descriptions_, dignified by the name of reason of state, and security
for constitutions and commonwealths, is nothing better at bottom than
the miserable invention of an ungenerous ambition which would fain hold
the sacred trust of power, without any of the virtues or any of the
energies that give a title to it,--a receipt of policy, made up of a
detestable compound of malice, cowardice, and sloth. They would govern
men against their will; but in that government they would be discharged
from the exercise of vigilance, providence, and fortitude; and
therefore, that they may sleep on their watch, they consent to take some
one division of the society into partnership of the tyranny over the
rest. But let government, in what form it may be, comprehend the whole
in its justice, and restrain the suspicious by its vigilance,--let it
keep watch and ward,--let it discover by its sagacity, and punish by its
firmness, all delinquency against its power, whenever delinquency exists
in the overt acts,--and then it will be as safe as ever God and Nature
intended it should be. Crimes are the acts of individuals, and not of
denominations: and therefore arbitrarily to class men under general
descriptions, in order to proscribe and punish them in the lump for a
presumed delinquency, of which perhaps but a part, perhaps none at all,
are guilty, is indeed a compendious method, and saves a world of trouble
about proof; but such a method, instead of being law, is an act of
unnatural rebellion against the legal dominion of reason and justice;
and this vice, in any constitution that entertains it, at one time or
other will certainly bring on its ruin.
We are told that this is not a religious persecution; and its abettors
are loud in disclaiming all severities on account of conscience. Very
fine indeed! Then, let it be so: they are not persecutors; they are only
tyrants. With all my heart. I am perfectly indifferent concerning the
pretexts upon which we torment one another,--or whether it be for the
constitution of the Church of England, or for the constitution of the
State of England, that people choose to make their fellow-creatures
wretched. When we were sent into a place of authority, you that sent us
had yourselves but one commission to give. You could give us none to
wrong or oppress, or even to suffer any kind of oppression or wrong, on
any grounds whatsoever: not on political, as in the affairs of America;
not on commercial, as in those of Ireland; not in civil, as in the laws
for debt; not in religious, as in the statutes against Protestant or
Catholic dissenters. The diversified, but connected, fabric of
universal justice is well cramped and bolted together in all its parts;
and depend upon it, I never have employed, and I never shall employ, any
engine of power which may come into my hands to wrench it asunder. All
shall stand, if I can help it, and all shall stand connected. After all,
to complete this work, much remains to be done: much in the East, much
in the West. But, great as the work is, if our will be ready, our powers
are not deficient.
Since you have suffered me to trouble you so much on this subject,
permit me, Gentlemen, to detain you a little longer. I am, indeed, most
solicitous to give you perfect satisfaction. I find there are some of a
better and softer nature than the persons with whom I have supposed
myself in debate, who neither think ill of the act of relief, nor by any
means desire the repeal,--yet who, not accusing, but lamenting, what was
done, on account of the consequences, have frequently expressed their
wish that the late act had never been made. Some of this description,
and persons of worth, I have met with in this city. They conceive that
the prejudices, whatever they might be, of a large part of the people,
ought not to have been shocked,--that their opinions ought to have been
previously taken, and much attended to,--and that thereby the late
horrid scenes might have been prevented.
I confess, my notions are widely different; and I never was less sorry
for any action of my life. I like the bill the better on account of the
events of all kinds that followed it. It relieved the real sufferers; it
strengthened the state; and, by the disorders that ensued, we had clear
evidence that there lurked a temper somewhere which ought not to be
fostered by the laws. No ill consequences whatever could be attributed
to the act itself. We knew beforehand, or we were poorly instructed,
that toleration is odious to the intolerant, freedom to oppressors,
property to robbers, and all kinds and degrees of prosperity to the
envious. We knew that all these kinds of men would gladly gratify their
evil dispositions under the sanction of law and religion, if they could:
if they could not, yet, to make way to their objects, they would do
their utmost to subvert all religion and all law. This we certainly
knew. But, knowing this, is there any reason, because thieves break in
and steal, and thus bring detriment to you, and draw ruin on themselves,
that I am to be sorry that you are in possession of shops, and of
warehouses, and of wholesome laws to protect them? Are you to build no
houses, because desperate men may pull them down upon their own heads?
Or, if a malignant wretch will cut his own throat, because he sees you
give alms to the necessitous and deserving, shall his destruction be
attributed to your charity, and not to his own deplorable madness? If we
repent of our good actions, what, I pray you, is left for our faults and
follies? It is not the beneficence of the laws, it is the unnatural
temper which beneficence can fret and sour, that is to be lamented. It
is this temper which, by all rational means, ought to be sweetened and
corrected. If froward men should refuse this cure, can they vitiate
anything but themselves? Does evil so react upon good, as not only to
retard its motion, but to change its nature? If it can so operate, then
good men will always be in the power of the bad,--and virtue, by a
dreadful reverse of order, must lie under perpetual subjection and
bondage to vice.
As to the opinion of the people, which some think, in such cases, is to
be implicitly obeyed,--near two years' tranquillity, which follows the
act, and its instant imitation in Ireland, proved abundantly that the
late horrible spirit was in a great measure the effect of insidious art,
and perverse industry, and gross misrepresentation. But suppose that the
dislike had been much more deliberate and much more general than I am
persuaded it was,--when we know that the opinions of even the greatest
multitudes are the standard of rectitude, I shall think myself obliged
to make those opinions the masters of my conscience. But if it may be
doubted whether Omnipotence itself is competent to alter the essential
constitution of right and wrong, sure I am that such _things_ as they
and I are possessed of no such power. No man carries further than I do
the policy of making government pleasing to the people. But the widest
range of this politic complaisance is confined within the limits of
justice. I would not only consult the interest of the people, but I
would cheerfully gratify their humors. We are all a sort of children
that must be soothed and managed. I think I am not austere or formal in
my nature. I would bear, I would even play my part in, any innocent
buffooneries, to divert them. But I never will act the tyrant for their
amusement. If they will mix malice in their sports, I shall never
consent to throw them any living, sentient creature whatsoever, no, not
so much as a kitling, to torment.
"But if I profess all this impolitic stubbornness, I may chance never to
be elected into Parliament."--It is certainly not pleasing to be put out
of the public service. But I wish to be a member of Parliament to have
my share of doing good and resisting evil. It would therefore be absurd
to renounce my objects in order to obtain my seat. I deceive myself,
indeed, most grossly, if I had not much rather pass the remainder of my
life hidden in the recesses of the deepest obscurity, feeding my mind
even with the visions and imaginations of such things, than to be placed
on the most splendid throne of the universe, tantalized with a denial of
the practice of all which can make the greatest situation any other than
the greatest curse. Gentlemen, I have had my day. I can never
sufficiently express my gratitude to you for having set me in a place
wherein I could lend the slightest help to great and laudable designs.
If I have had my share in any measure giving quiet to private property
and private conscience,--if by my vote I have aided in securing to
families the best possession, peace,--if I have joined in reconciling
kings to their subjects, and subjects to their prince,--if I have
assisted to loosen the foreign holdings of the citizen, and taught him
to look for his protection to the laws of his country, and for his
comfort to the good-will of his countrymen,--if I have thus taken my
part with the best of men in the best of their actions, I can shut the
book: I might wish to read a page or two more, but this is enough for my
measure. I have not lived in vain.
And now, Gentlemen, on this serious day, when I come, as it were, to
make up my account with you, let me take to myself some degree of honest
pride on the nature of the charges that are against me. I do not here
stand before you accused of venality, or of neglect of duty. It is not
said, that, in the long period of my service, I have, in a single
instance, sacrificed the slightest of your interests to my ambition or
to my fortune. It is not alleged, that, to gratify any anger or revenge
of my own, or of my party, I have had a share in wronging or oppressing
any description of men, or any one man in any description. No! the
charges against me are all of one kind: that I have pushed the
principles of general justice and benevolence too far,--further than a
cautious policy would warrant, and further than the opinions of many
would go along with me. In every accident which may happen through life,
in pain, in sorrow, in depression, and distress, I will call to mind
this accusation, and be comforted.
Gentlemen, I submit the whole to your judgment. Mr. Mayor, I thank you
for the trouble you have taken on this occasion: in your state of health
it is particularly obliging. If this company should think it advisable
for me to withdraw, I shall respectfully retire; if you think otherwise,
I shall go directly to the Council-House and to the 'Change, and without
a moment's delay begin my canvass.
* * * * *
BRISTOL, September 6, 1780.
At a great and respectable meeting of the friends of EDMUND BURKE, Esq.,
held at the Guildhall this day, the Right Worshipful the Mayor in the
chair:--Resolved, That Mr. Burke, as a representative for this city, has
done all possible honor to himself as a senator and a man, and that we
do heartily and honestly approve of his conduct, as the result of an
enlightened loyalty to his sovereign, a warm and zealous love to his
country through its widely extended empire, a jealous and watchful care
of the liberties of his fellow-subjects, an enlarged and liberal
understanding of our commercial interest, a humane attention to the
circumstances of even the lowest ranks of the community, and a truly
wise, politic, and tolerant spirit, in supporting the national church,
with a reasonable indulgence to all who dissent from it; and we wish to
express the most marked abhorrence of the base arts which have been
employed, without regard to truth and reason, to misrepresent his
eminent services to his country.
Resolved, That this resolution be copied out, and signed by the
chairman, and be by him presented to Mr. Burke, as the fullest
expression of the respectful and grateful sense we entertain of his
merits and services, public and private, to the citizens of Bristol, as
a man and a representative.
Resolved, That the thanks of this meeting be given to the Right
Worshipful the Mayor, who so ably and worthily presided in this meeting.
Resolved, That it is the earnest request of this meeting to Mr. Burke,
that he should again offer himself a candidate to represent this city in
Parliament; assuring him of that full and strenuous support which is due
to the merits of so excellent a representative.
* * * * *
This business being over, Mr. Burke went to the Exchange, and offered
himself as a candidate in the usual manner. He was accompanied to the
Council-House, and from thence to the Exchange, by a large body of most
respectable gentlemen, amongst whom were the following members of the
corporation, viz.: Mr. Mayor, Mr. Alderman Smith, Mr. Alderman Deane,
Mr. Alderman Gordon, William Weare, Samuel Munckley, John Merlott, John
Crofts, Levy Ames, John Fisher Weare, Benjamin Loscombe, Philip
Protheroe, Samuel Span, Joseph Smith, Richard Bright and John Noble,
Esquires.
FOOTNOTES:
[48] Irish Perpetual Mutiny Act.
[49] Mr. Williams.
[50] The Chancellor.
SPEECH AT BRISTOL,
ON
DECLINING THE POLL
1780.
BRISTOL, Saturday, 9th Sept, 1780.
This morning the sheriff and candidates assembled as usual at the
Council-House, and from thence proceeded to Guildhall. Proclamation
being made for the electors to appear and give their votes, Mr.
BURKE stood forward on the hustings, surrounded by a great number
of the corporation and other principal citizens, and addressed
himself to the whole assembly as follows.
Gentlemen,--I decline the election. It has ever been my rule through
life to observe a proportion between my efforts and my objects. I have
never been remarkable for a bold, active, and sanguine pursuit of
advantages that are personal to myself.
I have not canvassed the whole of this city in form, but I have taken
such a view of it as satisfies my own mind that your choice will not
ultimately fall upon me. Your city, Gentlemen, is in a state of
miserable distraction, and I am resolved to withdraw whatever share my
pretensions may have had in its unhappy divisions. I have not been in
haste; I have tried all prudent means; I have waited for the effect of
all contingencies. If I were fond of a contest, by the partiality of my
numerous friends (whom you know to be among the most weighty and
respectable people of the city) I have the means of a sharp one in my
hands. But I thought it far better, with my strength unspent, and my
reputation unimpaired, to do, early and from foresight, that which I
might be obliged to do from necessity at last.
I am not in the least surprised nor in the least angry at this view of
things. I have read the book of life for a long time, and I have read
other books a little. Nothing has happened to me, but what has happened
to men much better than me, and in times and in nations full as good as
the age and country that we live in. To say that I am no way concerned
would be neither decent nor true. The representation of _Bristol_ was an
object on many accounts dear to me; and I certainly should very far
prefer it to any other in the kingdom. My habits are made to it; and it
is in general more unpleasant to be rejected after long trial than not
to be chosen at all.
But, Gentlemen, I will see nothing except your former kindness, and I
will give way to no other sentiments than those of gratitude. From the
bottom of my heart I thank you for what you have done for me. You have
given me a long term, which is now expired. I have performed the
conditions, and enjoyed all the profits to the full; and I now surrender
your estate into your hands, without being in a single tile or a single
stone impaired or wasted by my use. I have served the public for fifteen
years. I have served you in particular for six. What is past is well
stored; it is safe, and out of the power of fortune. What is to come is
in wiser hands than ours; and He in whose hands it is best knows whether
it is best for you and me that I should be in Parliament, or even in the
world.
Gentlemen, the melancholy event of yesterday reads to us an awful
lesson against being too much troubled about any of the objects of
ordinary ambition. The worthy gentleman[51] who has been snatched from
us at the moment of the election, and in the middle of the contest,
whilst his desires were as warm and his hopes as eager as ours, has
feelingly told us what shadows we are and what shadows we pursue.
It has been usual for a candidate who declines to take his leave by a
letter to the sheriffs: but I received your trust in the face of day,
and in the face of day I accept your dismission. I am not--I am not at
all ashamed to look upon you; nor can my presence discompose the order
of business here. I humbly and respectfully take my leave of the
sheriffs, the candidates, and the electors, wishing heartily that the
choice may be for the best, at a time which calls, if ever time did
call, for service that is not nominal. It is no plaything you are about.
I tremble, when I consider the trust I have presumed to ask. I confided,
perhaps, too much in my intentions. They were really fair and upright;
and I am bold to say that I ask no ill thing for you, when, on parting
from this place, I pray, that, whomever you choose to succeed me, he may
resemble me exactly in all things, except in my abilities to serve, and
my fortune to please you.
FOOTNOTES:
[51] Mr. Coombe.
SPEECH
(DECEMBER 1, 1783)
UPON
THE QUESTION FOR THE SPEAKER'S LEAVING THE CHAIR IN ORDER FOR THE HOUSE
TO RESOLVE ITSELF INTO A COMMITTEE
ON
MR. FOX'S EAST INDIA BILL.
Mr. Speaker,--I thank you for pointing to me. I really wished much to
engage your attention in an early stage of the debate. I have been long
very deeply, though perhaps ineffectually, engaged in the preliminary
inquiries, which have continued without intermission for some years.
Though I have felt, with some degree of sensibility, the natural and
inevitable impressions of the several matters of fact, as they have been
successively disclosed, I have not at any time attempted to trouble you
on the merits of the subject, and very little on any of the points which
incidentally arose in the course of our proceedings. But I should be
sorry to be found totally silent upon this day. Our inquiries are now
come to their final issue. It is now to be determined whether the three
years of laborious Parliamentary research, whether the twenty years of
patient Indian suffering, are to produce a substantial reform in our
Eastern administration; or whether our knowledge of the grievances has
abated our zeal for the correction of them, and our very inquiry into
the evil was only a pretext to elude the remedy which is demanded from
us by humanity, by justice, and by every principle of true policy.
Depend upon it, this business cannot be indifferent to our fame. It will
turn out a matter of great disgrace or great glory to the whole British
nation. We are on a conspicuous stage, and the world marks our demeanor.
I am therefore a little concerned to perceive the spirit and temper in
which the debate has been all along pursued upon one side of the House.
The declamation of the gentlemen who oppose the bill has been abundant
and vehement; but they have been reserved and even silent about the
fitness or unfitness of the plan to attain the direct object it has in
view. By some gentlemen it is taken up (by way of exercise, I presume)
as a point of law, on a question of private property and corporate
franchise; by others it is regarded as the petty intrigue of a faction
at court, and argued merely as it tends to set this man a little higher
or that a little lower in situation and power. All the void has been
filled up with invectives against coalition, with allusions to the loss
of America, with the activity and inactivity of ministers. The total
silence of these gentlemen concerning the interest and well-being of the
people of India, and concerning the interest which this nation has in
the commerce and revenues of that country, is a strong indication of the
value which they set upon these objects.
It has been a little painful to me to observe the intrusion into this
important debate of such company as _quo warranto_, and _mandamus_, and
_certiorari_: as if we were on a trial about mayors and aldermen and
capital burgesses, or engaged in a suit concerning the borough of
Penryn, or Saltash, or St. Ives, or St. Mawes. Gentlemen have argued
with as much heat and passion as if the first things in the world were
at stake; and their topics are such as belong only to matter of the
lowest and meanest litigation. It is not right, it is not worthy of us,
in this manner to depreciate the value, to degrade the majesty, of this
grave deliberation of policy and empire.
For my part, I have thought myself bound, when a matter of this
extraordinary weight came before me, not to consider (as some gentlemen
are so fond of doing) whether the bill originated from a Secretary of
State for the Home Department or from a Secretary for the Foreign, from
a minister of influence or a minister of the people, from Jacob or from
Esau.[52] I asked myself, and I asked myself nothing else, what part it
was fit for a member of Parliament, who has supplied a mediocrity of
talents by the extreme of diligence, and who has thought himself obliged
by the research of years to wind himself into the inmost recesses and
labyrinths of the Indian detail,--what part, I say, it became such a
member of Parliament to take, when a minister of state, in conformity to
a recommendation from the throne, has brought before us a system for the
better government of the territory and commerce of the East. In this
light, and in this only, I will trouble you with my sentiments.
It is not only agreed, but demanded, by the right honorable
gentleman,[53] and by those who act with him, that a _whole_ system
ought to be produced; that it ought not to be an _half-measure_; that it
ought to be no _palliative_, but a legislative provision, vigorous,
substantial, and effective.--I believe that no man who understands the
subject can doubt for a moment that those must be the conditions of
anything deserving the name of a reform in the Indian government; that
anything short of them would not only be delusive, but, in this matter,
which admits no medium, noxious in the extreme.
To all the conditions proposed by his adversaries the mover of the bill
perfectly agrees; and on his performance of them he rests his cause. On
the other hand, not the least objection has been taken with regard to
the efficiency, the vigor, or the completeness of the scheme. I am
therefore warranted to assume, as a thing admitted, that the bills
accomplish what both sides of the House demand as essential. The end is
completely answered, so for as the direct and immediate object is
concerned.
But though there are no direct, yet there are various collateral
objections made: objections from the effects which this plan of reform
for Indian administration may have on the privileges of great public
bodies in England; from its probable influence on the constitutional
rights, or on the freedom and integrity, of the several branches of the
legislature.
Before I answer these objections, I must beg leave to observe, that, if
we are not able to contrive some method of governing India _well_, which
will not of necessity become the means of governing Great Britain _ill_,
a ground is laid for their eternal separation, but none for sacrificing
the people of that country to our Constitution. I am, however, far from
being persuaded that any such incompatibility of interest does at all
exist. On the contrary, I am certain that every means effectual to
preserve India from oppression is a guard to preserve the British
Constitution from its worst corruption. To show this, I will consider
the objections, which, I think, are four.
1st, That the bill is an attack on the chartered rights of men.
2ndly, That it increases the influence of the crown.
3rdly, That it does _not_ increase, but diminishes, the influence of the
crown, in order to promote the interests of certain ministers and their
party.
4thly, That it deeply affects the national credit.
As to the first of these objections, I must observe that the phrase of
"the chartered rights _of men_" is full of affectation, and very unusual
in the discussion of privileges conferred by charters of the present
description. But it is not difficult to discover what end that ambiguous
mode of expression, so often reiterated, is meant to answer.
The rights of _men_--that is to say, the natural rights of mankind--are
indeed sacred things; and if any public measure is proved mischievously
to affect them, the objection ought to be fatal to that measure, even if
no charter at all could be set up against it. If these natural rights
are further affirmed and declared by express covenants, if they are
clearly defined and secured against chicane, against power and
authority, by written instruments and positive engagements, they are in
a still better condition: they partake not only of the sanctity of the
object so secured, but of that solemn public faith itself which secures
an object of such importance. Indeed, this formal recognition, by the
sovereign power, of an original right in the subject, can never be
subverted, but by rooting up the holding radical principles of
government, and even of society itself. The charters which we call by
distinction _great_ are public instruments of this nature: I mean the
charters of King John and King Henry the Third. The things secured by
these instruments may, without any deceitful ambiguity, be very fitly
called _the chartered rights of men_.