, no active member
of Parliament ought to be ignorant of their general
? ? ? ? 80 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
tenor and leading provisions. In the treaty which
closed that war, and of which it is a fundamental
part, because relating to the whole policy of the compact, it was agreed that Spain should not give anything from her territory in the West Indies to France.
This article, apparently onerous to Spain, was in truth
highly beneficial. But, oh, the blindness of the greatest statesman to the infinite and unlooked-for combinations of things which lie hid in the dark prolific
womb of futurity! The great trunk of Bourbon is
cut down; the withered branch is worked up into the
construction of a French Regicide Republic. Here
we have formed a new, unlooked-for, monstrous, heterogeneous alliance, - a double-natured monster, republic above and monarchy below. There is no centaur of fiction, no poetic satyr of the woods, nothing short of the hieroglyphic monsters of Egypt, dog in
head and mall in body, that can give an idea of it.
None of these things can subsist in Nature (so, at
least, it is thought); but the moral world admits
monsters which the physical rejects.
In this metamorphosis, the first thing done by
Spain, in the honey-moon of her new servitude, was,
with all the hardihood of pusillanimity, utterly to
defy the most solemn treaties with Great Britain
and the guaranty of Europe. She has yielded the
largest and fairest part of one of the largest and fairest islands in the West Illdies, perhaps on the globe,
to the usurped powers of France. She completes the
title of those powers to the whole of that important
central island of Hispaniola. She has solemnly surrendered to the regicides and butchers of the Bourbon family what that court never ventured, perhaps
never wished, to bestow on the patriarchal stock of
her own august house.
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 81
The noble negotiator takes no notice of this portentous junction and this audacious surrender. The
effect is no less than the total subversion of the bal
ance of power in the West Indies, and indeed everywhere else. This arrangement, considered ill itself,
but much more as it indicates a complete union of
France with Spain, is truly alarming. Does he feel
nothing of the change this makes in that part of his
description of the state of France where he supposes
her not able to face one of our detached squadrons?
Does he feel nothing for the condition of Portugal
under this new coalition? Is it for this state of
things he recommends our junction in that common
alliance as a remedy? It is surely already monstrous
enough. We see every standing principle of policy,
every old governing opinion of nations, completely
gone, and with it the foundation of all their establishmnents. Can Spain keep herself internally where
she is, with this connection? Does he dream that
Spain, unchristian, or even uncatholic, can exist as
a monarchy? This author indulges himself in speculations of the division of the French Republic. I
only say, that with much greater reason he might
speculate on the republicanism and the subdivision
of Spain.
It is not peace with France which secures that feeble government; it is that peace which, if it shall continue, decisively ruins Spain. Such a peace is not the peace which the remnant of Christianity celebrates at
this holy season. In it there is no glory to God on
high, and not the least tincture of good-will to man.
What things we have lived to see! The King of
Spain in a group of Moors, Jews, and Renegadoes;
and the clergy taxed to pay for his conversion! The
VOL. VI. 6
? ? ? ? 82 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
Catholic King in the strict embraces of the most
Unchristianl Republic! I hope we shall never see
his Apostolic Majesty, his Faithful Majesty, and the
King, Defender of the Faith, added to that unhallowed and impious fraternity.
The noble author has glimpses of the consequences
of peace, as well as I. He feels for the colonies of
Great Britain, one of the principal resources of our
commerce and our naval power, if piratical France
shall be established, as he knows she must be, in
the West Indies, if we sue for peace on such terms
as they may condescend to grant us. He feels that
their very colonial system for the interior is not compatible with the existence of our colonies. I tell him,
and doubt not I shall be able to demonstrate, that,
being what she is, if she possesses a rock there, we
cannot be safe. Has this author had in his view the
transactions between the Regicide Republic and the
yet nominally subsisting monarchy of Spain?
I bring this matter under your Lordship's consideration, that you may have a more complete view
than this author chooses to give of the true France
you have to deal with, as to its nature, and to its
force and its disposition. Mark it, my Lord, France,
in giving her law to Spain, stipulated for none of
her indemnities in Europe, no enlargement whatever
of her frontier. Whilst we are looking for indemnities from France, betraying our own safety in a
sacrifice of the independence of Europe, France secures hers by the most important acquisition of territory ever made in the West Indies since their first settlement. She appears (it is only in appearance)
to give up the frontier of Spain; and she is compen
sated, not in appearance, but in reality, by a territory
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 83
that makes a dreadful frontier to the colonies of
Great Britain.
It is sufficiently alarming that she is to have the
possession of this great island. But all the Spanish
colonies, virtually, are hers. Is there so puny a
whipster in the petty form of the school of politics
who can be at a loss for the fate of the British colonies, when he combines the French and Spanish consolidation with the known critical and dubious dispositions of the United States of America, as they are at present, but which, when a peace is made, when
the basis of a Regicide ascendency in Spaill is laid,
will no longer be so good as dubious and critical?
But I go a great deal further; and on much consideration of the condition and circumstances of the
West Indies, and of the genius of this new republic. ,
as it has operated and is likely to operate on them,
I say, that, if a single rock in the West Indies is in
the hands of this transatlantic Morocco, we have not
an hour's safety there.
The Remarker, though he slips aside from the
main consideration, seems aware that this arrangement, standing as it does, in the West Indies, leaves
us at the mercy of the new coalition, or rather at the
mercy of the sole guiding part of it. He does not,
indeed, adopt a supposition such as I make, who am
confident that anything which can give them a single good port and opportune piratical station there
would lead to our ruin: the author proceeds upon an
idea that the Regicides may be an existing and considerable territorial power in the West Indies, and,
of course, her piratical system more dangerous and
as real. However, for that desperate case he has
an easy remedy; but, surely, in his whole shop there
? ? ? ? 84 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
is nothing so extraordinary. It is, that we three,
France, Spain, and England, (there are no other of
any moment,) should adopt some " analogy in the
interior systems of government in the several islands
which we may respectively retain after the closing of
the war. " This plainly can be done only by a convention between the parties; and I believe it would
be the first war ever made to terminate in an analogy of the interior government of any country, or
any parts of such countries. Such a partnership in
domestic. government is, I think, carrying fraternity
as far as it will go.
It will be an affront to your sagacity to pursue
this matter into all its details: suffice it to say, that,
if this convention for analogous domestic government
is made, it immediately gives a right for the residence of a consul (in all likelihood some negro or
man of color) in every one of your islands; a Regicide ambassador in London will be at all your meetings of West India merchants and planters, and, in effect, in all our colonial councils. Not one order
of Council can hereafter be made, or any one act of
Parliament relative to the West India colonies even
be agitated, which will not always afford reasons for
protests and perpetual interference; the Regicide Republic will become an integral part of the colonial
legislature, and, so far as the colonies are concerned,
of the British too. But it will be still worse: as all
our domestic affairs are interlaced more or less intimately with our external, this intermeddling must
everywhere insinuate itself into all other interior
transactions, and produce a copartnership in our domestic concerns of every description.
Suclh are the plain, inevitable consequences of this
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 85
arrangement of a system of analogous interior government. On the other hand, without it, the author assures us, and in this I heartily agree with him,
"'that the correspondence and communications between the neighboring colonies will be great, that the disagreements will be incessant, and that causes
even of national quarrels will arisefrom day to day. "
Most true. But, for the reasons I have given, the
case, if possible, will be worse by the proposed remedy, by the triple fraternal interior analogy, -- an analogy itself most fruitful, and more foodful than
the old Ephesian statue with the three tier of breasts.
Your Lordship must also observe how infinitely this
business must be complicated by our interference in
the slow-paced Saturnian movements of Spain and
the rapid parabolic flights of Franlce. But such is
the disease, -such is the cure, -such is, and must
be, the effect of Regicide vicinity.
But what astonishes me is, that the negotiator,
who has certainly an exercised understanding, did
not see that every person habituated to such meditations must necessarily pursue the train of thought further than he has carried it, and must ask himself
whether what he states so truly of the necessity of
our arranging an analogous interior government, in
consequence of the vicinity of our possessions, in the
West Indies, does not as extensively apply, and much
more forcibly, to the circumstance of our much nearer
vicinity with the parent and author of this mischief.
I defy even his acuteness and ingenuity to show me
any one point in which the cases differ, except that
it is plainly more necessary in Europe than in America. Indeed, the further we trace the details of the proposed peace, the more your Lordship will be satis
? ? ? ? 86 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
fled that I have not been guilty of any abuse of terms,
when I use indiscriminately (as I always do, in speaking of arrangements with Regicide) the words peace
and fraternity. An analogy between our interior governments must be the consequence. The noble negotiator sees it as well as I do. I deprecate this Jacobin interior analogy. But hereafter, perhaps, I may say a good deal more upon this part of the subject.
The noble lord insists on very little more than on
the excellence of their Constitution, the hope of their
dwindling into little republics, and this close copartnership in government. I hear of others, indeed,
that offer by other arguments to reconcile us to this
peace and fraternity. The Regicides, they say, have
renounced the creed of the Rights of Man, and declared equality a chimera. This is still more strange
than all the rest. They have apostatized from their
apostasy. They are renegadoes from that impious
faith for which they subverted the ancient government, murdered their king, and imprisoned, butch
ered, confiscated, and banished their fellow-subjects,
and to which they forced every man to swear at the
peril of his life. And now, to reconcile themselves
to the world, they declare this creed; bought by so
much blood, to be an imposture and a chimera. I
have no doubt that they always thought it to be so,
when they were destroying everything at home and
abroad for its establishment. It is no strange thing,
to those who look into the nature of corrupted man,
to find a violent persecutor a perfect unbeliever of his
own creed. But this is the very first time that any
man or set of men were hardy enough to attempt to
lay the ground of confidence in them by an acknowledgment of their own falsehood, fraud, hypocrisy,
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 87
treachery, heterodox doctrine, persecution, and cruelty. Everything we hear from them is new, and,
to use a phrase of their own, revolutionary; everything supposes a total revolution in all the principles of reason, prudence, and moral feeling. If possible, this their recantation of the chief parts in the canon of the Rights of Man is more infamous and
causes greater horror than their originally promulgating and forcing down the throats of mankind
that symbol of all evil. It is raking too much into
the dirt and ordure of human nature to say more
of it.
I hear it said, too, that they have lately declared
in favor of property. This is exactly of the same sort
with the former. What need had they to make this
declaration, if they did not know that by their doctrines and practices they had totally subverted all
property? What government of Europe, either in
its origin or its continuance, has thought it necessary to declare itself in favor of property? The more
recent ones were formed for its protection against
former violations; the old consider the inviolability of property and their own existence as one and
the same thing, and that a proclamation for its safety
would be sounding an alarm on its danger. But the
Regicide banditti knew that this was not the first
time they have been obliged to give such assurances, and had as often falsified them. They knew,
that, after butchering hundreds of men, women,
and children, for no other cause than to lay hold
on their property, such a declaration might have a
chance of encouraging other nations to run the risk
of establishing a commercial house amongst them.
It is notorious, that these very Jacobins, upon an
? ? ? ? 88 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
alarm of the shopkeeper of Paris, made this declaration in favor of property. These brave fellows
received the apprehensions expressed on that head
with indignation, and said that property could be
in no danger, because all the world knew it was
under the protection of the sans-culottes. At what
period did they not give this assurance? Did they
not give it, when they fabricated their first Constitution? Did they not then solemnly declare it one
of the rights of a citizen (a right, of course, only declared, and not then fabricated) to depart from his
country, and choose another domicilium, without detriment to his property? Did they not declare that
no property should be confiscated from the children
for the crime of the parent? Can they now declare
more fully their respect for property than they did
at that time? And yet was there ever known such
horrid violences and confiscations as instantly followed under the very persons now in power, many
of them leading members of that Assembly, and all
of them violators of that engagement which was the
very basis of their republic, - confiscations in which
hundreds of men, women, and children, not guilty
of one act of duty in resisting their usurpation, were
involved? This keeping of their old is, then, to give
us a confidence in their new engagements. But examine the matter, and you will see that the prevaricating sons of violence give no relief at all, where at all it can be wanted. They renew their old fraudulent declaration against confiscations, and then they
expressly exclude all adherents to their ancient lawful government from any benefit of it: that is to say,
they promise that they will secure all their brother
plunderers in their share of the common plunder.
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 89
The fear of being robbed by every new succession
of robbers, who do not keep even the faith of that
kind of society, absolutely required that they should
give security to the dividends of spoil, else they could
not exist a moment. But it was necessary, in giving
security to robbers, that honest men should be deprived of all hope of restitution; and thus their interests were made utterly and eternally incompatible. So that it appears that this boasted security of property is nothing more than a seal put upon its destruction; this ceasing of confiscation is to secure the confiscators against the innocent proprietors. That
very thing which is held out to you as your cure is
that which makes your malady, and renders it, if
once it happens, utterly incurable. You, my Lord,
who possess a considerable, though not an invidious
estate, may be well assured, that, if, by being engaged, as you assuredly would be, in the defenice
of your religion, your king, your order, your laws,
and liberties, that estate should be put under confiscation, the property would be secured, but in the
same manner, at your expense.
But, after all, for what purpose are we told of this
reformation in their principles, and what is the policy of all this softening in ours, which is to be produced by their example? It is not to soften us to suffering innocence and virtue, but to mollify us to
the crimes and to the society of robbers and ruffians.
But I trust that our countrymen will not be softened to that kind of crimes and criminals; for, if we
should, our hearts will be hardened to everything
which has a claim on our benevolence. A kind
Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the
unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve our
? ? ? ? 90 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
selves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear
cruelty are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancor produces
an indifference which is half an approbation. They
never will love where they ought to love, who do not
hate where they ought to hate.
There is another piece of policy, not more laudable
than this, in reading these moral lectures, which lessens our hatred to criminals and our pity to sufferers
by insinuating that it has been owing to their fault
or folly that the latter have become the prey of the
former. By flattering us that we are not subject to
the same vices and follies, it induces a confidence
that we shall not suffer the same evils by a contact
with the infamous gang of robbers who have thus
robbed and butchered our neighbors before our faces.
We must not be flattered to our ruin. Our vices
are the same as theirs, neither more nor less. If
any faults we had, which wanted this French example to call us to a " softening of character, and a review of our social relations and duties," there is yet
no sign that we have commenced our reformation.
We seem, by the best accounts I have from the world,
to go on just as formerly, " some to undo, and some
to be undone. " There is no change at all: and if
we are not bettered by the sufferings of war, this
peace, which, for reasons to himself best known, the
author fixes as the period of our reformation, must
have something very extraordinary in it; because
hitherto ease, opulence, and their concomitant pleasure have never greatly disposed mankind to that serious reflection and review which the author supposes to be the result of the approaching peace with vice
and crime. I believe he forms a right estimate of
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 91
the nature of this peace, and that it will want many
of those circumstances which formerly characterized
that state of things.
If I am right in my ideas of this new republic, the
different states of peace and war will make no difference in her pursuits.
sis,- that their hostility to other nations has proceeded from their anarchy at home, and from the
prevalence of a populace which their government had
not strength enough to master. This I utterly deny. I insist upon it as a fact, that, in the daring
commencement of all their' hostilities, and their astonishing perseverance in them, so as never once,
in any fortune, high or low, to propose a treaty of
peace to any power in Europe, they have never been
actuated by the people: on the contrary, the people,
I will not say have been moved, but impelled by
them, and have generally acted under a compulsion,
of which most of us are as yet, thank God, unable
to form an adequate idea. The war against Austria
was formally declared by the unhappy Louis the Sixteenth; but who has ever considered Louis the Sixteenth, since the Revolution, to have been the government? The second Regicide Assembly, then the only government, was the author of that war; and neither
the nominal king nor the nominal people had anything to do with it, further than in a reluctant obedience. It is to delude ourselves, to consider the state
of France, since their Revollltion, as a state of anarchy: it is something far worse. Anarchy it is, undoubtedly, if compared with government pursuing
the peace, order, morals, and prosperity of the peo-;ple; but regarding only the power that has really
guided from the day of the Revolution to this time,
it has been of all governments the most absolute, despotic, and effective that has hitherto appeared on
earth. Never were the views and politics of ally
governmenlt pursued with half the regularity, sys-. tem, and method tllat a diligent observer must have,contemplated with amazement and terror in theirs.
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 67
Their state is not an anarchy, but a series of shortlived tyrannies. We do not call a republic with
annual magistrates an anarchy: theirs is that kind
of republic; but the succession is not effected by the
expiration of the term of the magistrate's service, but
by his murder. Every new magistracy, succeeding
by homicide, is auspicated by accusing its predecessors in the office of tyranny, and it continues by the
exercise of what they charged upon others.
This strong hand is the law, and the sole law, in
their state. I defy any person to show any other
law, -or if any such should be found on paper, that
it is in the smallest degree, or in any one instance,
regarded or practised. In all their successions, not
one magistrate, or one form of magistracy, has expired by a mere occasional popular tumult; everything has been the effect of the studied machinations
of the one revolutionary cabal, operating within itself upon itself. That cabal is all in' all. France
has no public; it is the only nation I ever heard of,
where the people are absolutely slaves, in the futllest sense, in all affairs, public and private, great
and small, even down to the minutest and most recondite parts of their household concerns. The helots
of Laconia, the regardants to the manor in Russia
and in Poland, even the negroes in the West Indies,
know nothing of so searching, so penetrating, so
heart-breaking a slavery. Much would these servile wretches call for our pity under that unheardof yoke, if for their perfidious and ulnatural rebellion, and for their murder of the mildest of all monarchs, they did not richly deserve a punishment
not greater than their crime.
On the whole, therefore, I take it to be a great
? ? ? ? 68 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
mistake to think that the want of power in the government furnished a natural cause of war; whereas the greatness of its power, joined to its use of that
power, the nature of its system, and the persons
who acted in it, did naturally call for a strong military resistance to oppose them, and rendered it not only just, but necessary. But at present I say no
more on the genius and character of the' power set
up in France. I may probably trouble you with it
more at large hereafter: this subject calls for a very
full exposure: at present it is enough for me, if I
point it out as a matter well worthy of consideration,
whether the true ground of hostility was not rightly
conceived very early in this war, and whether anything has happened to change that system, except our ill success in a war which in no principal instance
had its true destination as the object of its operations. That the war has succeeded ill in many cases
is undoubted; but then let us speak the truth, and
say we are defeated, exhausted, dispirited, and must
submit. This would be intelligible. The world would
be inclined to pardon the abject conduct of all undone nation. But let us not conceal from ourselves
our real situation, whilst, by every species of humiliation, we are but too strongly displaying our sense ot it to the enemy.
The writer of the Remarks in the Last Week of
October appears to think that the present government
in France contains many of the elements which, when
properly arranged, are known to form the best practical governments, - and that the system, whatever may become its particular form, is no longer likely
to be an obstacle to negotiation. If its form now be
no obstacle to such negotiation, I do not know why
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 69
it was ever so. Suppose that this government promised greater permanency than ally of the former, (a point on which I can form no judgment,) still a link
is wanting to couple the permanence of the government with the permanence of the peace. On this not one word is said: nor can there be, in my opilnion. This deficiency is made up by strengthening the first ringlet of the chain, that ought to be, but that
is not, stretched to connect the two propositions. All
seems to be done, if we can make out that the last
French edition of Regicide is like to prove stable.
As a prognostic of this stability, it is said to be accepted by the people. Here again I join issue with
the fraternizers, and positively deny the fact. Some
submission or other has been obtained, by some
means or other, to every government that hitherto
has been set up. And the same submission would,
by the same means, be obtained for any other project that the wit or folly of man could possibly devise. The Constitution of 1790 was universally received.
The Constitution which followed it, under the name
of a Convention, was universally submitted to. The
Constitution of 1793 was universally accepted. Unluckily, this year's Constitution, which was formed, and its genethliacon sung by the noble author while
it was yet in embryo, or was but just come bloody
from the womb, is the only one which in its very formation has been generally resisted by a very great and powerful party in many parts of the kingdom,
and particularly in the capital. It never had a popular choice even in show: those who arbitrarily
erected the new building out of the old materials of
their own Convention were obliged to send for an army to support their work: like brave gladiators, they
? ? ? ? 70 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
fought it out in the streets -of Paris, and even massacred each other in their house of assembly, in the
most edifying manner, and for the entertainment and
instruction of their Excellencies the foreign ambassadors, who had a box. ill this constitutional amphitheatre of a free people. At length, after a terrible struggle, the troops prevailed over the citizens. The citizen soldiers, the
ever-famed national guards, who had deposed and
murdered their sovereign, were disarmed by the inferior trumpeters of that rebellion. Twenty thousand
regular troops garrison Paris. Thus a complete mlilitary government is formed. It has the strenlgth, and
it may count on the stability, of that kitnd of power.
This power is to last as long as the Parisians think
proper. Every other ground of stability, but from
military force and terror, is clean out of the question. To secure them further, they have a strong
corps of irregulars, ready-armed. Thousands of
those hell-hounds called Terrorists, whom they had
shut up in prison, on their last Revolution, as the satellites of tyranny, are let loose on the people. The
whole of their government, in its origination, in its
continuance, in all its actions, and in all its resources,
is force, and nothing but force: a forced constitution,
a forced election, a forced subsistence, a forced requisition of soldiers, a forced loan of money.
They differ nothling from all the preceding usurpations, but that to the same odium a good deal more
of conte-npt is added. In this situation, notwithstanding all their military force, strengthened with
the undisciplined power of the Terrorists, and the
nearly general disarming of Paris, there would almost certainly have been before this an insurrection
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 71
against them, but for one cause. The people of
France languish for peace. They all despaired of obtaining it from the coalesced powers, whilst they had a gang of professed regicides at their head; and several of the least desperate republicans would have joined with better men to shake them wholly off, and
to produce something more ostensible, if they had not
been reiteratedly told that their sole hope of peace
was the very contrary to what they naturally imagined: that they must leave off their cabals and insurrections, which could serve no purpose but to
bring in that royalty which was wholly rejected by
the coalesced kings; that, to satisfy them, they must
tranquilly, if they could not cordially, submit themselves to the tyranny and the tyrants they despised and abhorred. Peace was held out by the allied
monarchies to the people of France, as a bounty for
supporting the Republic of Regicides. In fact, a coalition, begun for the avowed purpose of destroying that den of robbers, now exists only for their support.
If evil happens to the princes of Europe from'the success and stability of this infernal business, it is their own absolute crime.
We are to understand, however, (for sometimes
so the author hints,) that something stable in the
Constitution of Regicide was required for our amity
with it; but the noble Remarker is no more solicitous about this point than he is for the permanence
of the whole body of his October speculations. " If,"
says he, speaking of the Regicide, " they can obtain a
practicable constitution, even for a limited period of
time, they will be in a condition to reestablish the accustomed relations of peace and amity. " Pray let
us leave this bush-fighting. What is meant by a lirm
? ? ? ? 72 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
ited period of time? Does it mean the direct contrary
to the terms, an unlimited period? If it is a limited period, what limitation does he fix as a ground
for his opinion? Otherwise, his limitation is unlimited. If he only requires a constitution that will last
while the treaty goes on, ten days' existence will satisfy his demands. He knows that France never did
want a practicable constitution, nor a government,
which endured for a limited period of time. Her
constitutions were but too practicable; and short as
was their duration, it was but too long. They endured time enough for treaties which benefited themselves and have done infinite mischief to our cause. But, granting him his strange thesis, that hitherto
the mere form or the mere term of their constitutions, and not their indisposition, but their instability,
has been the cause of their not preserving the relations of amity, --how could a constitution which
might not last half an hour after the noble lord's
signature of the treaty, in the company in which he
must sign it, insure its observance? If you trouble
yourself at all with their constitutions, you are certainly more concerned with them after the treaty than
before it, as the observance of conventions is of infinitely more consequence than the making them.
Can anything be more palpably absurd and senseless
than to object to a treaty of peace for want of durability in constitutions which had an actual duration,
and to trust a constitution that at the time of the
writing had not so much as a practical existence?
There is no way of accounting for such discourse in
the mouths of men of sense, but by supposing that
they secretly entertain a hope that the very act of
having made a peace with the Regicides will give a
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 73
stability to the Regicide system. This will not clear
the discourse from the absurdity, but it will account
for the conduct, which such reasoning so ill defends.
What a roundabout way is this to peace, - to make
war for the destruction of regicides, and then to
give them peace in order to insure a stability that
will enable them to observe it! I say nothing of the
honor displayed in such a system. It is plain it militates with itself almost in all the parts of it. In one
part, it supposes stability in their Constitution, as a
ground of a stable peace; in another part, we are to
hope for peace in a different way,- that is, by splitting this brilliant orb into little stars, and this would
make the face of heaven so fine! No, there is no system upon which the peace which in humility we are
to supplicate can possibly stand.
I believe, before this time, that the mere form of a
constitution, in any country, never was fixed as the
sole ground of objecting to a treaty with it. With
other circumstances it may be of great moment.
What is incumbent on the assertors of the Fourth
Week of October system to prove is not whether
their then expected Constitution was likely to be stable or transitory, but whether it promised to this
country and its allies, and to the peace and settlement of all Europe, more good-will or more good faith
than any of the experiments which have gone before
it. On these points I would willingly join issue.
Observe first the manner in which the Remarker
describes (very truly, as I conceive) the people of
France under that auspicious government, and then
observe the conduct of that government to other nations. " The people without any established constitution; distracted by popular convulsions; in a state
? ? ? ? 74 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
of inevitable bankruptcy; without any commerce;
with their principal ports blockaded; and without
a fleet that could venture to face one of our detached
squadrons. " Admitting, as fiully as lie has stated it,
this condition of France, I would fainl know how he
reconciles this condition with his ideas of any kind of
a practicable constitution, or duration for a limited period, which are his sine qua non of peace. But passing by contradictions, as no fair objections to reasoning, this state of things would naturally, at other times, and in other governments, have produced a
disposition to peace, almost on any terms. But, in
that state of their country, did the Regicide government solicit peace or amity witlh other nations, or
even lay any specious grounds for it, in propositions
of affected moderation, or in the most loose and genleral conciliatory language? The direct contrary. It
was but a very few days before the noble writer had
commenced his Remarks, as if it were to refite ihim
by anticipation, that his France thought fit to lay out
a new territorial map of dominion, and to declare to
us and to all Europe what territories she was willing
to allot to her own empire, and what she is content
(during her good pleasure) to leave to others.
This their law of empire was promulgated without
any requisition on that subject, and proclaimed in a
style and upon principles which never had been heard
of in the annals of arrogance and ambition. She
prescribed the limits to her empire, not upon principles of treaty, convention, possession, usage, habitude,
the distinction of tribes, nations, or languages, but by
physical aptitudes. Having fixed herself as the arbiter of physical dominion, she construed the limits
of Nature by her convenience. That was Nature
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 75
which most extended and best secured the empire of
]France.
I need say no more on the insult offered not only
to all equity and justice, but to the common sense of
mankind, in deciding legal property by physical principles, and establishing thle convenlience of a party as a rule of public law. The noble advocate for peace
has, illdeed, perfectly well exploded this daring and
outrageous system of pride and tyranny. I am most
happy in commending him, when lie writes like himself. But hear still further and in the same good
strain the great patron and advocate of amity with
this accommnodating, mild, and unassuming power,
when lie reports to you the law they give, and its immediate effects: -" They amount," says lle, 1" to the sacrifice of powers that have been the most nearly
connected with us, - the direct or indirect annexation to France of all the ports of the Continent from Dunkirk to Hamburg, - an immense accession of
territory, - and, in one word, THE ABANDONMIENT OF
THE INDEPENDENCE OF EUROPE! " This is the LAW
(the author. and I use no different terms) which this
new government, almost as soon as it could cry in
the cradle, and as one of the very first acts by which
it auspicated its entrance into function, the pledge
it gives of the firmness of its policy, - such is the
law that this proud power prescribes to abject nations. What is the comment upon this law by the
great jurist who recommends us to the tribunal
whichl issued the decree? " An obedience to it
would be " (says lie) " dishonorable to us, and exhibit us to the present age and to posterity as
submitting to the law prescribed to us by our enemy. "
? ? ? ? 76 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
Here I recognize the voice of a British plenipotentiary: I begin to feel proud of my country. But,
alas! the short date of human elevation! The accents of dignity died upon his tongue. This author
will not assure us of his sentiments for the whole of
a pamphlet; but, in the sole energetic part of it, he
does not continue the same through an whole sentence, if it happens to be of any sweep or compass.
In the very womb of tl. is last sentence, pregnant, as
it should seem, with a Hercules, there is formed a
little bantling of the mortal race, a degenerate, puny
parenthesis, that totally frustrates our most sanguine
views and expectations, and disgraces the whole gestation. Here -is this destructive parenthesis: " UI1less some adequate compensation be secured to us. " To us! The Christian world may shift for itself, Europe may groan in slavery, we may be dishonored by
receiving law from an enemy,- but all is well, provided the compensation to us be adequate. To what
are we reserved? An adequate compensation "for
the sacrifice of powers the most nearly connected
with us "; - an adequate compensation "for the
direct or indirect annexation to France of all the
ports of the Continent from Dunkirk to Hamburg ";
-an adequate compensation "for the abandonment
of the independence of Europe "! Would that, when
all our manly sentiments are thus changed, our manly
language were changed along with them, and that the
English tongue were not employed to utter what our
ancestors never dreamed could enter into an English
heart!
But let us consider this matter of adequate compensation. Who is to furnish it? From what funds
is it to be drawn? Is it by another treaty of com
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 77
merce? I have no objections to treaties of commerce
upon principles of commerce. Traffic for traffic, -
all is fair. But commerce in exchange for empire,
for safety, for glory! We set out in our dealing with
a miserable cheat upon ourselves. I know it may
be said, that we may prevail on this proud, philosophical, military Republic, which looks down with
contempt on trade, to declare it unfit for the sovereign of nations to be eundem negotiatorem et dominum:
that, in virtue of this maxim of her state, the English
in France may be permitted, as the Jews are in Poland and in Turkey, to execute all the little inglorious occupations,- to be the sellers of new and the buyers of old clothes, to be their brokers and factors, and to be employed in casting up their debits
and credits, whilst the master Republic cultivates the
arts of empire, prescribes the forms of peace to nations, and dictates laws to a subjected world. But
are we quite sure, that, when we have surrendered
half Europe to them in hope of this compensation,
the Republic will confer upon us those privileges of
dishonor? Are we quite certain that she will permit
us to farm the guillotine, --to contract for the provision of her twenty thousand Bastiles, - to furnish
transports for the myriads of her exiles to Guiana, -
to become commissioners for her naval stores, - or to
engage for the clothing of those armies which are to
subdue the poor relics of Christian Europe? No!
She is bespoke by the Jew subjects of her own Amsterdam for all these services.
But if these, or matters similar, are not the
compensations the Remarker demands, and that on
consideration he finds them neither adequate nor certain, who else is to be the chapman, and to furnish
? ? ? ? 78 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
the purchase-money, at this market, of all the grand
principles of empire, of law, of civilization, of morals,
and of religion, where British faith and honor are to
be sold by inch of candle? Who is to be the dedecorumn pretiosus emptor? Is it the navis Hispance miagister? Is it to be furnished by the Prince of Peace? Unquestionably. Spain as yet possesses mines of
gold and silver, and may give us in pesos duros arl
adequate compensation for our honor and our virtue
When these things are at all to be sold, they are thil
vilest commodities at market.
It is full as singular as any of the other singu
larities in this work, that the Remarker, talking s.
much as lie does of cessions and compensations
passes by Spain in his general settlement, as if ther(
were no such country on the globe, -- as if there
were no Spain in Europe, no Spain in America.
But
this great matter of political deliberation cannot be
put out of our thoughts by his silence. She has furnished compensations, - not to you, but to France.
The Regicide Republic and the still nominally subsisting monarchy of Spain are united, - and are united
upon a principle of jealousy, if not of bitter enmity,
to Great Britain. The noble writer has here another
matter for meditation. It is not from Dunklrirk to
Hamburg that the ports are in the hands of France:
they are in the hands of France from Hamburg to
Gibraltar. How long the new dominion will last I
cannot tell; but France the Republic has conquered
Spain, and the ruling party in that court acts by her
orders and exists by her power.
The noble writer, in his views into futurity, has
forgotten to look back to the past. If he chooses it,
he may recollect, that, on the prospect of the death
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 79
of Philip the Fourth, and still more on the event, all
Europe was moved to its foundations. In the treaties of partition that first were entered into, and in the war that afterwards blazed out to prevent those
crowns from beirng actually or virtually ulited in the
House of Bourbon, the predominance of France in
Spain, and above all, in the Spanish Indies, was the
great object of all these movements in the cabinet
and in the field. The Grand Alliance was formed
upon that apprehension. On that apprehension the
mighty war was continued during such a number of
years as the degenerate and pusillanimous impatience
of our dwindled race can hardly bear to have reckoned: a war equal, within a few years, in duration, and not, perhaps, inferior in bloodshed, to any of those
great contests for empire which in history make the
most awful matter of recorded memory.
Ad confligendum venientibus undique Poenis,
Omnia cum belli trepido concussa tumultu
Horrida contremucrc sub altis etheris auris,
In dubioque fuit sub utrorum regna cadendum
Omnibus humanis esset terrhque marique. When this war was ended, (I cannot stay now to
examine how,) the object of the war was the object
of the treaty. When it was found impracticable, or
less desirable than before, wholly to exclude a branch
of the Bourbon race from that immense succession,
the point of Utrecht was to prevent the mischiefs to
arise from the influence of the greater upon the lesser branch. IHis Lordship is a great member of the diplomatic body; he has, of course, all the fulndamental treaties which make the public statute law
of Europe by heart: and, indeed, no active member
of Parliament ought to be ignorant of their general
? ? ? ? 80 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
tenor and leading provisions. In the treaty which
closed that war, and of which it is a fundamental
part, because relating to the whole policy of the compact, it was agreed that Spain should not give anything from her territory in the West Indies to France.
This article, apparently onerous to Spain, was in truth
highly beneficial. But, oh, the blindness of the greatest statesman to the infinite and unlooked-for combinations of things which lie hid in the dark prolific
womb of futurity! The great trunk of Bourbon is
cut down; the withered branch is worked up into the
construction of a French Regicide Republic. Here
we have formed a new, unlooked-for, monstrous, heterogeneous alliance, - a double-natured monster, republic above and monarchy below. There is no centaur of fiction, no poetic satyr of the woods, nothing short of the hieroglyphic monsters of Egypt, dog in
head and mall in body, that can give an idea of it.
None of these things can subsist in Nature (so, at
least, it is thought); but the moral world admits
monsters which the physical rejects.
In this metamorphosis, the first thing done by
Spain, in the honey-moon of her new servitude, was,
with all the hardihood of pusillanimity, utterly to
defy the most solemn treaties with Great Britain
and the guaranty of Europe. She has yielded the
largest and fairest part of one of the largest and fairest islands in the West Illdies, perhaps on the globe,
to the usurped powers of France. She completes the
title of those powers to the whole of that important
central island of Hispaniola. She has solemnly surrendered to the regicides and butchers of the Bourbon family what that court never ventured, perhaps
never wished, to bestow on the patriarchal stock of
her own august house.
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 81
The noble negotiator takes no notice of this portentous junction and this audacious surrender. The
effect is no less than the total subversion of the bal
ance of power in the West Indies, and indeed everywhere else. This arrangement, considered ill itself,
but much more as it indicates a complete union of
France with Spain, is truly alarming. Does he feel
nothing of the change this makes in that part of his
description of the state of France where he supposes
her not able to face one of our detached squadrons?
Does he feel nothing for the condition of Portugal
under this new coalition? Is it for this state of
things he recommends our junction in that common
alliance as a remedy? It is surely already monstrous
enough. We see every standing principle of policy,
every old governing opinion of nations, completely
gone, and with it the foundation of all their establishmnents. Can Spain keep herself internally where
she is, with this connection? Does he dream that
Spain, unchristian, or even uncatholic, can exist as
a monarchy? This author indulges himself in speculations of the division of the French Republic. I
only say, that with much greater reason he might
speculate on the republicanism and the subdivision
of Spain.
It is not peace with France which secures that feeble government; it is that peace which, if it shall continue, decisively ruins Spain. Such a peace is not the peace which the remnant of Christianity celebrates at
this holy season. In it there is no glory to God on
high, and not the least tincture of good-will to man.
What things we have lived to see! The King of
Spain in a group of Moors, Jews, and Renegadoes;
and the clergy taxed to pay for his conversion! The
VOL. VI. 6
? ? ? ? 82 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
Catholic King in the strict embraces of the most
Unchristianl Republic! I hope we shall never see
his Apostolic Majesty, his Faithful Majesty, and the
King, Defender of the Faith, added to that unhallowed and impious fraternity.
The noble author has glimpses of the consequences
of peace, as well as I. He feels for the colonies of
Great Britain, one of the principal resources of our
commerce and our naval power, if piratical France
shall be established, as he knows she must be, in
the West Indies, if we sue for peace on such terms
as they may condescend to grant us. He feels that
their very colonial system for the interior is not compatible with the existence of our colonies. I tell him,
and doubt not I shall be able to demonstrate, that,
being what she is, if she possesses a rock there, we
cannot be safe. Has this author had in his view the
transactions between the Regicide Republic and the
yet nominally subsisting monarchy of Spain?
I bring this matter under your Lordship's consideration, that you may have a more complete view
than this author chooses to give of the true France
you have to deal with, as to its nature, and to its
force and its disposition. Mark it, my Lord, France,
in giving her law to Spain, stipulated for none of
her indemnities in Europe, no enlargement whatever
of her frontier. Whilst we are looking for indemnities from France, betraying our own safety in a
sacrifice of the independence of Europe, France secures hers by the most important acquisition of territory ever made in the West Indies since their first settlement. She appears (it is only in appearance)
to give up the frontier of Spain; and she is compen
sated, not in appearance, but in reality, by a territory
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 83
that makes a dreadful frontier to the colonies of
Great Britain.
It is sufficiently alarming that she is to have the
possession of this great island. But all the Spanish
colonies, virtually, are hers. Is there so puny a
whipster in the petty form of the school of politics
who can be at a loss for the fate of the British colonies, when he combines the French and Spanish consolidation with the known critical and dubious dispositions of the United States of America, as they are at present, but which, when a peace is made, when
the basis of a Regicide ascendency in Spaill is laid,
will no longer be so good as dubious and critical?
But I go a great deal further; and on much consideration of the condition and circumstances of the
West Indies, and of the genius of this new republic. ,
as it has operated and is likely to operate on them,
I say, that, if a single rock in the West Indies is in
the hands of this transatlantic Morocco, we have not
an hour's safety there.
The Remarker, though he slips aside from the
main consideration, seems aware that this arrangement, standing as it does, in the West Indies, leaves
us at the mercy of the new coalition, or rather at the
mercy of the sole guiding part of it. He does not,
indeed, adopt a supposition such as I make, who am
confident that anything which can give them a single good port and opportune piratical station there
would lead to our ruin: the author proceeds upon an
idea that the Regicides may be an existing and considerable territorial power in the West Indies, and,
of course, her piratical system more dangerous and
as real. However, for that desperate case he has
an easy remedy; but, surely, in his whole shop there
? ? ? ? 84 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
is nothing so extraordinary. It is, that we three,
France, Spain, and England, (there are no other of
any moment,) should adopt some " analogy in the
interior systems of government in the several islands
which we may respectively retain after the closing of
the war. " This plainly can be done only by a convention between the parties; and I believe it would
be the first war ever made to terminate in an analogy of the interior government of any country, or
any parts of such countries. Such a partnership in
domestic. government is, I think, carrying fraternity
as far as it will go.
It will be an affront to your sagacity to pursue
this matter into all its details: suffice it to say, that,
if this convention for analogous domestic government
is made, it immediately gives a right for the residence of a consul (in all likelihood some negro or
man of color) in every one of your islands; a Regicide ambassador in London will be at all your meetings of West India merchants and planters, and, in effect, in all our colonial councils. Not one order
of Council can hereafter be made, or any one act of
Parliament relative to the West India colonies even
be agitated, which will not always afford reasons for
protests and perpetual interference; the Regicide Republic will become an integral part of the colonial
legislature, and, so far as the colonies are concerned,
of the British too. But it will be still worse: as all
our domestic affairs are interlaced more or less intimately with our external, this intermeddling must
everywhere insinuate itself into all other interior
transactions, and produce a copartnership in our domestic concerns of every description.
Suclh are the plain, inevitable consequences of this
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 85
arrangement of a system of analogous interior government. On the other hand, without it, the author assures us, and in this I heartily agree with him,
"'that the correspondence and communications between the neighboring colonies will be great, that the disagreements will be incessant, and that causes
even of national quarrels will arisefrom day to day. "
Most true. But, for the reasons I have given, the
case, if possible, will be worse by the proposed remedy, by the triple fraternal interior analogy, -- an analogy itself most fruitful, and more foodful than
the old Ephesian statue with the three tier of breasts.
Your Lordship must also observe how infinitely this
business must be complicated by our interference in
the slow-paced Saturnian movements of Spain and
the rapid parabolic flights of Franlce. But such is
the disease, -such is the cure, -such is, and must
be, the effect of Regicide vicinity.
But what astonishes me is, that the negotiator,
who has certainly an exercised understanding, did
not see that every person habituated to such meditations must necessarily pursue the train of thought further than he has carried it, and must ask himself
whether what he states so truly of the necessity of
our arranging an analogous interior government, in
consequence of the vicinity of our possessions, in the
West Indies, does not as extensively apply, and much
more forcibly, to the circumstance of our much nearer
vicinity with the parent and author of this mischief.
I defy even his acuteness and ingenuity to show me
any one point in which the cases differ, except that
it is plainly more necessary in Europe than in America. Indeed, the further we trace the details of the proposed peace, the more your Lordship will be satis
? ? ? ? 86 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
fled that I have not been guilty of any abuse of terms,
when I use indiscriminately (as I always do, in speaking of arrangements with Regicide) the words peace
and fraternity. An analogy between our interior governments must be the consequence. The noble negotiator sees it as well as I do. I deprecate this Jacobin interior analogy. But hereafter, perhaps, I may say a good deal more upon this part of the subject.
The noble lord insists on very little more than on
the excellence of their Constitution, the hope of their
dwindling into little republics, and this close copartnership in government. I hear of others, indeed,
that offer by other arguments to reconcile us to this
peace and fraternity. The Regicides, they say, have
renounced the creed of the Rights of Man, and declared equality a chimera. This is still more strange
than all the rest. They have apostatized from their
apostasy. They are renegadoes from that impious
faith for which they subverted the ancient government, murdered their king, and imprisoned, butch
ered, confiscated, and banished their fellow-subjects,
and to which they forced every man to swear at the
peril of his life. And now, to reconcile themselves
to the world, they declare this creed; bought by so
much blood, to be an imposture and a chimera. I
have no doubt that they always thought it to be so,
when they were destroying everything at home and
abroad for its establishment. It is no strange thing,
to those who look into the nature of corrupted man,
to find a violent persecutor a perfect unbeliever of his
own creed. But this is the very first time that any
man or set of men were hardy enough to attempt to
lay the ground of confidence in them by an acknowledgment of their own falsehood, fraud, hypocrisy,
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 87
treachery, heterodox doctrine, persecution, and cruelty. Everything we hear from them is new, and,
to use a phrase of their own, revolutionary; everything supposes a total revolution in all the principles of reason, prudence, and moral feeling. If possible, this their recantation of the chief parts in the canon of the Rights of Man is more infamous and
causes greater horror than their originally promulgating and forcing down the throats of mankind
that symbol of all evil. It is raking too much into
the dirt and ordure of human nature to say more
of it.
I hear it said, too, that they have lately declared
in favor of property. This is exactly of the same sort
with the former. What need had they to make this
declaration, if they did not know that by their doctrines and practices they had totally subverted all
property? What government of Europe, either in
its origin or its continuance, has thought it necessary to declare itself in favor of property? The more
recent ones were formed for its protection against
former violations; the old consider the inviolability of property and their own existence as one and
the same thing, and that a proclamation for its safety
would be sounding an alarm on its danger. But the
Regicide banditti knew that this was not the first
time they have been obliged to give such assurances, and had as often falsified them. They knew,
that, after butchering hundreds of men, women,
and children, for no other cause than to lay hold
on their property, such a declaration might have a
chance of encouraging other nations to run the risk
of establishing a commercial house amongst them.
It is notorious, that these very Jacobins, upon an
? ? ? ? 88 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
alarm of the shopkeeper of Paris, made this declaration in favor of property. These brave fellows
received the apprehensions expressed on that head
with indignation, and said that property could be
in no danger, because all the world knew it was
under the protection of the sans-culottes. At what
period did they not give this assurance? Did they
not give it, when they fabricated their first Constitution? Did they not then solemnly declare it one
of the rights of a citizen (a right, of course, only declared, and not then fabricated) to depart from his
country, and choose another domicilium, without detriment to his property? Did they not declare that
no property should be confiscated from the children
for the crime of the parent? Can they now declare
more fully their respect for property than they did
at that time? And yet was there ever known such
horrid violences and confiscations as instantly followed under the very persons now in power, many
of them leading members of that Assembly, and all
of them violators of that engagement which was the
very basis of their republic, - confiscations in which
hundreds of men, women, and children, not guilty
of one act of duty in resisting their usurpation, were
involved? This keeping of their old is, then, to give
us a confidence in their new engagements. But examine the matter, and you will see that the prevaricating sons of violence give no relief at all, where at all it can be wanted. They renew their old fraudulent declaration against confiscations, and then they
expressly exclude all adherents to their ancient lawful government from any benefit of it: that is to say,
they promise that they will secure all their brother
plunderers in their share of the common plunder.
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 89
The fear of being robbed by every new succession
of robbers, who do not keep even the faith of that
kind of society, absolutely required that they should
give security to the dividends of spoil, else they could
not exist a moment. But it was necessary, in giving
security to robbers, that honest men should be deprived of all hope of restitution; and thus their interests were made utterly and eternally incompatible. So that it appears that this boasted security of property is nothing more than a seal put upon its destruction; this ceasing of confiscation is to secure the confiscators against the innocent proprietors. That
very thing which is held out to you as your cure is
that which makes your malady, and renders it, if
once it happens, utterly incurable. You, my Lord,
who possess a considerable, though not an invidious
estate, may be well assured, that, if, by being engaged, as you assuredly would be, in the defenice
of your religion, your king, your order, your laws,
and liberties, that estate should be put under confiscation, the property would be secured, but in the
same manner, at your expense.
But, after all, for what purpose are we told of this
reformation in their principles, and what is the policy of all this softening in ours, which is to be produced by their example? It is not to soften us to suffering innocence and virtue, but to mollify us to
the crimes and to the society of robbers and ruffians.
But I trust that our countrymen will not be softened to that kind of crimes and criminals; for, if we
should, our hearts will be hardened to everything
which has a claim on our benevolence. A kind
Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the
unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve our
? ? ? ? 90 LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE.
selves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear
cruelty are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancor produces
an indifference which is half an approbation. They
never will love where they ought to love, who do not
hate where they ought to hate.
There is another piece of policy, not more laudable
than this, in reading these moral lectures, which lessens our hatred to criminals and our pity to sufferers
by insinuating that it has been owing to their fault
or folly that the latter have become the prey of the
former. By flattering us that we are not subject to
the same vices and follies, it induces a confidence
that we shall not suffer the same evils by a contact
with the infamous gang of robbers who have thus
robbed and butchered our neighbors before our faces.
We must not be flattered to our ruin. Our vices
are the same as theirs, neither more nor less. If
any faults we had, which wanted this French example to call us to a " softening of character, and a review of our social relations and duties," there is yet
no sign that we have commenced our reformation.
We seem, by the best accounts I have from the world,
to go on just as formerly, " some to undo, and some
to be undone. " There is no change at all: and if
we are not bettered by the sufferings of war, this
peace, which, for reasons to himself best known, the
author fixes as the period of our reformation, must
have something very extraordinary in it; because
hitherto ease, opulence, and their concomitant pleasure have never greatly disposed mankind to that serious reflection and review which the author supposes to be the result of the approaching peace with vice
and crime. I believe he forms a right estimate of
? ? ? ? LETTER IV. 91
the nature of this peace, and that it will want many
of those circumstances which formerly characterized
that state of things.
If I am right in my ideas of this new republic, the
different states of peace and war will make no difference in her pursuits.
