the king of France, in whose name it was made, found himself obliged to
fly, with his whole family,--leaving behind him a declaration in which
he disavows and annuls that Constitution, as having been the effect of
force on his person and usurpation on his authority. It is equally
notorious, that this unfortunate prince was, with many circumstances of
insult and outrage, brought back prisoner by a deputation of the
pretended National Assembly, and afterwards suspended by their authority
from his government. Under equally notorious constraint, and under
menaces of total deposition, he has been compelled to accept what they
call a Constitution, and to agree to whatever else the usurped power
which holds him in confinement thinks proper to impose.
His nest brother, who had fled with him, and his third brother, who had
fled before him, all the princes of his blood who remained faithful to
him, and the flower of his magistracy, his clergy, and his nobility,
continue in foreign countries, protesting against all acts done by him
in his present situation, on the grounds upon which he had himself
protested against them at the time of his flight,--with this addition,
that they deny his very competence (as on good grounds they may) to
abrogate the royalty, or the ancient constitutional orders of the
kingdom. In this protest they are joined by three hundred of the late
Assembly itself, and, in effect, by a great part of the French nation.
The new government (so far as the people dare to disclose their
sentiments) is disdained, I am persuaded, by the greater number,--who,
as M. de La Fayette complains, and as the truth is, have declined to
take any share in the new elections to the National Assembly, either as
candidates or electors.
In this state of things, (that is, in the case of a _divided_ kingdom,)
by the law of nations,[30] Great Britain, like every other power, is
free to take any part she pleases. She may decline, with more or less
formality, according to her discretion, to acknowledge this new system;
or she may recognize it as a government _de facto_, setting aside all
discussion of its original legality, and considering the ancient
monarchy as at an end. The law of nations leaves our court open to its
choice. We have no direction but what is found in the well-understood
policy of the king and kingdom.
This declaration of a _new species_ of government, on new principles,
(such it professes itself to be,) is a real crisis in the politics of
Europe. The conduct which prudence ought to dictate to Great Britain
will not depend (as hitherto our connection or quarrel with other states
has for some time depended) upon merely _external_ relations, but in a
great measure also upon the system which we may think it right to adopt
for the internal government of our own country.
If it be our policy to assimilate our government to that of France, we
ought to prepare for this change by encouraging the schemes of authority
established there. We ought to wink at the captivity and deposition of
a prince with whom, if not in close alliance, we were in friendship. We
ought to fall in with the ideas of Monsieur Montmorin's circular
manifesto, and to do business of course with the functionaries who act
under the new power by which that king to whom his Majesty's minister
has been sent to reside has been deposed and imprisoned. On that idea we
ought also to withhold all sorts of direct or indirect countenance from
those who are treating in Germany for the reëstablishment of the French
monarchy and the ancient orders of that state. This conduct is suitable
to this policy.
The question is, whether this policy be suitable to the interests of the
crown and subjects of Great Britain. Let us, therefore, a little
consider the true nature and probable effects of the Revolution which,
in such a very unusual manner, has been twice diplomatically announced
to his Majesty.
[Sidenote: Difference between this Revolution and others.]
There have been many internal revolutions in the government of
countries, both as to persons and forms, in which the neighboring states
have had little or no concern. Whatever the government might be with
respect to those persons and those forms, the stationary interests of
the nation concerned have most commonly influenced the new governments
in the same manner in which they influenced the old; and the revolution,
turning on matter of local grievance or of local accommodation, did not
extend beyond its territory.
[Sidenote: Nature of the French Revolution.]
The present Revolution in France seems to me to be quite of another
character and description, and to bear little resemblance or analogy to
any of those which have been brought about in Europe, upon principles
merely political. _It is a Revolution of doctrine and theoretic dogma_.
It has a much greater resemblance to those changes which have been made
upon religious grounds, in which a spirit of proselytism makes an
essential part.
The last revolution of doctrine and theory which has happened in Europe
is the Reformation. It is not for my purpose to take any notice here of
the merits of that revolution, but to state one only of its effects.
[Sidenote: Its effects.]
That effect was, _to introduce other interests into all countries than
those which arose from their locality and natural circumstances_. The
principle of the Reformation was such as, by its essence, could not be
local or confined to the country in which it had its origin. For
instance, the doctrine of "Justification by Faith or by Works," which
was the original basis of the Reformation, could not have one of its
alternatives true as to Germany and false as to every other country.
Neither are questions of theoretic truth and falsehood governed by
circumstances any more than by places. On that occasion, therefore, the
spirit of proselytism expanded itself with great elasticity upon all
sides: and great divisions were everywhere the result.
These divisions, however in appearance merely dogmatic, soon became
mixed with the political; and their effects were rendered much more
intense from this combination. Europe was for a long time divided into
two great factions, under the name of Catholic and Protestant, which not
only often alienated state from state, but also divided almost every
state within itself. The warm parties in each state were more
affectionately attached to those of their own doctrinal interest in
some other country than to their fellow-citizens or to their natural
government, when they or either of them happened to be of a different
persuasion. These factions, wherever they prevailed, if they did not
absolutely destroy, at least weakened and distracted the locality of
patriotism. The public affections came to have other motives and other
ties.
It would be to repeat the history of the two last centuries to exemplify
the effects of this revolution.
Although the principles to which it gave rise did not operate with a
perfect regularity and constancy, they never wholly ceased to operate.
Few wars were made, and few treaties were entered into, in which they
did not come in for some part. They gave a color, a character, and
direction to all the politics of Europe.
[Sidenote: New system of politics.]
These principles of internal as well as external division and coalition
are but just now extinguished. But they who will examine into the true
character and genius of some late events must be satisfied that other
sources of faction, combining parties among the inhabitants of different
countries into one connection, are opened, and that from these sources
are likely to arise effects full as important as those which had
formerly arisen from the jarring interests of the religious sects. The
intention of the several actors in the change in France is not a matter
of doubt. It is very openly professed.
In the modern world, before this time, there has been no instance of
this spirit of general political faction, separated from religion,
pervading several countries, and forming a principle of union between
the partisans in each. But the thing is not less in human nature. The
ancient world has furnished a strong and striking instance of such a
ground for faction, full as powerful and full as mischievous as our
spirit of religions system had ever been, exciting in all the states of
Greece (European and Asiatic) the most violent animosities and the most
cruel and bloody persecutions and proscriptions. These ancient factions
in each commonwealth of Greece connected themselves with those of the
same description in some other states; and secret cabals and public
alliances were carried on and made, not upon a conformity of general
political interests, but for the support and aggrandizement of the two
leading states which headed the aristocratic and democratic factions.
For as, in later times, the king of Spain was at the head of a Catholic,
and the king of Sweden of a Protestant interest, (France, though
Catholic, acting subordinately to the latter,) in the like manner the
Lacedemonians were everywhere at the head of the aristocratic interests,
and the Athenians of the democratic. The two leading powers kept alive a
constant cabal and conspiracy in every state, and the political dogmas
concerning the constitution of a republic were the great instruments by
which these leading states chose to aggrandize themselves. Their choice
was not unwise; because the interest in opinions, (merely as opinions,
and without any experimental reference to their effects,) when once they
take strong hold of the mind, become the most operative of all
interests, and indeed very often supersede every other.
I might further exemplify the possibility of a political sentiment
running through various states, and combining factions in them, from the
history of the Middle Ages in the Guelfs and Ghibellines. These were
political factions originally in favor of the Emperor and the Pope, with
no mixture of religious dogmas: or if anything religiously doctrinal
they had in them originally, it very soon disappeared; as their first
political objects disappeared also, though the spirit remained. They
became no more than names to distinguish factions: but they were not the
less powerful in their operation, when they had no direct point of
doctrine, either religious or civil, to assert. For a long time,
however, those factions gave no small degree of influence to the foreign
chiefs in every commonwealth in which they existed. I do not mean to
pursue further the track of these parties. I allude to this part of
history only as it furnishes an instance of that species of faction
which broke the locality of public affections, and united descriptions
of citizens more with strangers than with their countrymen of different
opinions.
[Sidenote: French fundamental principle.]
The political dogma, which, upon the new French system, is to unite the
factions of different nations, is this: "That the majority, told by the
head, of the taxable people in every country, is the perpetual, natural,
unceasing, indefeasible sovereign; that this majority is perfectly
master of the form as well as the administration of the state, and that
the magistrates, under whatever names they are called, are only
functionaries to obey the orders (general as laws or particular as
decrees) which that majority may make; that this is the only natural
government; that all others are tyranny and usurpation."
[Sidenote: Practical project.]
In order to reduce this dogma into practice, the republicans in France,
and their associates in other countries, make it always their business,
and often their public profession, to destroy all traces of ancient
establishments, and to form a new commonwealth in each country, upon the
basis of the French _Rights of Man_. On the principle of these rights,
they mean to institute in every country, and as it were the germ of the
whole, parochial governments, for the purpose of what they call equal
representation. From them is to grow, by some media, a general council
and representative of all the parochial governments. In that
representative is to be vested the whole national power,--totally
abolishing hereditary name and office, levelling all conditions of men,
(except where money _must_ make a difference,) breaking all connection
between territory and dignity, and abolishing every species of nobility,
gentry, and Church establishments: all their priests and all their
magistrates being only creatures of election and pensioners at will.
Knowing how opposite a permanent landed interest is to that scheme, they
have resolved, and it is the great drift of all their regulations, to
reduce that description of men to a mere peasantry for the sustenance of
the towns, and to place the true effective government in cities, among
the tradesmen, bankers, and voluntary clubs of bold, presuming young
persons,--advocates, attorneys, notaries, managers of newspapers, and
those cabals of literary men called academies. Their republic is to have
a first functionary, (as they call him,) under the name of King, or not,
as they think fit. This officer, when such an officer is permitted, is,
however, neither in fact nor name to be considered as sovereign, nor the
people as his subjects. The very use of these appellations is offensive
to their ears.
[Sidenote: Partisans of the French system.]
This system, as it has first been realized, dogmatically as well as
practically, in France, makes France the natural head of all factions
formed on a similar principle, wherever they may prevail, as much as
Athens was the head and settled ally of all democratic factions,
wherever they existed. The other system has no head.
This system has very many partisans in every country in Europe, but
particularly in England, where they are already formed into a body,
comprehending most of the Dissenters of the three leading denominations.
To these are readily aggregated all who are Dissenters in character,
temper, and disposition, though not belonging to any of their
congregations: that is, all the restless people who resemble them, of
all ranks and all parties,--Whigs, and even Tories; the whole race of
half-bred speculators; all the Atheists, Deists, and Socinians; all
those who hate the clergy and envy the nobility; a good many among the
moneyed people; the East Indians almost to a man, who cannot bear to
find that their present importance does not bear a proportion to their
wealth. These latter have united themselves into one great, and, in my
opinion, formidable club,[31] which, though now quiet, may be brought
into action with considerable unanimity and force.
Formerly, few, except the ambitious great or the desperate and indigent,
were to be feared as instruments in revolutions. What has happened in
France teaches us, with many other things, that there are more causes
than have commonly been taken into our consideration, by which
government may be subverted. The moneyed men, merchants, principal
tradesmen, and men of letters (hitherto generally thought the peaceable
and even timid part of society) are the chief actors in the French
Revolution. But the fact is, that, as money increases and circulates,
and as the circulation of news in politics and letters becomes more and
more diffused, the persons who diffuse this money and this intelligence
become more and more important. This was not long undiscovered. Views of
ambition were in France, for the first time, presented to these classes
of men: objects in the state, in the army, in the system of civil
offices of every kind. Their eyes were dazzled with this new prospect.
They were, as it were, electrified, and made to lose the natural spirit
of their situation. A bribe, great without example in the history of the
world, was held out to them,--the whole government of a very large
kingdom.
[Sidenote: Grounds of security supposed for England.]
[Sidenote: Literary Interest.]
[Sidenote: Moneyed interest.]
There are several who are persuaded that the same thing cannot happen in
England, because here (they say) the occupations of merchants,
tradesmen, and manufacturers are not held as degrading situations. I
once thought that the low estimation in which commerce was held in
France might be reckoned among the causes of the late Revolution; and I
am still of opinion that the exclusive spirit of the French nobility did
irritate the wealthy of other classes. But I found long since, that
persons in trade and business were by no means despised in France in the
manner I had been taught to believe. As to men of letters, they were so
far from being despised or neglected, that there was no country,
perhaps, in the universe, in which they were so highly esteemed,
courted, caressed, and even feared: tradesmen naturally were not so much
sought in society, (as not furnishing so largely to the fund of
conversation as they do to the revenues of the state,) but the latter
description got forward every day. M. Bailly, who made himself the
popular mayor on the rebellion of the Bastile, and is a principal actor
in the revolt, before the change possessed a pension or office under the
crown of six hundred pound English a year,--for that country, no
contemptible provision; and this he obtained solely as a man of letters,
and on no other title. As to the moneyed men, whilst the monarchy
continued, there is no doubt, that, merely as such, they did not enjoy
the _privileges_ of nobility; but nobility was of so easy an
acquisition, that it was the fault or neglect of all of that description
who did not obtain its privileges, for their lives at least, in virtue
of office. It attached under the royal government to an innumerable
multitude of places, real and nominal, that were vendible; and such
nobility were as capable of everything as their degree of influence or
interest could make them,--that is, as nobility of no considerable rank
or consequence. M. Necker, so far from being a French gentleman, was not
so much as a Frenchman born, and yet we all know the rank in which he
stood on the day of the meeting of the States.
[Sidenote: Mercantile interest.]
As to the mere matter of estimation of the mercantile or any other
class, this is regulated by opinion and prejudice. In England, a
security against the envy of men in these classes is not so very
complete as we may imagine. We must not impose upon ourselves. What
institutions and manners together had done in France manners alone do
here. It is the natural operation of things, where there exists a crown,
a court, splendid orders of knighthood, and an hereditary
nobility,--where there exists a fixed, permanent, landed gentry,
continued in greatness and opulence by the law of primogeniture, and by
a protection given to family settlements,--where there exists a standing
army and navy,--where there exists a Church establishment, which bestows
on learning and parts an interest combined with that of religion and the
state;--in a country where such things exist, wealth, new in its
acquisition, and precarious in its duration, can never rank first, or
even near the first: though wealth has its natural weight further than
as it is balanced and even preponderated amongst us, as amongst other
nations, by artificial institutions and opinions growing out of them. At
no period in the history of England have so few peers been taken out of
trade or from families newly created by commerce. In no period has so
small a number of noble families entered into the counting-house. I can
call to mind but one in all England, and his is of near fifty years'
standing. Be that as it may, it appears plain to me, from my best
observation, that envy and ambition may, by art, management, and
disposition, be as much excited amongst these descriptions of men in
England as in any other country, and that they are just as capable of
acting a part in any great change.
[Sidenote: Progress of the French spirit.--Its course.]
What direction the French spirit of proselytism is likely to take, and
in what order it is likely to prevail in the several parts of Europe, it
is not easy to determine. The seeds are sown almost everywhere, chiefly
by newspaper circulations, infinitely more efficacious and extensive
than ever they were. And they are a more important instrument than
generally is imagined. They are a part of the reading of all; they are
the whole of the reading of the far greater number. There are thirty of
them in Paris alone. The language diffuses them more widely than the
English,--though the English, too, are much read. The writers of these
papers, indeed, for the greater part, are either unknown or in contempt,
but they are like a battery, in which the stroke of any one ball
produces no great effect, but the amount of continual repetition is
decisive. Let us only suffer any person to tell us his story, morning
and evening, but for one twelvemonth, and he will become our master.
All those countries in which several states are comprehended under some
general geographical description, and loosely united by some federal
constitution,--countries of which the members are small, and greatly
diversified in their forms of government, and in the titles by which
they are held,--these countries, as it might be well expected, are the
principal objects of their hopes and machinations. Of these, the chief
are Germany and Switzerland; after them, Italy has its place, as in
circumstances somewhat similar.
[Sidenote: Germany.]
As to Germany, (in which, from their relation to the Emperor, I
comprehend the Belgic Provinces,) it appears to me to be, from several
circumstances, internal and external, in a very critical situation; and
the laws and liberties of the Empire are by no means secure from the
contagion of the French doctrines and the effect of French intrigues, or
from the use which two of the greater German powers may make of a
general derangement to the general detriment. I do not say that the
French do not mean to bestow on these German states liberties, and laws
too, after their mode; but those are not what have hitherto been
understood as the laws and liberties of the Empire. These exist and have
always existed under the principles of feodal tenure and succession,
under imperial constitutions, grants and concessions of sovereigns,
family compacts, and public treaties, made under the sanction, and some
of them guarantied by the sovereign powers of other nations, and
particularly the old government of France, the author and natural
support of the Treaty of Westphalia.
[Sidenote: Ecclesiastical state.]
In short, the Germanic body is a vast mass of heterogeneous states, held
together by that heterogeneous body of old principles which formed the
public law positive and doctrinal. The modern laws and liberties, which
the new power in France proposes to introduce into Germany, and to
support with all its force of intrigue and of arms, is of a very
different nature, utterly irreconcilable with the first, and indeed
fundamentally the reverse of it: I mean the _rights and liberties of the
man_, the _droit de l'homme_. That this doctrine has made an amazing
progress in Germany there cannot be a shadow of doubt. They are infected
by it along the whole course of the Rhine, the Maese, the Moselle, and
in the greater part of Suabia and Franconia. It is particularly
prevalent amongst all the lower people, churchmen and laity, in the
dominions of the Ecclesiastical Electors. It is not easy to find or to
conceive governments more mild and indulgent than these Church
sovereignties; but good government is as nothing, when the rights of
man take possession of the mind. Indeed, the loose rein held over the
people in these provinces must be considered as one cause of the
facility with which they lend themselves to any schemes of innovation,
by inducing them to think lightly of their governments, and to judge of
grievances, not by feeling, but by imagination.
[Sidenote: Balance of Germany.]