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

E >> Edmund Burke >> The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12)



THE WORKS

OF

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

EDMUND BURKE

IN TWELVE VOLUMES

VOLUME THE FIFTH

JOHN C. NIMMO

14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C.

MDCCCLXXXVII




CONTENTS OF VOL. V.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE CONDUCT OF THE MINORITY, PARTICULARLY IN THE
LAST SESSION OF PARLIAMENT, 1793 1

PREFACE TO THE ADDRESS OF M. BRISSOT TO HIS CONSTITUENTS;
WITH AN APPENDIX 65

LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ., OCCASIONED BY A SPEECH MADE IN
THE HOUSE OF LORDS BY THE **** OF *******, IN THE DEBATE CONCERNING
LORD FITZWILLIAM, 1795 107

THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY 131

LETTER TO A NOBLE LORD ON THE ATTACKS MADE UPON MR. BURKE AND HIS
PENSION, IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, BY THE DUKE OF BEDFORD AND THE
EARL OF LAUDERDALE, 1796 171

THREE LETTERS TO A MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT ON THE PROPOSALS FOR
PEACE WITH THE REGICIDE DIRECTORY OF FRANCE.

LETTER I. ON THE OVERTURES OF PEACE 233

LETTER II. ON THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION AS IT REGARDS OTHER NATIONS 342

LETTER III. ON THE RUPTURE OF THE NEGOTIATION; THE TERMS
OF PEACE PROPOSED; AND THE RESOURCES OF THE COUNTRY FOR
THE CONTINUANCE OF THE WAR 384




OBSERVATIONS

ON THE

CONDUCT OF THE MINORITY

PARTICULARLY IN THE

LAST SESSION OF PARLIAMENT.

ADDRESSED TO

THE DUKE OF PORTLAND AND LORD FITZWILLIAM.

1793.




LETTER

TO

HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF PORTLAND.


MY DEAR LORD,--The paper which I take the liberty of sending to your
Grace was, for the greater part, written during the last session. A few
days after the prorogation some few observations were added. I was,
however, resolved to let it lie by me for a considerable time, that, on
viewing the matter at a proper distance, and when the sharpness of
recent impressions had been worn off, I might be better able to form a
just estimate of the value of my first opinions.

I have just now read it over very coolly and deliberately. My latest
judgment owns my first sentiments and reasonings, in their full force,
with regard both to persons and things.

During a period of four years, the state of the world, except for some
few and short intervals, has filled me with a good deal of serious
inquietude. I considered a general war against Jacobins and Jacobinism
as the only possible chance of saving Europe (and England as included in
Europe) from a truly frightful revolution. For this I have been
censured, as receiving through weakness, or spreading through fraud and
artifice, a false alarm. Whatever others may think of the matter, that
alarm, in my mind, is by no means quieted. The state of affairs
_abroad_ is not so much mended as to make me, for one, full of
confidence. At _home_, I see no abatement whatsoever in the zeal of the
partisans of Jacobinism towards their cause, nor any cessation in their
efforts to do mischief. What is doing by Lord Lauderdale on the first
scene of Lord George Gordon's actions, and in his spirit, is not
calculated to remove my apprehensions. They pursue their first object
with as much eagerness as ever, but with more dexterity. Under the
plausible name of peace, by which they delude or are deluded, they would
deliver us unarmed and defenceless to the confederation of Jacobins,
whose centre is indeed in France, but whose rays proceed in every
direction throughout the world. I understand that Mr. Coke, of Norfolk,
has been lately very busy in spreading a disaffection to this war (which
we carry on for our being) in the country in which his property gives
him so great an influence. It is truly alarming to see so large a part
of the aristocratic interest engaged in the cause of the new species of
democracy, which is openly attacking or secretly undermining the system
of property by which mankind has hitherto been governed. But we are not
to delude ourselves. No man can be connected with a party which
professes publicly to admire or may be justly suspected of secretly
abetting this French Revolution, who must not be drawn into its vortex,
and become the instrument of its designs.

What I have written is in the manner of apology. I have given it that
form, as being the most respectful; but I do not stand in need of any
apology for my principles, my sentiments, or my conduct. I wish the
paper I lay before your Grace to be considered as my most deliberate,
solemn, and even testamentary protest against the proceedings and
doctrines which have hitherto produced so much mischief in the world,
and which will infallibly produce more, and possibly greater. It is my
protest against the delusion by which some have been taught to look upon
this Jacobin contest at home as an ordinary party squabble about place
or patronage, and to regard this Jacobin war abroad as a common war
about trade or territorial boundaries, or about a political balance of
power among rival or jealous states. Above all, it is my protest against
that mistake or perversion of sentiment by which they who agree with us
in our principles may on collateral considerations be regarded as
enemies, and those who, in this perilous crisis of all human affairs,
differ from us fundamentally and practically, as our best friends. Thus
persons of great importance may be made to turn the whole of their
influence to the destruction of their principles.

I now make it my humble request to your Grace, that you will not give
any sort of answer to the paper I send, or to this letter, except barely
to let me know that you have received them. I even wish that at present
you may not read the paper which I transmit: lock it up in the drawer of
your library-table; and when a day of compulsory reflection comes, then
be pleased to turn to it. Then remember that your Grace had a true
friend, who had, comparatively with men of your description, a very
small interest in opposing the modern system of morality and policy, but
who, under every discouragement, was faithful to public duty and to
private friendship. I shall then probably be dead. I am sure I do not
wish to live to see such things. But whilst I do live, I shall pursue
the same course, although my merits should be taken for unpardonable
faults, and as such avenged, not only on myself, but on my posterity.

Adieu, my dear Lord; and do me the justice to believe me ever, with most
sincere respect, veneration, and affectionate attachment,

Your Grace's most faithful friend,

And most obedient humble servant,

EDMUND BURKE.

BEACONSFIELD, Sept. 29, 1793.




OBSERVATIONS.


Approaching towards the close of a long period of public service, it is
natural I should be desirous to stand well (I hope I do stand tolerably
well) with that public which, with whatever fortune, I have endeavored
faithfully and zealously to serve.

I am also not a little anxious for some place in the estimation of the
two persons to whom I address this paper. I have always acted with them,
and with those whom they represent. To my knowledge, I have not
deviated, no, not in the minutest point, from their opinions and
principles. Of late, without any alteration in their sentiments or in
mine, a difference of a very unusual nature, and which, under the
circumstances, it is not easy to describe, has arisen between us.

In my journey with them through life, I met Mr. Fox in my road; and I
travelled with him very cheerfully, as long as he appeared to me to
pursue the same direction with those in whose company I set out. In the
latter stage of our progress a new scheme of liberty and equality was
produced in the world, which either dazzled his imagination, or was
suited to some new walks of ambition which were then opened to his view.
The whole frame and fashion of his politics appear to have suffered
about that time a very material alteration. It is about three years
since, in consequence of that extraordinary change, that, after a
pretty long preceding period of distance, coolness, and want of
confidence, if not total alienation on his part, a complete public
separation has been made between that gentleman and me. Until lately the
breach between us appeared reparable. I trusted that time and
reflection, and a decisive experience of the mischiefs which have flowed
from the proceedings and the system of France, on which our difference
had arisen, as well as the known sentiments of the best and wisest of
our common friends upon that subject, would have brought him to a safer
way of thinking. Several of his friends saw no security for keeping
things in a proper train after this excursion of his, but in the reunion
of the party on its old grounds, under the Duke of Portland. Mr. Fox, if
he pleased, might have been comprehended in that system, with the rank
and consideration to which his great talents entitle him, and indeed
must secure to him in any party arrangement that _could_ be made. The
Duke of Portland knows how much I wished for, and how earnestly I
labored that reunion, and upon terms that might every way be honorable
and advantageous to Mr. Fox. His conduct in the last session has
extinguished these hopes forever.

Mr. Fox has lately published in print a defence of his conduct. On
taking into consideration that defence, a society of gentlemen, called
the Whig Club, thought proper to come to the following
resolution:--"That their confidence in Mr. Fox is confirmed,
strengthened, and increased by the calumnies against him."

To that resolution my two noble friends, the Duke of Portland and Lord
Fitzwilliam, have given their concurrence.

The calumnies supposed in that resolution can be nothing else than the
objections taken to Mr. Fox's conduct in this session of Parliament; for
to them, and to them alone, the resolution refers. I am one of those who
have publicly and strongly urged those objections. I hope I shall be
thought only to do what is necessary to my justification, thus publicly,
solemnly, and heavily censured by those whom I most value and esteem,
when I firmly contend that the objections which I, with many others of
the friends to the Duke of Portland, have made to Mr. Fox's conduct, are
not _calumnies_, but founded on truth,--that they are not _few_, but
many,--and that they are not _light and trivial_, but, in a very high
degree, serious and important.

That I may avoid the imputation of throwing out, even privately, any
loose, random imputations against the public conduct of a gentleman for
whom I once entertained a very warm affection, and whose abilities I
regard with the greatest admiration, I will put down, distinctly and
articulately, some of the matters of objection which I feel to his late
doctrines and proceedings, trusting that I shall be able to demonstrate
to the friends whose good opinion I would still cultivate, that not
levity, nor caprice, nor less defensible motives, but that very grave
reasons, influence my judgment. I think that the spirit of his late
proceedings is wholly alien to our national policy, and to the peace, to
the prosperity, and to the legal liberties of this nation, _according to
our ancient domestic and appropriated mode of holding them_.

Viewing things in that light, my confidence in him is not increased, but
totally destroyed, by those proceedings. I cannot conceive it a matter
of honor or duty (but the direct contrary) in any member of Parliament
to continue systematic opposition for the purpose of putting government
under difficulties, until Mr. Fox (with all his present ideas) shall
have the principal direction of affairs placed in his hands, and until
the present body of administration (with their ideas and measures) is of
course overturned and dissolved.

To come to particulars.

1. The laws and Constitution of the kingdom intrust the sole and
exclusive right of treating with foreign potentates to the king. This is
an undisputed part of the legal prerogative of the crown. However,
notwithstanding this, Mr. Fox, without the knowledge or participation of
any one person in the House of Commons, with whom he was bound by every
party principle, in matters of delicacy and importance, confidentially
to communicate, thought proper to send Mr. Adair, as his representative,
and with his cipher, to St. Petersburg, there to frustrate the objects
for which the minister from the crown was authorized to treat. He
succeeded in this his design, and did actually frustrate the king's
minister in some of the objects of his negotiation.

This proceeding of Mr. Fox does not (as I conceive) amount to absolute
high treason,--Russia, though on bad terms, not having been then
declaredly at war with this kingdom. But such a proceeding is in law not
very remote from that offence, and is undoubtedly a most
unconstitutional act, and an high treasonable misdemeanor.

The legitimate and sure mode of communication between this nation and
foreign powers is rendered uncertain, precarious, and treacherous, by
being divided into two channels,--one with the government, one with the
head of a party in opposition to that government; by which means the
foreign powers can never be assured of the real authority or validity of
any public transaction whatsoever.

On the other hand, the advantage taken of the discontent which at that
time prevailed in Parliament and in the nation, to give to an individual
an influence directly against the government of his country, in a
foreign court, has made a highway into England for the intrigues of
foreign courts in our affairs. This is a sore evil,--an evil from which,
before this time, England was more free than any other nation. Nothing
can preserve us from that evil--which connects cabinet factions abroad
with popular factions here--but the keeping sacred the crown as the only
channel of communication with every other nation.

This proceeding of Mr. Fox has given a strong countenance and an
encouraging example to the doctrines and practices of the Revolution and
Constitutional Societies, and of other mischievous societies of that
description, who, without any legal authority, and even without any
corporate capacity, are in the habit of proposing, and, to the best of
their power, of forming, leagues and alliances with France.

This proceeding, which ought to be reprobated on all the general
principles of government, is in a more narrow view of things not less
reprehensible. It tends to the prejudice of the whole of the Duke of
Portland's late party, by discrediting the principles upon which they
supported Mr. Fox in the Russian business, as if they of that party also
had proceeded in their Parliamentary opposition on the same mischievous
principles which actuated Mr. Fox in sending Mr. Adair on his embassy.

2. Very soon after his sending this embassy to Russia, that is, in the
spring of 1792, a covenanting club or association was formed in London,
calling itself by the ambitious and invidious title of "_The Friends of
the People_." It was composed of many of Mr. Fox's own most intimate
personal and party friends, joined to a very considerable part of the
members of those mischievous associations called the Revolution Society
and the Constitutional Society. Mr. Fox must have been well apprised of
the progress of that society in every one of its steps, if not of the
very origin of it. I certainly was informed of both, who had no
connection with the design, directly or indirectly. His influence over
the persons who composed the leading part in that association was, and
is, unbounded. I hear that he expressed some disapprobation of this club
in one case, (that of Mr. St. John,) where his consent was formally
asked; yet he never attempted seriously to put a stop to the
association, or to disavow it, or to control, check, or modify it in any
way whatsoever. If he had pleased, without difficulty, he might have
suppressed it in its beginning. However, he did not only not suppress it
in its beginning, but encouraged it in every part of its progress, at
that particular time when Jacobin clubs (under the very same or similar
titles) were making such dreadful havoc in a country not thirty miles
from the coast of England, and when every motive of moral prudence
called for the discouragement of societies formed for the increase of
popular pretensions to power and direction.

3. When the proceedings of this society of the Friends of the People, as
well as others acting in the same spirit, had caused a very serious
alarm in the mind of the Duke of Portland, and of many good patriots,
he publicly, in the House of Commons, treated their apprehensions and
conduct with the greatest asperity and ridicule. He condemned and
vilified, in the most insulting and outrageous terms, the proclamation
issued by government on that occasion,--though he well knew that it had
passed through the Duke of Portland's hands, that it had received his
fullest approbation, and that it was the result of an actual interview
between that noble Duke and Mr. Pitt. During the discussion of its
merits in the House of Commons, Mr. Fox countenanced and justified the
chief promoters of that association; and he received, in return, a
public assurance from them of an inviolable adherence to him singly and
personally. On account of this proceeding, a very great number (I
presume to say not the least grave and wise part) of the Duke of
Portland's friends in Parliament, and many out of Parliament who are of
the same description, have become separated from that time to this from
Mr. Fox's particular cabal,--very few of which cabal are, or ever have,
so much as pretended to be attached to the Duke of Portland, or to pay
any respect to him or his opinions.

4. At the beginning of this session, when the sober part of the nation
was a second time generally and justly alarmed at the progress of the
French arms on the Continent, and at the spreading of their horrid
principles and cabals in England, Mr. Fox did not (as had been usual in
cases of far less moment) call together any meeting of the Duke of
Portland's friends in the House of Commons, for the purpose of taking
their opinion on the conduct to be pursued in Parliament at that
critical juncture. He concerted his measures (if with any persons at
all) with the friends of Lord Lansdowne, and those calling themselves
Friends of the People, and others not in the smallest degree attached to
the Duke of Portland; by which conduct he wilfully gave up (in my
opinion) all pretensions to be considered as of that party, and much
more to be considered as the leader and mouth of it in the House of
Commons. This could not give much encouragement to those who had been
separated from Mr. Fox, on account of his conduct on the first
proclamation, to rejoin that party.

5. Not having consulted any of the Duke of Portland's party in the House
of Commons,--and not having consulted them, because he had reason to
know that the course he had resolved to pursue would be highly
disagreeable to them,--he represented the alarm, which was a second time
given and taken, in still more invidious colors than those in which he
painted the alarms of the former year. He described those alarms in this
manner, although the cause of them was then grown far less equivocal and
far more urgent. He even went so far as to treat the supposition of the
growth of a Jacobin spirit in England as a libel on the nation. As to
the danger from _abroad_, on the first day of the session he said little
or nothing upon the subject. He contented himself with defending the
ruling factions in France, and with accusing the public councils of this
kingdom of every sort of evil design on the liberties of the
people,--declaring distinctly, strongly, and precisely, that the whole
danger of the nation was from the growth of the power of the crown. The
policy of this declaration was obvious. It was in subservience to the
general plan of disabling us from taking any steps against France. To
counteract the alarm given by the progress of Jacobin arms and
principles, he endeavored to excite an opposite alarm concerning the
growth of the power of the crown. If that alarm should prevail, he knew
that the nation never would be brought by arms to oppose the growth of
the Jacobin empire: because it is obvious that war does, in its very
nature, necessitate the Commons considerably to strengthen the hands of
government; and if that strength should itself be the object of terror,
we could have no war.

6. In the extraordinary and violent speeches of that day, he attributed
all the evils which the public had suffered to the proclamation of the
preceding summer; though he spoke in presence of the Duke of Portland's
own son, the Marquis of Tichfield, who had seconded the address on that
proclamation, and in presence of the Duke of Portland's brother, Lord
Edward Bentinck, and several others of his best friends and nearest
relations.

7. On that day, that is, on the 13th of December, 1792, he proposed an
amendment to the address, which stands on the journals of the House, and
which is, perhaps, the most extraordinary record which ever did stand
upon them. To introduce this amendment, he not only struck out the part
of the proposed address which alluded to insurrections, upon the ground
of the objections which he took to the legality of calling together
Parliament, (objections which I must ever think litigious and
sophistical,) but he likewise struck out _that part which related to the
cabals and conspiracies of the French faction in England_, although
their practices and correspondences were of public notoriety. Mr. Cooper
and Mr. Watt had been deputed from Manchester to the Jacobins. These
ambassadors were received by them as British representatives. Other
deputations of English had been received at the bar of the National
Assembly. They had gone the length of giving supplies to the Jacobin
armies; and they, in return, had received promises of military
assistance to forward their designs in England. A regular correspondence
for fraternizing the two nations had also been carried on by societies
in London with a great number of the Jacobin societies in France. This
correspondence had also for its object the pretended improvement of the
British Constitution. What is the most remarkable, and by much the more
mischievous part of his proceedings that day, Mr. Fox likewise struck
out everything in the address which _related to the tokens of ambition
given by France, her aggressions upon our allies, and the sudden and
dangerous growth of her power upon every side_; and instead of all those
weighty, and, at that time, necessary matters, by which the House of
Commons was (in a crisis such as perhaps Europe never stood) to give
assurances to our allies, strength to our government, and a check to the
common enemy of Europe, he substituted nothing but a criminal charge on
the conduct of the British government for calling Parliament together,
and an engagement to inquire into that conduct.

8. If it had pleased God to suffer him to succeed in this his project
for the amendment to the address, he would forever have ruined this
nation, along with the rest of Europe. At home all the Jacobin
societies, formed for the utter destruction of our Constitution, would
have lifted up their heads, which had been beaten down by the two
proclamations. Those societies would have been infinitely strengthened
and multiplied in every quarter; their dangerous foreign communications
would have been left broad and open; the crown would not have been
authorized to take any measure whatever for our immediate defence by sea
or land. The closest, the most natural, the nearest, and at the same
time, from many internal as well as external circumstances, the weakest
of our allies, Holland, would have been given up, bound hand and foot,
to France, just on the point of invading that republic. A general
consternation would have seized upon all Europe; and all alliance with
every other power, except France, would have been forever rendered
impracticable to us. I think it impossible for any man, who regards the
dignity and safety of his country, or indeed the common safety of
mankind, ever to forget Mr. Fox's proceedings in that tremendous crisis
of all human affairs.

9. Mr. Fox very soon had reason to be apprised of the general dislike of
the Duke of Portland's friends to this conduct. Some of those who had
even voted with him, the day after their vote, expressed their
abhorrence of his amendment, their sense of its inevitable tendency, and
their total alienation from the principles and maxims upon which it was
made; yet the very next day, that is, on Friday, the 14th of December,
he brought on what in effect was the very same business, and on the same
principles, a _second_ time.

10. Although the House does not usually sit on Saturday, he a _third_
time brought on another proposition in the same spirit, and pursued it
with so much heat and perseverance as to sit into Sunday: a thing not
known in Parliament for many years.

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