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THE WORKS
OF
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
EDMUND BURKE
IN TWELVE VOLUMES
VOLUME THE FIFTH
JOHN C. NIMMO
14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C.
MDCCCLXXXVII
CONTENTS OF VOL. V.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE CONDUCT OF THE MINORITY, PARTICULARLY IN THE
LAST SESSION OF PARLIAMENT, 1793 1
PREFACE TO THE ADDRESS OF M. BRISSOT TO HIS CONSTITUENTS;
WITH AN APPENDIX 65
LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ., OCCASIONED BY A SPEECH MADE IN
THE HOUSE OF LORDS BY THE **** OF *******, IN THE DEBATE CONCERNING
LORD FITZWILLIAM, 1795 107
THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY 131
LETTER TO A NOBLE LORD ON THE ATTACKS MADE UPON MR. BURKE AND HIS
PENSION, IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, BY THE DUKE OF BEDFORD AND THE
EARL OF LAUDERDALE, 1796 171
THREE LETTERS TO A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT ON THE PROPOSALS FOR
PEACE WITH THE REGICIDE DIRECTORY OF FRANCE.
LETTER I. ON THE OVERTURES OF PEACE 233
LETTER II. ON THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION AS IT REGARDS OTHER NATIONS 342
LETTER III. ON THE RUPTURE OF THE NEGOTIATION; THE TERMS
OF PEACE PROPOSED; AND THE RESOURCES OF THE COUNTRY FOR
THE CONTINUANCE OF THE WAR 384
OBSERVATIONS
ON THE
CONDUCT OF THE MINORITY
PARTICULARLY IN THE
LAST SESSION OF PARLIAMENT.
ADDRESSED TO
THE DUKE OF PORTLAND AND LORD FITZWILLIAM.
1793.
LETTER
TO
HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF PORTLAND.
MY DEAR LORD,--The paper which I take the liberty of sending to your
Grace was, for the greater part, written during the last session. A few
days after the prorogation some few observations were added. I was,
however, resolved to let it lie by me for a considerable time, that, on
viewing the matter at a proper distance, and when the sharpness of
recent impressions had been worn off, I might be better able to form a
just estimate of the value of my first opinions.
I have just now read it over very coolly and deliberately. My latest
judgment owns my first sentiments and reasonings, in their full force,
with regard both to persons and things.
During a period of four years, the state of the world, except for some
few and short intervals, has filled me with a good deal of serious
inquietude. I considered a general war against Jacobins and Jacobinism
as the only possible chance of saving Europe (and England as included in
Europe) from a truly frightful revolution. For this I have been
censured, as receiving through weakness, or spreading through fraud and
artifice, a false alarm. Whatever others may think of the matter, that
alarm, in my mind, is by no means quieted. The state of affairs
_abroad_ is not so much mended as to make me, for one, full of
confidence. At _home_, I see no abatement whatsoever in the zeal of the
partisans of Jacobinism towards their cause, nor any cessation in their
efforts to do mischief. What is doing by Lord Lauderdale on the first
scene of Lord George Gordon's actions, and in his spirit, is not
calculated to remove my apprehensions. They pursue their first object
with as much eagerness as ever, but with more dexterity. Under the
plausible name of peace, by which they delude or are deluded, they would
deliver us unarmed and defenceless to the confederation of Jacobins,
whose centre is indeed in France, but whose rays proceed in every
direction throughout the world. I understand that Mr. Coke, of Norfolk,
has been lately very busy in spreading a disaffection to this war (which
we carry on for our being) in the country in which his property gives
him so great an influence. It is truly alarming to see so large a part
of the aristocratic interest engaged in the cause of the new species of
democracy, which is openly attacking or secretly undermining the system
of property by which mankind has hitherto been governed. But we are not
to delude ourselves. No man can be connected with a party which
professes publicly to admire or may be justly suspected of secretly
abetting this French Revolution, who must not be drawn into its vortex,
and become the instrument of its designs.
What I have written is in the manner of apology. I have given it that
form, as being the most respectful; but I do not stand in need of any
apology for my principles, my sentiments, or my conduct. I wish the
paper I lay before your Grace to be considered as my most deliberate,
solemn, and even testamentary protest against the proceedings and
doctrines which have hitherto produced so much mischief in the world,
and which will infallibly produce more, and possibly greater. It is my
protest against the delusion by which some have been taught to look upon
this Jacobin contest at home as an ordinary party squabble about place
or patronage, and to regard this Jacobin war abroad as a common war
about trade or territorial boundaries, or about a political balance of
power among rival or jealous states. Above all, it is my protest against
that mistake or perversion of sentiment by which they who agree with us
in our principles may on collateral considerations be regarded as
enemies, and those who, in this perilous crisis of all human affairs,
differ from us fundamentally and practically, as our best friends. Thus
persons of great importance may be made to turn the whole of their
influence to the destruction of their principles.
I now make it my humble request to your Grace, that you will not give
any sort of answer to the paper I send, or to this letter, except barely
to let me know that you have received them. I even wish that at present
you may not read the paper which I transmit: lock it up in the drawer of
your library-table; and when a day of compulsory reflection comes, then
be pleased to turn to it. Then remember that your Grace had a true
friend, who had, comparatively with men of your description, a very
small interest in opposing the modern system of morality and policy, but
who, under every discouragement, was faithful to public duty and to
private friendship. I shall then probably be dead. I am sure I do not
wish to live to see such things. But whilst I do live, I shall pursue
the same course, although my merits should be taken for unpardonable
faults, and as such avenged, not only on myself, but on my posterity.
Adieu, my dear Lord; and do me the justice to believe me ever, with most
sincere respect, veneration, and affectionate attachment,
Your Grace's most faithful friend,
And most obedient humble servant,
EDMUND BURKE.
BEACONSFIELD, Sept. 29, 1793.
OBSERVATIONS.
Approaching towards the close of a long period of public service, it is
natural I should be desirous to stand well (I hope I do stand tolerably
well) with that public which, with whatever fortune, I have endeavored
faithfully and zealously to serve.
I am also not a little anxious for some place in the estimation of the
two persons to whom I address this paper. I have always acted with them,
and with those whom they represent. To my knowledge, I have not
deviated, no, not in the minutest point, from their opinions and
principles. Of late, without any alteration in their sentiments or in
mine, a difference of a very unusual nature, and which, under the
circumstances, it is not easy to describe, has arisen between us.
In my journey with them through life, I met Mr. Fox in my road; and I
travelled with him very cheerfully, as long as he appeared to me to
pursue the same direction with those in whose company I set out. In the
latter stage of our progress a new scheme of liberty and equality was
produced in the world, which either dazzled his imagination, or was
suited to some new walks of ambition which were then opened to his view.
The whole frame and fashion of his politics appear to have suffered
about that time a very material alteration. It is about three years
since, in consequence of that extraordinary change, that, after a
pretty long preceding period of distance, coolness, and want of
confidence, if not total alienation on his part, a complete public
separation has been made between that gentleman and me. Until lately the
breach between us appeared reparable. I trusted that time and
reflection, and a decisive experience of the mischiefs which have flowed
from the proceedings and the system of France, on which our difference
had arisen, as well as the known sentiments of the best and wisest of
our common friends upon that subject, would have brought him to a safer
way of thinking. Several of his friends saw no security for keeping
things in a proper train after this excursion of his, but in the reunion
of the party on its old grounds, under the Duke of Portland. Mr. Fox, if
he pleased, might have been comprehended in that system, with the rank
and consideration to which his great talents entitle him, and indeed
must secure to him in any party arrangement that _could_ be made. The
Duke of Portland knows how much I wished for, and how earnestly I
labored that reunion, and upon terms that might every way be honorable
and advantageous to Mr. Fox. His conduct in the last session has
extinguished these hopes forever.
Mr. Fox has lately published in print a defence of his conduct. On
taking into consideration that defence, a society of gentlemen, called
the Whig Club, thought proper to come to the following
resolution:--"That their confidence in Mr. Fox is confirmed,
strengthened, and increased by the calumnies against him."
To that resolution my two noble friends, the Duke of Portland and Lord
Fitzwilliam, have given their concurrence.
The calumnies supposed in that resolution can be nothing else than the
objections taken to Mr. Fox's conduct in this session of Parliament; for
to them, and to them alone, the resolution refers. I am one of those who
have publicly and strongly urged those objections. I hope I shall be
thought only to do what is necessary to my justification, thus publicly,
solemnly, and heavily censured by those whom I most value and esteem,
when I firmly contend that the objections which I, with many others of
the friends to the Duke of Portland, have made to Mr. Fox's conduct, are
not _calumnies_, but founded on truth,--that they are not _few_, but
many,--and that they are not _light and trivial_, but, in a very high
degree, serious and important.
That I may avoid the imputation of throwing out, even privately, any
loose, random imputations against the public conduct of a gentleman for
whom I once entertained a very warm affection, and whose abilities I
regard with the greatest admiration, I will put down, distinctly and
articulately, some of the matters of objection which I feel to his late
doctrines and proceedings, trusting that I shall be able to demonstrate
to the friends whose good opinion I would still cultivate, that not
levity, nor caprice, nor less defensible motives, but that very grave
reasons, influence my judgment. I think that the spirit of his late
proceedings is wholly alien to our national policy, and to the peace, to
the prosperity, and to the legal liberties of this nation, _according to
our ancient domestic and appropriated mode of holding them_.
Viewing things in that light, my confidence in him is not increased, but
totally destroyed, by those proceedings. I cannot conceive it a matter
of honor or duty (but the direct contrary) in any member of Parliament
to continue systematic opposition for the purpose of putting government
under difficulties, until Mr. Fox (with all his present ideas) shall
have the principal direction of affairs placed in his hands, and until
the present body of administration (with their ideas and measures) is of
course overturned and dissolved.
To come to particulars.
1. The laws and Constitution of the kingdom intrust the sole and
exclusive right of treating with foreign potentates to the king. This is
an undisputed part of the legal prerogative of the crown. However,
notwithstanding this, Mr. Fox, without the knowledge or participation of
any one person in the House of Commons, with whom he was bound by every
party principle, in matters of delicacy and importance, confidentially
to communicate, thought proper to send Mr. Adair, as his representative,
and with his cipher, to St. Petersburg, there to frustrate the objects
for which the minister from the crown was authorized to treat. He
succeeded in this his design, and did actually frustrate the king's
minister in some of the objects of his negotiation.
This proceeding of Mr. Fox does not (as I conceive) amount to absolute
high treason,--Russia, though on bad terms, not having been then
declaredly at war with this kingdom. But such a proceeding is in law not
very remote from that offence, and is undoubtedly a most
unconstitutional act, and an high treasonable misdemeanor.
The legitimate and sure mode of communication between this nation and
foreign powers is rendered uncertain, precarious, and treacherous, by
being divided into two channels,--one with the government, one with the
head of a party in opposition to that government; by which means the
foreign powers can never be assured of the real authority or validity of
any public transaction whatsoever.
On the other hand, the advantage taken of the discontent which at that
time prevailed in Parliament and in the nation, to give to an individual
an influence directly against the government of his country, in a
foreign court, has made a highway into England for the intrigues of
foreign courts in our affairs. This is a sore evil,--an evil from which,
before this time, England was more free than any other nation. Nothing
can preserve us from that evil--which connects cabinet factions abroad
with popular factions here--but the keeping sacred the crown as the only
channel of communication with every other nation.
This proceeding of Mr. Fox has given a strong countenance and an
encouraging example to the doctrines and practices of the Revolution and
Constitutional Societies, and of other mischievous societies of that
description, who, without any legal authority, and even without any
corporate capacity, are in the habit of proposing, and, to the best of
their power, of forming, leagues and alliances with France.
This proceeding, which ought to be reprobated on all the general
principles of government, is in a more narrow view of things not less
reprehensible. It tends to the prejudice of the whole of the Duke of
Portland's late party, by discrediting the principles upon which they
supported Mr. Fox in the Russian business, as if they of that party also
had proceeded in their Parliamentary opposition on the same mischievous
principles which actuated Mr. Fox in sending Mr. Adair on his embassy.
2. Very soon after his sending this embassy to Russia, that is, in the
spring of 1792, a covenanting club or association was formed in London,
calling itself by the ambitious and invidious title of "_The Friends of
the People_." It was composed of many of Mr. Fox's own most intimate
personal and party friends, joined to a very considerable part of the
members of those mischievous associations called the Revolution Society
and the Constitutional Society. Mr. Fox must have been well apprised of
the progress of that society in every one of its steps, if not of the
very origin of it. I certainly was informed of both, who had no
connection with the design, directly or indirectly. His influence over
the persons who composed the leading part in that association was, and
is, unbounded. I hear that he expressed some disapprobation of this club
in one case, (that of Mr. St. John,) where his consent was formally
asked; yet he never attempted seriously to put a stop to the
association, or to disavow it, or to control, check, or modify it in any
way whatsoever. If he had pleased, without difficulty, he might have
suppressed it in its beginning. However, he did not only not suppress it
in its beginning, but encouraged it in every part of its progress, at
that particular time when Jacobin clubs (under the very same or similar
titles) were making such dreadful havoc in a country not thirty miles
from the coast of England, and when every motive of moral prudence
called for the discouragement of societies formed for the increase of
popular pretensions to power and direction.
3. When the proceedings of this society of the Friends of the People, as
well as others acting in the same spirit, had caused a very serious
alarm in the mind of the Duke of Portland, and of many good patriots,
he publicly, in the House of Commons, treated their apprehensions and
conduct with the greatest asperity and ridicule. He condemned and
vilified, in the most insulting and outrageous terms, the proclamation
issued by government on that occasion,--though he well knew that it had
passed through the Duke of Portland's hands, that it had received his
fullest approbation, and that it was the result of an actual interview
between that noble Duke and Mr. Pitt. During the discussion of its
merits in the House of Commons, Mr. Fox countenanced and justified the
chief promoters of that association; and he received, in return, a
public assurance from them of an inviolable adherence to him singly and
personally. On account of this proceeding, a very great number (I
presume to say not the least grave and wise part) of the Duke of
Portland's friends in Parliament, and many out of Parliament who are of
the same description, have become separated from that time to this from
Mr. Fox's particular cabal,--very few of which cabal are, or ever have,
so much as pretended to be attached to the Duke of Portland, or to pay
any respect to him or his opinions.
4. At the beginning of this session, when the sober part of the nation
was a second time generally and justly alarmed at the progress of the
French arms on the Continent, and at the spreading of their horrid
principles and cabals in England, Mr. Fox did not (as had been usual in
cases of far less moment) call together any meeting of the Duke of
Portland's friends in the House of Commons, for the purpose of taking
their opinion on the conduct to be pursued in Parliament at that
critical juncture. He concerted his measures (if with any persons at
all) with the friends of Lord Lansdowne, and those calling themselves
Friends of the People, and others not in the smallest degree attached to
the Duke of Portland; by which conduct he wilfully gave up (in my
opinion) all pretensions to be considered as of that party, and much
more to be considered as the leader and mouth of it in the House of
Commons. This could not give much encouragement to those who had been
separated from Mr. Fox, on account of his conduct on the first
proclamation, to rejoin that party.
5. Not having consulted any of the Duke of Portland's party in the House
of Commons,--and not having consulted them, because he had reason to
know that the course he had resolved to pursue would be highly
disagreeable to them,--he represented the alarm, which was a second time
given and taken, in still more invidious colors than those in which he
painted the alarms of the former year. He described those alarms in this
manner, although the cause of them was then grown far less equivocal and
far more urgent. He even went so far as to treat the supposition of the
growth of a Jacobin spirit in England as a libel on the nation. As to
the danger from _abroad_, on the first day of the session he said little
or nothing upon the subject. He contented himself with defending the
ruling factions in France, and with accusing the public councils of this
kingdom of every sort of evil design on the liberties of the
people,--declaring distinctly, strongly, and precisely, that the whole
danger of the nation was from the growth of the power of the crown. The
policy of this declaration was obvious. It was in subservience to the
general plan of disabling us from taking any steps against France. To
counteract the alarm given by the progress of Jacobin arms and
principles, he endeavored to excite an opposite alarm concerning the
growth of the power of the crown. If that alarm should prevail, he knew
that the nation never would be brought by arms to oppose the growth of
the Jacobin empire: because it is obvious that war does, in its very
nature, necessitate the Commons considerably to strengthen the hands of
government; and if that strength should itself be the object of terror,
we could have no war.
6. In the extraordinary and violent speeches of that day, he attributed
all the evils which the public had suffered to the proclamation of the
preceding summer; though he spoke in presence of the Duke of Portland's
own son, the Marquis of Tichfield, who had seconded the address on that
proclamation, and in presence of the Duke of Portland's brother, Lord
Edward Bentinck, and several others of his best friends and nearest
relations.
7. On that day, that is, on the 13th of December, 1792, he proposed an
amendment to the address, which stands on the journals of the House, and
which is, perhaps, the most extraordinary record which ever did stand
upon them. To introduce this amendment, he not only struck out the part
of the proposed address which alluded to insurrections, upon the ground
of the objections which he took to the legality of calling together
Parliament, (objections which I must ever think litigious and
sophistical,) but he likewise struck out _that part which related to the
cabals and conspiracies of the French faction in England_, although
their practices and correspondences were of public notoriety. Mr. Cooper
and Mr. Watt had been deputed from Manchester to the Jacobins. These
ambassadors were received by them as British representatives. Other
deputations of English had been received at the bar of the National
Assembly. They had gone the length of giving supplies to the Jacobin
armies; and they, in return, had received promises of military
assistance to forward their designs in England. A regular correspondence
for fraternizing the two nations had also been carried on by societies
in London with a great number of the Jacobin societies in France. This
correspondence had also for its object the pretended improvement of the
British Constitution. What is the most remarkable, and by much the more
mischievous part of his proceedings that day, Mr. Fox likewise struck
out everything in the address which _related to the tokens of ambition
given by France, her aggressions upon our allies, and the sudden and
dangerous growth of her power upon every side_; and instead of all those
weighty, and, at that time, necessary matters, by which the House of
Commons was (in a crisis such as perhaps Europe never stood) to give
assurances to our allies, strength to our government, and a check to the
common enemy of Europe, he substituted nothing but a criminal charge on
the conduct of the British government for calling Parliament together,
and an engagement to inquire into that conduct.
8. If it had pleased God to suffer him to succeed in this his project
for the amendment to the address, he would forever have ruined this
nation, along with the rest of Europe. At home all the Jacobin
societies, formed for the utter destruction of our Constitution, would
have lifted up their heads, which had been beaten down by the two
proclamations. Those societies would have been infinitely strengthened
and multiplied in every quarter; their dangerous foreign communications
would have been left broad and open; the crown would not have been
authorized to take any measure whatever for our immediate defence by sea
or land. The closest, the most natural, the nearest, and at the same
time, from many internal as well as external circumstances, the weakest
of our allies, Holland, would have been given up, bound hand and foot,
to France, just on the point of invading that republic. A general
consternation would have seized upon all Europe; and all alliance with
every other power, except France, would have been forever rendered
impracticable to us. I think it impossible for any man, who regards the
dignity and safety of his country, or indeed the common safety of
mankind, ever to forget Mr. Fox's proceedings in that tremendous crisis
of all human affairs.
9. Mr. Fox very soon had reason to be apprised of the general dislike of
the Duke of Portland's friends to this conduct. Some of those who had
even voted with him, the day after their vote, expressed their
abhorrence of his amendment, their sense of its inevitable tendency, and
their total alienation from the principles and maxims upon which it was
made; yet the very next day, that is, on Friday, the 14th of December,
he brought on what in effect was the very same business, and on the same
principles, a _second_ time.
10. Although the House does not usually sit on Saturday, he a _third_
time brought on another proposition in the same spirit, and pursued it
with so much heat and perseverance as to sit into Sunday: a thing not
known in Parliament for many years.
11. In all these motions and debates he wholly departed from all the
political principles relative to France (considered merely as a state,
and independent of its Jacobin form of government) which had hitherto
been held fundamental in this country, and which he had himself held
more strongly than any man in Parliament. He at that time studiously
separated himself from those to whose sentiments he used to profess no
small regard, although those sentiments were publicly declared. I had
then no concern in the party, having been, for some time, with all
outrage, excluded from it; but, on general principles, I must say that a
person who assumes to be leader of a party composed of freemen and of
gentlemen ought to pay some degree of deference to their feelings, and
even to their prejudices. He ought to have some degree of management for
their credit and influence in their country. He showed so very little of
this delicacy, that he compared the alarm raised in the minds of the
Duke of Portland's party, (which was his own,) an alarm in which they
sympathized with the greater part of the nation, to the panic produced
by the pretended Popish plot in the reign of Charles the
Second,--describing it to be, as that was, a contrivance of knaves, and
believed only by well-meaning dupes and madmen.
12. The Monday following (the 17th of December) he pursued the same
conduct. The means used in England to coöperate with the Jacobin army in
politics agreed with their modes of proceeding: I allude to the
mischievous writings circulated with much industry and success, as well
as the seditious clubs, which at that time added not a little to the
alarm taken by observing and well-informed men. The writings and the
clubs were two evils which marched together. Mr. Fox discovered the
greatest possible disposition to favor and countenance the one as well
as the other of these two grand instruments of the French system. He
would hardly consider any political writing whatsoever as a libel, or as
a fit object of prosecution. At a time in which the press has been the
grand instrument of the subversion of order, of morals, of religion,
and, I may say, of human society itself, to carry the doctrines of its
liberty higher than ever it has been known by its most extravagant
assertors, even in France, gave occasion to very serious reflections.
Mr. Fox treated the associations for prosecuting these libels as tending
to prevent the improvement of the human mind, and as a mobbish tyranny.
He thought proper to compare them with the riotous assemblies of Lord
George Gordon in 1780, declaring that he had advised his friends in
Westminster to sign the associations, whether they agreed to them or
not, in order that they might avoid destruction to their persons or
their houses, or a desertion of their shops. This insidious advice
tended to confound those who wished well to the object of the
association with the seditious against whom the association was
directed. By this stratagem, the confederacy intended for preserving the
British Constitution and the public peace would be wholly defeated. The
magistrates, utterly incapable of distinguishing the friends from the
enemies of order, would in vain look for support, when they stood in the
greatest need of it.
13. Mr. Fox's whole conduct, on this occasion, was without example. The
very morning after these violent declamations in the House of Commons
against the association, (that is, on Tuesday, the 18th,) he went
himself to a meeting of St. George's parish, and there signed an
association of the nature and tendency of those he had the night before
so vehemently condemned; and several of his particular and most intimate
friends, inhabitants of that parish, attended and signed along with him.
14. Immediately after this extraordinary step, and in order perfectly to
defeat the ends of that association against Jacobin publications,
(which, contrary to his opinions, he had promoted and signed,) a
mischievous society was formed under his auspices, called _The Friends
of the Liberty of the Press_. Their title groundlessly insinuated that
the freedom of the press had lately suffered, or was now threatened
with, some violation. This society was only, in reality, another
modification of the society calling itself _The Friends of the People_,
which in the preceding summer had caused so much uneasiness in the Duke
of Portland's mind, and in the minds of several of his friends. This new
society was composed of many, if not most, of the members of the club of
the Friends of the People, with the addition of a vast multitude of
others (such as Mr. Horne Tooke) of the worst and most seditious
dispositions that could be found in the whole kingdom. In the first
meeting of this club Mr. Erskine took the lead, and directly (without
any disavowal ever since on Mr. Fox's part) _made use of his name and
authority in favor of its formation and purposes_. In the same meeting
Mr. Erskine had thanks for his defence of Paine, which amounted to a
complete avowal of that Jacobin incendiary; else it is impossible to
know how Mr. Erskine should have deserved such marked applauses for
acting merely as a lawyer for his fee, in the ordinary course of his
profession.
15. Indeed, Mr. Fox appeared the general patron of all such persons and
proceedings. When Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and other persons, for
practices of the most dangerous kind, in Paris and in London, were
removed from the King's Guards, Mr. Fox took occasion in the House of
Commons heavily to censure that act, as unjust and oppressive, and
tending to make officers bad citizens. There were few, however, who did
not call for some such measures on the part of government, as of
absolute necessity for the king's personal safety, as well as that of
the public; and nothing but the mistaken lenity, with which such
practices were rather discountenanced than punished, could possibly
deserve reprehension in what was done with regard to those gentlemen.
16. Mr. Fox regularly and systematically, and with a diligence long
unusual to him, did everything he could to countenance the same
principle of fraternity and connection with the Jacobins abroad, and the
National Convention of France, for which these officers had been removed
from the Guards. For when a bill (feeble and lax, indeed, and far short
of the vigor required by the conjuncture) was brought in for removing
out of the kingdom the emissaries of France, Mr. Fox opposed it with all
his might. He pursued a vehement and detailed opposition to it through
all its stages, describing it as a measure contrary to the existing
treaties between Great Britain and France, as a violation of the law of
nations, and as an outrage on the Great Charter itself.
17. In the same manner, and with the same heat, he opposed a bill which
(though awkward and inartificial in its construction) was right and wise
in its principle, and was precedented in the best times, and absolutely
necessary at that juncture: I mean the Traitorous Correspondence Bill.
By these means the enemy, rendered infinitely dangerous by the links of
real faction and pretended commerce, would have been (had Mr. Fox
succeeded) enabled to carry on the war against us by our own resources.
For this purpose that enemy would have had his agents and traitors in
the midst of us.
18. When at length war was actually declared by the usurpers in France
against this kingdom, and declared whilst they were pretending a
negotiation through Dumouriez with Lord Auckland, Mr. Fox still
continued, through the whole of the proceedings, to discredit the
national honor and justice, and to throw the entire blame of the war on
Parliament, and on his own country, as acting with violence,
haughtiness, and want of equity. He frequently asserted, both at the
time and ever since, that the war, though declared by France, was
provoked by us, and that it was wholly unnecessary and fundamentally
unjust.
19. He has lost no opportunity of railing, in the most virulent manner
and in the most unmeasured language, at every foreign power with whom we
could now, or at any time, contract any useful or effectual alliance
against France,--declaring that he hoped no alliance with those powers
was made, or was in a train of being made.[1] He always expressed
himself with the utmost horror concerning such alliances. So did all
his phalanx. Mr. Sheridan in particular, after one of his invectives
against those powers, sitting by him, said, with manifest marks of his
approbation, that, if we must go to war, he had rather go to war alone
than with such allies.
20. Immediately after the French declaration of war against us,
Parliament addressed the king in support of the war against them, as
just and necessary, and provoked, as well as formally declared against
Great Britain. He did not divide the House upon this measure; yet he
immediately followed this our solemn Parliamentary engagement to the
king with a motion proposing a set of resolutions, the effect of which
was, that the two Houses were to load themselves with every kind of
reproach for having made the address which they had just carried to the
throne. He commenced this long string of criminatory resolutions against
his country (if King, Lords, and Commons of Great Britain, and a decided
majority without doors are his country) _with a declaration against
intermeddling in the interior concerns of France_. The purport of this
resolution of non-interference is a thing unexampled in the history of
the world, when one nation has been actually at war with another. The
best writers on the law of nations give no sort of countenance to his
doctrine of non-interference, in the extent and manner in which he used
it, _even when there is no war_. When the war exists, not one authority
is against it in all its latitude. His doctrine is equally contrary to
the enemy's uniform practice, who, whether in peace or in war, makes it
his great aim not only to change the government, but to make an entire
revolution in the whole of the social order in every country.
The object of the last of this extraordinary string of resolutions moved
by Mr. Fox was to advise the crown not to enter into such an engagement
with any foreign power so as to hinder us from making a _separate_ peace
with France, or which might tend to enable any of those powers to
introduce a government in that country other than such as those persons
whom he calls the people of France shall choose to establish. In short,
the whole of these resolutions appeared to have but one drift, namely,
the sacrifice of our own domestic dignity and safety, and the
independency of Europe, to the support of this strange mixture of
anarchy and tyranny which prevails in France, and which Mr. Fox and his
party were pleased to call a government. The immediate consequence of
these measures was (by an example the ill effects of which on the whole
world are not to be calculated) to secure the robbers of the innocent
nobility, gentry, and ecclesiastics of France in the enjoyment of the
spoil they have made of the estates, houses, and goods of their
fellow-citizens.
21. Not satisfied with moving these resolutions, tending to confirm this
horrible tyranny and robbery, and with actually dividing the House on
the first of the long string which they composed, in a few days
afterwards he encouraged and supported Mr. Grey in producing the very
same string in a new form, and in moving, under the shape of an address
of Parliament to the crown, another virulent libel on all its own
proceedings in this session, in which not only all the ground of the
resolutions was again travelled over, but much new inflammatory matter
was introduced. In particular, a charge was made, that Great Britain had
not interposed to prevent the last partition of Poland. On this head
the party dwelt very largely and very vehemently. Mr. Fox's intention,
in the choice of this extraordinary topic, was evident enough. He well
knows two things: first, that no wise or honest man can approve of that
partition, or can contemplate it without prognosticating great mischief
from it to all countries at some future time; secondly, he knows quite
as well, that, let our opinions on that partition be what they will,
England, by itself, is not in a situation to afford to Poland any
assistance whatsoever. The purpose of the introduction of Polish
politics into this discussion was not for the sake of Poland; it was to
throw an odium upon those who are obliged to decline the cause of
justice from their impossibility of supporting a cause which they
approve: as if we, who think more strongly on this subject than he does,
were of a party against Poland, because we are obliged to act with some
of the authors of that injustice against our common enemy, France. But
the great and leading purpose of this introduction of Poland into the
debates on the French war was to divert the public attention from what
was in our power, that is, from a steady coöperation against France, to
a quarrel with the allies for the sake of a Polish war, which, for any
useful purpose to Poland, he knew it was out of our power to make. If
England can touch Poland ever so remotely, it must be through the medium
of alliances. But by attacking all the combined powers together for
their supposed unjust aggression upon France, he bound them by a now
common interest not separately to join England for the rescue of Poland.
The proposition could only mean to do what all the writers of his party
in the Morning Chronicle have aimed at persuading the public to, through
the whole of the last autumn and winter, and to this hour: that is, to
an alliance with the Jacobins of France, for the pretended purpose of
succoring Poland. This curious project would leave to Great Britain no
other ally in all Europe except its old enemy, France.
22. Mr. Fox, after the first day's discussion on the question for the
address, was at length driven to admit (to admit rather than to urge,
and that very faintly) that France had discovered ambitious views, which
none of his partisans, that I recollect, (Mr. Sheridan excepted,) did,
however, either urge or admit. What is remarkable enough, all the points
admitted against the Jacobins were brought to bear in their favor as
much as those in which they were defended. For when Mr. Fox admitted
that the conduct of the Jacobins did discover ambition, he always ended
his admission of their ambitious views by an apology for them, insisting
that the universally hostile disposition shown to them rendered their
ambition a sort of defensive policy. Thus, on whatever roads he
travelled, they all terminated in recommending a recognition of their
pretended republic, and in the plan of sending an ambassador to it. This
was the burden of all his song:--"Everything which we could reasonably
hope from war would be obtained from treaty." It is to be observed,
however, that, in all these debates, Mr. Fox never once stated to the
House upon what ground it was he conceived that all the objects of the
French system of united fanaticism and ambition would instantly be given
up, whenever England should think fit to propose a treaty. On proposing
so strange a recognition and so humiliating an embassy as he moved, he
was bound to produce his authority, if any authority he had. He ought to
have done this the rather, because Le Brun, in his first propositions,
and in his answers to Lord Grenville, defended, _on principle, not on
temporary convenience_, everything which was objected to France, and
showed not the smallest disposition to give up any one of the points in
discussion. Mr. Fox must also have known that the Convention had passed
to the order of the day, on a proposition to give some sort of
explanation or modification to the hostile decree of the 19th of
November for exciting insurrections in all countries,--a decree known to
be peculiarly pointed at Great Britain. The whole proceeding of the
French administration was the most remote that could be imagined from
furnishing any indication of a pacific disposition: for at the very time
in which it was pretended that the Jacobins entertained those boasted
pacific intentions, at the very time in which Mr. Fox was urging a
treaty with them, not content with refusing a modification of the decree
for insurrections, they published their ever-memorable decree of the
15th of December, 1792, for disorganizing every country in Europe into
which they should on any occasion set their foot; and on the 25th and
the 30th of the same month, they solemnly, and, on the last of these
days, practically, confirmed that decree.
23. But Mr. Fox had himself taken good care, in the negotiation he
proposed, that France should not be obliged to make any very great
concessions to her presumed moderation: for he had laid down one
general, comprehensive rule, with him (as he said) constant and
inviolable. This rule, in fact, would not only have left to the faction
in France all the property and power they had usurped at home, but most,
if not all, of the conquests which by their atrocious perfidy and
violence they had made abroad. The principle laid down by Mr. Fox is
this,--"_That every state, in the conclusion of a war, has a right to
avail itself of its conquests towards an indemnification_." This
principle (true or false) is totally contrary to the policy which this
country has pursued with France at various periods, particularly at the
Treaty of Ryswick, in the last century, and at the Treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle, in this. Whatever the merits of his rule may be in the
eyes of neutral judges, it is a rule which no statesman before him ever
laid down in favor of the adverse power with whom he was to negotiate.
The adverse party himself may safely be trusted to take care of his
_own_ aggrandizement. But (as if the black boxes of the several parties
had been exchanged) Mr. Fox's English ambassador, by some odd mistake,
would find himself charged with the concerns of France. If we were to
leave France as she stood at the time when Mr. Fox proposed to treat
with her, that formidable power must have been infinitely strengthened,
and almost every other power in Europe as much weakened, by the
extraordinary basis which he laid for a treaty. For Avignon must go from
the Pope; Savoy (at least) from the King of Sardinia, if not Nice.
Liege, Mentz, Salm, Deux-Ponts, and Basle must be separated from
Germany. On this side of the Rhine, Liege (at least) must be lost to the
Empire, and added to France. Mr. Fox's general principle fully covered
all this. How much of these territories came within his rule he never
attempted to define. He kept a profound silence as to Germany. As to
the Netherlands he was something more explicit. He said (if I recollect
right) that France on that side might expect something towards
strengthening her frontier. As to the remaining parts of the
Netherlands, which he supposed France might consent to surrender, he
went so far as to declare that England ought not to permit the Emperor
to be repossessed of the remainder of the ten Provinces, but that _the
people_ should choose such a form of independent government as they
liked. This proposition of Mr. Fox was just the arrangement which the
usurpation in France had all along proposed to make. As the
circumstances were at that time, and have been ever since, his
proposition fully indicated what government the Flemings _must_ have in
the stated extent of what was left to them. A government so set up in
the Netherlands, whether compulsory, or by the choice of the
_sans-culottes_, (who he well knew were to be the real electors, and the
sole electors,) in whatever name it was to exist, must evidently depend
for its existence, as it had done for its original formation, on France.
In reality, it must have ended in that point to which, piece by piece,
the French were then actually bringing all the Netherlands,--that is, an
incorporation with France as a body of new Departments, just as Savoy
and Liege and the rest of their pretended independent popular
sovereignties have been united to their republic. Such an arrangement
must have destroyed Austria; it must have left Holland always at the
mercy of France; it must totally and forever cut off all political
communication between England and the Continent. Such must have been the
situation of Europe, according to Mr. Fox's system of politics, however
laudable his personal motives may have been in proposing so complete a
change in the whole system of Great Britain with regard to all the
Continental powers.
24. After it had been generally supposed that all public business was
over for the session, and that Mr. Fox had exhausted all the modes of
pressing this French scheme, he thought proper to take a step beyond
every expectation, and which demonstrated his wonderful eagerness and
perseverance in his cause, as well as the nature and true character of
the cause itself. This step was taken by Mr. Fox immediately after his
giving his assent to the grant of supply voted to him by Mr. Serjeant
Adair and a committee of gentlemen who assumed to themselves to act in
the name of the public. In the instrument of his acceptance of this
grant, Mr. Fox took occasion to assure them that he would always
persevere _in the same conduct_ which had procured to him so honorable a
mark of the public approbation. He was as good as his word.
25. It was not long before an opportunity was found, or made, for
proving the sincerity of his professions, and demonstrating his
gratitude to those who had given public and unequivocal marks of their
approbation of his late conduct. One of the most virulent of the Jacobin
faction, Mr. Gurney, a banker at Norwich, had all along distinguished
himself by his French politics. By the means of this gentleman, and of
his associates of the same description, one of the most insidious and
dangerous handbills that ever was seen had been circulated at Norwich
against the war, drawn up in an hypocritical tone of compassion for the
poor. This address to the populace of Norwich was to play in concert
with an address to Mr. Fox; it was signed by Mr. Gurney and the higher
part of the French fraternity in that town. In this paper Mr. Fox is
applauded for his conduct throughout the session, and requested, before
the prorogation, to make a motion for an immediate peace with France.
26. Mr. Fox did not revoke to this suit: he readily and thankfully
undertook the task assigned to him. Not content, however, with merely
falling in with their wishes, he proposed a task on his part to the
gentlemen of Norwich, which was, _that they should move the people
without doors to petition against the war_. He said, that, without such
assistance, little good could be expected from anything he might attempt
within the walls of the House of Commons. In the mean time, to animate
his Norwich friends in their endeavors to besiege Parliament, he
snatched the first opportunity to give notice of a motion which he very
soon after made, namely, to address the crown to make peace with France.
The address was so worded as to coöperate with the handbill in bringing
forward matter calculated to inflame the manufacturers throughout the
kingdom.