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

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




Your Imperial Majesty, who reigns and lives for glory, has nobly and
wisely disdained to associate your crown with a faction which has for
its object the subversion of all thrones.

You have not recognized this universal public enemy as a part of the
system of Europe. You have refused to sully the lustre of your empire by
any communion with a body of fanatical usurpers and tyrants, drawn out
of the dregs of society, and exalted to their evil eminence by the
enormity of their crimes,--an assemblage of tyrants, wholly destitute of
any distinguished qualification in a single person amongst them, that
can command reverence from our reason, or seduce it from our
prejudices. These enemies of sovereigns, if at all acknowledged, must be
acknowledged on account of that enmity alone: they have nothing else to
recommend them.

Madam, it is dangerous to praise any human virtue before the
accomplishment of the tasks which it imposes on itself. But in
expressing my part of what I hope is, or will become, the general voice,
in admiration of what you have done, I run no risk at all. With your
Imperial Majesty, declaration and execution, beginning and conclusion,
are, at their different seasons, one and the same thing.

On the faith and declaration of some of the first potentates of Europe,
several thousands of persons, comprehending the best men and the best
gentlemen in France, have given up their country, their houses, their
fortunes, their professional situation, their all, and are now in
foreign lands, struggling under the most grievous distresses. Whatever
appearances may menace, nobody fears that they can be finally abandoned.
Such a dereliction could not be without a strong imputation on the
public and private honor of sovereignty itself, nor without an
irreparable injury to its interests. It would give occasion to represent
monarchs as natural enemies to each other, and that they never support
or countenance any subjects of a brother prince, except when they rebel
against him. We individuals, mere spectators of the scene, but who sock
our liberties under the shade of legal authority, and of course
sympathize with the sufferers in that cause, never can permit ourselves
to believe that such an event can disgrace the history of our time. The
only thing to be feared is delay, in winch are included many mischiefs.
The constancy of the oppressed will be broken; the power of tyrants
will be confirmed. Already the multitude of French officers, drawn from
their several corps by hopes inspired by the freely declared disposition
of sovereigns, have left all the posts in which they might one day have
effectually served the good cause abandoned to the enemy.

Tour Imperial Majesty's just influence, which is still greater than your
extensive power, will animate and expedite the efforts of other
sovereigns. From your wisdom other states will learn that they who wait
until all the powers of Europe are at once in motion can never move at
all. It would add to the unexampled calamities of our time, if the
uncommon union of sentiment in so many powers should prove the very
cause of defeating the benefit which ought to flow from their general
good disposition. No sovereign can run any risk from the designs of
other powers, whilst engaged in tins glorious and necessary work. If any
attempt could be feared, your Imperial Majesty's power and justice would
secure your allies against all danger. Madam, your glory will be
complete, if, after having given peace to Europe by your moderation, you
shall bestow stability on all its governments by your vigor and
decision. The debt which your Imperial Majesty's august predecessors
have contracted to the ancient manners of Europe, by means of which they
civilized a vast empire, will be nobly repaid by preserving those
manners from the hideous change with which they are now menaced. By the
intervention of Russia the world will be preserved from barbarism and
ruin.

A private individual, of a remote country, in himself wholly without
importance, unauthorized and unconnected, not as an English subject,
but as a citizen of the world, presumes to submit his thoughts to one of
the greatest and wisest sovereigns that Europe has seen. He does it
without fear, because he does not involve in his weakness (if such it
is) his king, his country, or his friends. He is not' afraid that he
shall offend your Imperial Majesty,--because, secure in itself, true
greatness is always accessible, and because respectfully to speak what
we conceive to be truth is the best homage which can be paid to true
dignity.

I am, Madam, with the utmost possible respect and veneration,

Your Imperial Majesty's

Most obedient and most humble servant,

EDM. BURKE.

BEACONSFIELD, November 1st, 1791.




A

LETTER

TO

SIR CHARLES BINGHAM, BART.,

ON THE

IRISH ABSENTEE TAX.

OCTOBER 30, 1773.


NOTE.


From authentic documents found with the copy of this Letter
among Mr. Burke's papers, it appears that in the year 1773 a
project of imposing a tax upon all proprietors of landed
estates in Ireland, whose ordinary residence should be in
Great Britain, had been adopted and avowed by his Majesty's
ministers at that time. A remonstrance against this measure,
as highly unjust and impolitic, was presented to the
ministers by several of the principal Irish absentees, and
the project was subsequently abandoned.


LETTER.

Dear Sir,--I am much flattered by your very obliging letter, and the
rather because it promises an opening to our future correspondence. This
may be my only indemnification for very great losses. One of the most
odious parts of the proposed Absentee Tax is its tendency to separate
friends, and to make as ugly breaches in private society as it must make
in the unity of the great political body. I am sure that much of the
satisfaction of some circles in London will be lost by it. Do you think
that our friend Mrs. Vesey will suffer her husband to vote for a tax
that is to destroy the evenings at Bolton Row? I trust we shall have
other supporters of the same sex, equally powerful, and equally
deserving to be so, who will not abandon the common cause of their own
liberties and our satisfactions. We shall be barbarized on both sides of
the water, if we do not see one another now and then. _We_ shall sink
into surly, brutish Johns, and _you_ will degenerate into wild Irish. It
is impossible that we should be the wiser or the more agreeable,
certainly we shall not love one another the better, for this forced
separation, which our ministers, who have already done so much for the
dissolution of every other sort of good connection, are now meditating
for the further improvement of this too well united empire. Their next
step will be to encourage all the colonies, about thirty separate
governments, to keep their people from all intercourse with each other
and with the mother country. A gentleman of New York or Barbadoes will
be as much gazed at as a strange animal from Nova Zembla or Otaheite;
and those rogues, the travellers, will tell us what stories they please
about poor old Ireland.

In all seriousness, (though I am a great deal more than half serious in
what I have been saying,) I look upon this projected tax in a very evil
light; I think it is not advisable; I am sure it is not necessary; and
as it is not a mere matter of finance, but involves a political question
of much, importance, I consider the principle and precedent as far worse
than the thing itself. You are too kind in imagining I can suggest
anything new upon the subject. The objections to it are very glaring,
and must strike the eyes of all those who have not their reasons for
shutting them against evident truth. I have no feelings or opinions on
this subject which I do not partake with all the sensible and informed
people that I meet with. At first I could scarcely meet with any one who
could believe that this scheme originated from the English government.
They considered it not only as absurd, but as something monstrous and
unnatural. In the first instance, it strikes at the power of this
country; in the end, at the union of the whole empire. I do not mean to
express, most certainly I do not entertain in my mind, anything
invidious concerning the superintending authority of Great Britain. But
if it be true that the several bodies which make up this complicated
mass are to be preserved as one empire, an authority sufficient to
preserve that unity, and by its equal weight and pressure to
consolidate the various parts that compose it, must reside somewhere:
that somewhere can only be in England. Possibly any one member,
distinctly taken, might decide in favor of that residence within itself;
but certainly no member would give its voice for any other except this.
So that I look upon the residence of the supreme power to be settled
here: not by force, or tyranny, or even by mere long usage, but by the
very nature of things, and the joint consent of the whole body.

If all this be admitted, then without question this country must have
the sole right to the imperial legislation: by which I mean that law
which regulates the polity and economy of the several parts, as they
relate to one another and to the whole. But if any of the parts, which
(not for oppression, but for order) are placed in a subordinate
situation, will assume to themselves the power of hindering or checking
the resort of their municipal subjects to the centre, or even to any
other part of the empire, they arrogate to themselves the imperial
rights, which do not, which cannot, belong to them, and, so far as in
them lies, destroy the happy arrangement of the entire empire.

A free communication by _discretionary residence_ is necessary to all
the other purposes of communication. For what purpose are the Irish and
Plantation laws sent hither, but as means of preserving this sovereign
constitution? Whether such a constitution was originally right or wrong
this is not the time of day to dispute. If any evils arise from it, let
us not strip it of what may be useful in it. By taking the English Privy
Council into your legislature, you obtain a new, a further, and possibly
a more liberal consideration of all your acts. If a local legislature
shall by oblique means tend to deprive any of the people of this
benefit, and shall make it penal to them to follow into England the laws
which may affect them, then the English Privy Council will have to
decide upon your acts without those lights that may enable them to judge
upon what grounds you made them, or how far they ought to be modified,
received, or rejected.

To what end is the ultimate appeal in judicature lodged in this kingdom,
if men may be disabled from following their suits here, and may be taxed
into an absolute _denied of justice_? You observe, my dear Sir, that I
do not assert that in all cases two shillings will necessarily cut off
this means of correcting legislative and judicial mistakes, and thus
amount to a denial of justice. I might, indeed, state cases in which
this very quantum of tax would be fully sufficient to defeat this right.
But I argue not on the case, but on the principle, and I am sure the
principle implies it. They who may restrain may prohibit; they who may
impose two shillings may impose ten shillings in the pound; and those
who may condition the tax to six months' annual absence may carry that
condition to six weeks, or even to six days, and thereby totally defeat
the wise means which have been provided for extensive and impartial
justice, and for orderly, well-poised, and well-connected government.

What is taxing the resort to and residence in any place, but declaring
that your connection with that place is a grievance? Is not such an
Irish tax as is now proposed a virtual declaration that England is a
foreign country, and a renunciation on your part of the principle of
_common naturalization_, which runs through this whole empire?

Do you, or does any Irish gentleman, think it a mean privilege, that,
the moment he sets his foot upon this ground, he is to all intents and
purposes an Englishman? You will not be pleased with a law which by its
operation tends to disqualify you from a seat in this Parliament; and if
your own virtue or fortune, or if that of your children, should carry
you or them to it, should you like to be excluded from the possibility
of a peerage in this kingdom? If in Ireland we lay it down as a maxim,
that a residence in Great Britain is a political evil, and to be
discouraged by penal taxes, you must necessarily reject all the
privileges and benefits which are connected with such a residence.

I can easily conceive that a citizen of Dublin, who looks no further
than his counter, may think that Ireland will be repaid for such a loss
by any small diminution of taxes, or any increase in the circulation of
money that may be laid out in the purchase of claret or groceries in his
corporation. In such a man an error of that kind, as it would be
natural, would be excusable. But I cannot think that any educated man,
any man who looks with an enlightened eye on the interest of Ireland,
can believe that it is not highly for the advantage of Ireland, that
this Parliament, which, whether right or wrong, whether we will or not,
will make some laws to bind Ireland, should always have in it some
persons who by connection, by property, or by early prepossessions and
affections, are attached to the welfare of that country. I am so clear
upon this point, not only from the clear reason of the thing, but from
the constant course of my observation, by now having sat eight sessions
in Parliament, that I declare it to you as my sincere opinion, that (if
you must do either the one or the other) it would be wiser by far, and
far better for Ireland, that some new privileges should attend the
estates of Irishmen, members of the two Houses here, than that their
characters should be stained by penal impositions, and their properties
loaded by unequal and unheard-of modes of taxation. I do really trust,
that, when the matter comes a little to be considered, a majority of our
gentlemen will never consent to establish such a principle of
disqualification against themselves and their posterity, and, for the
sake of gratifying the schemes of a transitory administration of the
cockpit or the castle, or in compliance with the lightest part of the
most vulgar and transient popularity, fix so irreparable an injury on
the permanent interest of their country.

This law seems, therefore, to me to go directly against the fundamental
points of the legislative and judicial constitution of these kingdoms,
and against the happy communion of their privileges. But there is
another matter in the tax proposed, that contradicts as essentially a
very great principle necessary for preserving the union of the various
parts of a state; because it does, in effect, discountenance mutual
intermarriage and inheritance, things that bind countries more closely
together than any laws or constitutions whatsoever. Is it right that a
woman who marries into Ireland, and perhaps well purchases her jointure
or her dower there, should not after her husband's death have it in her
choice to return to her country and her friends without being taxed for
it? If an Irish heiress should marry into an English family, and that
great property in both countries should thereby come to be united in
this common issue, shall the descendant of that marriage abandon his
natural connection, his family interests, his public and his private
duties, and be compelled to take up his residence in Ireland? Is there
any sense or any justice in it, unless you affirm that there should be
no such intermarriage and no such mutual inheritance between the
natives? Is there a shadow of reason, that, because a Lord Rockingham, a
Duke of Devonshire, a Sir George Savile, possess property in Ireland,
which has descended to them without any act of theirs, they should
abandon their duty in Parliament, and spend the winters in Dublin? or,
having spent the session in Westminster, must they abandon their seats
and all their family interests in Yorkshire and Derbyshire, and pass the
rest of the year in Wicklow, in Cork, or Tyrone?

See what the consequence must be from a municipal legislature
considering itself as an unconnected body, and attempting to enforce a
partial residence. A man may have property in more parts than two of
this empire. He may have property in Jamaica and in North America, as
well as in England and Ireland. I know some that have property in all of
them. What shall we say to this case? After the poor distracted citizen
of the whole empire has, in compliance with your partial law, removed
his family, bid adieu to his connections, and settled himself quietly
and snug in a pretty box by the Liffey, he hears that the Parliament of
Great Britain is of opinion that all English estates ought to be spent
in England, and that they will tax him double, if he does not return.
Suppose him then (if the nature of the two laws will permit it)
providing a flying camp, and dividing his year as well as he can
between England and Ireland, and at the charge of two town houses and
two country-houses in both kingdoms; in this situation he receives an
account, that a law is transmitted from Jamaica, and another from
Pennsylvania, to tax absentees from these provinces, which are
impoverished by the European residence of the possessors of their lands.
How is he to escape this _ricochet_ cross-firing of so many opposite
batteries of police and regulation? If he attempts to comply, he is
likely to be more a citizen of the Atlantic Ocean and the Irish Sea than
of any of these countries. The matter is absurd and ridiculous, and,
while ever the idea of mutual marriages, inheritances, purchases, and
privileges subsist, can never be carried into execution with common
sense or common justice.

I do not know how gentlemen of Ireland reconcile such an idea to their
own liberties, or to the natural use and enjoyment of their estates. If
any of their children should be left in a minority, and a guardian
should think, as many do, (it matters not whether properly or no,) that
his ward had better he educated in a school or university here than in
Ireland, is he sure that he can justify the bringing a tax of ten per
cent, perhaps twenty, on his pupil's estate, by giving what in his
opinion is the best education in general, or the best for that pupil's
particular character and circumstances? Can he justify his sending him
to travel, a necessary part of the higher style of education, and,
notwithstanding what some narrow writers have said, of great benefit to
all countries, but very particularly so to Ireland? Suppose a guardian,
under the authority or pretence of such a tax of police, had prevented
our dear friend, Lord Charlemont, from going abroad, would he have lost
no satisfaction? would his friends have lost nothing in the companion?
would his country have lost nothing in the cultivated taste with which
he has adorned it in so many ways? His natural elegance of mind would
undoubtedly do a great deal; but I will venture to assert, without the
danger of being contradicted, that he adorns his present residence in
Ireland much the more for having resided a long time out of it. Will Mr.
Flood himself think he ought to have been driven by taxes into Ireland,
whilst he prepared himself by an English education to understand and to
defend the rights of the subject in Ireland, or to support the dignity
of government there, according as his opinions, or the situation of
things, may lead him to take either part, upon respectable principles? I
hope it is not forgot that an Irish act of Parliament sends its youth to
England for the study of the law, and compels a residence in the inns of
court hero for some years. Will you send out with one breath and recall
with another? This act plainly provides for that intercourse which
supposes the strictest union in laws and policy, in both which the
intended tax supposes an entire separation.

It would be endless to go into all the inconveniences this tax will lead
to, in the conduct of private life, and the use of property. How many
infirm people are obliged to change their climate, whose life depends
upon that change! How many families straitened in their circumstances
are there, who, from the shame, sometimes from the utter impossibility
otherwise of retrenching, are obliged to remove from their country, in
order to preserve their estates in their families! You begin, then, to
burden these people precisely at the time when their circumstances of
health and fortune render them rather objects of relief and
commiseration.

I know very well that a great proportion of the money of every
subordinate country will flow towards the metropolis. This is
unavoidable. Other inconveniences, too, will result to particular parts:
and why? Why, because they are particular parts,--each a member of a
greater, and not an whole within itself. But those members are to
consider whether these inconveniences are not fully balanced, perhaps
more than balanced, by the united strength of a great and compact body.
I am sensible, too, of a difficulty that will be started against the
application of some of the principles which I reason upon to the case of
Ireland. It will be said, that Ireland, in many particulars, is not
bound to consider itself as a part of the British body; because this
country, in many instances, is mistaken enough to treat you as
foreigners, and draws away your money by absentees, without suffering
you to enjoy your natural advantages in trade and commerce. No man
living loves restrictive regulations of any kind less than myself; at
best, nine times in ten, they are little better than laborious and
vexatious follies. Often, as in your case, they are great oppressions,
as well as great absurdities. But still an injury is not always a reason
for retaliation; nor is the folly of others with regard to us a reason
for imitating it with regard to them. Before we attempt to retort, we
ought to consider whether we may not injure ourselves even more than our
adversary; since, in the contest who shall go the greatest length in
absurdity, the victor is generally the greatest sufferer. Besides, when
there is an unfortunate emulation in restraints and oppressions, the
question of _strength_ is of the highest importance. It little becomes
the feeble to be unjust. Justice is the shield of the weak; and when
they choose to lay this down, and fight naked in the contest of mere
power, the event will be what must be expected from such imprudence.

I ought to beg your pardon for running into this length. You want no
arguments to convince you on this subject, and you want no resources of
matter to convince others. I ought, too, to ask pardon for having
delayed my answer so long; but I received your letter on Tuesday, in
town, and I was obliged to come to the country on business. From the
country I write at present; but this day I shall go to town again. I
shall see Lord Rockingham, who has spared neither time nor trouble in
making a vigorous opposition to this inconsiderate measure. I hope to be
able to send you the papers which will give you information of the steps
he has taken. He has pursued this business with the foresight,
diligence, and good sense with which he generally resists
unconstitutional attempts of government. A life of disinterestedness,
generosity, and public spirit are his titles to have it believed that
the effect which the tax may have upon his private property is not the
sole nor the principal motive to his exertions. I know he is of opinion
that the opposition in Ireland ought to be carried on with that spirit
as if no aid was expected from this country, and here as if nothing
would be done in Ireland: many things have been lost by not acting in
this manner.

I am told that you are not likely to be alone in the generous stand you
are to make against this unnatural monster of court popularity. It is
said, Mr. Hussey, who is so very considerable at present, and who is
everything in expectation, will give you his assistance. I rejoice to
see (that very rare spectacle) a good mind, a great genius, and public
activity united together, and united so early in life. By not running
into every popular humor, he may depend upon it, the popularity of his
character will wear the better.

Non ponebat enim rumores ante salutem;
Ergo postque magisque viri nunc gloria claret.

Adieu, my dear Sir. Give my best respects to Lady Bingham; and believe
me, with great truth and esteem,

Your most obedient and most humble servant,

EDM. BURKE.

BEACONSFIELD, 30th October, 1773.

TO SIR CHARLES BINGHAM.




A

LETTER

TO

THE HON. CHARLES JAMES FOX,

ON THE AMERICAN WAR.

OCTOBER 8, 1777.


My Dear Charles,--I am, on many accounts, exceedingly pleased with your
journey to Ireland. I do not think it was possible to dispose better of
the interval between this and the meeting of Parliament. I told you as
much, in the same general terms, by the post. My opinion of the
infidelity of that conveyance hindered me from being particular. I now
sit down with malice prepense to kill you with a very long letter, and
must take my chance for some safe method of conveying the dose. Before I
say anything to you of the place you are in, or the business of it, on
which, by the way, a great deal might be said, I will turn myself to the
concluding part of your letter from Chatsworth.

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