The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) by Edmund Burke

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If you and I find our talents not of the great and ruling kind, our
conduct, at least, is conformable to our faculties. No man's life pays
the forfeit of our rashness. No desolate widow weeps tears of blood
over our ignorance. Scrupulous and sober in a well-grounded distrust of
ourselves, we would keep in the port of peace and security; and perhaps
in recommending to others something of the same diffidence, we should
show ourselves more charitable to their welfare than injurious to their
abilities.

There are many circumstances in the zeal shown for civil war which seem
to discover but little of real magnanimity. The addressers offer their
own persons, and they are satisfied with hiring Germans. They promise
their private fortunes, and they mortgage their country. They have all
the merit of volunteers, without risk of person or charge of
contribution; and when the unfeeling arm of a foreign soldiery pours out
their kindred blood like water, they exult and triumph as if they
themselves had performed some notable exploit. I am really ashamed of
the fashionable language which has been held for some time past, which,
to say the best of it, is full of levity. You know that I allude to the
general cry against the cowardice of the Americans, as if we despised
them for not making the king's soldiery purchase the advantage they have
obtained at a dearer rate. It is not, Gentlemen, it is not to respect
the dispensations of Providence, nor to provide any decent retreat in
the mutability of human affairs. It leaves no medium between insolent
victory and infamous defeat. It tends to alienate our minds further and
further from our natural regards, and to make an eternal rent and schism
in the British nation. Those who do not wish for such a separation would
not dissolve that cement of reciprocal esteem and regard which can alone
bind together the parts of this great fabric. It ought to be our wish,
as it is our duty, not only to forbear this style of outrage ourselves,
but to make every one as sensible as we can of the impropriety and
unworthiness of the tempers which give rise to it, and which designing
men are laboring with such malignant industry to diffuse amongst us. It
is our business to counteract them, if possible,--if possible, to awake
our natural regards, and to revive the old partiality to the English
name. Without something of this kind I do not see how it is ever
practicable really to reconcile with those whose affection, after all,
must be the surest hold of our government, and which is a thousand times
more worth to us than the mercenary zeal of all the circles of Germany.

I can well conceive a country completely overrun, and miserably wasted,
without approaching in the least to settlement. In my apprehension, as
long as English government is attempted to be supported over Englishmen
by the sword alone, things will thus continue. I anticipate in my mind
the moment of the final triumph of foreign military force. When that
hour arrives, (for it may arrive,) then it is that all this mass of
weakness and violence will appear in its full light. If we should be
expelled from America, the delusion of the partisans of military
government might still continue. They might still feed their
imaginations with the possible good consequences which might have
attended success. Nobody could prove the contrary by facts. But in case
the sword should do all that the sword can do, the success of their arms
and the defeat of their policy will be one and the same thing. You will
never see any revenue from America. Some increase of the means of
corruption, without ease of the public burdens, is the very best that
can happen. Is it for this that we are at war,--and in such a war?

As to the difficulties of laying once more the foundations of that
government which, for the sake of conquering what was our own, has been
voluntarily and wantonly pulled down by a court faction here, I tremble
to look at them. Has any of these gentlemen who are so eager to govern
all mankind shown himself possessed of the first qualification towards
government, some knowledge of the object, and of the difficulties which
occur in the task they have undertaken?

I assure you, that, on the most prosperous issue of your arms, you will
not be where you stood when you called in war to supply the defects of
your political establishment. Nor would any disorder or disobedience to
government which could arise from the most abject concession on our part
ever equal those which will be felt after the most triumphant violence.
You have got all the intermediate evils of war into the bargain.

I think I know America,--if I do not, my ignorance is incurable, for I
have spared no pains to understand it,--and I do most solemnly assure
those of my constituents who put any sort of confidence in my industry
and integrity, that everything that has been done there has arisen from
a total misconception of the object: that our means of originally
holding America, that our means of reconciling with it after quarrel, of
recovering it after separation, of keeping it after victory, did depend,
and must depend, in their several stages and periods, upon a total
renunciation of that unconditional submission which has taken such
possession of the minds of violent men. The whole of those maxims upon
which we have made and continued this war must be abandoned. Nothing,
indeed, (for I would not deceive you,) can place us in our former
situation. That hope must be laid aside. But there is a difference
between bad and the worst of all. Terms relative to the cause of the war
ought to be offered by the authority of Parliament. An arrangement at
home promising some security for them ought to be made. By doing this,
without the least impairing of our strength, we add to the credit of our
moderation, which, in itself, is always strength more or less.

I know many have been taught to think that moderation in a case like
this is a sort of treason,--and that all arguments for it are
sufficiently answered by railing at rebels and rebellion, and by
charging all the present or future miseries which we may suffer on the
resistance of our brethren. But I would wish them, in this grave matter,
and if peace is not wholly removed from their hearts, to consider
seriously, first, that to criminate and recriminate never yet was the
road to reconciliation, in any difference amongst men. In the next
place, it would be right to reflect that the American English (whom they
may abuse, if they think it honorable to revile the absent) can, as
things now stand, neither be provoked at our railing or bettered by our
instruction. All communication is cut off between us. But this we know
with certainty, that, though we cannot reclaim them, we may reform
ourselves. If measures of peace are necessary, they must begin
somewhere; and a conciliatory temper must precede and prepare every plan
of reconciliation. Nor do I conceive that we suffer anything by thus
regulating our own minds. We are not disarmed by being disencumbered of
our passions. Declaiming on rebellion never added a bayonet or a charge
of powder to your military force; but I am afraid that it has been the
means of taking up many muskets against you.

This outrageous language, which has been encouraged and kept alive by
every art, has already done incredible mischief. For a long time, even
amidst the desolations of war, and the insults of hostile laws daily
accumulated on one another, the American leaders seem to have had the
greatest difficulty in bringing up their people to a declaration of
total independence. But the Court Gazette accomplished what the abettors
of independence had attempted in vain. When that disingenuous
compilation and strange medley of railing and flattery was adduced as a
proof of the united sentiments of the people of Great Britain, there was
a great change throughout all America. The tide of popular affection,
which had still set towards the parent country, began immediately to
turn, and to flow with great rapidity in a contrary course. Par from
concealing these wild declarations of enmity, the author of the
celebrated pamphlet which prepared the minds of the people for
independence insists largely on the multitude and the spirit of these
addresses; and he draws an argument from them, which, if the fact were
as he supposes, must be irresistible. For I never knew a writer on the
theory of government so partial to authority as not to allow that the
hostile mind of the rulers to their people did fully justify a change of
government; nor can any reason whatever be given why one people should
voluntarily yield any degree of preeminence to another but on a
supposition of great affection and benevolence towards them.
Unfortunately, your rulers, trusting to other things, took no notice of
this great principle of connection. From the beginning of this affair,
they have done all they could to alienate your minds from your own
kindred; and if they could excite hatred enough in one of the parties
towards the other, they seemed to be of opinion that they had gone half
the way towards reconciling the quarrel.

I know it is said, that your kindness is only alienated on account of
their resistance, and therefore, if the colonies surrender at
discretion, all sort of regard, and even much indulgence, is meant
towards them in future. But can those who are partisans for continuing a
war to enforce such a surrender be responsible (after all that has
passed) for such a future use of a power that is bound by no compacts
and restrained by no terror? Will they tell us what they call
indulgences? Do they not at this instant call the present war and all
its horrors a lenient and merciful proceeding?

No conqueror that I ever heard of has _professed_ to make a cruel,
harsh, and insolent use of his conquest. No! The man of the most
declared pride scarcely dares to trust his own heart with this dreadful
secret of ambition. But it will appear in its time; and no man who
professes to reduce another to the insolent mercy of a foreign arm ever
had any sort of good-will towards him. The profession of kindness, with
that sword in his hand, and that demand of surrender, is one of the most
provoking acts of his hostility. I shall be told that all this is
lenient as against rebellious adversaries. But are the leaders of their
faction more lenient to those who submit? Lord Howe and General Howe
have powers, under an act of Parliament, to restore to the king's peace
and to free trade any men or district which shall submit. Is this done?
We have been over and over informed by the authorized gazette, that the
city of New York and the countries of Staten and Long Island have
submitted voluntarily and cheerfully, and that many are very full of
zeal to the cause of administration. Were they instantly restored to
trade? Are they yet restored to it? Is not the benignity of two
commissioners, naturally most humane and generous men, some way fettered
by instructions, equally against their dispositions and the spirit of
Parliamentary faith, when Mr. Tryon, vaunting of the fidelity of the
city in which he is governor, is obliged to apply to ministry for leave
to protect the King's loyal subjects, and to grant to them, not the
disputed rights and privileges of freedom, but the common rights of men,
by the name of _graces_? Why do not the commissioners restore them on
the spot? Were they not named as commissioners for that express purpose?
But we see well enough to what the whole leads. The trade of America is
to be dealt out in _private indulgences and grants,_--that is, in jobs
to recompense the incendiaries of war. They will be informed of the
proper time in which to send out their merchandise. From a national, the
American trade is to be turned into a personal monopoly, and one set of
merchants are to be rewarded for the pretended zeal of which another set
are the dupes; and thus, between craft and credulity, the voice of
reason is stifled, and all the misconduct, all the calamities of the war
are covered and continued.

If I had not lived long enough to be little surprised at anything, I
should have been in some degree astonished at the continued rage of
several gentlemen, who, not satisfied with carrying fire and sword into
America, are animated nearly with the same fury against those neighbors
of theirs whose only crime it is, that they have charitably and humanely
wished them to entertain more reasonable sentiments, and not always to
sacrifice their interest to their passion. All this rage against
unresisting dissent convinces me, that, at bottom, they are far from
satisfied they are in the right. For what is it they would have? A war?
They certainly have at this moment the blessing of something that is
very like one; and if the war they enjoy at present be not sufficiently
hot and extensive, they may shortly have it as warm and as spreading as
their hearts can desire. Is it the force of the kingdom they call for?
They have it already; and if they choose to fight their battles in their
own person, nobody prevents their setting sail to America in the next
transports. Do they think that the service is stinted for want of
liberal supplies? Indeed they complain without reason. The table of the
House of Commons will glut them, let their appetite for expense be never
so keen. And I assure them further, that those who think with them in
the House of Commons are full as easy in the control as they are liberal
in the vote of these expenses. If this be not supply or confidence
sufficient, let them open their own private purse-strings, and give,
from what is left to them, as largely and with as little care as they
think proper.

Tolerated in their passions, let them learn not to persecute the
moderation of their fellow-citizens. If all the world joined them in a
full cry against rebellion, and were as hotly inflamed against the whole
theory and enjoyment of freedom as those who are the most factious for
servitude, it could not, in my opinion, answer any one end whatsoever in
this contest. The leaders of this war could not hire (to gratify their
friends) one German more than they do, or inspire him with less feeling
for the persons or less value for the privileges of their revolted
brethren. If we all adopted their sentiments to a man, their allies, the
savage Indians, could not be more ferocious than they are: they could
not murder one more helpless woman or child, or with more exquisite
refinements of cruelty torment to death one more of their English flesh
and blood, than they do already. The public money is given to purchase
this alliance;--and they have their bargain.

They are continually boasting of unanimity, or calling for it. But
before this unanimity can be matter either of wish or congratulation, we
ought to be pretty sure that we are engaged in a rational pursuit.
Frenzy does not become a slighter distemper on account of the number of
those who may be infected with it. Delusion and weakness produce not one
mischief the less because they are universal. I declare that I cannot
discern the least advantage which could accrue to us, if we were able to
persuade our colonies that they had not a single friend in Great
Britain. On the contrary, if the affections and opinions of mankind be
not exploded as principles of connection, I conceive it would be happy
for us, if they were taught to believe that there was even a formed
American party in England, to whom they could always look for support.
Happy would it be for us, if, in all tempers, they might turn their eyes
to the parent state, so that their very turbulence and sedition should
find vent in no other place than this! I believe there is not a man
(except those who prefer the interest of some paltry faction to the very
being of their country) who would not wish that the Americans should
from time to time carry many points, and even some of them not quite
reasonable, by the aid of any denomination of men here, rather than they
should be driven to seek for protection against the fury of foreign
mercenaries and the waste of savages in the arms of France.

When any community is subordinately connected with another, the great
danger of the connection is the extreme pride and self-complacency of
the superior, which in all matters of controversy will probably decide
in its own favor. It is a powerful corrective to such a very rational
cause of fear, if the inferior body can be made to believe that the
party inclination or political views of several in the principal state
will induce them in some degree to counteract this blind and tyrannical
partiality. There is no danger that any one acquiring consideration or
power in the presiding state should carry this leaning to the inferior
too far. The fault of human nature is not of that sort. Power, in
whatever hands, is rarely guilty of too strict limitations on itself.
But one great advantage to the support of authority attends such an
amicable and protecting connection: that those who have conferred favors
obtain influence, and from the foresight of future events can persuade
men who have received obligations sometimes to return them. Thus, by the
mediation of those healing principles, (call them good or evil,)
troublesome discussions are brought to some sort of adjustment, and
every hot controversy is not a civil war.

But, if the colonies (to bring the general matter home to us) could see
that in Great Britain the mass of the people is melted into its
government, and that every dispute with the ministry must of necessity
be always a quarrel with the nation, they can stand no longer in the
equal and friendly relation of fellow-citizens to the subjects of this
kingdom. Humble as this relation may appear to some, when it is once
broken, a strong tie is dissolved. Other sort of connections will be
sought. For there are very few in the world who will not prefer an
useful ally to an insolent master.

Such discord has been the effect of the unanimity into which so many
have of late been seduced or bullied, or into the appearance of which
they have sunk through mere despair. They have been told that their
dissent from violent measures is an encouragement to rebellion. Men of
great presumption and little knowledge will hold a language which is
contradicted by the whole course of history. _General_ rebellions and
revolts of an whole people never were _encouraged_, now or at any time.
They are always _provoked_. But if this unheard-of doctrine of the
encouragement of rebellion were true, if it were true that an assurance
of the friendship of numbers in this country towards the colonies could
become an encouragement to them to break off all connection with it,
what is the inference? Does anybody seriously maintain, that, charged
with my share of the public councils, I am obliged not to resist
projects which I think mischievous, lest men who suffer should be
encouraged to resist? The very tendency of such projects to produce
rebellion is one of the chief reasons against them. Shall that reason
not be given? Is it, then, a rule, that no man in this nation shall open
his mouth in favor of the colonies, shall defend their rights, or
complain of their sufferings,--or when war finally breaks out, no man
shall express his desires of peace? Has this been the law of our past,
or is it to be the terms of our future connection? Even looking no
further than ourselves, can it be true loyalty to any government, or
true patriotism towards any country, to degrade their solemn councils
into servile drawing-rooms, to flatter their pride and passions rather
than to enlighten their reason, and to prevent them from being cautioned
against violence lest others should be encouraged to resistance? By such
acquiescence great kings and mighty nations have been undone; and if any
are at this day in a perilous situation from rejecting truth and
listening to flattery, it would rather become them to reform the errors
under which they suffer than to reproach those who forewarned them of
their danger.

But the rebels looked for assistance from this country.--They did so, in
the beginning of this controversy, most certainly; and they sought it by
earnest supplications to government, which dignity rejected, and by a
suspension of commerce, which the wealth of this nation enabled you to
despise. When they found that neither prayers nor menaces had any sort
of weight, but that a firm resolution was taken to reduce them to
unconditional obedience by a military force, they came to the last
extremity. Despairing of us, they trusted in themselves. Not strong
enough themselves, they sought succor in France. In proportion as all
encouragement here lessened, their distance from this country increased.
The encouragement is over; the alienation is complete.

In order to produce this favorite unanimity in delusion, and to prevent
all possibility of a return to our ancient happy concord, arguments for
our continuance in this course are drawn from the wretched situation
itself into which we have been betrayed. It is said, that, being at war
with the colonies, whatever our sentiments might have been before, all
ties between us are now dissolved, and all the policy we have left is to
strengthen the hands of government to reduce them. On the principle of
this argument, the more mischiefs we suffer from any administration, the
more our trust in it is to be confirmed. Let them but once get us into a
war, and then their power is safe, and an act of oblivion passed for all
their misconduct.

But is it really true that government is always to be strengthened with
the instruments of war, but never furnished with the means of peace? In
former times, ministers, I allow, have been sometimes driven by the
popular voice to assert by arms the national honor against foreign
powers. But the wisdom of the nation has been far more clear, when those
ministers have been compelled to consult its interests by treaty. We all
know that the sense of the nation obliged the court of Charles the
Second to abandon the _Dutch war_: a war, next to the present, the most
impolitic which we ever carried on. The good people of England
considered Holland as a sort of dependency on this kingdom; they dreaded
to drive it to the protection or subject it to the power of France by
their own inconsiderate hostility. They paid but little respect to the
court jargon of that day; nor were they inflamed by the pretended
rivalship of the Dutch in trade,--by the massacre at Amboyna, acted on
the stage to provoke the public vengeance,--nor by declamations against
the ingratitude of the United Provinces for the benefits England had
conferred upon them in their infant state. They were not moved from
their evident interest by all these arts; nor was it enough to tell
them, they were at war, that they must go through with it, and that the
cause of the dispute was lost in the consequences. The people of England
were then, as they are now, called upon to make government strong. They
thought it a great deal better to make it wise and honest.

When I was amongst my constituents at the last summer assizes, I
remember that men of all descriptions did then express a very strong
desire for peace, and no slight hopes of attaining it from the
commission sent out by my Lord Howe. And it is not a little remarkable,
that, in proportion as every person showed a zeal for the court
measures, he was then earnest in circulating an opinion of the extent of
the supposed powers of that commission. When I told them that Lord Howe
had no powers to treat, or to promise satisfaction on any point
whatsoever of the controversy, I was hardly credited,--so strong and
general was the desire of terminating this war by the method of
accommodation. As far as I could discover, this was the temper then
prevalent through the kingdom. The king's forces, it must be observed,
had at that time been obliged to evacuate Boston. The superiority of the
former campaign rested wholly with the colonists. If such powers of
treaty were to be wished whilst success was very doubtful, how came they
to be less so, since his Majesty's arms have been crowned with many
considerable advantages? Have these successes induced us to alter our
mind, as thinking the season of victory not the time for treating with
honor or advantage? Whatever changes have happened in the national
character, it can scarcely be our wish that terms of accommodation never
should be proposed to our enemy, except when they must be attributed
solely to our fears. It has happened, let me say unfortunately, that we
read of his Majesty's commission for making peace, and his troops
evacuating his last town in the Thirteen Colonies, at the same hour and
in the same gazette. It was still more unfortunate that no commission
went to America to settle the troubles there, until several months after
an act had been passed to put the colonies out of the protection of this
government, and to divide their trading property, without a possibility
of restitution, as spoil among the seamen of the navy. The most abject
submission on the part of the colonies could not redeem them. There was
no man on that whole continent, or within three thousand miles of it,
qualified by law to follow allegiance with protection or submission with
pardon. A proceeding of this kind has no example in history.
Independency, and independency with an enmity, (which, putting ourselves
out of the question, would be called natural and much provoked,) was the
inevitable consequence. How this came to pass the nation may be one day
in an humor to inquire.

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