living is less disposed to blame the present ministry than I am. Some of
my oldest friends (and I wish I could say it of more of them) make a
part in that ministry. There are some, indeed, "whom my dim eyes in vain
explore." In my mind, a greater calamity could not have fallen on the
public than the exclusion of one of them. But I drive away that, with
other melancholy thoughts. A great deal ought to be said upon that
subject, or nothing. As to the distinguished persons to whom my friends
who remain are joined, if benefits nobly and generously conferred ought
to procure good wishes, they are entitled to my best vows; and they have
them all. They have administered to me the only consolation I am capable
of receiving, which is, to know that no individual will suffer by my
thirty years' service to the public. If things should give us the
comparative happiness of a struggle, I shall be found, I was going to
say fighting, (that would be foolish,) but dying, by the side of Mr.
Pitt. I must add, that, if anything defensive in our domestic system
can possibly save us from the disasters of a Regicide peace, he is the
man to save us. If the finances in such a case can be repaired, he is
the man to repair them. If I should lament any of his acts, it is only
when they appear to me to have no resemblance to acts of his. But let
him not have a confidence in himself which no human abilities can
warrant. His abilities are fully equal (and that is to say much for any
man) to those which are opposed to him. But if we look to him as our
security against the consequences of a Regicide peace, let us be assured
that a Regicide peace and a constitutional ministry are terms that will
not agree. With a Regicide peace the king cannot long have a minister to
serve him, nor the minister a king to serve. If the Great Disposer, in
reward of the royal and the private virtues of our sovereign, should
call him from the calamitous spectacles which will attend a state of
amity with Regicide, his successor will surely see them, unless the same
Providence greatly anticipates the course of Nature. Thinking thus, (and
not, as I conceive, on light grounds,) I dare not flatter the reigning
sovereign, nor any minister he has or can have, nor his successor
apparent, nor any of those who may be called to serve him, with what
appears to me a false state of their situation. We cannot have them and
that peace together.
I do not forget that there had been a considerable difference between
several of our friends (with my insignificant self) and the great man at
the head of ministry, in an early stage of these discussions. But I am
sure there was a period in which we agreed better in the danger of a
Jacobin existence in France. At one time he and all Europe seemed to
feel it. But why am not I converted with so many great powers and so
many great ministers? It is because I am old and slow. I am in this
year, 1796, only where all the powers of Europe were in 1793. I cannot
move with this precession of the equinoxes, which is preparing for us
the return of some very old, I am afraid no golden era, or the
commencement of some new era that must be denominated from some new
metal. In this crisis I must hold my tongue or I must speak with
freedom. Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatever: but, as
in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an economy of truth. It is
a sort of temperance, by which a man speaks truth with measure, that he
may speak it the longer. But as the same rules do not hold in all cases,
what would be right for you, who may presume on a series of years before
you, would have no sense for me, who cannot, without absurdity,
calculate on six months of life. What I say I _must_ say at once.
Whatever I write is in its nature testamentary. It may have the
weakness, but it has the sincerity, of a dying declaration. For the few
days I have to linger here I am removed completely from the busy scene
of the world; but I hold myself to be still responsible for everything
that I have done whilst I continued on the place of action. If the
rawest tyro in politics has been influenced by the authority of my gray
hairs, and led by anything in my speeches or my writings to enter into
this war, he has a right to call upon me to know why I have changed my
opinions, or why, when those I voted with have adopted better notions, I
persevere in exploded error.
When I seem not to acquiesce in the acts of those I respect in every
degree short of superstition, I am obliged to give my reasons fully. I
cannot set my authority against their authority. But to exert reason is
not to revolt against authority. Reason and authority do not move in the
same parallel. That reason is an _amicus curiæ_ who speaks _de plano_,
not _pro tribunali_. It is a friend who makes an useful suggestion to
the court, without questioning its jurisdiction. Whilst he acknowledges
its competence, he promotes its efficiency. I shall pursue the plan I
have chalked out in my letters that follow this.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] "Mussabat tacito medicina timore."
[23] Mr. Bird, sent to state the real situation of the Duc de Choiseul.
[24] Boissy d'Anglas.
[25] "This Court has seen, with regret, how far the tone and spirit of
that answer, the nature and extent of the demands which it contains, and
the manner of announcing them, are remote from any disposition for
peace.
"The inadmissible pretension is there avowed of appropriating to France
all that the laws actually existing there may have comprised under the
denomination of French territory. To a demand such as this is added an
express declaration that no proposal contrary to it will be made or even
listened to: and this, under the pretence of an internal regulation, the
provisions of which are wholly foreign to all other nations.
"While these dispositions shall be persisted in, nothing is left for the
king but to prosecute a war equally just and necessary.
"Whenever his enemies shall manifest more pacific sentiments, his
Majesty will at all times be eager to concur in them, by lending
himself, in concert with his allies, to all such measures as shall be
best calculated to reëstablish general tranquillity on conditions just,
honorable, and permanent: either by the establishment of a congress,
which has been so often and so happily the means of restoring peace to
Europe; or by a preliminary discussion of the principles which may be
proposed, on either side, as a foundation of a general pacification; or,
lastly, by an impartial examination of any other way which may be
pointed out to him for arriving at the same salutary end.
"_Downing Street, April 10th_, 1796."
[26] _Official Note, extracted from the Journal of the Defenders of the
Country_.
"EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY.
"Different journals have advanced that an English
plenipotentiary had reached Paris, and had presented himself to
the Executive Directory, but that, his propositions not having
appeared satisfactory, he had received orders instantly to quit
France.
"All these assertions are equally false.
"The notices given in the English papers of a minister having
been sent to Paris, there to treat of peace, bring to
recollection the overtures of Mr. Wickham to the ambassador of
the Republic at Basle, and the rumors circulated relative to the
mission of Mr. Hammond to the Court of Prussia. The
_insignificance_, or rather the _subtle duplicity_, the PUNIC
_style_ of Mr. Wickham's note, is not forgotten. According to
the partisans of the English ministry, it was to Paris that Mr.
Hammond was to come to speak for peace. When his destination
became public, and it was known that he went to Prussia, the
same writer repeated that it was to accelerate a peace, and not
withstanding the object, now well known, of this negotiation was
to engage Prussia to break her treaties with the Republic, and
to return into the coalition. The Court of Berlin, faithful to
its engagements, repulsed these _perfidious_ propositions. But
in converting this intrigue into a mission for peace, the
English ministry joined to the hope of giving a new enemy to
France _that of justifying the continuance of the war in the
eyes of the English nation, and of throwing all the odium of it
on the French, government_. Such was also the aim of Mr.
Wickham's note. _Such is still, that of the notices given at
this time in the English papers_.
This aim will appear evident, if we reflect how difficult it is
that the ambitious government of England should sincerely wish
for a, peace that would _snatch from it its maritime
preponderancy, would reëstablish the freedom of the seas, would
give a new impulse to the Spanish, Dutch, and French marines_,
and would carry to the highest degree of prosperity the industry
and commerce of those nations in, which it has always found
_rivals_, and which it has considered as _enemies_ of its
commerce, when they were tired of being its _dupes_.
"_But there will no longer be any credit given to the pacific
intentions of the English ministry when it is known that its
gold and its intrigues, its open practices and its insinuations,
besiege more than ever the Cabinet of Vienna, and are one of the
principal obstacles to the negotiation which, that Cabinet would
of itself be induced to enter on for peace_.
"They will no longer _be credited_, finally, when the moment of
the rumor of these overtures being circulated is considered.
_The English nation supports impatiently the continuance of the
war; a reply must be made to its complaints, its reproaches_:
the Parliament is about to reopen, its sittings; the mouths of
the orators who will declaim against the war must be shut, the
demand of new taxes must be justified; and to obtain these
results, it is necessary to be enabled to advance, that the
French government refuses every reasonable proposition of
peace."
[27] "In their place has succeeded a system destructive of all public
order, maintained by proscriptions, exiles, and confiscations without
number,--by arbitrary imprisonments,--by massacres which cannot be
remembered without horror,--and at length by the execrable murder of a
just and beneficent sovereign, and of the illustrious princess, who
with, an unshaken firmness has shared all the misfortunes of her royal
consort, his protracted sufferings, his cruel captivity, his ignominious
death."--"They [the Allies] have had to encounter acts of aggression
without pretext, open violations of all treaties, unprovoked
declarations of war,--in a word, whatever corruption, intrigue, or
violence could effect, for the purpose, so openly avowed, of subverting
all the institutions of society, and of extending' over all the nations
of Europe that confusion which has produced the misery of France. This
state of things cannot exist in France, without involving all the
surrounding powers in one common danger,--without giving them the right,
without imposing it upon them as a duty, to stop the progress of an evil
which exists only by the successive violation of all law and all
property, and which attacks the Fundamental principles by which mankind
is united in the bonds of civil society."--"The king would propose none
other than equitable and moderate conditions: not such as the expenses,
the risks, and the sacrifices of the war might justify, but such as his
Majesty thinks himself under the indispensable necessity of requiring,
with a view to these considerations, and still more to that of his own
security and of the future tranquillity of Europe. His Majesty desires
nothing more sincerely than thus to terminate a war which he in vain
endeavored to avoid, and all the calamities of which, as now experienced
by France, are to be attributed only to the ambition, the perfidy, and
the violence of those whose crimes have involved their own country in
misery and disgraced all civilized nations."--"The king promises on his
part the suspension of hostilities, friendship, and (as far as the
course of events will allow, of which the will of man cannot dispose)
security and protection to all those who, by declaring for a monarchical
government, shall shake off the yoke of a sanguinary anarchy: of that
anarchy which, has broken all the most sacred bonds of society,
dissolved all the relations of civil life, violated every right,
confounded every duty; which uses the name of liberty to exercise the
most cruel tyranny, to annihilate all property, to seize on all
possessions; which founds its power on the pretended consent of the
people, and itself carries fire and sword through extensive provinces
for having demanded their laws, their religion, and their _lawful
sovereign_."
Declaration sent by his Majesty's command to the commanders of
his Majesty's fleets and armies employed against France and to
his Majesty's ministers employed at foreign courts. _Whitehall,
Oct_. 29, 1793
[28] "Ut lethargicus hic, cum fit pugil, et medicum urget."--HOB.
[29] See the Declaration.
[30] See Declaration, Whitehall, October 29, 1793.
[31] Nothing could be more solemn than their promulgation of this
principle, as a preamble to the destructive code of their famous
articles for the decomposition of society, into whatever country they
should enter. "La Convention Nationale, après avoir entendu le rapport
de ses comités de finances, de la guerre, et diplomatiques réunis,
fidèle au _principe de souveraineté de peuples, qui ne lui permet pas de
reconnaître aucune institution qui y porte atteinte_" &c., &c.--_Décree
sur le Rapport de Cambon, Dec. 18, 1702_. And see the subsequent
proclamation.
[32] "This state of things cannot exist in France, without involving all
the surrounding powers in one common danger,--without giving them the
right, without imposing it upon them as a duty, to stop the progress of
an evil which ... attacks the fundamental principles by which mankind is
united in the bonds of civil society."--_Declaration 29th Oct., 1793_.
[33] Declaration, Whitehall, Oct. 29, 1793.
LETTER II.
ON THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AS IT REGARDS OTHER
NATIONS.
My dear Sir,--I closed my first letter with serious matter, and I hope
it has employed your thoughts. The system of peace must have a reference
to the system of the war. On that ground, I must therefore again recall
your mind to our original opinions, which time and events have not
taught me to vary.
My ideas and my principles led me, in this contest, to encounter France,
not as a state, but as a faction. The vast territorial extent of that
country, its immense population, its riches of production, its riches of
commerce and convention, the whole aggregate mass of what in ordinary
cases constitutes the force of a state, to me were but objects of
secondary consideration. They might be balanced; and they have been
often more than balanced. Great as these things are, they are not what
make the faction formidable. It is the faction that makes them truly
dreadful. That faction is the evil spirit that possesses the body of
France,--that informs it as a soul,--that stamps upon its ambition, and
upon all its pursuits, a characteristic mark, which strongly
distinguishes them from the same general passions and the same general
views in other men and in other communities. It is that spirit which
inspires into them a new, a pernicious, a desolating activity.
Constituted as France was ten years ago, it was not in that France to
shake, to shatter, and to overwhelm Europe in the manner that we behold.
A sure destruction impends over those infatuated princes who, in the
conflict with this new and unheard-of power, proceed as if they were
engaged in a war that bore a resemblance to their former contests, or
that they can make peace in the spirit of their former arrangements of
pacification. Here the beaten path is the very reverse of the safe road.
As to me, I was always steadily of opinion that this disorder was not in
its nature intermittent. I conceived that the contest, once begun, could
not be laid down again, to be resumed at our discretion, but that our
first struggle with this evil would also be our last. I never thought we
could make peace with the system; because it was not for the sake of an
object we pursued in rivalry with each other, but with the system itself
that we were at war. As I understood the matter, we were at war, not
with its conduct, but with its existence,--convinced that its existence
and its hostility were the same.
The faction is not local or territorial. It is a general evil. Where it
least appears in action, it is still full of life. In its sleep it
recruits its strength and prepares its exertion. Its spirit lies deep in
the corruptions of our common nature. The social order which restrains
it feeds it. It exists in every country in Europe, and among all orders
of men in every country, who look up to France as to a common head. The
centre is there. The circumference is the world of Europe, wherever the
race of Europe may be settled. Everywhere else the faction is militant;
in France it is triumphant. In France is the bank of deposit and the
bank of circulation of all the pernicious principles that are forming in
every state. It will be a folly scarcely deserving of pity, and too
mischievous for contempt, to think of restraining it in any other
country whilst it is predominant there. War, instead of being the cause
of its force, has suspended its operation. It has given a reprieve, at
least, to the Christian world.
The true nature of a Jacobin war, in the beginning, was by most of the
Christian powers felt, acknowledged, and even in the most precise manner
declared. In the joint manifesto published by the Emperor and the King
of Prussia, on the 4th of August, 1792, it is expressed in the clearest
terms, and on principles which could not fail, if they had adhered to
them, of classing those monarchs with the first benefactors of mankind.
This manifesto was published, as they themselves express it, "to lay
open to the present generation, as well as to posterity, their motives,
their intentions, and the _disinterestedness_ of their personal views:
taking up arms for the purpose of preserving social and political order
amongst all civilized nations, and to secure to _each_ state its
religion, happiness, independence, territories, and real
constitution."--"On this ground they hoped that all empires and all
states would be unanimous, and, becoming the firm guardians of the
happiness of mankind, that they could not fail to unite their efforts to
rescue a numerous nation from its own fury, to preserve Europe from the
return of barbarism, and the universe from the subversion and anarchy
with which it was threatened." The whole of that noble performance ought
to be read at the first meeting of any congress which may assemble for
the purpose of pacification. In that piece "these powers expressly
renounce all views of personal aggrandizement," and confine themselves
to objects worthy of so generous, so heroic, and so perfectly wise and
politic an enterprise. It was to the principles of this confederation,
and to no other, that we wished our sovereign and our country to accede,
as a part of the commonwealth of Europe. To these principles, with some
trifling exceptions and limitations, they did fully accede.[34] And all
our friends who took office acceded to the ministry, (whether wisely or
not,) as I always understood the matter, on the faith and on the
principles of that declaration.
As long as these powers flattered themselves that the menace of force
would produce the effect of force, they acted on those declarations; but
when their menaces failed of success, their efforts took a new
direction. It did not appear to them that virtue and heroism ought to be
purchased by millions of rix-dollars. It is a dreadful truth, but it is
a truth that cannot be concealed: in ability, in dexterity, in the
distinctness of their views, the Jacobins are our superiors. They saw
the thing right from the very beginning. Whatever were the first motives
to the war among politicians, they saw that in its spirit, and for its
objects, it was a _civil war_; and as such they pursued it. It is a war
between the partisans of the ancient civil, moral, and political order
of Europe against a sect of fanatical and ambitious atheists which means
to change them all. It is not France extending a foreign empire over
other nations: it is a sect aiming at universal empire, and beginning
with the conquest of France. The leaders of that sect secured _the
centre of Europe_; and that secured, they knew, that, whatever might be
the event of battles and sieges, their _cause_ was victorious. Whether
its territory had a little more or a little less peeled from its
surface, or whether an island or two was detached from its commerce, to
them was of little moment. The conquest of France was a glorious
acquisition. That once well laid as a basis of empire, opportunities
never could be wanting to regain or to replace what had been lost, and
dreadfully to avenge themselves on the faction of their adversaries.
They saw it was _a civil war_. It was their business to persuade their
adversaries that it ought to be a _foreign_ war. The Jacobins everywhere
set up a cry against the new crusade; and they intrigued with effect in
the cabinet, in the field, and in every private society in Europe. Their
task was not difficult. The condition of princes, and sometimes of first
ministers too, is to be pitied. The creatures of the desk and the
creatures of favor had no relish for the principles of the manifestoes.
They promised no governments, no regiments, no revenues from whence
emoluments might arise by perquisite or by grant. In truth, the tribe of
vulgar politicians are the lowest of our species. There is no trade so
vile and mechanical as government in their hands. Virtue is not their
habit. They are out of themselves in any course of conduct recommended
only by conscience and glory. A large, liberal, and prospective view of
the interests of states passes with them for romance, and the principles
that recommend it for the wanderings of a disordered imagination. The
calculators compute them out of their senses. The jesters and buffoons
shame them out of everything grand and elevated. Littleness in object
and in means to them appears soundness and sobriety. They think there is
nothing worth pursuit, but that which they can handle, which they can
measure with a two-foot rule, which they can tell upon ten fingers.
Without the principles of the Jacobins, perhaps without any principles
at all, they played the game of that faction. There was a beaten road
before them. The powers of Europe were armed; France had always appeared
dangerous; the war was easily diverted from France as a faction to
France as a state. The princes were easily taught to slide back into
their old, habitual course of politics. They were easily led to consider
the flames that were consuming France, not as a warning to protect their
own buildings, (which were without any party-wall, and linked by a
contignation into the edifice of France,) but as an happy occasion for
pillaging the goods, and for carrying off the materials of their
neighbor's house. Their provident fears were changed into avaricious
hopes. They carried on their new designs without seeming to abandon the
principles of their old policy. They pretended to seek, or they
flattered themselves that they sought, in the accession of new
fortresses and new territories a _defensive_ security. But the security
wanted was against a kind of power which was not so truly dangerous in
its fortresses nor in its territories as in its spirit and its
principles. They aimed, or pretended to aim, at _defending_ themselves
against a danger from which there can be no security in any _defensive_
plan. If armies and fortresses were a defence against Jacobinism, Louis
the Sixteenth would this day reign a powerful monarch over an happy
people.