protected by its laws? I hardly think it. On the contrary, I conceive
that these things happen because men are not changed, but remain always
what they always were; they remain what the bulk of us ever must be,
when abandoned to our vulgar propensities, without guide, leader, or
control: that is, made to be full of a blind elevation in prosperity; to
despise untried dangers; to be overpowered with unexpected reverses; to
find no clew in a labyrinth of difficulties; to get out of a present
inconvenience with any risk of future ruin; to follow and to bow to
fortune; to admire successful, though wicked enterprise, and to imitate
what we admire; to contemn the government which announces danger from
sacrilege and regicide whilst they are only in their infancy and their
struggle, but which finds nothing that can alarm in their adult state,
and in the power and triumph of those destructive principles. In a mass
we cannot be left to ourselves. We must have leaders. If none will
undertake to lead us right, we shall find guides who will contrive to
conduct us to shame and ruin.
We are in a war of a _peculiar_ nature. It is not with an ordinary
community, which is hostile or friendly as passion or as interest may
veer about,--not with a state which makes war through wantonness, and
abandons it through lassitude. We are at war with a system which by its
essence is inimical to all other governments, and which makes peace or
war as peace and war may best contribute to their subversion. It is with
an _armed doctrine_ that we are at war. It has, by its essence, a
faction of opinion and of interest and of enthusiasm in every country.
To us it is a Colossus which bestrides our Channel. It has one foot on a
foreign shore, the other upon the British soil. Thus advantaged, if it
can at all exist, it must finally prevail. Nothing can so completely
ruin any of the old governments, ours in particular, as the
acknowledgment, directly or by implication, of any kind of superiority
in this new power. This acknowledgment we make, if, in a bad or doubtful
situation of our affairs, we solicit peace, or if we yield to the modes
of new humiliation in which alone she is content to give us an hearing.
By that means the terms cannot be of our choosing,--no, not in any part.
It is laid in the unalterable constitution of things,--None can aspire
to act greatly but those who are of force greatly to suffer. They who
make their arrangements in the first run of misadventure, and in a
temper of mind the common fruit of disappointment and dismay, put a seal
on their calamities. To their power they take a security against any
favors which they might hope from the usual inconstancy of fortune. I am
therefore, my dear friend, invariably of your opinion, (though full of
respect for those who think differently,) that neither the time chosen
for it, nor the manner of soliciting a negotiation, were properly
considered,--even though I had allowed (I hardly shall allow) that with
the horde of Regicides we could by any selection of time or use of means
obtain anything at all deserving the name of peace.
In one point we are lucky. The Regicide has received our advances with
scorn. We have an enemy to whose virtues we can owe nothing, but on this
occasion we are infinitely obliged to one of his vices. We owe more to
his insolence than to our own precaution. The haughtiness by which the
proud repel us has this of good in it,--that, in making us keep our
distance, they must keep their distance too. In the present case, the
pride of the Regicide may be our safety. He has given time for our
reason to operate, and for British dignity to recover from its surprise.
From first to last he has rejected all our advances. Far as we have
gone, he has still left a way open to our retreat.
There is always an augury to be taken of what a peace is likely to be
from the preliminary steps that are made to bring it about. We may
gather something from the time in which the first overtures are made,
from the quarter whence they come, from the manner in which they are
received. These discover the temper of the parties. If your enemy
offers peace in the moment of success, it indicates that he is satisfied
with something. It shows that there are limits to his ambition or his
resentment. If he offers nothing under misfortune, it is probable that
it is more painful to him to abandon the prospect of advantage than to
endure calamity. If he rejects solicitation, and will not give even a
nod to the suppliants for peace, until a change in the fortune of the
war threatens him with ruin, then I think it evident that he wishes
nothing more than to disarm his adversary to gain time. Afterwards a
question arises, Which of the parties is likely to obtain the greater
advantages by continuing disarmed and by the use of time?
With these few plain indications in our minds, it will not be improper
to reconsider the conduct of the enemy together with our own, from the
day that a question of peace has been in agitation. In considering this
part of the question, I do not proceed on my own hypothesis. I suppose,
for a moment, that this body of Regicide, calling itself a Republic, is
a politic person, with whom something deserving the name of peace may be
made. On that supposition, let us examine our own proceeding. Let us
compute the profit it has brought, and the advantage that it is likely
to bring hereafter. A peace too eagerly sought is not always the sooner
obtained. The discovery of vehement wishes generally frustrates their
attainment, and your adversary has gained a great advantage over you
when he finds you impatient to conclude a treaty. There is in reserve
not only something of dignity, but a great deal of prudence too. A sort
of courage belongs to negotiation, as well as to operations of the
field. A negotiator must often seem willing to hazard the whole issue
of his treaty, if he wishes to secure any one material point.
The Regicides were the first to declare war. We are the first to sue for
peace. In proportion to the humility and perseverance we have shown in
our addresses has been the obstinacy of their arrogance in rejecting our
suit. The patience of their pride seems to have been worn out with the
importunity of our courtship. Disgusted as they are with a conduct so
different from all the sentiments by which they are themselves filled,
they think to put an end to our vexatious solicitation by redoubling
their insults.
It happens frequently that pride may reject a public advance, while
interest listens to a secret suggestion of advantage. The opportunity
has been afforded. At a very early period in the diplomacy of
humiliation, a gentleman was sent on an errand,[23] of which, from the
motive of it, whatever the event might be, we can never be ashamed.
Humanity cannot be degraded by humiliation. It is its very character to
submit to such things. There is a consanguinity between benevolence and
humility. They are virtues of the same stock. Dignity is of as good a
race; but it belongs to the family of fortitude. In the spirit of that
benevolence, we sent a gentleman to beseech the Directory of Regicide
not to be quite so prodigal as their republic had been of judicial
murder. We solicited them to spare the lives of some unhappy persons of
the first distinction, whose safety at other times could not have been
an object of solicitation. They had quitted France on the faith of the
declaration of the rights of citizens. They never had been in the
service of the Regicides, nor at their hands had received any stipend.
The very system and constitution of government that now prevails was
settled subsequent to their emigration. They were under the protection
of Great Britain, and in his Majesty's pay and service. Not an hostile
invasion, but the disasters of the sea, had thrown them upon a shore
more barbarous and inhospitable than the inclement ocean under the most
pitiless of its storms. Here was an opportunity to express a feeling for
the miseries of war, and to open some sort of conversation, which,
(after our public overtures had glutted their pride,) at a cautious and
jealous distance, might lead to something like an accommodation.--What
was the event? A strange, uncouth thing, a theatrical figure of the
opera, his head shaded with three-colored plumes, his body fantastically
habited, strutted from the back scenes, and, after a short speech, in
the mock-heroic falsetto of stupid tragedy, delivered the gentleman who
came to make the representation into the custody of a guard, with
directions not to lose sight of him for a moment, and then ordered him
to be sent from Paris in two hours.
Here it is impossible that a sentiment of tenderness should not strike
athwart the sternness of politics, and make us recall to painful memory
the difference between this insolent and bloody theatre and the
temperate, natural majesty of a civilized court, where the afflicted
family of Asgill did not in vain solicit the mercy of the highest in
rank and the most compassionate of the compassionate sex.
In this intercourse, at least, there was nothing to promise a great deal
of success in our future advances. Whilst the fortune of the field was
wholly with the Regicides, nothing was thought of but to follow where it
led: and it led to everything. Not so much as a talk of treaty. Laws
were laid down with arrogance. The most moderate politician in their
clan[24] was chosen as the organ, not so much for prescribing limits to
their claims as to mark what for the present they are content to leave
to others. They made, not laws, not conventions, not late possession,
but physical Nature and political convenience the sole foundation of
their claims. The Rhine, the Mediterranean, and the ocean were the
bounds which, for the time, they assigned to the Empire of Regicide.
What was the Chamber of Union of Louis the Fourteenth, which astonished
and provoked all Europe, compared to this declaration? In truth, with
these limits, and their principle, they would not have left even the
shadow of liberty or safety to any nation. This plan of empire was not
taken up in the first intoxication of unexpected success. You must
recollect that it was projected, just as the report has stated it, from
the very first revolt of the faction against their monarchy; and it has
been uniformly pursued, as a standing maxim of national policy, from
that time to this. It is generally in the season of prosperity that men
discover their real temper, principles, and designs. But this principle,
suggested in their first struggles, fully avowed in their prosperity,
has, in the most adverse state of their affairs, been tenaciously
adhered to. The report, combined with their conduct, forms an infallible
criterion of the views of this republic.
In their fortune there has been some fluctuation. We are to see how
their minds have been affected with a change. Some impression it made on
them, undoubtedly. It produced some oblique notice of the submissions
that were made by suppliant nations. The utmost they did was to make
some of those cold, formal, general professions of a love of peace which
no power has ever refused to make, because they mean little and cost
nothing. The first paper I have seen (the publication at Hamburg) making
a show of that pacific disposition discovered a rooted animosity against
this nation, and an incurable rancor, even more than any one of their
hostile acts. In this Hamburg declaration they choose to suppose that
the war, on the part of England, _is a war of government, begun and
carried on against the sense and interests of the people_,--thus sowing
in their very overtures towards peace the seeds of tumult and sedition:
for they never have abandoned, and never will they abandon, in peace, in
war, in treaty, in any situation, or for one instant, their old, steady
maxim of separating the people from their government. Let me add, (and
it is with unfeigned anxiety for the character and credit of ministers
that I do add,) if our government perseveres in its as uniform course of
acting under instruments with such preambles, it pleads guilty to the
charges made by our enemies against it, both on its own part and on the
part of Parliament itself. The enemy must succeed in his plan for
loosening and disconnecting all the internal holdings of the kingdom.
It was not enough that the speech from the throne, in the opening of the
session in 1795, threw out oglings and glances of tenderness. Lest this
coquetting should seem too cold and ambiguous, without waiting for its
effect, the violent passion for a relation to the Regicides produced a
direct message from the crown, and its consequences from the two Houses
of Parliament. On the part of the Regicides these declarations could not
be entirely passed by without notice; but in that notice they discovered
still more clearly the bottom of their character. The offer made to them
by the message to Parliament was hinted at in their answer,--but in an
obscure and oblique manner, as before. They accompanied their notice of
the indications manifested on our side with every kind of insolent and
taunting reflection. The Regicide Directory, on the day which, in their
gypsy jargon, they call the 5th of _Pluviose_, in return for our
advances, charge us with eluding our declarations under "evasive
formalities and frivolous pretexts." What these pretexts and evasions
were they do not say, and I have never heard. But they do not rest
there. They proceed to charge us, and, as it should seem, our allies in
the mass, with direct _perfidy_; they are so conciliatory in their
language as to hint that this perfidious character is not new in our
proceedings. However, notwithstanding this our habitual perfidy, they
will offer peace "on conditions _as_ moderate"--as what? as reason and
as equity require? No,--as moderate "as are suitable to their _national
dignity_." National dignity in all treaties I do admit is an important
consideration: they have given us an useful hint on that subject: but
dignity hitherto has belonged to the mode of proceeding, not to the
matter of a treaty. Never before has it been mentioned as the standard
for rating the conditions of peace,--no, never by the most violent of
conquerors. Indemnification is capable of some estimate; dignity has no
standard. It is impossible to guess what acquisitions pride and ambition
may think fit for their _dignity_. But lest any doubt should remain on
what they think for their dignity, the Regicides in the next paragraph
tell us "that they will have no peace with their enemies, until they
have reduced them to a state which will put them under an
_impossibility_ of pursuing their wretched projects,"--that is, in plain
French or English, until they have accomplished our utter and
irretrievable ruin. This is their _pacific_ language. It flows from
their unalterable principle, in whatever language they speak or whatever
steps they take, whether of real war or of pretended pacification. They
have never, to do them justice, been at much trouble in concealing their
intentions. We were as obstinately resolved to think them not in
earnest: but I confess, jests of this sort, whatever their urbanity may
be, are not much to my taste.
To this conciliatory and amicable public communication our sole answer,
in effect, is this:--"Citizen Regicides! whenever _you_ find yourselves
in the humor, you may have a peace with _us_. That is a point you may
always command. We are constantly in attendance, and nothing you can do
shall hinder us from the renewal of our supplications. You may turn us
out at the door, but we will jump in at the window."
To those who do not love to contemplate the fall of human greatness, I
do not know a more mortifying spectacle than to see the assembled
majesty of the crowned heads of Europe waiting as patient suitors in the
antechamber of Regicide. They wait, it seems, until the sanguinary
tyrant Carnot shall have snorted away the fumes of the indigested blood
of his sovereign. Then, when, sunk on the down of usurped pomp, he shall
have sufficiently indulged his meditations with what monarch he shall
next glut his ravening maw, he may condescend to signify that it is his
pleasure to be awake, and that he is at leisure to receive the proposals
of his high and mighty clients for the terms on which he may respite the
execution of the sentence he has passed upon them. At the opening of
those doors, what a sight it must be to behold the plenipotentiaries of
royal impotence, in the precedency which they will intrigue to obtain,
and which will be granted to them according to the seniority of their
degradation, sneaking into the Regicide presence, and, with the relics
of the smile which they had dressed up for the levee of their masters
still flickering on their curled lips, presenting the faded remains of
their courtly graces, to meet the scornful, ferocious, sardonic grin of
a bloody ruffian, who, whilst he is receiving their homage, is measuring
them with his eye, and fitting to their size the slider of his
guillotine! These ambassadors may easily return as good courtiers as
they went; but can they ever return from that degrading residence loyal
and faithful subjects, or with any true affection to their master, or
true attachment to the constitution, religion, or laws of their country?
There is great danger that they, who enter smiling into this Trophonian
cave, will come out of it sad and serious conspirators, and such will
continue as long as they live. They will become true conductors of
contagion to every country which has had the misfortune to send them to
the source of that electricity. At best, they will become totally
indifferent to good and evil, to one institution or another. This
species of indifference is but too generally distinguishable in those
who have been much employed in foreign courts, but in the present case
the evil must be aggravated without measure: for they go from their
country, not with the pride of the old character, but in a state of the
lowest degradation; and what must happen in their place of residence can
have no effect in raising them to the level of true dignity or of chaste
self-estimation, either as men or as representatives of crowned heads.
Our early proceeding, which has produced these returns of affront,
appeared to me totally new, without being adapted to the new
circumstances of affairs. I have called to my mind the speeches and
messages in former times. I find nothing like these. You will look in
the journals to find whether my memory fails me. Before this time, never
was a ground of peace laid, (as it were, in a Parliamentary record,)
until it had been as good as concluded. This was a wise homage paid to
the discretion of the crown. It was known how much a negotiation must
suffer by having anything in the train towards it prematurely disclosed.
But when those Parliamentary declarations were made, not so much as a
step had been taken towards a negotiation in any mode whatever. The
measure was an unpleasant and unseasonable discovery.
I conceive that another circumstance in that transaction has been as
little authorized by any example, and that it is as little prudent in
itself: I mean the formal recognition of the French Republic. Without
entering, for the present, into a question on the good faith manifested
in that measure, or on its general policy, I doubt, upon mere temporary
considerations of prudence, whether it was perfectly advisable. It is
not within, the rules of dexterous conduct to make an acknowledgment of
a contested title in your enemy before you are morally certain that your
recognition will secure his friendship. Otherwise it is a measure worse
than thrown away. It adds infinitely to the strength, and consequently
to the demands, of the adverse party. He has gained a fundamental point
without an equivalent. It has happened as might have been foreseen. No
notice whatever was taken of this recognition. In fact, the Directory
never gave themselves any concern about it; and they received our
acknowledgment with perfect scorn. With them it is not for the states of
Europe to judge of their title: the very reverse. In their eye the title
of every other power depends wholly on their pleasure.
Preliminary declarations of this sort, thrown out at random, and sown,
as it wore, broadcast, were never to be found in the mode of our
proceeding with France and Spain, whilst the great monarchies of France
and Spain existed. I do not say that a diplomatic measure ought to be,
like a parliamentary or a judicial proceeding, according to strict
precedent: I hope I am far from that pedantry. But this I know: that a
great state ought to have some regard to its ancient maxims, especially
where they indicate its dignity, where they concur with the rules of
prudence, and, above all, where the circumstances of the time require
that a spirit of innovation should be resisted which leads to the
humiliation of sovereign powers. It would be ridiculous to assert that
those powers have suffered nothing in their estimation. I admit that
the greater interests of state will for a moment supersede all other
considerations; but if there was a rule, that a sovereign never should
let down his dignity without a sure payment to his interest, the dignity
of kings would be held high enough. At present, however, fashion governs
in more serious things than furniture and dress. It looks as if
sovereigns abroad were emulous in bidding against their estimation. It
seems as if the preëminence of regicide was acknowledged,--and that
kings tacitly ranked themselves below their sacrilegious murderers, as
natural magistrates and judges over them. It appears as if dignity were
the prerogative of crime, and a temporizing humiliation the proper part
for venerable authority. If the vilest of mankind are resolved to be the
most wicked, they lose all the baseness of their origin, and take their
place above kings. This example in foreign princes I trust will not
spread. It is the concern of mankind, that the destruction of order
should not, be a claim to rank, that crimes should not be the only title
to preëminence and honor.
At this second stage of humiliation, (I mean the insulting declaration
in consequence of the message to both Houses of Parliament,) it might
not have been amiss to pause, and not to squander away the fund of our
submissions, until we knew what final purposes of public interest they
might answer. The policy of subjecting ourselves to further insults is
not to me quite apparent. It was resolved, however, to hazard a third
trial. Citizen Barthélemy had been established, on the part of the new
republic, at Basle,--where, with his proconsulate of Switzerland and the
adjacent parts of Germany, he was appointed as a sort of factor to deal
in the degradation of the crowned heads of Europe. At Basle it was
thought proper, in order to keep others, I suppose, in countenance, that
Great Britain should appear at this market, and bid with the rest for
the mercy of the People-King.
On the 6th of March, 1796, Mr. Wickham, in consequence of authority, was
desired to sound France on her disposition towards a general
pacification,--to know whether she would consent to send ministers to a
congress at such a place as might be hereafter agreed upon,--whether
there would be a disposition to communicate the general grounds of a
pacification, such as France (the diplomatic name of the Regicide power)
would be willing to propose, as a foundation for a negotiation for peace
with his Majesty _and his allies_, or to suggest any other way of
arriving at the same end of a general pacification: but he had no
authority to enter into any negotiation or discussion with Citizen
Barthélemy upon these subjects.
On the part of Great Britain this measure was a voluntary act, wholly
uncalled for on the part of Regicide. Suits of this sort are at least
strong indications of a desire for accommodation. Any other body of men
but the Directory would be somewhat soothed with such advances. They
could not, however, begin their answer, which was given without much
delay, and communicated on the 28th of the same month, without a
preamble of insult and reproach. "They doubt the sincerity of the
pacific intentions of this court." She did not begin, say they, yet to
"know her real interests." "She did not seek peace _with good faith_."
This, or something to this effect, has been the constant preliminary
observation (now grown into a sort of office form) on all our overtures
to this power: a perpetual charge on the British government of fraud,
evasion, and habitual perfidy.