[Footnote 1: Dr. Gem was an English physician who had been for some time
settled in Paris. He was uncle to Canning's friend and colleague, Mr.
Huskisson.]
ARLINGTON STREET, _April_ 4, 1776.
It is but fair, when one quits one's party, to give notice to those one
abandons--at least, modern patriots, who often imbibe their principles
of honour at Newmarket, use that civility. You and I, dear Sir, have
often agreed in our political notions; and you, I fear, will die without
changing your opinion. For my part, I must confess I am totally altered;
and, instead of being a warm partisan of liberty, now admire nothing but
despotism. You will naturally ask, what place I have gotten, or what
bribe I have taken? Those are the criterions of political changes in
England--but, as my conversion is of foreign extraction, I shall not be
the richer for it. In one word, it is the _relation du lit de justice_
that has operated the miracle. When two ministers are found so humane,
so virtuous, so excellent, as to study nothing but the welfare and
deliverance of the people; when a king listens to such excellent men;
and when a parliament, from the basest, most interested motives,
interposes to intercept the blessing, must I not change my opinions, and
admire arbitrary power? or can I retain my sentiments, without varying
the object?
Yes, Sir, I am shocked at the conduct of the Parliament--one would think
it was an English one! I am scandalised at the speeches of the
_Avocat-général_,[1] who sets up the odious interests of the nobility
and clergy against the cries and groans of the poor; and who employs his
wicked eloquence to tempt the good young monarch, by personal views, to
sacrifice the mass of his subjects to the privileges of the few--But why
do I call it eloquence? The fumes of interest had so clouded his
rhetoric, that he falls into a downright Iricism.--He tells the King,
that the intended tax on the proprietors of land will affect the
property not only of the rich, but of the poor. I should be glad to know
what is the property of the poor? Have the poor landed estates? Are
those who have landed estates the poor? Are the poor that will suffer by
the tax, the wretched labourers who are dragged from their famishing
families to work on the roads?--But _it is_ wicked eloquence when it
finds a reason, or gives a reason for continuing the abuse. The Advocate
tells the King, those abuses _presque consacrés par l'ancienneté_;
indeed, he says all that can be said for nobility, it is _consacrée par
l'ancienneté_; and thus the length of the pedigree of abuses renders
them respectable!
[Footnote 1: The _Avocat-Général_ was M. de Seguier; and, under his
guidance, the Parliament had passed the monstrous resolution that "the
_people_ in France was liable to the tax of _la taille_, and to _corvée_
at discretion" (_était tailleable et corvéable à volonté_), and that
their "liability was an article of the Constitution which it was not in
the power of even the King himself to change" ("France under the
Bourbons," iii. 422).]
His arguments are as contemptible when he tries to dazzle the King by
the great names of Henri Quatre and Sully,[1] of Louis XIV. and Colbert,
two couple whom nothing but a mercenary orator would have classed
together. Nor, were all four equally venerable, would it prove anything.
Even good kings and good ministers, if such have been, may have erred;
nay, may have done the best they could. They would not have been good,
if they wished their errors should be preserved, the longer they had
lasted.
[Footnote 1: Sully and Colbert were the two great Finance Ministers of
Henry IV. and Louis XIV.]
In short, Sir, I think this resistance of the Parliament to the adorable
reformation planned by Messrs. de Turgot and Malesherbes[1] is more
phlegmatically scandalous than the wildest tyranny of despotism. I
forget what the nation was that refused liberty when it was offered.
This opposition to so noble a work is worse. A whole people may refuse
its own happiness; but these profligate magistrates resist happiness for
others, for millions, for posterity!--Nay, do they not half vindicate
Maupéou, who crushed them? And you, dear Sir, will you now chide my
apostasy? Have I not cleared myself to your eyes? I do not see a shadow
of sound logic in all Monsieur Seguier's speeches, but in his proposing
that the soldiers should work on the roads, and that passengers should
contribute to their fabric; though, as France is not so luxuriously mad
as England, I do not believe passengers could support the expense of
their roads. That argument, therefore, is like another that the Avocat
proposes to the King, and which, he modestly owns, he believes would be
impracticable.
[Footnote 1: Malesherbes was the Chancellor, and in 1792 he was accepted
by Louis XVI. as his counsel on his trial--a duty which he performed
with an ability which drew on him the implacable resentment of
Robespierre and the Jacobins, and which led to his execution in 1794.]
I beg your pardon, Sir, for giving you this long trouble; but I could
not help venting myself, when shocked to find such renegade conduct in a
Parliament that I was rejoiced had been restored. Poor human kind! is it
always to breed serpents from its own bowels? In one country, it chooses
its representatives, and they sell it and themselves; in others, it
exalts despots; in another, it resists the despot when he consults the
good of his people! Can we wonder mankind is wretched, when men are such
beings? Parliaments run wild with loyalty, when America is to be
enslaved or butchered. They rebel, when their country is to be set free!
I am not surprised at the idea of the devil being always at our elbows.
They who invented him, no doubt could not conceive how men could be so
atrocious to one another, without the intervention of a fiend. Don't you
think, if he had never been heard of before, that he would have been
invented on the late partition of Poland! Adieu, dear Sir. Yours most
sincerely.
_HIS DECORATIONS AT "STRAWBERRY"--HIS ESTIMATE OF HIMSELF, AND HIS
ADMIRATION OF CONWAY._