Burke's conversation with other
Americans was large, indeed, and his inquiries extensive and diligent.
Americans was large, indeed, and his inquiries extensive and diligent.
Edmund Burke
He
hoped that no such necessity would ever exist; but
in case it should, his determination was made. Tile
party knew perfectly that he would at least defend
himself. He never intended to attack Mr. Fox, nor
did he attack him directly or indirectly. His speech
kept to its matter. No personality was employed,
even in the remotest allusion. He never did impute
to that gehtleman any republican principles, or ally
other bad principles or bad conduct whatsoever. It
was far from his words; it was far from his heart.
It must be remembered, that, notwithstanding the
attempt of Mr. Fox to fix on Mr. Burke an unjustifiable change of opinion, and the foul crime of teaching a set of maxims to a boy, and afterwards, when these maxims became adult in his mature age, of
abandoning both the disciple and the doctrine, Mr.
Burke never attempted, in any one particular, either
to criminate or to recriminate. It may be said that
he had nothing of the kind in his power. This lihe
does not controvert. He certainly had it not in his
inclination. That gentleman had as little ground
for the charges which he was so easily provoked to
make upon him.
The gentlemen of the party (I include Mr. Fox)
have been kind enough to consider the dispute
brought on by this business, and the consequent
separation of Mr. Burke from their corps, as a matter of regret and uneasiness. I cannot be of opinion
that by his exclusion they have had any loss at all.
A man whose opinions are so very adverse to theirs,
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 91
adverse, as it was expressed, " as pole to pole," so
mischievously as well as so directly adverse that they.
found themselves under the necessity of solemnly disclaiming them in full Parliament, -such a man must
ever be to them a most unseemly and unprofitable
incumbrance. A cooperation with, him could only
serve to embarrass them in all their councils. They
have besides publicly represented him as a man capable of abusing the docility and confidence of ingenu. ous youth, - and, for a bad reason or for no reason, of disgracing his whole public life by a scandalous contradiction of every one of his own acts, writings, and
declarations. If these charges be true, their exclusion of such a person from their body is a circumstance which does equal honor to their justice and
their prudence. If they express a degree of sensibility in being obliged to execute this wise and just
sentence, from a consideration of some amiable or
some pleasant qualities which in his private life their
former friend may happen to possess, they add to
the praise of their wisdom and firmness the merit
of great tenderness of heart and humanity of disposition.
On their ideas, the new Whig party have, in my
opinion, acted as became them. The author of the
Reflections, however, on his part, cannot, without
great shame to himself, and without entailing everlasting disgrace on his posterity, admit the truth or
justice of the charges which have been made upon
him, or allow that he has in those Reflections discovered any principles to which honest men are
bound to declare, not a shade or two of dissent,
but a total, fundamental opposition. He must believe, if he does not mean wilfully to abandon his
? ? ? ? 92 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
cause and his reputation, that principles fundamentally at variance with those of his book are fundamentally false. What those principles, the antipodes
to his, really are, lie can only discover from their
contrariety. He is very unwilling to suppose that
the doctrines of some books lately circulated are the
principles of the party; though, from the vehement
declarations against his opinions, he is at some loss
how to judge otherwise.
For the present, my plan does not render it necessary to say, anything further concerning the merits
either of the one set of opinions or the other. The
author would have discussed the merits of both in his
place, but he was not permitted to do so.
I pass to the next head of charge,- Mr. Burke's
inconsistency. It is certainly a great aggravation of
his fault in embracing false opinions, that in doing
so he is not supposed to fill up a void, but that he is
guilty of a dereliction of opinions that are true and
laudable. This is the great gist of the charge against
him. It is not so much that he is wrong in his book
(that, however, is alleged also) as that lie has therein
belied his whole life. I believe, if he could venture
to value himself upon anything, it is on the virtue
of consistency that he would value himself the most.
Strip him of this, and you leave him naked indeed.
In the case of any man who had written something,
and spoken a great deal, upon very multifarious matter, during upwards of twenty-five years' public service, and in as great a variety of important events as perhaps have ever happened in the same number of
years, it would appear a little hard, in order to charge
such a mall with inconsistency, to see collected by his
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 93
friend a sort of digest of his sayings, even to such as
were merely sportive and jocular. This digest, however, has been made, with equal pains and partiality,
and without bringing out those passages of his writings which might tend to show with what restrictions any expressions quoted from him ought to
have been understood. From a great statesman he
did not quite expect this mode of inquisition. If it
only appeared in the works of common pamphleteers, Mr. Burke might safely trust to his reputation.
When thus urged, he ought, perhaps, to do a little
more. It shall be as little as possible; for I hope
not much is wanting. To be totally silent on his
charges would not be respectful to Mr. Fox. Accusations sometimes derive a weight from the persons who make them to which they are not entitled
from their matter.
He who thinks that the British Constitution ought
to consist of the three members, of three very different
natures, of which it does actually consist, and thinks
it his duty to preserve each of those members in its
proper place and with its proper proportion of power,
must (as each shall happen to be attacked) vindicate
the three several parts on the several principles peculiarly belonging to them. He cannot assert the democratic part on the principles on which monarchy is supported, nor can he support monarchy on the principles of democracy, nor can he maintain aristocracy
on the grounds of the one or of the other or of both.
All these he must support on grounds that are totally
different, though practically they may be, and happily
with us they are, brought into one harmonious body.
A man could not be consistent in defending such various, and, at first view, discordant, parts of a mixed
? ? ? ? 94 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
Constitution, without that sort of inconsistency with
which Mr. Burke stands charged.
As any one of the great members of this Constitution happens to be endangered, he that is a friend
to all of them chooses and presses the topics necessary for the support of the part attacked, with all the strength, the earnestness, the vehemence, with all the
power of stating, of argument, and of coloring, which
he happens to possess, and which the case demands.
He is not to embarrass the minds of his hearers, or
to incumber or overlay his speech, by bringing into
view at once (as if he were reading an academic lecture) all that may and ought, when a just occasion presents itself, to be said in favor of the other members. At that time they are out of the court; there
is no question concerning them. Whilst he opposes
his defence on the part where the attack is made, he
presumes that for his regard to the just rights of
all the rest he has credit in every candid mind. He
ought not to apprehend that his raising fences about
popular privileges this day will infer that he ought on
the next to concur with those who would pull down
the throne; because on the next he defends the
throne, it ought not to be supposed that he has abandoned the rights of the people.
A man, who, among various objects of his equal
regard, is secure of some, and full of anxiety for the
fate of others, is apt to go to much greater lengths
in his preference of the objects of his immediate solicitude than Mr. Burke has ever done. A man so circumstanced often seems to undervalue, to vilify,
almost to reprobate and disown, those that are out
of danger. This is the voice of Nature and truth,
and not of inconsistency and false pretence. The
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 95
danger of anything very dear to us removes, for the
moment, every other affection from the mind. When
Priam had his whole thoughts employed on the body
of his Hector, he repels with indignation, and drives
from him with a thousand reproaches, his surviving
sons, who with an officious piety crowded about him
to offer their assistance. A good critic (there is no
better than Mr. Fox) would say that this is a masterstroke, and marks a deep understanding of Nature in the father of poetry. He would despise a Zolus who
would conclude from this passage that Homer meant
to represent this man of affliction as hating or being
indifferent and cold in his affections to the poor relics
of his house, or that he preferred a dead carcass to
his living children.
Mr. Burke does not stand in need of an allowance
of this kind, which, if he did, by candid critics ought
to be granted to him. If the principles of a mixed
Constitution be admitted, he wants no more to justify
to consistency everything he has said and done during
the course of a political life just touching to its close.
I believe that gentleman has kept himself more clear
of running into the fashion of wild, visionary theories, or of seeking popularity through every means, than any mall perhaps ever did in the same situation.
He was the first main who, on the hustings, at a
popular election, rejected the authority of instructions from constituents, - or who, in any place, has argued so fully against it. Perhaps the discredit into which that doctrine of compulsive instructions under our Constitution is since fallen may be due
in a great degree to his opposing himself to it in
that manner and on that occasion.
? ? ? ? 96 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
The reforms in representation, and the bills for
shortening the duration of Parliaments, he uniformly
and steadily opposed for many years together, in contradiction to many of his best friends. These friends,
however, in his better days, when they had more to
hope from his service and more to fear from his loss
than now they have, never chose to find any inconsistency between his acts and expressions in favor of
liberty and his votes on those questions. But there
is a time for all things.
Against the opinion of many friends, even against
the solicitation of some of them, he opposed those of
the Church clergy who had petitioned the House of
Commons to be discharged from the subscription.
Although he supported the Dissenters in their petition for the indulgence which he had refilsed to the
clergy of the Established Church, in this, as he was not
guilty of it, so he was not reproached with inconsistency. At the same time he promoted, and against
the wish of several, the clause that gave the Dissenting teachers another subscription in the place of that
which was then taken away. Neither at that time
was the reproach of inconsistency brought against
him. People could then distinguish between a difference in conduct under a variation of circumstances and an inconsistency in principle. It was not then thought necessary to be freed of him as
of an incumbrance.
These instances, a few among many, are produced
as an answer to the insinuation of his having pursued high popular courses which in his late book
he has abandoned. Perhaps in his whole life he
has never omitted a fair occasion, with whatever
risk to him of obloquy as an individual, with what
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 97
ever detriment to his interest as a member of opposition, to assert the very same doctrines which appear
in that book. He told the House, upon all important
occasion, and pretty early in his service, that, "' being
warned by the ill effect of a contrary procedure in
great examples, he had taken his ideas of liberty very
low in order that they should stick to him and that
he might stick to them to the end of his life. "
At popular elections the most rigorous casuists will
remit a little of their severity. They will allow to a
candidate some unqualified effusions in favor of freedom, without binding him to adhere to them in their
utmost extent. But Mr. Burke put a more strict rule.
upon himself than most moralists would put upon,
others. At his first offering himself to Bristol, where
he was almost sure he should not obtain, on that or
any occasion, a single Tory vote, (in fact, he- did obtain but one,) and rested wholly on the Whig interest, he thought himself bound to tell to the electors, both before and after his election, exactly what a
representative they had to expect in him.
"~ The distinguishing part of our Constitution," he
said, 1" is its liberty. To preserve that liberty inviolate is the peculiar duty and proper trust of a member of the House of Commons. But the liberty, the only liberty, I mean is a liberty connected with order;
and that not only exists with order and virtue, but
cannot exist at all without them. It inheres in good
and steady government, as in its substance and vital
principle. "
The liberty to which Mr. Burke declared himself
attached is not French liberty. That liberty is nothing but the rein given to vice and confusion. Mr.
Burke was then, as he was at the writing of his ReVOL. IV. ~ 7
? ? ? ? 98 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
flections, awfully impressed with the difficulties arising from the complex state of our Constitution and
our empire, and that it might require in different
emergencies different sorts of exertions, and the
successive call upon all the various principles which
uphold and justify it. This will appear from what
he said at the close of the poll.
"To be a good member of Parliament is, let me
tell you, no easy task, - especially at this time, when
there is so strong a disposition to run into the perilous extremes of servile compliance or wild popularity. To unite circumspection with vigor is absolutely
necessary, but it is extremely difficult. We are now
members for a rich commercial city; this city, however, is but a part of a rich commercial nation, the
interests of which are various, multiform, and intricate. We are members for that great nation, which,
however, is itself but part of a great empire, extended by our virtue and our fortune to the farthest
limits of the East and of the West. All these widespread interests must be considered,- must be compared, -- must be reconciled, if possible. We are. members for a free country; and surely we all know that the machine of a free constitution is no
simple thing, but as intricate and as delicate as it is
\valuable. We are members in a great and ancient
MONARCHY; and we must preserve religiously the true,
legal rights of the sovereign, which form the key-stone,that binds together the noble and well-constructed arch
of our empire and our Constitution. A constitution
made up of balanced powers must ever be a critical
thing. As such I mean to touch that part of it
-which comes within my reach. "
In this manner Mr. Burke spoke to his constitu
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 99
ents seventeen years ago. He spoke, not like a partisan of one particular member of our Constitution,
but as a person strongly, and on principle, attached
to them all. He thought these great and essential
members ought to be preserved, and preserved each
in its place, - and that the monarchy ought not only
to be secured in its peculiar existence, but in its preeminence too, as the presiding and connecting principle of the whole. Let it be considered whether the language of his book, printed in 1790, differs from
his speech at Bristol in 1774.
With equal justice his opinions on the American
war are introduced, as if in his late work he had
belied his conduct and opinions in the debates which
arose upon that great event. On the American war
he never had any opinions which he has seen occasion to retract, or which he has ever retracted. He,
indeed, differs essentially from Mr. Fox as to the
cause of that war. Mr. Fox has been pleased to
say that the Americans rebelled " because they
thought they had not enjoyed liberty enough. " This
cause of the war, from him, I have heard of for the
first time. It is true that those who stimulated the
nation to that measure did frequently urge this
topic. They contended that the Americans had
from the beginning aimed at independence, - that
from the beginning they meant wholly to throw off
the authority of the crown, and to break their connection with the parent country. This Mr. Burke
never believed. When he moved his second conciliatory proposition, in the year 1776, he entered into
the discussion of this point at very great length,
and, from nine several heads of presumption, endeavored to prove the charge upon that people not
to be true.
? ? ? ? 100 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
If the principles of all he has said and wrote on the
occasion be viewed with common temper, the gentlemen of the party will perceive, that, on a supposition
that the Americans had rebelled merely in order to
enlarge their liberty, Mr. Burke would have thought
very differently of the American cause. What might
have been in the secret thoughts of some of their
leaders it is impossible to say. As far as a manll so
locked up as Dr. Franklin could be expected to communicate his ideas, I believe he opened them to Mr.
Burke. It was, I think, the very day before he set
out for America that a very long conversation passed
between them, and with a greater air of openness on
the Doctor's side than Mr. Burke had observed in
him before. In this discourse Dr. Franklin lamented, and with apparent sincerity, the separation which
he feared was inevitable between Great Britain and
her colonies. He certainly spoke of it as an event
which gave him the greatest concern. America, he
said, would never again see such happy days as she
had passed under the protection of England. He observed, that ours was the only instance of a great empire in which the most distant parts and members had been as well governed as the metropolis and its
vicinage, but that the Americans were going to lose
the means which secured to them this rare and precious advantage. The question with them was not,
whether they were to remain as they had been before
the troubles, - for better, he allowed, they could not
hope to be, -but whether they were to give up so
happy a situation without a struggle. Mr. Burke
had several other conversations with him about that
time, in none of which, soured and exasperated as his
mind certainly was, did he discover any other wish
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 101
in favor of America than for a security to its ancient condition. Mr.
Burke's conversation with other
Americans was large, indeed, and his inquiries extensive and diligent. Trusting to the result of all these
means of information, but trusting much more ill the
public presumptive indications I have just referred
to, and to the reiterated solemn declarations of their
Assemblies, he always firmly believed that they were
purely on the defensive in that rebellion. He considered the Americans as standing at that time, and in
that controversy, in the same relation to England as
England did to King James the Second in 1688. He
believed that they had taken up arms from one'motive only: that is, our attempting to tax them without their consent, -- to tax them for the purposes
of maintaining civil and military establishments. If
this attempt of ours could have been practically established, he thought, with them, that their Assemblies would become totally useless, - that, under the system of policy which was then pursued, the Americans could have no sort of security for their laws or
liberties, or for any part of them, - and that the very
circumstance of our freedom would have augmented
the weight of their slavery.
Considering the Americans on that defensive footing, he thought Great Britain ought instantly to have
closed with them by the repeal of the taxing act.
He was of opinion that our general rights over that
country would have been preserved by this timely
concession. * When, instead of this, a Boston Port
Bill, a Massachusetts Charter Bill, a Fishery Bill, an
Intercourse Bill, I know not how many hostile bills,
rushed out like so many tempests from all points of
* See his speech on American Taxation, the 19th of April, 1774.
? ? ? ? 102 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
the compass, and were accompanied first with great
fleets and armies of English, and followed afterwards
with great bodies of foreign troops, he thought that
their cause grew daily better, because daily more defensive, - and that ours, because daily more offensive,
grew daily worse. He therefore, in two motions, in
two successive years, proposed in Parliament many
concessions beyond what he had reason to think in
the beginning of the troubles would ever be seriously
demanded.
So circumstanced, he certainly never could and
never did wish the colonists to be subdued by arms.
H[e was fully persuaded, that, if such should be the
event, they must be held in that subdued state by a
great body of standing forces, and perhaps of foreign
forces. He was strongly of opinion that such armies,
first victorious over Englishmen, in a conflict for English constitutional rights and privileges, and afterwards habituated (though in America) to keep an English people in a state of abject subjection, would
prove fatal in the end to the liberties of England
itself; that in the mean time this military system
would lie as an oppressive burden upon the national
finances; that it would constantly breed and feed
new discussions, full of heat and acrimony, leading
possibly to a new series of wars; and that foreign
powers, whilst we continued in a state at once burdened and distracted, must at length obtain a decided
superiority over us. On what part of his late publication, or on what expression that might have escaped
him in that work, is any man authorized to charge
Mr. Burke with a contradiction to the line of his
conduct and to the current of his doctrines on the
American war? The pamphlet is in the hands of
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 103
his accusers: let them point out the passage, if
they can.
Indeed, the author has been well sifted and scrutinized by his friends. He is even called to an
account for every jocular and light expression. A
ludicrous picture which he made with regard to a
passage in the speech of a late minister* has been
brought up against him. That passage contained a
lamentation for the loss of monarchy to the Americans, after they had separated from Great Britain.
He thought it to be unseasonable, ill-judged, and illsorted with the circumstances of all the parties. Mr.
Burke, it seems, considered it ridiculous to lament
the loss of some monarch or other to a rebel people,
at the moment they had forever quitted their allegiance to theirs and our sovereign, at the time when
they had broken off all connection with this nation
and had allied themselves with its enemies. He certainly must have thought it open to ridicule; and
now that it is recalled to his memory, (he had, I believe, wholly forgotten the circumstance,) he recollects that he did treat it with some levity. But is it
a fair inference from a jest on this unseasonable lamentation, that he was then an enemy to monarchy,
either in this or in any other country? The contrary perhaps ought to be inferred,-if anything at
all can be argued from pleasantries good or bad. Is
it for this reason, or for anything he has said or done
relative to the American war, that he is to enter into an alliance offensive and defensive with every rebellion, in every country, under every circumstance, and raised upon whatever pretence? Is it because
he did not wish the Americans to be subdued by
* Lord Lansdowne.
? ? ? ? 104 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
arms, that he must be inconsistent with himself, if
he reprobates the conduct of those societies in England, who, alleging no one act of tyranny or oppression, and complaining of no hostile attempt against
our ancient laws, rights, and usages, are now endeavoring to work the destruction of the crown of this
kingdom, and the whole of its Constitution? Is he
obliged, from the concessions he wished to be made
to the colonies, to keep any terms with those clubs
and federations who hold out to us, as a pattern for
imitation, the proceedings in France, in which a king,
who had voluntarily and formally divested himself of
the right of taxation, and of all other species of arbitrary power, has been dethroned? Is it because Mr.
Burke wished to have America rather conciliated
than vanquished, that he must wish well to the army
of republics which are set up in France, - a country
wherein not the people, but the monarch, was wholly
on the defensive, (a poor, indeed, and feeble defensive,) to preserve some fragments of the royal authority against a determined and desperate body of conspirators, whose object it was, with whatever certainty of crimes, with whatever hazard of war, and every
other species of calamity, to annihilate the whole of
that authority, to level all ranks, orders, and distinctions in the state, and utterly to destroy property,
not more by their acts than in their principles?
Mr. Burke has been also reproached with an inconsistency between his late writings and his former
conduct, because lie had proposed in Parliament several economical, leading to several constitutional reforms. Mr. Burke thought, with a majority of the
House of Commons, that the influence of the crown
at one time was too great; but after his Majesty
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 105
had, by a gracious message, and several subsequent
acts of Parliament, reduced it to a standard which
satisfied Mr. Fox himself, and, apparently at least,
contented whoever wished to go farthest in that reduction, is Mr. Burke to allow that it would be right
for us to proceed to indefinite lengths upon that subject? that it would therefore be justifiable in a people owing allegiance to a monarchy, and professing to maintain it, not to reduce, but wholly to take away
all prerogative and all influence whatsoever? Must
his having made, in virtue of a plan of economical
regulation, a reduction of the influence of the -crown
compel him to allow that it would be right in the
French or in us to bring a king to so abject a state
as in function not to be so respectable as an undersheriff, but in person not to differ from the condition
of a mere prisoner? One would think that such a
thing as a medium had never been heard of in thle
moral world.
This mode of arguing from your having done any
thing in a certain line to the necessity of doing every
thing has political consequences of other moment
than those of a logical fallacy. If no man can propose any diminution or modification of an invidious
or dangerous power or influence in government, without entitling friends turned into adversaries to argue
him into the destruction of all prerogative, and to
a spoliation of the whole patronage of royalty, I do
not know what can more effectually deter persons
of sober minds from engaging in any reform, nor
how the worst enemies to the liberty of the subject
could contrive any method more fit to bring all correctives on the power of the crown into suspicion
and disrepute.
? ? ? ? 106 APPEAL rn':,I THE NEW
If, say his accusers, the dread of too great influence in the crown of Great Britain could justify the
degree of reform which he adopted, the dread of a
return under the despotism of a monarchy might justify the people of France in going much further,
and reducing monarchy to its present nothing. - Mr.
Burke does not allow that a sufficient argument ad
hominem is inferable from these premises. If the
horror of the excesses of an absolute monarchy furnishes a reason for abolishing it, no monarchy once
absolute (all have been so at one period or other)
could ever be limited. It must be destroyed; otherwise no way could be found to quiet the fears of
those who were formerly subjected to that sway.
But the principle of Mr. Burke's proceeding ought
to lead him to a very different conclusion, - to this
conclusion,'that a monarchy is a thing perfectly
susceptible of reform, perfectly susceptible of a balance of power, and that, when reformed and balanced, for a great country it is the best of all governments. The example of our country might have led France, as it has led him, to perceive that monarchy
is not only reconcilable to liberty, but that it may be
rendered a great and stable security to its perpetual
enjoyment. No correctives which he proposed to the
power of the crown could lead him to approve of a
plan of a republic (if so it may be reputed) which has
no correctives, and which he believes to be incapable
of admitting any. No principle of Mr. Burke's conduct or writings obliged him from consistency to become an advocate for an exchange of mischiefs; no
principle of his could compel him to justify the setting
up in the place of a mitigated monarchy a new and far
more despotic power, under which there is no trace
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 107
of liberty, except what appears in confusion and in
crime.
Mr. Burke does not admit that the faction predominant in France have abolished their monarchy, and
the orders of their state, from any dread of arbitrary
power that lay heavy on the minds of the people.
It is not very long since he has been in that country.
Whilst there he conversed with many descriptions of
its inhabitants. A few persons of rank did, lie allows,
discover strong and manifest tokens of such a spirit
of liberty as might be expected one day to break all
bounds. Such gentlemen have since had more reason
to repent of their want of foresight than I hope any
of the same class will ever have in this country. But
this spirit was far from general, even amongst the gentlemen. As to the lower orders, and those little above
them, in whose name the present powers domineer,
they were far from discovering any sort of dissatisfaction with the power and prerogatives of the crown.
That vain people were rather proud of them: they
rather despised the English for not having a monarch
possessed of such high and perfect authority. They
had felt nothing from lettres de cachet. The Bastile
could inspire no horrors into them. This was a treat
for their betters. It was by art and impulse, it was
by the sinister use made of a season of scarcity, it
was under an infinitely diversified succession of wicked pretences wholly foreign to the question of monarchy or aristocracy, that this light people were inspired with their present spirit of levelling. Their old vanity was led by art to take another turn: it was
dazzled and seduced by military liveries, cockades,
and epaulets, until the French populace was led to
become the willing, but still the proud and thought
? ? ? ? 108 APPEAL FitO51 THE NEW
less, instrument and victim of another domination.
Neither did that people despise or hate or fear their
nobility: on the contrary, they valued themselves on
the generous qualities which distinguished the chiefs
of their nation.
So far as to the attack on Mr. Burke in consequence of his reforms.
To show that he has in his last publication abandoned those principles of liberty which have given
energy to his youth, and in spite of his censors will
afford repose and consolation to his declining age,
those who have thought proper in Parliament to declare against his book ought to have produced something in it which directly or indirectly militates with ally rational plan of free government. It is something
extraordinary, that they whose memories have so well
served them with regard to light and ludicrous expressions, which years had consigned to oblivion,
should not have been able to quote a single passage
in a piece so lately published, which contradicts anything he has formerly ever said in a style either ludicrous or serious. They quote his former speeches and his former votes, but not one syllable from the
book. It is only by a collation of the one with the
other that the alleged inconsistency can be established.
But as they are unable to cite any such contradictory
passage, so neither call they show anything in the
general tendency and spirit of the whole work unfavorable to a rational and generous spirit of liberty;
unless a warm opposition to the spirit of levelling, to
the spirit of impiety, to the spirit of proscription, plunder, murder, and cannibalism, be adverse to the true
principles of freedom.
The author of that book is supposed to have passed
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 109
from extreme to extreme;Lut he has always kept
himself in a medium. This charge is not so wonderful. It is in the nature of things, that they who are in
the centre of a circle should appear directly opposed
to those who view them from any part of the circumference. In that middle point, however, he will still
remain, though he may hear people who themselves
run beyond Aurora and the Ganges cry out that he
is at the extremity of the Wes.
In the same debate Mr. Burke was represented by
Mr. Fox as arguing in a manner which implied that
the British Constitution could not be defended, but by
abusing all republics ancient and modern. He said
nothing to give the least ground for such a censure.
He never abused all republics. He has never professed himself a friiend or an enemy to republics or to
monarchies in the abstract. He thought that the circumstances and habits of every country, which it is
always perilous and productive of the greatest calamities to force, are to decide upon the form of its government. There is nothing in his nature, his temper, or his faculties which should make him an enemy to any
republic, modern or ancient. Far from it. He has
studied the form and spirit of republics very early in
life; he has studied them with great attention, and
with a mind undisturbed by affection or prejudice.
He is, indeed, convinced that the science of government would be poorly cultivated without that study.
But the result in his mind from that investigation has
been and is, that neither England nor France, without infinite detriment to them, as well in the event as
in the experiment, could be brought into a republican form; but that everything republican which can
be introduced with safety into either of them must be
? ? ? ? 110 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
built upon a monarchy, -built upon a real, not a
nominal monarchy, as its essential basis; that all such
institutions, whether aristocratic or democratic, must
originate from their crown, and in all their proceedings must refer to it; that by the energy of that mainspring alone those republican parts must be set in action, and from thence must derive their whole legal effect, (as amongst us they actually do,) or the whole
will fall into confusion. These republican members
have no other point but the crown in which they can
possibly unite.
This is the opinion expressed in Mr. Burke's book.
He has never varied in that opinion since he came to
years of discretion. But surely, if at any time of his
life he had entertained other notions, (which, however, he has never held or professed to hold,) the
horrible calamities brought upon a great people by
the wild attempt to force their country into a republic might be more than sufficient to undeceive his
understanding, and to free it forever from such destructive fancies. He is certain that many, even in
France, have been made sick of their theories by their
very success in realizing them.
To fortify the imputation of a desertion from his
principles, his constant attempts to reform abuses
have been brought forward. It is true, it has been
the business of his strength to reform abuses in government, and his last feeble efforts are employed in
a struggle against them. Politically he has lived in
that element; politically he will die in it. Before he
departs, I will admit for him that he deserves to have
all his titles of merit brought forth, as they have been,
for grounds of condemnation, if one word justifying
or supporting abuses of any sort is to be found in
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 111
that book which has kindled so much indignation in
the mind of a great man. Oil the contrary, it spares
no existing abuse. Its very purpose is to make war
with abuses, - not, indeed, to make war with the dead,
but with those which live, and flourish, and reign.
The purpose for which the abuses of government
are brought into view forms a very material consideration in the mode of treating them. The complaints of a friend are things very different from the invectives of an enemy. The charge of abuses on the
late monarchy of France was not intended to lead to
its reformation, but to justify its destruction. They
who have raked into all history for the faults of kings,
and who have aggravated every fault they have found,
have acted consistently, because they acted as enemies. No man can be a friend to a tempered monarchy who bears a decided hatred to monarchy itself. He, who, at the present time, is favorable or even
fair to that system, must act towards it as towards a
friend with frailties who is under the prosecution of
implacable foes. I think it a duty, in that case, not
to inflame the public mind against the obnoxious
person by any exaggeration of his faults. It is our
duty rather to palliate his errors and defects, or to
cast them into the shade, and industriously to bring
forward any good qualities that he may happen to
possess. But when the man is to be amended, and
by amendment to be preserved, then the line of duty
takes another direction. When his safety is effectually provided for, it then becomes the office of a
friend to urge his faults and vices with all the energy
of enlightened affection, to paint them in their most
vivid colors, and to bring the moral patient to a
better habit. Thus I think with regard to individu
? ? ? ? 112 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
als; thus I think with regard to ancient and respected
governments and orders of men. A spirit of reformation is never more consistent with itself than when it refuses to be rendered the means of destruction.
I suppose that enough is said upon these heads of
accusation. One more I had nearly forgotten, but I
shall soon dispatch it. The author of the Reflections, in the opening of the last Parliament, entered
on the journals of the House of Commons a motion
for a remonstrance to the crown, which is substantially a defence of the preceding Parliament, that had been dissolved under displeasure. It is a defence of
Mr. Fox. It is a defence of the Whigs. By what
connection of argument, by what association of ideas,
this apology for Mr. Fox and his party is by him and
them brought to criminate his and their apologist, I
cannot easily divine. It is true that Mr. Burke received no previous encouragement from Mr. Fox,
nor any the least countenance or support, at the time
when the motion was made, from him or from any
gentleman of the party,; -one only excepted, from
whose friendship, on that and on other occasions, he
derives an honor to which he must be dull indeed to
be insensible. * If that remonstrance, therefore, was
a false or feeble defence of the measures of the party,
they were in no wise affected by it. It stands on the
journals. This secures to it a permanence which the
author cannot expect to any other work of his. Let
it speak for itself to the present age and to all posterity. The party had no concern in it; and it can never be quoted against them. But in the late debate it was produced, not to clear the party from
an improper defence in which they had no share, but
* Mr. Windham.
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 11b
for the kind purpose of insinuating an inconsistency
between the principles of Mr. Burke's defence of the
dissolved Parliament and those on which he proceeded in his late Reflections on France.
It requires great ingenuity to make out such a
parallel between the two cases as to found a charge
of inconsistency in the principles assumed in arguing
the one and the other. What relation had Mr. Fox's
India Bill to the Constitution of France? What relation had that Constitution to the question of right
in an House of Commons to give or to withhold its
confidence from ministers, and to state that opiniont
to the crown? What had this discussion to do with,
Mr. Burke's idea in 1784 of the ill consequences
which must in the end arise to the crown from setting up the commons at large as an opposite interest
to the commons in Parliament? What has this discussion to do with a recorded warning to the people
of their rashly forming a precipitate judgment against
their representatives? What had Mr. Burke's opinion of the danger of introducing new theoretic language, unknown to the records of the kingdom, and calculated to excite vexatious questions, into a Parliamentary proceeding, to do with the French Assembly, which defies all precedent, and places its whole glory in realizing what had been thought the most
visionary theories? What had this in common with
the abolition of the French monarchy, or with the
principles upon which the English Revolution was
justified, -a Revolution in which Parliament, in all
its acts and all its declarations, religiously adheres to
" the form of sound words," without excluding from
private discussions such terms of art as may serve to
conduct an inquiry for which none but private perVOL. IV.
hoped that no such necessity would ever exist; but
in case it should, his determination was made. Tile
party knew perfectly that he would at least defend
himself. He never intended to attack Mr. Fox, nor
did he attack him directly or indirectly. His speech
kept to its matter. No personality was employed,
even in the remotest allusion. He never did impute
to that gehtleman any republican principles, or ally
other bad principles or bad conduct whatsoever. It
was far from his words; it was far from his heart.
It must be remembered, that, notwithstanding the
attempt of Mr. Fox to fix on Mr. Burke an unjustifiable change of opinion, and the foul crime of teaching a set of maxims to a boy, and afterwards, when these maxims became adult in his mature age, of
abandoning both the disciple and the doctrine, Mr.
Burke never attempted, in any one particular, either
to criminate or to recriminate. It may be said that
he had nothing of the kind in his power. This lihe
does not controvert. He certainly had it not in his
inclination. That gentleman had as little ground
for the charges which he was so easily provoked to
make upon him.
The gentlemen of the party (I include Mr. Fox)
have been kind enough to consider the dispute
brought on by this business, and the consequent
separation of Mr. Burke from their corps, as a matter of regret and uneasiness. I cannot be of opinion
that by his exclusion they have had any loss at all.
A man whose opinions are so very adverse to theirs,
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 91
adverse, as it was expressed, " as pole to pole," so
mischievously as well as so directly adverse that they.
found themselves under the necessity of solemnly disclaiming them in full Parliament, -such a man must
ever be to them a most unseemly and unprofitable
incumbrance. A cooperation with, him could only
serve to embarrass them in all their councils. They
have besides publicly represented him as a man capable of abusing the docility and confidence of ingenu. ous youth, - and, for a bad reason or for no reason, of disgracing his whole public life by a scandalous contradiction of every one of his own acts, writings, and
declarations. If these charges be true, their exclusion of such a person from their body is a circumstance which does equal honor to their justice and
their prudence. If they express a degree of sensibility in being obliged to execute this wise and just
sentence, from a consideration of some amiable or
some pleasant qualities which in his private life their
former friend may happen to possess, they add to
the praise of their wisdom and firmness the merit
of great tenderness of heart and humanity of disposition.
On their ideas, the new Whig party have, in my
opinion, acted as became them. The author of the
Reflections, however, on his part, cannot, without
great shame to himself, and without entailing everlasting disgrace on his posterity, admit the truth or
justice of the charges which have been made upon
him, or allow that he has in those Reflections discovered any principles to which honest men are
bound to declare, not a shade or two of dissent,
but a total, fundamental opposition. He must believe, if he does not mean wilfully to abandon his
? ? ? ? 92 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
cause and his reputation, that principles fundamentally at variance with those of his book are fundamentally false. What those principles, the antipodes
to his, really are, lie can only discover from their
contrariety. He is very unwilling to suppose that
the doctrines of some books lately circulated are the
principles of the party; though, from the vehement
declarations against his opinions, he is at some loss
how to judge otherwise.
For the present, my plan does not render it necessary to say, anything further concerning the merits
either of the one set of opinions or the other. The
author would have discussed the merits of both in his
place, but he was not permitted to do so.
I pass to the next head of charge,- Mr. Burke's
inconsistency. It is certainly a great aggravation of
his fault in embracing false opinions, that in doing
so he is not supposed to fill up a void, but that he is
guilty of a dereliction of opinions that are true and
laudable. This is the great gist of the charge against
him. It is not so much that he is wrong in his book
(that, however, is alleged also) as that lie has therein
belied his whole life. I believe, if he could venture
to value himself upon anything, it is on the virtue
of consistency that he would value himself the most.
Strip him of this, and you leave him naked indeed.
In the case of any man who had written something,
and spoken a great deal, upon very multifarious matter, during upwards of twenty-five years' public service, and in as great a variety of important events as perhaps have ever happened in the same number of
years, it would appear a little hard, in order to charge
such a mall with inconsistency, to see collected by his
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 93
friend a sort of digest of his sayings, even to such as
were merely sportive and jocular. This digest, however, has been made, with equal pains and partiality,
and without bringing out those passages of his writings which might tend to show with what restrictions any expressions quoted from him ought to
have been understood. From a great statesman he
did not quite expect this mode of inquisition. If it
only appeared in the works of common pamphleteers, Mr. Burke might safely trust to his reputation.
When thus urged, he ought, perhaps, to do a little
more. It shall be as little as possible; for I hope
not much is wanting. To be totally silent on his
charges would not be respectful to Mr. Fox. Accusations sometimes derive a weight from the persons who make them to which they are not entitled
from their matter.
He who thinks that the British Constitution ought
to consist of the three members, of three very different
natures, of which it does actually consist, and thinks
it his duty to preserve each of those members in its
proper place and with its proper proportion of power,
must (as each shall happen to be attacked) vindicate
the three several parts on the several principles peculiarly belonging to them. He cannot assert the democratic part on the principles on which monarchy is supported, nor can he support monarchy on the principles of democracy, nor can he maintain aristocracy
on the grounds of the one or of the other or of both.
All these he must support on grounds that are totally
different, though practically they may be, and happily
with us they are, brought into one harmonious body.
A man could not be consistent in defending such various, and, at first view, discordant, parts of a mixed
? ? ? ? 94 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
Constitution, without that sort of inconsistency with
which Mr. Burke stands charged.
As any one of the great members of this Constitution happens to be endangered, he that is a friend
to all of them chooses and presses the topics necessary for the support of the part attacked, with all the strength, the earnestness, the vehemence, with all the
power of stating, of argument, and of coloring, which
he happens to possess, and which the case demands.
He is not to embarrass the minds of his hearers, or
to incumber or overlay his speech, by bringing into
view at once (as if he were reading an academic lecture) all that may and ought, when a just occasion presents itself, to be said in favor of the other members. At that time they are out of the court; there
is no question concerning them. Whilst he opposes
his defence on the part where the attack is made, he
presumes that for his regard to the just rights of
all the rest he has credit in every candid mind. He
ought not to apprehend that his raising fences about
popular privileges this day will infer that he ought on
the next to concur with those who would pull down
the throne; because on the next he defends the
throne, it ought not to be supposed that he has abandoned the rights of the people.
A man, who, among various objects of his equal
regard, is secure of some, and full of anxiety for the
fate of others, is apt to go to much greater lengths
in his preference of the objects of his immediate solicitude than Mr. Burke has ever done. A man so circumstanced often seems to undervalue, to vilify,
almost to reprobate and disown, those that are out
of danger. This is the voice of Nature and truth,
and not of inconsistency and false pretence. The
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 95
danger of anything very dear to us removes, for the
moment, every other affection from the mind. When
Priam had his whole thoughts employed on the body
of his Hector, he repels with indignation, and drives
from him with a thousand reproaches, his surviving
sons, who with an officious piety crowded about him
to offer their assistance. A good critic (there is no
better than Mr. Fox) would say that this is a masterstroke, and marks a deep understanding of Nature in the father of poetry. He would despise a Zolus who
would conclude from this passage that Homer meant
to represent this man of affliction as hating or being
indifferent and cold in his affections to the poor relics
of his house, or that he preferred a dead carcass to
his living children.
Mr. Burke does not stand in need of an allowance
of this kind, which, if he did, by candid critics ought
to be granted to him. If the principles of a mixed
Constitution be admitted, he wants no more to justify
to consistency everything he has said and done during
the course of a political life just touching to its close.
I believe that gentleman has kept himself more clear
of running into the fashion of wild, visionary theories, or of seeking popularity through every means, than any mall perhaps ever did in the same situation.
He was the first main who, on the hustings, at a
popular election, rejected the authority of instructions from constituents, - or who, in any place, has argued so fully against it. Perhaps the discredit into which that doctrine of compulsive instructions under our Constitution is since fallen may be due
in a great degree to his opposing himself to it in
that manner and on that occasion.
? ? ? ? 96 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
The reforms in representation, and the bills for
shortening the duration of Parliaments, he uniformly
and steadily opposed for many years together, in contradiction to many of his best friends. These friends,
however, in his better days, when they had more to
hope from his service and more to fear from his loss
than now they have, never chose to find any inconsistency between his acts and expressions in favor of
liberty and his votes on those questions. But there
is a time for all things.
Against the opinion of many friends, even against
the solicitation of some of them, he opposed those of
the Church clergy who had petitioned the House of
Commons to be discharged from the subscription.
Although he supported the Dissenters in their petition for the indulgence which he had refilsed to the
clergy of the Established Church, in this, as he was not
guilty of it, so he was not reproached with inconsistency. At the same time he promoted, and against
the wish of several, the clause that gave the Dissenting teachers another subscription in the place of that
which was then taken away. Neither at that time
was the reproach of inconsistency brought against
him. People could then distinguish between a difference in conduct under a variation of circumstances and an inconsistency in principle. It was not then thought necessary to be freed of him as
of an incumbrance.
These instances, a few among many, are produced
as an answer to the insinuation of his having pursued high popular courses which in his late book
he has abandoned. Perhaps in his whole life he
has never omitted a fair occasion, with whatever
risk to him of obloquy as an individual, with what
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 97
ever detriment to his interest as a member of opposition, to assert the very same doctrines which appear
in that book. He told the House, upon all important
occasion, and pretty early in his service, that, "' being
warned by the ill effect of a contrary procedure in
great examples, he had taken his ideas of liberty very
low in order that they should stick to him and that
he might stick to them to the end of his life. "
At popular elections the most rigorous casuists will
remit a little of their severity. They will allow to a
candidate some unqualified effusions in favor of freedom, without binding him to adhere to them in their
utmost extent. But Mr. Burke put a more strict rule.
upon himself than most moralists would put upon,
others. At his first offering himself to Bristol, where
he was almost sure he should not obtain, on that or
any occasion, a single Tory vote, (in fact, he- did obtain but one,) and rested wholly on the Whig interest, he thought himself bound to tell to the electors, both before and after his election, exactly what a
representative they had to expect in him.
"~ The distinguishing part of our Constitution," he
said, 1" is its liberty. To preserve that liberty inviolate is the peculiar duty and proper trust of a member of the House of Commons. But the liberty, the only liberty, I mean is a liberty connected with order;
and that not only exists with order and virtue, but
cannot exist at all without them. It inheres in good
and steady government, as in its substance and vital
principle. "
The liberty to which Mr. Burke declared himself
attached is not French liberty. That liberty is nothing but the rein given to vice and confusion. Mr.
Burke was then, as he was at the writing of his ReVOL. IV. ~ 7
? ? ? ? 98 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
flections, awfully impressed with the difficulties arising from the complex state of our Constitution and
our empire, and that it might require in different
emergencies different sorts of exertions, and the
successive call upon all the various principles which
uphold and justify it. This will appear from what
he said at the close of the poll.
"To be a good member of Parliament is, let me
tell you, no easy task, - especially at this time, when
there is so strong a disposition to run into the perilous extremes of servile compliance or wild popularity. To unite circumspection with vigor is absolutely
necessary, but it is extremely difficult. We are now
members for a rich commercial city; this city, however, is but a part of a rich commercial nation, the
interests of which are various, multiform, and intricate. We are members for that great nation, which,
however, is itself but part of a great empire, extended by our virtue and our fortune to the farthest
limits of the East and of the West. All these widespread interests must be considered,- must be compared, -- must be reconciled, if possible. We are. members for a free country; and surely we all know that the machine of a free constitution is no
simple thing, but as intricate and as delicate as it is
\valuable. We are members in a great and ancient
MONARCHY; and we must preserve religiously the true,
legal rights of the sovereign, which form the key-stone,that binds together the noble and well-constructed arch
of our empire and our Constitution. A constitution
made up of balanced powers must ever be a critical
thing. As such I mean to touch that part of it
-which comes within my reach. "
In this manner Mr. Burke spoke to his constitu
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 99
ents seventeen years ago. He spoke, not like a partisan of one particular member of our Constitution,
but as a person strongly, and on principle, attached
to them all. He thought these great and essential
members ought to be preserved, and preserved each
in its place, - and that the monarchy ought not only
to be secured in its peculiar existence, but in its preeminence too, as the presiding and connecting principle of the whole. Let it be considered whether the language of his book, printed in 1790, differs from
his speech at Bristol in 1774.
With equal justice his opinions on the American
war are introduced, as if in his late work he had
belied his conduct and opinions in the debates which
arose upon that great event. On the American war
he never had any opinions which he has seen occasion to retract, or which he has ever retracted. He,
indeed, differs essentially from Mr. Fox as to the
cause of that war. Mr. Fox has been pleased to
say that the Americans rebelled " because they
thought they had not enjoyed liberty enough. " This
cause of the war, from him, I have heard of for the
first time. It is true that those who stimulated the
nation to that measure did frequently urge this
topic. They contended that the Americans had
from the beginning aimed at independence, - that
from the beginning they meant wholly to throw off
the authority of the crown, and to break their connection with the parent country. This Mr. Burke
never believed. When he moved his second conciliatory proposition, in the year 1776, he entered into
the discussion of this point at very great length,
and, from nine several heads of presumption, endeavored to prove the charge upon that people not
to be true.
? ? ? ? 100 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
If the principles of all he has said and wrote on the
occasion be viewed with common temper, the gentlemen of the party will perceive, that, on a supposition
that the Americans had rebelled merely in order to
enlarge their liberty, Mr. Burke would have thought
very differently of the American cause. What might
have been in the secret thoughts of some of their
leaders it is impossible to say. As far as a manll so
locked up as Dr. Franklin could be expected to communicate his ideas, I believe he opened them to Mr.
Burke. It was, I think, the very day before he set
out for America that a very long conversation passed
between them, and with a greater air of openness on
the Doctor's side than Mr. Burke had observed in
him before. In this discourse Dr. Franklin lamented, and with apparent sincerity, the separation which
he feared was inevitable between Great Britain and
her colonies. He certainly spoke of it as an event
which gave him the greatest concern. America, he
said, would never again see such happy days as she
had passed under the protection of England. He observed, that ours was the only instance of a great empire in which the most distant parts and members had been as well governed as the metropolis and its
vicinage, but that the Americans were going to lose
the means which secured to them this rare and precious advantage. The question with them was not,
whether they were to remain as they had been before
the troubles, - for better, he allowed, they could not
hope to be, -but whether they were to give up so
happy a situation without a struggle. Mr. Burke
had several other conversations with him about that
time, in none of which, soured and exasperated as his
mind certainly was, did he discover any other wish
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 101
in favor of America than for a security to its ancient condition. Mr.
Burke's conversation with other
Americans was large, indeed, and his inquiries extensive and diligent. Trusting to the result of all these
means of information, but trusting much more ill the
public presumptive indications I have just referred
to, and to the reiterated solemn declarations of their
Assemblies, he always firmly believed that they were
purely on the defensive in that rebellion. He considered the Americans as standing at that time, and in
that controversy, in the same relation to England as
England did to King James the Second in 1688. He
believed that they had taken up arms from one'motive only: that is, our attempting to tax them without their consent, -- to tax them for the purposes
of maintaining civil and military establishments. If
this attempt of ours could have been practically established, he thought, with them, that their Assemblies would become totally useless, - that, under the system of policy which was then pursued, the Americans could have no sort of security for their laws or
liberties, or for any part of them, - and that the very
circumstance of our freedom would have augmented
the weight of their slavery.
Considering the Americans on that defensive footing, he thought Great Britain ought instantly to have
closed with them by the repeal of the taxing act.
He was of opinion that our general rights over that
country would have been preserved by this timely
concession. * When, instead of this, a Boston Port
Bill, a Massachusetts Charter Bill, a Fishery Bill, an
Intercourse Bill, I know not how many hostile bills,
rushed out like so many tempests from all points of
* See his speech on American Taxation, the 19th of April, 1774.
? ? ? ? 102 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
the compass, and were accompanied first with great
fleets and armies of English, and followed afterwards
with great bodies of foreign troops, he thought that
their cause grew daily better, because daily more defensive, - and that ours, because daily more offensive,
grew daily worse. He therefore, in two motions, in
two successive years, proposed in Parliament many
concessions beyond what he had reason to think in
the beginning of the troubles would ever be seriously
demanded.
So circumstanced, he certainly never could and
never did wish the colonists to be subdued by arms.
H[e was fully persuaded, that, if such should be the
event, they must be held in that subdued state by a
great body of standing forces, and perhaps of foreign
forces. He was strongly of opinion that such armies,
first victorious over Englishmen, in a conflict for English constitutional rights and privileges, and afterwards habituated (though in America) to keep an English people in a state of abject subjection, would
prove fatal in the end to the liberties of England
itself; that in the mean time this military system
would lie as an oppressive burden upon the national
finances; that it would constantly breed and feed
new discussions, full of heat and acrimony, leading
possibly to a new series of wars; and that foreign
powers, whilst we continued in a state at once burdened and distracted, must at length obtain a decided
superiority over us. On what part of his late publication, or on what expression that might have escaped
him in that work, is any man authorized to charge
Mr. Burke with a contradiction to the line of his
conduct and to the current of his doctrines on the
American war? The pamphlet is in the hands of
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 103
his accusers: let them point out the passage, if
they can.
Indeed, the author has been well sifted and scrutinized by his friends. He is even called to an
account for every jocular and light expression. A
ludicrous picture which he made with regard to a
passage in the speech of a late minister* has been
brought up against him. That passage contained a
lamentation for the loss of monarchy to the Americans, after they had separated from Great Britain.
He thought it to be unseasonable, ill-judged, and illsorted with the circumstances of all the parties. Mr.
Burke, it seems, considered it ridiculous to lament
the loss of some monarch or other to a rebel people,
at the moment they had forever quitted their allegiance to theirs and our sovereign, at the time when
they had broken off all connection with this nation
and had allied themselves with its enemies. He certainly must have thought it open to ridicule; and
now that it is recalled to his memory, (he had, I believe, wholly forgotten the circumstance,) he recollects that he did treat it with some levity. But is it
a fair inference from a jest on this unseasonable lamentation, that he was then an enemy to monarchy,
either in this or in any other country? The contrary perhaps ought to be inferred,-if anything at
all can be argued from pleasantries good or bad. Is
it for this reason, or for anything he has said or done
relative to the American war, that he is to enter into an alliance offensive and defensive with every rebellion, in every country, under every circumstance, and raised upon whatever pretence? Is it because
he did not wish the Americans to be subdued by
* Lord Lansdowne.
? ? ? ? 104 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
arms, that he must be inconsistent with himself, if
he reprobates the conduct of those societies in England, who, alleging no one act of tyranny or oppression, and complaining of no hostile attempt against
our ancient laws, rights, and usages, are now endeavoring to work the destruction of the crown of this
kingdom, and the whole of its Constitution? Is he
obliged, from the concessions he wished to be made
to the colonies, to keep any terms with those clubs
and federations who hold out to us, as a pattern for
imitation, the proceedings in France, in which a king,
who had voluntarily and formally divested himself of
the right of taxation, and of all other species of arbitrary power, has been dethroned? Is it because Mr.
Burke wished to have America rather conciliated
than vanquished, that he must wish well to the army
of republics which are set up in France, - a country
wherein not the people, but the monarch, was wholly
on the defensive, (a poor, indeed, and feeble defensive,) to preserve some fragments of the royal authority against a determined and desperate body of conspirators, whose object it was, with whatever certainty of crimes, with whatever hazard of war, and every
other species of calamity, to annihilate the whole of
that authority, to level all ranks, orders, and distinctions in the state, and utterly to destroy property,
not more by their acts than in their principles?
Mr. Burke has been also reproached with an inconsistency between his late writings and his former
conduct, because lie had proposed in Parliament several economical, leading to several constitutional reforms. Mr. Burke thought, with a majority of the
House of Commons, that the influence of the crown
at one time was too great; but after his Majesty
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 105
had, by a gracious message, and several subsequent
acts of Parliament, reduced it to a standard which
satisfied Mr. Fox himself, and, apparently at least,
contented whoever wished to go farthest in that reduction, is Mr. Burke to allow that it would be right
for us to proceed to indefinite lengths upon that subject? that it would therefore be justifiable in a people owing allegiance to a monarchy, and professing to maintain it, not to reduce, but wholly to take away
all prerogative and all influence whatsoever? Must
his having made, in virtue of a plan of economical
regulation, a reduction of the influence of the -crown
compel him to allow that it would be right in the
French or in us to bring a king to so abject a state
as in function not to be so respectable as an undersheriff, but in person not to differ from the condition
of a mere prisoner? One would think that such a
thing as a medium had never been heard of in thle
moral world.
This mode of arguing from your having done any
thing in a certain line to the necessity of doing every
thing has political consequences of other moment
than those of a logical fallacy. If no man can propose any diminution or modification of an invidious
or dangerous power or influence in government, without entitling friends turned into adversaries to argue
him into the destruction of all prerogative, and to
a spoliation of the whole patronage of royalty, I do
not know what can more effectually deter persons
of sober minds from engaging in any reform, nor
how the worst enemies to the liberty of the subject
could contrive any method more fit to bring all correctives on the power of the crown into suspicion
and disrepute.
? ? ? ? 106 APPEAL rn':,I THE NEW
If, say his accusers, the dread of too great influence in the crown of Great Britain could justify the
degree of reform which he adopted, the dread of a
return under the despotism of a monarchy might justify the people of France in going much further,
and reducing monarchy to its present nothing. - Mr.
Burke does not allow that a sufficient argument ad
hominem is inferable from these premises. If the
horror of the excesses of an absolute monarchy furnishes a reason for abolishing it, no monarchy once
absolute (all have been so at one period or other)
could ever be limited. It must be destroyed; otherwise no way could be found to quiet the fears of
those who were formerly subjected to that sway.
But the principle of Mr. Burke's proceeding ought
to lead him to a very different conclusion, - to this
conclusion,'that a monarchy is a thing perfectly
susceptible of reform, perfectly susceptible of a balance of power, and that, when reformed and balanced, for a great country it is the best of all governments. The example of our country might have led France, as it has led him, to perceive that monarchy
is not only reconcilable to liberty, but that it may be
rendered a great and stable security to its perpetual
enjoyment. No correctives which he proposed to the
power of the crown could lead him to approve of a
plan of a republic (if so it may be reputed) which has
no correctives, and which he believes to be incapable
of admitting any. No principle of Mr. Burke's conduct or writings obliged him from consistency to become an advocate for an exchange of mischiefs; no
principle of his could compel him to justify the setting
up in the place of a mitigated monarchy a new and far
more despotic power, under which there is no trace
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 107
of liberty, except what appears in confusion and in
crime.
Mr. Burke does not admit that the faction predominant in France have abolished their monarchy, and
the orders of their state, from any dread of arbitrary
power that lay heavy on the minds of the people.
It is not very long since he has been in that country.
Whilst there he conversed with many descriptions of
its inhabitants. A few persons of rank did, lie allows,
discover strong and manifest tokens of such a spirit
of liberty as might be expected one day to break all
bounds. Such gentlemen have since had more reason
to repent of their want of foresight than I hope any
of the same class will ever have in this country. But
this spirit was far from general, even amongst the gentlemen. As to the lower orders, and those little above
them, in whose name the present powers domineer,
they were far from discovering any sort of dissatisfaction with the power and prerogatives of the crown.
That vain people were rather proud of them: they
rather despised the English for not having a monarch
possessed of such high and perfect authority. They
had felt nothing from lettres de cachet. The Bastile
could inspire no horrors into them. This was a treat
for their betters. It was by art and impulse, it was
by the sinister use made of a season of scarcity, it
was under an infinitely diversified succession of wicked pretences wholly foreign to the question of monarchy or aristocracy, that this light people were inspired with their present spirit of levelling. Their old vanity was led by art to take another turn: it was
dazzled and seduced by military liveries, cockades,
and epaulets, until the French populace was led to
become the willing, but still the proud and thought
? ? ? ? 108 APPEAL FitO51 THE NEW
less, instrument and victim of another domination.
Neither did that people despise or hate or fear their
nobility: on the contrary, they valued themselves on
the generous qualities which distinguished the chiefs
of their nation.
So far as to the attack on Mr. Burke in consequence of his reforms.
To show that he has in his last publication abandoned those principles of liberty which have given
energy to his youth, and in spite of his censors will
afford repose and consolation to his declining age,
those who have thought proper in Parliament to declare against his book ought to have produced something in it which directly or indirectly militates with ally rational plan of free government. It is something
extraordinary, that they whose memories have so well
served them with regard to light and ludicrous expressions, which years had consigned to oblivion,
should not have been able to quote a single passage
in a piece so lately published, which contradicts anything he has formerly ever said in a style either ludicrous or serious. They quote his former speeches and his former votes, but not one syllable from the
book. It is only by a collation of the one with the
other that the alleged inconsistency can be established.
But as they are unable to cite any such contradictory
passage, so neither call they show anything in the
general tendency and spirit of the whole work unfavorable to a rational and generous spirit of liberty;
unless a warm opposition to the spirit of levelling, to
the spirit of impiety, to the spirit of proscription, plunder, murder, and cannibalism, be adverse to the true
principles of freedom.
The author of that book is supposed to have passed
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 109
from extreme to extreme;Lut he has always kept
himself in a medium. This charge is not so wonderful. It is in the nature of things, that they who are in
the centre of a circle should appear directly opposed
to those who view them from any part of the circumference. In that middle point, however, he will still
remain, though he may hear people who themselves
run beyond Aurora and the Ganges cry out that he
is at the extremity of the Wes.
In the same debate Mr. Burke was represented by
Mr. Fox as arguing in a manner which implied that
the British Constitution could not be defended, but by
abusing all republics ancient and modern. He said
nothing to give the least ground for such a censure.
He never abused all republics. He has never professed himself a friiend or an enemy to republics or to
monarchies in the abstract. He thought that the circumstances and habits of every country, which it is
always perilous and productive of the greatest calamities to force, are to decide upon the form of its government. There is nothing in his nature, his temper, or his faculties which should make him an enemy to any
republic, modern or ancient. Far from it. He has
studied the form and spirit of republics very early in
life; he has studied them with great attention, and
with a mind undisturbed by affection or prejudice.
He is, indeed, convinced that the science of government would be poorly cultivated without that study.
But the result in his mind from that investigation has
been and is, that neither England nor France, without infinite detriment to them, as well in the event as
in the experiment, could be brought into a republican form; but that everything republican which can
be introduced with safety into either of them must be
? ? ? ? 110 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
built upon a monarchy, -built upon a real, not a
nominal monarchy, as its essential basis; that all such
institutions, whether aristocratic or democratic, must
originate from their crown, and in all their proceedings must refer to it; that by the energy of that mainspring alone those republican parts must be set in action, and from thence must derive their whole legal effect, (as amongst us they actually do,) or the whole
will fall into confusion. These republican members
have no other point but the crown in which they can
possibly unite.
This is the opinion expressed in Mr. Burke's book.
He has never varied in that opinion since he came to
years of discretion. But surely, if at any time of his
life he had entertained other notions, (which, however, he has never held or professed to hold,) the
horrible calamities brought upon a great people by
the wild attempt to force their country into a republic might be more than sufficient to undeceive his
understanding, and to free it forever from such destructive fancies. He is certain that many, even in
France, have been made sick of their theories by their
very success in realizing them.
To fortify the imputation of a desertion from his
principles, his constant attempts to reform abuses
have been brought forward. It is true, it has been
the business of his strength to reform abuses in government, and his last feeble efforts are employed in
a struggle against them. Politically he has lived in
that element; politically he will die in it. Before he
departs, I will admit for him that he deserves to have
all his titles of merit brought forth, as they have been,
for grounds of condemnation, if one word justifying
or supporting abuses of any sort is to be found in
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 111
that book which has kindled so much indignation in
the mind of a great man. Oil the contrary, it spares
no existing abuse. Its very purpose is to make war
with abuses, - not, indeed, to make war with the dead,
but with those which live, and flourish, and reign.
The purpose for which the abuses of government
are brought into view forms a very material consideration in the mode of treating them. The complaints of a friend are things very different from the invectives of an enemy. The charge of abuses on the
late monarchy of France was not intended to lead to
its reformation, but to justify its destruction. They
who have raked into all history for the faults of kings,
and who have aggravated every fault they have found,
have acted consistently, because they acted as enemies. No man can be a friend to a tempered monarchy who bears a decided hatred to monarchy itself. He, who, at the present time, is favorable or even
fair to that system, must act towards it as towards a
friend with frailties who is under the prosecution of
implacable foes. I think it a duty, in that case, not
to inflame the public mind against the obnoxious
person by any exaggeration of his faults. It is our
duty rather to palliate his errors and defects, or to
cast them into the shade, and industriously to bring
forward any good qualities that he may happen to
possess. But when the man is to be amended, and
by amendment to be preserved, then the line of duty
takes another direction. When his safety is effectually provided for, it then becomes the office of a
friend to urge his faults and vices with all the energy
of enlightened affection, to paint them in their most
vivid colors, and to bring the moral patient to a
better habit. Thus I think with regard to individu
? ? ? ? 112 APPEAL FROM THE NEW
als; thus I think with regard to ancient and respected
governments and orders of men. A spirit of reformation is never more consistent with itself than when it refuses to be rendered the means of destruction.
I suppose that enough is said upon these heads of
accusation. One more I had nearly forgotten, but I
shall soon dispatch it. The author of the Reflections, in the opening of the last Parliament, entered
on the journals of the House of Commons a motion
for a remonstrance to the crown, which is substantially a defence of the preceding Parliament, that had been dissolved under displeasure. It is a defence of
Mr. Fox. It is a defence of the Whigs. By what
connection of argument, by what association of ideas,
this apology for Mr. Fox and his party is by him and
them brought to criminate his and their apologist, I
cannot easily divine. It is true that Mr. Burke received no previous encouragement from Mr. Fox,
nor any the least countenance or support, at the time
when the motion was made, from him or from any
gentleman of the party,; -one only excepted, from
whose friendship, on that and on other occasions, he
derives an honor to which he must be dull indeed to
be insensible. * If that remonstrance, therefore, was
a false or feeble defence of the measures of the party,
they were in no wise affected by it. It stands on the
journals. This secures to it a permanence which the
author cannot expect to any other work of his. Let
it speak for itself to the present age and to all posterity. The party had no concern in it; and it can never be quoted against them. But in the late debate it was produced, not to clear the party from
an improper defence in which they had no share, but
* Mr. Windham.
? ? ? ? TO THE OLD WHIGS. 11b
for the kind purpose of insinuating an inconsistency
between the principles of Mr. Burke's defence of the
dissolved Parliament and those on which he proceeded in his late Reflections on France.
It requires great ingenuity to make out such a
parallel between the two cases as to found a charge
of inconsistency in the principles assumed in arguing
the one and the other. What relation had Mr. Fox's
India Bill to the Constitution of France? What relation had that Constitution to the question of right
in an House of Commons to give or to withhold its
confidence from ministers, and to state that opiniont
to the crown? What had this discussion to do with,
Mr. Burke's idea in 1784 of the ill consequences
which must in the end arise to the crown from setting up the commons at large as an opposite interest
to the commons in Parliament? What has this discussion to do with a recorded warning to the people
of their rashly forming a precipitate judgment against
their representatives? What had Mr. Burke's opinion of the danger of introducing new theoretic language, unknown to the records of the kingdom, and calculated to excite vexatious questions, into a Parliamentary proceeding, to do with the French Assembly, which defies all precedent, and places its whole glory in realizing what had been thought the most
visionary theories? What had this in common with
the abolition of the French monarchy, or with the
principles upon which the English Revolution was
justified, -a Revolution in which Parliament, in all
its acts and all its declarations, religiously adheres to
" the form of sound words," without excluding from
private discussions such terms of art as may serve to
conduct an inquiry for which none but private perVOL. IV.
