LETTER I. On the Overtures of Peace.

UNTIL the beginning of this session, not⯑withstanding many untoward appearances, I still flattered myself that I should have no other than domestick afflictions to cloud the evening of my life: but a state of things is threatened, which, whatever room private griefs may occupy, leaves a vast vacuity to be filled with publick sorrow.

If I estimate rightly, what is going to be suf⯑fered, from what is going to be done, it is from something the very reverse of philosophy, that we are to learn content. In the interval between the treaty of peace with Regicide, and it's inevitable consequences, we must owe our repose not to deep thinking, but to the absence of all thought. To enjoy life, we must forget every thing of what England has been, and of what we have been our⯑selves. England has been happy; and change is [2] a word of ill sound to happy ears. A great revolution is on the point of being accomplished. It is a revolution not in human affairs, but in man himself. The system of France aims at no⯑thing short of this. If we are tired of being the men we were, and disgusted with the society in which we have lived, France offers her regenera⯑tion. By whatever humiliations we buy a blessing, I admit that the nature of the object purchased remains the same. On that supposition, the ad⯑vances we have made to the Republick of Regi⯑cide, are made on a consistent plan. But if what she terms regeneration, is what we call death, then, instead of advancing, we should retreat, and fly from Jacobin remedies as from the most ter⯑rible of all diseases.

Observe at the outset, that I suppose a peace with Jacobinism, the submission to it's laws, and the adoption of it's whole scheme, to be so neces⯑sarily connected, that never, in sound logic, did the conclusion follow the premises with more cer⯑tainty, than as I conceive it, in the course of Na⯑ture, that effect will be the result of this cause.

In one thing we are lucky. The regicide has re⯑ceived our advances with scorn. We have an enemy, to whose virtues we can owe nothing; but on this occasion we are infinitely obliged to [3] one of his vices. We owe more to his insolence than to our own precaution. The haughtiness by which the proud repel us, has this of good in it, that in making us keep our distance, they must keep their distance too. In the present case, the pride of the Regicide may be our safety. He has given time for our reason to operate; and for Bri⯑tish dignity to recover from its surprise.

There is always an augury to be taken of what a peace is likely to be, from the preliminary steps that are made to bring it about. We may gather something from the time in which the first over⯑tures are made; from the quarter whence they come; from the manner in which they are received. These discover the temper of the parties. If your enemy offers peace in the moment of success, it indicates that he is satisfied with something. It shews that there are limits to his ambition or his resentment. If he offers nothing under misfor⯑tune, it is probable, that it is more painful to him to abandon advantage than to endure calamity. If he rejects solicitation, and will not give even a nod to the suppliants for peace, until a change in the fortune of the war threatens him with ruin, then I think it evident, that he wishes nothing more than to disarm his adversary and to gain time. Afterwards a question arises, which of the [4] parties is likely to obtain the greater advantages, by the use of time and by continuing disarmed?

With these few, plain indications in our minds, it will not be improper to re-consider the conduct of the enemy together with our own, from the day that a question of peace has been in agitation. In considering this part of the question, I do not proceed on my own hypothesis. I suppose, for a moment, that this body of Regicide, calling itself a Republick, is a politick person, with whom something deserving the name of peace may be made. On that supposition, let us examine our own proceeding. Let us compute the profit it has brought, and the advantage that it is likely to bring hereafter. A peace too eagerly sought, is not always the sooner obtained; and when obtained, it never can be every thing we wish. The discovery of vehement wishes generally frustrates their attainment; and your adversary has gained a great advantage over you when he finds you impatient to conclude a treaty. There is in reserve, not only something of dig⯑nity, but a great deal of prudence too. A sort of courage belongs to negotiation as well as to operations of the field. A negotiator must seem willing to hazard all, if he wishes to secure any material point.

[5] The Regicide was the first to declare war. We are the first to sue for peace. We have twice^* solicited to be admitted to Jacobin embraces. Twice we have been repelled with cold disdain. It is true, that pride may reject a publick ad⯑vance, whilst interest listens to a secret suggestion of advantage. The opportunity has been afforded. A gentleman has been sent on an errand, of which, from the motive of it, whatever the event might be, we never can be ashamed. Humanity cannot be degraded by humiliation. It is it's very cha⯑racter to submit to such things. There is a con⯑sanguinity between benevolence and humility. They are virtues of the same stock. Dignity is of as good a race; but it belongs to the family of Fortitude. In the spirit of that benevolence, we sent a gentleman to beseech the Directory of Re⯑gicides, not to be quite so prodigal as they had been of judicial murder. We solicited them to spare the lives of some unhappy persons of the first distinction, whose safety at other times could not have been an object of solicitation. They had quitted France on the faith of the decla⯑ration of the rights of citizens. They never had been in the service of the Regicides, nor at their [6] hands had received any stipend. The very system and constitution of government that now prevails, was settled subsequent to their emigration. They were under the protection of Great Britain, and in his Majesty's pay and service. Not an hostile invasion, but the disasters of the sea had thrown them upon a shore, more barbarous and inhospi⯑table than the inclement ocean under the most pitiless of its storms. Here was an opportunity to express a feeling for the miseries of war; and to open some sort of conversation, which, (after our public overtures had glutted their pride) at a cau⯑tious and jealous distance, might lead to something like an accommodation. What was the event? A strange uncouth thing, a theatrical figure of the opera, his head shaded with three coloured plumes, his body fantastically habited, strutted from the back scenes, and after a short speech, in the mock-heroic falsetto of stupid tragedy, delivered the gentleman who came to make the representation into the custody of a guard, with directions not to lose sight of him for a moment, and then ordered him to be sent from Paris in two hours.

Here it is impossible that a sentiment of tender⯑ness should not strike athwart the sternness of po⯑liticks, and make us recal to painful memory, the difference between this insolent and bloody thea⯑tre, [7] and the temperate, natural majesty of a civi⯑lized court, where the afflicted family of Asgill did not in vain solicit the mercy of the highest in rank, and the most compassionate of the compas⯑sionate sex.

Whilst the fortune of the field was wholly with the Regicides, nothing was thought of but to fol⯑low where it led; and it led to every thing. Not so much as a talk of treaty. Laws were laid down with arrogance. The most moderate politician amongst them^* was chosen as the organ, not so much for prescribing limits to their claims, as to mark what, for the present, they are content to leave to others. They made not laws, not Con⯑ventions, but late possession, but physical nature, and political convenience the sole foundation of their claims. The Rhine, the Mediterranean, and the ocean were the bounds which, for the time, they assigned to the empire of Regicide. In truth, with these limits, and their principle, they would not have left even the shadow of liberty or safety to any nation. This plan of empire was not taken up in the first intoxication of unexpected success. You must recollect, that it was projected just as the report has stated it, from the very first revolt of the faction against their Monarchy; and it has been uniformly pursued, as a standing maxim of national [8] policy, from that time to this. It is in the season of prosperity that men discover their real tempers, principles, and designs. This report, combined with their conduct, forms an infallible criterion of the views of this Republick.

The tide of success began to turn. We are to see how their minds have been affected with this change. Some impression it made on them un⯑doubtedly. It produced some oblique notice of the submissions that were made by suppliant nations. The utmost they did, was to make some of those cold, formal, general professions of a love of peace which no power ever refused to make; because they mean little, and cost nothing. The first pa⯑per I have seen (the publication at Hamburgh) making a shew of that pacific disposition, disco⯑vered a rooted animosity, and incurable rancour, more than any of their military operations. They choose to suppose, that this war, on the part of England, is a war of Government, begun and carried on against the sense and interests of the people; thus sowing in their very overtures towards peace, the seeds of tumult and sedition; for they never have abandoned, and never will abandon, in peace, in war, in treaty, in any situation, or for one instant, their old steady maxim of separating the people from the Government.

[9] We have since seen them take up the matter with great formality. On that occasion they dis⯑covered still more clearly the bottom of their cha⯑racter. The offers made to them by the message to Parliament was hinted at; but in an obscure and oblique manner as before. They accompanied their notice of the indications manifested on our side, with every kind of insolent and taunting reflexion. The Regicide Directory, on the day which, in their gipsy jargon, they call the 5th of Pluviose, in return for our ad⯑vances, charge us with eluding our declarations under ‘"evasive formalities and frivolous pretexts."’ They proceed to charge us, and, as it should seem, our allies in the mass, with direct perfidy—and go so far as to say, that this perfidious character was nothing new to us. However, notwithstanding this our habitual perfidy, they will offer peace ‘"on conditions as moderate"’—as what? as reason and as equity require? No! as moderate ‘"as are suitable to their national dignity."’ Dignity, hi⯑therto, has belonged to the mode of proceeding, not to the matter of a treaty. Never before has it been mentioned as the standard for rating the conditions of peace;—no, never by the most vio⯑lent of conquerors. Indemnity is capable of some estimate; dignity has no standard. It is impos⯑sible to guess what acquisitions pride and ambition may think fit for their dignity. But lest any doubt [10] should remain on what they think for their dig⯑nity, the Regicides in the next paragraph tell us ‘"that they will have no peace with their enemies, until they have reduced them to a state which will put them under an impossibility of pursuing their unfortunate projects;"’ that is, in plain French or English, until they have accom⯑plished our utter and irretrievable ruin. This is their pacific language, and it is their unalterable principle in whatever language they speak, or whatever steps they take, whether of real war, or of pretended pacification. They have never, to do them justice, been at much trouble in concealing their intentions. We were as obstinately re⯑solved to think them not in earnest. I confess this sort of jests, whatever their urbanity may be, are not much to my taste.

To this obliging, conciliatory, and amicable communication, our sole answer, in effect, is this.—‘"Citizen Regicides! whenever you find yourselves in the humour, you may have a peace with us. That is a point you may always command as se⯑cure. We are constantly in attendance, and no⯑thing you can do shall hinder us from the re⯑newal of our supplications."’

To those, who do not love to contemplate the fall of human greatness, I do not know a more [11] mortifying spectacle, than to see the assembled majesty of the crowned heads of Europe waiting as patient suitors in the anti-chamber of Regicides. They wait, it seems, until the sanguinary tyrant, Rewbell, shall have snorted away the fumes of the indigested blood of his Sovereign;—then, when sunk on the down of usurped pomp, he shall have sufficiently indulged his meditations with what King he shall next glut his ravening maw, and he may condescend to signify that it is his pleasure to be awake, and ready to receive the proposals of his high and mighty clients for the terms on which he may respite the execution of the sentence he has passed upon them. Whatever may come of the object of all this suit and service, there seems to me a wonderful ‘"alacrity in sinking."’ To submit to be so treated is to be humbled indeed. It is to sink many degrees below Zero in the de⯑scending scale of political degradation. I never knew dignity much.

Our proceeding, which has produced this re⯑turn, appeared to me totally new, without being adapted to the new circumstances of affairs. I have called to my mind the speeches and messages in former times. I find nothing like these. Before this time, never was a ground of peace laid, as it were, in a parliamentary record, until it had been as good as concluded. This was a wise homage [12] paid to the discretion of the Crown. It was known how much any negotiation must suffer by having any thing in the train towards it prematurely dis⯑closed.

I conceive that another circumstance in that transaction has been as little authorised by any example, and that it is as little prudent in itself; I mean the formal recognition of the French Re⯑publick. Without entering, for the present, into a question on the good faith manifested in that measure, or on it's general policy, I doubt, upon mere prudential considerations, whether it was perfectly adviseable. It is not within the rules of dexterous conduct to make an acknowledgment of a contested title in your enemy, before you are morally certain that your recognition will secure his friendship. Otherwise it is a measure worse than thrown away. It adds infinitely to the strength, and consequently to the demands of the adverse party. He has gained a fundamental point without an equivalent.

This sort of preliminary declarations, thrown out at random, and sown, as it were, broad cast, were never to be found in the mode of our pro⯑ceeding with France and Spain, whilst the great Monarchies of France and Spain existed. I do not say, that a diplomatick measure ought to be, like [13] a parliamentary or a judicial proceeding, accor⯑ding to strict precedent. I hope I am far from that pedantry: but this I know, that a great state ought to have some regard to it's antient maxims; especially where they indicate it's dignity; where they concur with the rules of prudence; and above all, where the circumstances of the time require that a spirit of innovation should be resisted, which leads to the humiliation of sovereign powers. It would be ridiculous to assert, that those powers have suffered nothing in their estimation. I admit, that the greater interests of state will for a moment su⯑persede all other considerations: but if there was a rule that a sovereign never should let down his dignity without a sure payment to his interest, the dignity of Kings would be held high enough. At present, however, fashion governs in more serious things than furniture and dress. It looks as if so⯑vereigns abroad were emulous in bidding against their estimation. It seems as if the pre-eminence of Regicide was acknowleged; and that Kings tacitly ranked themselves below their sacrilegious murderers, as natural magistrates and judges over them. It appears as if dignity were the pre⯑rogative of crime; and a temporising humiliation the proper part for venerable authority. If the vilest of mankind are resolved to be the most wick⯑ed, they lose all the baseness of their origin, and take their place above Kings. This example in fo⯑reign [14] Princes, I trust, will not spread. It is the concern of mankind, that the destruction of order should not be a claim to rank; that crimes should not be the only title to pre-eminence and honour.

If what I hear be true, the Miniſters are not quite so much to be blamed, as their condition is to be lamented. I have been given to understand, that these proceedings are not in their origin pro⯑perly theirs. It is said that there is a secret in the House of Commons. That Ministers act not ac⯑cording to the votes, but according to the dispo⯑sitions, of the majority. I hear that the minority has long since spoken the general sense of the na⯑tion; and that to prevent those who compose it from having the open and avowed lead in that House, or perhaps in both Houses, it was necessary to pre-occupy their ground, and to take their pro⯑positions out of their mouths.

If the general disposition of the people be, as I hear it is, for an immediate peace with Regicide without so much as considering our publick and solemn engagements to the parties, or any enquiry into the terms, it is all over with us. It is strange, but it may be true, that as the danger from ad⯑vances to Jacobinism is increased in my eyes and in yours, the fear of it is lessened in theirs. It seems, they act under the impression of other sort [15] of terrors, which frighten them out of their first apprehensions: but it is fit they should recollect, that they who would make peace without a pre⯑vious knowledge of the terms, make a surrender. They are conquered. They do not treat; they re⯑ceive the law. Then the people of England are con⯑tented to seek in the kindness of a foreign syste⯑matick enemy combined with a dangerous faction at home, a security which they cannot find in their own patriotism and their own courage. They are willing trust to the sympathy of Regicides, the guarantee of the British Monarchy. They are con⯑tent to rest their religion on the piety of atheists by establishment. They are satisfied to seek in the cle⯑mency of practised murderers the security of their lives. They are pleased to confide their property to the safeguard of those who are robbers by incli⯑nation, interest, habit, and system. If this be our deliberate mind, truly we deserve to lose, what we cannot long retain, the name of a nation.

In matters of state, a constitutional competence to act, is in many cases the smallest part of the question. Without disputing (God forbid I should dispute) the sole competence of the King and the Parliament, each in it's province, to decide on war and peace, I venture to say, no war can be long carried on against the will of the people. This war, in particular, cannot be carried on unless [16] they are enthusiastically in favour of it. Acqui⯑escence will not do. There must be zeal. Uni⯑versal zeal in such a cause, and at such a time as this is, cannot be looked for; neither is it neces⯑sary. A zeal in the larger part carries the force of the whole. Without this, no Government, cer⯑tainly not our Government, is capable of a great war. None of the ancient regular Governments has wherewithal to fight abroad with a foreign foe, and at home to overcome repining, reluctance, and chicane. It must be some portentousthing, like Re⯑gicide France, that can exhibit such a prodigy. Yet even she, the mother of monsters, more proli⯑fic than the country of old called Feraxmonstrorum, shews symptoms of being almost effete already; and she will be so, unless the fallow of a peace comes to recruit her fertility. But whatever may be represented concerning the meanness of the popular spirit, I, for one, do not think so despe⯑rately of the British nation. Our minds are light, but they are not evil. We are dreadfully open to delusion and to dejection; but we are capable of being animated and undeceived.

It cannot be concealed. We are a divided people. But in divisions, where a part is to be taken, we are to make a muster of our strength. I have often endeavoured to class those who, in any political view, are to be called the people. [17] Without doing ſomething of this ſort we muſt proceed abſurdly. We ſhould preſume as ab⯑ſurdly, if we pretended to very great accuracy in our eſtimate. But I think, in the calculation I have made, the error cannot be very material. In England and Scotland, I compute that thoſe of adult age, not declining in life, of tolerable leiſure for ſuch diſcuſſions, and of ſome means of infor⯑mation, more or leſs, and who are above menial dependence, (or what virtually is ſuch) may amount to about four hundred thouſand. In this number I include the women that take a concern in thoſe tranſactions, who cannot exceed twenty thouſand. There is ſuch a thing as a natural re⯑preſentative of the people. This body is that re⯑preſentative; and on this body, more than on the legal conſtituent, the artificial repreſentative de⯑pends. This is the Britiſh publick; and it is a publick very numerous. The reſt, when feeble, are the objects of protection; when ſtrong, the means of force. They who affect to conſider that part of us in any other light, inſult while they cajole us; they do not want us for counſellors in deliberation, but to liſt us as ſoldiers for battle.

Of theſe four hundred thouſand political citi⯑zens, I look upon one fifth, or about eighty thou⯑ſand, to be pure Jacobins; utterly incapable of amendment; objects of eternal vigilance; and [18] when they break out, of legal conſtraint. On theſe, no reaſon, no argument, no example, no venerable authority, can have the ſlighteſt influ⯑ence. They deſire a change; and they will have it if they can. If they cannot have it by Engliſh cabal, they will make no ſort of ſcruple of having it by the cabal of France, into which already they are virtually incorporated.

This minority is great and formidable. I do not know whether if I aimed at the total over⯑throw of a kingdom, I ſhould wiſh to be encum⯑bered with a larger body of partizans. Theſe, by their ſpirit of intrigue, and by their reſtleſs agitating activity, are of a force far ſuperior to their numbers; and if times grew the leaſt criti⯑cal, have the means of debauching or intimidat⯑ing many of thoſe who are now ſound, as well as of adding to their force large bodies of the more paſſive part of the nation. This minority is nu⯑merous enough to make a mighty cry for peace, or for war, or for any object they are led vehe⯑mently to deſire. By paſſing from place to place with a velocity incredible, and diverſifying their character and deſcription, they are capable of mimicking the general voice. We muſt not al⯑ways judge of the generality of the opinion by the noiſe of the acclamation.

[19] The majority, the other four fifths, is perfectly ſound; and of the beſt poſſible diſpoſitions to re⯑ligion, to government, to the true and undivided intereſt of their country. Such men are naturally diſpoſed to peace. They who are in poſſeſſion of all they wiſh, are languid and improvident. With this fault, (and I admit it's exiſtence in all its extent) they would not endure to hear of a peace that led to the ruin of every thing for which peace is dear to them. However, the de⯑ſire of peace is eſſentially the weak ſide of all ſuch men. All men that are ruined, are ruined on the ſide of their natural propenſities. There they are unguarded. They do not ſuſpect that their deſtruction is attempted through their virtues. This their enemies are perfectly aware of—and accordingly they, the moſt turbulent of mankind, who never made a ſcruple to ſhake the tranqui⯑lity of their country to its centre, raiſe a con⯑tinual cry for peace with France. Peace with Regicide, and war with the reſt of the world, is their true motto. From the beginning, and even whilſt the French gave the blows, and we hardly oppoſed the vis inertiae to their efforts, from that day to this hour, like importunate Guinea-fowls crying one note day and night, they have called for a Regicide peace.

[20] In this they are, as I confeſs in all things they are, perfectly conſiſtent. They who wiſh to unite themſelves to your enemies, naturally de⯑ſire, that you ſhould diſarm yourſelf by a peace with theſe enemies. But it paſſes my conception, how they, who wiſh well to their country on it's ancient ſyſtem of laws and manners, come not to be doubly alarmed, when they find nothing but a clamor for peace, in the mouths of the men on earth the leaſt diſpoſed to it in their natural or in their habitual character.

I have a good opinion of the general abilities of the Jacobins: not that I ſuppoſe them better born than others; but ſtrong paſſions awake the fa⯑culties. They ſuffer not a particle of the man to be loſt. The ſpirit of enterpriſe gives them the full uſe of all their native energies. If I have reaſon to conceive that my enemy, who, as ſuch, muſt have an intereſt in my deſtruction, is alſo a perſon of diſcernment and ſagacity, then I muſt be quite ſure, that in a conteſt, the object he violently purſues, is the very thing by which my ruin is the moſt perfectly accompliſhed. Why do the Jacobins cry for peace? Becauſe they know, that this point gained, the reſt will follow of courſe. On our part why are all the rules of prudence, as ſure as the laws of material nature to be at this time reverſed? How comes it, that now [21] for the firſt time, men think it right to be governed by the counſels of their enemies? Ought they not rather to tremble, when they are perſuaded to tra⯑vel on the ſame road; and to tend to the ſame place of reſt?

The minority I ſpeak of, is not ſuſceptible of an impreſſion from the topics of argument, to be uſed to the larger part of the community. I therefore do not addreſs to them any part of what I have to ſay. The more forcibly I drive my arguments againſt their ſyſtem, ſo as to make an impreſſion where I wiſh to make it, the more ſtrongly I rivet them in their ſentiments. As for us, who compoſe the far larger, and what I call the far better part of the people; let me ſay, that we have not been quite fairly dealt with when called to this deli⯑beration. The Jacobin minority have been abun⯑dantly ſupplied with ſtores and proviſions of all kinds towards their warfare. No ſort of argumen⯑tative materials, ſuited to their purpoſes, have been withheld. Falſe they are, unſound, ſophiſtical; but they are regular in their direction. They all bear one way; and they all go to the ſupport of the ſubſtantial merits of their cauſe. The others have not had the queſtion ſo much as fairly ſtated to them.

[22] There has not been in this century, any foreign peace or war in it's origin, the fruit of popular deſire: except the war that was made with Spain in 1739. Sir Robert Walpole was forced into the war by the people who were inflamed to this meaſure by the moſt leading politicians, by the firſt orators, and the greateſt poets of the time. For that war, Pope ſung his dying notes. For that war, Johnſon in more energetic ſtrains, employed the voice of his early genius. For that war, Glover diſtinguiſhed himſelf in the way in which his muſe was the moſt natural and happy. The crowd readily followed the politi⯑cians in the cry for a war, which threatened little bloodſhed, and which promiſed victories that were attended with ſomething more ſolid than glory. A war with Spain was a war of plunder. In the preſent conflict with Regicide, Mr. Pitt has not had, nor will for ſome little time have, many prizes to hold out in the lottery of war, to tempt the lower part of our character. He can only maintain it by an appeal to the higher; and to thoſe, in whom that higher part is moſt predominant, he muſt look the moſt for his ſupport. Whilſt he holds out no inducements to the wiſe, nor bribes to the avari⯑cious, he may be forced by a vulgar cry into a peace ten times more ruinous than the moſt diſ⯑aſtrous war. The weaker he is in the fund of mo⯑tives which apply to our avarice, to our lazineſs, [23] and to our laſſitude, if he means to carry the war to any end at all, the ſtronger he ought to be in his addreſſes to our magnanimity and to our reaſon.

In ſtating that Walpole was driven by a popular clamour into a meaſure not to be juſtified, I do not mean wholly to excuſe his conduct. My time of obſervation did not exactly coincide with that event; but I read much of the controverſies then carried on. Several years after the conteſts of par⯑ties had ceaſed, the people were amuſed, and in a degree warmed with them. The events of that aera ſeemed then of magnitude, which the revolu⯑tions of our time have reduced to parochial im⯑portance; and the debates, which then ſhook the nation, now appear of no higher moment than a diſcuſſion in a veſtry. When I was very young, a general faſhion told me I was to admire ſome of the writings againſt that Miniſter; a little more maturity taught me as much to deſpiſe them. I obſerved one fault in his general proceeding. He never manfully put forward the entire ſtrength of his cauſe. He temporiſed; he managed; and adopting very nearly the ſentiments of his adverſa⯑ries, he oppoſed their inferences.—This, for a po⯑litical commander, is the choice of a weak poſt. His adverſaries had the better of the argument, as he handled it, not as the reaſon and juſtice of his cauſe enabled him to manage it. I ſay this after [24] having ſeen, and with ſome care examined, the ori⯑ginal documents concerning certain important tranſactions of thoſe times. They perfectly ſatiſ⯑fied me of the extreme injuſtice of that war, and of the falſehood of the colours, which to his own ruin, and guided by a miſtaken policy, he ſuf⯑fered to be daubed over that meaſure. Some years after, it was my fortune, to converſe with many of the principal actors againſt that Miniſter, and with thoſe, who principally excited that clamour. None of them, no not one, did in the leaſt defend the meaſure, or attempt to juſtify their conduct, which they as freely condemned as they would have done in commenting upon any proceeding in hiſ⯑tory, in which they were totally unconcerned. Thus it will be. They who ſtir up the people to improper deſires, whether of peace or war, will be condemned by themſelves. They who weakly yield to them will be condemned by hiſtory.

In my opinion, the preſent miniſtry are as far from doing full juſtice to their cauſe in this war, as Walpole was from doing juſtice to the peace which at that time he was willing to preſerve. They throw the light on one ſide only of their caſe; though it is impoſſible they ſhould not obſerve, that the other ſide which is kept in the ſhade, has it's importance too. They muſt know, that France is formidable, not only as ſhe is France, [25] but as she is Jacobin France. They knew from the beginning that the Jacobin party was not confined to that country. They knew, they felt, the strong dispositions of the same faction in both countries to communicate and to co-ope⯑rate. For some time past, these two points have been kept, and even industriously kept, out of sight. France is considered as merely a foreign Power; and the seditious English only as a domes⯑tick faction. The merits of the war with the for⯑mer have been argued solely on political grounds. To prevent our being corrupted with the mischiev⯑ous doctrines of the latter, matter and argument have been supplied abundantly, and even to sur⯑feit on the excellency of our own government. But nothing has been done to make us feel in what manner the safety of that Government is connected with the principle and with the issue of this war. For any thing, which in the late dis⯑cussion has appeared, the war is intirely collateral to the state of Jacobinism; as truly a foreign war to us and to all our home concerns, as the war with Spain in 1739, about Gard da Costas, the Madrid Convention, and the fable of Captain Jenkins's ears.

Some who are advocates at once for Govern⯑ment, and for peace with the enemies of all Go⯑vernment, have even gone the length of consider⯑ing [26] the proceedings in France, if at all they af⯑fect us, as rather advantageous to the cause of tranquillity and good order in this country. But I reserve my observations on this very extraordinary topic of argument to another occasion: it is now my business to point out to you, that when⯑ever the adverse party has raised a cry for peace with the Regicide, the answer has been little more than this, ‘"that the Administration wished for such a peace, full as much as the Opposition; but that the time was not convenient for making it."’ Whatever else has been said was much in the same spirit. Reasons of this kind never touched the sub⯑stantial merits of the war. They where in the na⯑ture of dilatory pleas, exceptions of form, and pre⯑vious questions. Accordingly all the arguments against a compliance with the popular desires, (urg⯑ed on with all possible vehemence and earnestness by the Jacobins) have appeared flat and languid, feeble and evasive. They appeared to aim only at gaining time. They never entered into the pe⯑culiar and distinctive character of the war. They spoke neither to the understanding nor to the heart. Cold as ice themselves, they never could kindle in our breasts a spark of that zeal, which is necessary to a conflict with an adverse zeal; much less are they made to infuse into our minds, that stubborn persevering spirit, which alone is capable of bear⯑ing up against those vicissitudes of fortune, that will [27] probably occur, and those burthens which must be inevitably borne in a long war. I speak it empha⯑tically, and with a desire that it should be marked, in a long war; because, without such a war, no ex⯑perience has yet told us, that a dangerous power has ever been reduced to measure or to reason. I do not throw back my view to the Peloponnesian war of twenty-seven years; nor to two of the Pu⯑nick wars, the first of twenty-four, the second of eighteen; nor to the more recent war concluded by the treaty of Westphalia, which continued, I think, for thirty. I go to what is but just fallen behind living memory, and immediately touches our own country. Let the portion of our history from the year 1689 to 1713 be brought before us. We shall find, that in all that pe⯑riod of twenty-four years, there were not above six that could be called an interval of peace; and this interval was in reality nothing more than a very active preparation for war. During that pe⯑riod, every one of the propositions of peace came from the enemy. The first, when they were ac⯑cepted, at the peace of Ryswick. The second, where they were rejected at the congress at Ger⯑trudenburgh. The last, when the war ended by the treaty of Utrecht. Even then, a very great part of the nation, and that which contained by far the most intelligent statesmen, was against the conclusion of the war. I do not enter into the [28] merits of that question as between the parties. I only state the existence of that opinion as a fact. I mention the length of the war as a proof, that though the countries which now compose the kingdom, for a part of the time were not united, and through all the time continued with a raw and ill cemented union, and though they were further split into parties as vehement, and more equally divided than now they are, and that we were possessed of far less abundant resources in all kinds than we now enjoy.—I mean to mark, that under all these disadvantages the English nation was then a great people; that we had then an high mind, and a constancy unconquerable; that we were then inspired with no flashy passions, but such as were durable as well as warm; such as cor⯑responded to the great interests we had at stake. This force of character was inspired, as all such spirit must ever be, from above. Government gave the impulse. As well may we fancy that of itself the sea will swell, and without winds the billows will insult the adverse shore, as that the gross mass of the people will be moved and elevated without the influence of superior authority, or superior mind.

This impulse ought, in my opinion, to have been given in this war; and it ought to have been con⯑tinued to it at every instant. It is made. if ever [29] war was made, to touch all the great springs of action in the human breast. It ought not to have been a war of apology. The minister had, in this conflict wherewithal to glory in success; to be consoled in adversity; to hold high his principle in all fortunes. If it were not given him to sup⯑port the falling edifice, he ought to bury himself under the ruins of the civilized world. All the art of Greece, and all the pride and power of eastern Monarchs, never heaped upon their ashes so grand a monument.

There were days when his great mind was up to the crisis of the world he is called to act in. His manly eloquence was equal to the elevated wisdom of such sentiments. But the little have triumphed over the great; an unnatural, not an unusual victory. I am sure you cannot forget with how much uneasiness we heard in conversation, the language of more than one gentleman at the opening of this contest, ‘"that he was willing to try the war for a year or two, and if it did not succeed, then to vote for peace."’ As if war was a matter of experiment! As if you could take it up or lay it down as an idle frolick! As if the dire goddess that presides over it, with her mur⯑derous spear in her hand, and her gorgon at her breast, was a coquette to be flirted with! We ought with reverence to approach that tremendous [30] divinity, that loves courage, but commands coun⯑sel. War never leaves a nation where it was found. The interval between that and peace is indeed ‘"a very hideous dream, in which the ge⯑nius and the mortal instruments are seriously at work."’ It is never to be entered into without a mature deliberation; not a deliberation lengthened out into a perplexing indecision, but a deliberation leading to a sure and fixed judgment. When so taken up it is not to be abandoned without reason as valid, as fully, and as extensively considered; for peace may be made as unadvisedly as war. No⯑thing is so rash as fear: and the counsels of pusil⯑lanimity very rarely put off, whilst they are al⯑ways sure to aggravate the evils they would fly from.

In that great war carried on against Louis the XIVth, for near eighteen years Government spared no pains to satisfy the people, that though they were to be animated by a desire of glory, glory was not their ultimate object: but that every thing dear to them, in religion, in law, in liberty, every thing which as freemen, as Englishmen, and as citizens of the great commonwealth of Christen⯑dom, they had at heart, was then at stake. Whe⯑ther they did not exaggerate the danger I will not dispute. A danger, and no small danger, unques⯑tionably there was; and that long and arduous war was pursued, upon at least as solid and manly [31] grounds, as the peace was made which put an end to it. A danger to avert a danger—a present incon⯑venience and suffering to prevent a foreseen fu⯑ture, and a worse calamity—these are the motives that belong to an animal, who, in his constitution, is at once adventurous and provident; circum⯑spect, and daring; whom his Creator has made, as the Poet says, ‘"of large discourse, looking be⯑fore and after."’ But never can a vehement and sustained spirit of fortitude be kindled in a people by a war of calculation. It has nothing that can keep the mind erect under the gusts of adversity. Even where men are willing, as sometimes they are, to barter their blood for lucre, to hazard their safety to gratify their avarice, that passion, like all the passions, must see it's objects distinct and near at hand. The passions are hungry and impatient. Speculative plunder; contingent spoil; future long adjourned uncertain booty; pillage which must en⯑rich a late posterity, and which possibly may not reach to posterity at all; these, for any length of time, will never support a mercenary war. The people are in the right. The calculation of profit in all such wars is false. On balancing the ac⯑count of such wars, ten thousand hogsheads of sugar are purchased at ten thousand times their price. The blood of man should never be shed but to redeem the blood of man. It is well shed for our family, for our friends, for our God, for [32] our country, for our kind. The rest is vanity; the rest is crime.

In the war of the Grand Alliance, most of these considerations voluntarily and naturally had their part. Some were pressed into the service. The political interest easily went in the track of the natural sentiment. In the reverse course the car⯑riage does not follow freely. I am sure the natu⯑ral feeling, as I have just said, is a far more pre⯑dominant ingredient in this war, than in that of any other that ever was waged by this kingdom.

If the war made to prevent the union of two crowns upon one head was a just war, this, which is made to prevent the tearing all crowns from all heads which ought to wear them, and with the crowns to smite off the sacred heads themselves, this is a just war.

If a war to prevent Louis the XIVth from im⯑posing his religion was just, a war to prevent the murderers of Louis the XVIth from imposing their irreligion upon us is just; a war to prevent the operation of a system, which makes life without dignity, and death without hope, is a just war.

If to preserve political independence and ci⯑vil freedom to nations, was a just ground of war; [33] a war to preserve national independence, property, liberty, life, and honour, from certain universal havock, is a war just, necessary, manly, pious; and we are bound to persevere in it by every principle, divine and human, as long as the system which menaces them all, and all equally, has an existence in the world.

You, who have looked at this matter with as fair and impartial an eye as can be united with a feel⯑ing heart, you will not think it an hardy assertion, when I affirm, that it were far better to be con⯑quered by any other nation, than to have this fac⯑tion for a neighbour. Before I felt myself autho⯑rised to say this, I considered the state of all the countries in Europe for these last three hundred years, which have been obliged to submit to a fo⯑reign law. In most of those I found the condition of the annexed countries even better, certainly not worse, than the lot of those which were the patrimony of the conqueror. They wanted some blessings—but they were free from many very great evils. They were rich and tranquil. Such was Artois, Flanders, Lorrain, Alsatia, un⯑der the old Government of France. Such was Silesia under the King of Prussia. They who are to live in the vicinity of France, are to prepare to live in perpetual conspiracies and seditions; and to end at last, in being conquered, if not to [34] her dominion, to her resemblance. But when we talk of conquest by other nations, it is only to put a case. This is the only power in Europe by which it is possible we should be conquered. To live under the continual dread of such immeasureable evils is itself a grievous calamity. To live without the dread of them, is to turn the danger into the disaster. The influence of such a France is equal to a war; it's example, more wasting than an hos⯑tile irruption. The hostility with any other state is separable and accidental; this state, by the very condition of it's existence, by it's very essential constitution, is in a state of hostility with us, and with all civilized people.

A Government of the nature of that set up at our very door has never been hitherto seen, or even imagined in Europe. What our relation to it will be cannot be judged by other relations. It is a serious thing to have a connexion with a people, who live only under positive, arbitrary, and changeable institutions; and those not perfected nor supplied, nor explained by any common ac⯑knowledged rule of moral science. I remember that in one of my last conversations with the late Lord Camden, we were struck much in the same manner with the abolition in France of the law, as a science of methodized and artificial equity. France, since her Revolution, is under the sway of [35] a sect, whose leaders have deliberately, at one stroke, demolished the whole body of that juris⯑prudence which France had pretty nearly in com⯑mon with other civilized countries. In that juris⯑prudence were contained the elements and princi⯑ples of the law of nations, the great ligament of mankind. With the law they have of course de⯑stroyed all seminaries in which jurisprudence was taught, as well as all the corporations established for its conservation. I have not heard of any coun⯑try, whether in Europe or Asia, or even in Africa on this side of Mount Atlas, which is wholly with⯑out some such colleges and such corporations, except France. No man, in a public or private concern, can divine by what rule or principle her judgments are to be directed; nor is there to be found a Professor in any University, or a Practi⯑tioner in any Court, who will hazard an opinion of what is or is not law in France, in any case what⯑ever. They have not only annulled all their old treaties; but they have renounced the law of na⯑tions from whence treaties have their force. With a fixed design they have outlawed themselves, and to their power outlawed all other nations. Instead of the religion and the law by which they were in a great and politick communion with the Christian world, they have constructed their Republick on three basis; all fundamentally opposite to those on which the communities of Europe are built. It's [36] foundation is laid in Regicide; in Jacobinism; and in Atheism; and it has joined to those prin⯑ciples, a body of systematick manners which se⯑cures their operation.

If I am asked how I would be understood in the use of those terms, Regicide, Jacobinism, A⯑theism, and a system of correspondent manners and their establishment, I will tell you.

I call a commonwealth Regicide, which lays it down as a fixed law of nature, and a fundamen⯑tal right of man, that all government, not being a democracy, is an usurpation^*. That all Kings, as such, are usurpers; and for being Kings, may and ought to be put to death, with their wives, fa⯑milies, and adherents. The commonwealth which acts uniformly upon those principles, and which af⯑ter abolishing every festival of religion, chooses the most flagrant act of a murderous Regicide treason for a feast of eternal commemoration, and which [37] forces all her people to observe it.—This I call Regicide by establishment.

Jacobinism is the revolt of the enterprising ta⯑lents of a country against it's property. When private men form themselves into associations for the purpose of destroying the pre-existing laws and institutions of their country; when they se⯑cure to themselves an army by dividing amongst the people of no property, the estates of the an⯑cient and lawful proprietors; when a state recog⯑nizes those acts; when it does not make confis⯑cations for crimes, but makes crimes for confisca⯑tions; when it has it's principal strength, and all it's resources in such a violation of property; when it stands chiefly upon such a violation; massacring by judgments, or otherwise, those who make any struggle for their old legal government, and their legal, hereditary, or acquired possessions, I call this Jacobinism by establishment.

I call it Atheism by establishment, when any State, as such, shall not acknowledge the existence of God as a moral Governor of the World; when it shall offer to Him no religious or moral worship;—when it shall abolish the Christian religion by a regular decree;—when it shall persecute with a cold, unrelenting, steady cruelty, by every mode of confiscation, imprisonment, exile, and death, [38] all its ministers;—when it shall generally shut up or pull down churches; when the few buildings which remain of this kind shall be opened only for the purpose of making a profane apotheosis of monsters, whose vices and crimes have no parallel amongst men, and whom all other men consider as objects of general detestation, and the severest animadversion of law. When, in the place of that religion of social benevolence, and of individual self-denial, in mockery of all religion, they insti⯑tute impious, blasphemous, indecent theatric rites in honor of their vitiated, perverted reason, and erect altars to the personification of their own corrupted and bloody Republick;—when schools and seminaries are erected at public expence to poison mankind, from generation to generation, with the horrible maxims of this impiety, I call this Atbeism by establishment.

When to these establishments of Regicide, of Jacobinism, and of Atheism, you add the corres⯑pondent system of manners, no doubt can be left on the mind of a thinking man, concerning their de⯑termined hostility to the human race. Manners are of more importance than laws. In a great mea⯑sure the laws depend upon them. The law touches us but here and there, and now and then. Man⯑ners are what vex or sooth, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a con⯑stant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like [39] that of the air we breath in. They give their whole form and colour to our lives. According to their quality, they aid morals, they supply them, or they totally destroy them. Of this the new French Legislators were aware; therefore, with the same method, and under the same authority, they settled a system of manners, the most licen⯑tious, prostitute, and abandoned, and at the same time the most coarse, rude, savage, and ferocious. Nothing in the Revolution, no, not to a phrase or a gesture, not to the fashion of a hat or a shoe, was left to accident. All was the result of design; all was matter of institution. No mechanical means could be devised in favour of this incredi⯑ble system of wickedness and vice, that has not been employed. The noblest passions, the love of glory, the love of country, were debauched into means of it's preservation and it's propagation. All sorts of shews and exhibitions calculated to in⯑flame and vitiate the imagination, and pervert the moral sense, have been contrived. They have sometimes brought forth five or six hundred drunken women, calling at the bar of the Assem⯑bly for the blood of their own children, as being royalists or constitutionals. Sometimes they have got a body of wretches, calling themselves fathers, to demand the murder of their sons; boasting that Rome had but one Brutus, but that they could shew five hundred. There were instances, in [40] which they inverted, and retaliated the impiety, and produced sons, who called for the execution of their parents. The foundation of their Repu⯑blick is founded in moral paradoxes. Their pa⯑triotism is always prodigy. All those instances to be found in history, whether real or fabulous, of a doubtful publick spirit, at which morality is perplexed, reason is staggered, and from which a frighted nature recoils, are their chosen, and almost sole examples for the instruction of their youth.

The whole drift of their institution is contrary to that of the wise Legislators of all countries, who aimed at improving instincts into morals, and at grafting the virtues on the stock of the natural af⯑fections. They, on the contrary, have omitted no pains to eradicate every benevolent and noble pro⯑pensity in the mind of men. In their culture it is a rule always to graft virtues on vices. They think everything unworthy of the name of publick virtue, unless it indicates violence on the private. All their new institutions, (and with them every thing is new) strike at the root of our social nature. Other Legislators, knowing that marriage is the origin of all relations, and consequently the first element of all duties, have endeavoured by every art to make it sacred. The Christian Religion, by confining it to the pairs, and by rendering that relation indisso⯑luble, has, by these two things, done more towards [41] the peace, happiness, settlement, and civilization of the world, than by any other part in this whole scheme of Divine Wisdom. The direct contrary course was taken in the Synagogue of Antichrist, I mean in that forge and manufactory of all evil, the sect which predominated in the Constituent Assembly of 1789. Those monsters employed the same, or greater industry, to desecrate and degrade that State, which other Legislators have used to render it holy and honourable. By a strange, uncalled for declaration, they pronounced, that marriage was no better than a common, civil contract. It was one of their ordinary tricks, to put their sentiments into the mouths of certain personated characters, which they theatrically exhibited at the bar of what ought to be a serious Assembly. One of these was brought out in the figure of a prostitute, whom they called by the affected name of ‘"a mother without being a wife."’ This creature they made to call for a repeal of the incapacities, which in civilized States are put upon bastards. The prostitutes of the As⯑sembly gave to this their puppet the sanction of their greater impudence. In consequence of the principles laid down, and the manners authorised, bastards were not long after put on the footing of the issue of lawful unions. Proceeding in the ſpi⯑rit of the first authors of their constitution, they went the full length of the principle, and gave a [42] licence to divorce at the mere pleasure of either party, and at four day's notice. With them the matrimonial connexion was brought into so de⯑graded a state of concubinage, that, I believe, none of the wretches in London, who keep warehouses of infamy, would give out one of their victims to private custody on so short and insolent a tenure. There was indeed a kind of profligate equity in thus giving to women the same licentious power. The reason they assigned was as infamous as the act, declaring that women had been too long under the tyranny of parents and of husbands. It is not ne⯑cessary to observe upon the horrible consequen⯑ces of taking one half of the species wholly out of the guardianship and protection of the other.

The practice of divorce, though in some coun⯑tries permitted, has been discouraged in all. In the East, polygamy and divorce are in discredit; and the manners correct the laws. In Rome, were divorce was allowed, some hundreds of years had passed, without a single example of that kind. Of this circumstance they were pleased to take notice, as an inducement to adopt their regulation: hold⯑ing out an hope, that the permission would as rarely be made use of. They knew the contrary to be true; and they had taken good care, that the laws should be well seconded by the manners. Their law of divorce, like all their laws, had not for it's object [43] the relief of domestick uneasiness, but the total corruption of all morals, the total disconnection of social life.

It is a matter of curiosity to observe the opera⯑tion of this encouragement to disorder. I have be⯑fore me the Paris paper, correspondent to the usu⯑al register of births, marriages, and deaths. Di⯑vorce, happily, is no regular head of registry a⯑mongst civilized nations. With the Jacobins it is remarkable, that divorce is not only a regular head but it has the post of honour. It occupies the first place in the list. In the three first months of the year 1793, the number of divorces amounted to 562. The marriages were 1785; so that the pro⯑portion of divorces to marriages was not much less than one to three. A thing unexampled, I believe, amongst mankind. I caused an enquiry to be made at Doctor's Commons, concerning the num⯑ber of divorces; and found that all the divorces, (which except by special act of Parliament, are separations, and not proper divorces) did not amount for all England, and in an hundred years, to much more than one fifth of those that passed, in the single city of Paris, in three months. I fol⯑lowed up the enquiry through several of the sub⯑sequent months until I was tired, and found the proportions still the same. By this we may take our estimate of the havock that has been made [44] through all the relations of life. With the Jaco⯑bins of France, vague intercourse is without re⯑proach; marriage is reduced to the vilest concu⯑binage; children are encouraged to cut the throats of their parents; mothers are taught that tenderness is no part of their character; and to demonstrate their attatchment to their party, that they ought to make no scruple to rake wtih their bloody hands in the bowels of those who came from their own.

To all this let us join the practice of canniba⯑lism, with which, in the proper terms, and with the greatest truth, their several factions accuse each other. By cannibalism, I mean their devour⯑ing, as a nutriment of their ferocity, some part of the bodies of those they have murdered; their drinking the blood of their victims, and forcing the victims themselves to drink the blood of their kindred slaughtered before their faces. By canni⯑balism, I mean also to signify their nameless, un⯑manly and abominable insults on the bodies of those they slaughter.

As to those whom they suffer to die a natural death, they do not suffer them to enjoy the last con⯑solations of mankind, or those rights of sepulture, which indicate hope, and which meer nature has taught to mankind in all countries. to soothe the [45] afflictions, and to cover the infirmity of moral condition. They disgrace men in the entry into life; they vitiate and enslave them through the whole course of it; and they deprive them of all comfort at the conclusion of their dishonoured and depraved existence. Endeavouring to per⯑suade the people that they are no better than beasts; the whole body of their institution tends to make them beasts of prey furious and savage. For this purpose the active part of them is disci⯑plined into a ferocity which has no parallel. To this ferocity there is joined not one of the rude, unfashioned virtues, which accompany the vices, where the whole are left to grow up together in the rankness of uncultivated nature. But nothing is left to nature in their systems.

The same discipline which hardens their hearts relaxes their morals. Whilst courts of justice were thrust out by revolutionary tribunals, and silent churches were only the funeral monuments of departed religion, no fewer than ten theatres were kept open at publick expence. At one time I have reckoned fourteen of their advertisements of publick diversion. Among the gaunt, hag⯑gard forms of famine and nakedness, amidst the yells of murder, the tears of affliction, and the cries of despair, the song, the dance, the mimick scene, the buffoon laughter, went on as regularly [46] as in the gay hour of festive peace. I have it from good authority, that under the scaffold of judicial murder, and the gaping planks that poured down blood on the spectators, the space was hired out for a shew of dancing dogs. I think, without conceit, we made the very same remark on reading some of their pieces, which being written for other purposes, let us into a view of their social life. It struck us that the habits of Paris had no resem⯑blance to the finished virtues, or to the polished vice, and elegant, though not blameless luxury, of the capital of a great empire. Their society was more like that of a den of outlaws upon a doubt⯑ful frontier: of a lewd tavern for the revels and debauches of banditti, assassins, braves, smugglers, and their more desperate paramours, mixed with bombastick players, the refuse and rejected offal of strolling theatres, puffing out ill-sorted verses about virtue, mixed with the licentious and blas⯑phemous songs, proper to their brutal and hard⯑ened course of life. This system of manners in itself is at war with all orderly and moral society, and is in it's neighbourhood unsafe. If great bo⯑dies of that kind were any where established in a bordering territory, we should have a right to de⯑mand of their Governments the suppression of such a nuisance. What are we to do if the Go⯑vernment and the whole community is of the same description?

[47] The operation of dangerous and delusive first principles obliges us to have recourse to the true ones. In the intercourse between nations, we are apt to rely too much on the instrumental part. We lay too much weight upon the formality of treaties and compacts. We do not act much more wisely when we trust to the interest of men as guarantees of their engagements. The interests frequently tear to pieces the engagements; and the passions trample upon both. Entirely to trust to either is to disregard our own safety, or not to know mankind. Men are not tied to one an⯑other by papers and seals. They are led to asso⯑ciate by resemblances, by conformities, by sym⯑pathies. It is with nations as with individuals. Nothing is so strong a tie of amity between na⯑tion and nation as correspondence in laws, customs, manners, and habits of life. They have more than the force of treaties in themselves. They are obli⯑gations written in the heart. They approximate men to men, without their knowledge, and some⯑times against their intentions. The secret, unseen, but irrefragable bond of habitual intercourse, helds them together, even when their perverse and liti⯑gious nature sets them to equivocate, souffle, and fight about the terms of their written obligations.

As to war, if it be the means of wrong and vio⯑lence, it is the sole means of justice amongst nations. [48] Nothing can banish it from the world. They who say otherwise, intending to impose upon us, do not impose upon themselves. But it is one of the greatest objects of human wisdom to mitigate those evils which we cannot remove. The conformity and analogy of which I speak, incapable, like every thing else, of preserving perfect trust and tranquillity among men, has a strong tendency to facilitate accommodation, and to produce a ge⯑nerous oblivion of the rancour of their quarrels. With this similitude, peace is more of peace, and war is less of war. I will go further. There have been periods of time in which communities, appa⯑rently in peace with each other, have been more perfectly separated than, in later times, many na⯑tions in Europe have been in the course of long and bloody wars. The cause must be sought in the similitude in Europe of religion, laws, and manners. At bottom, these are all the same. The writers on public law have often called this aggre⯑gate of nations a Commonwealth. They had rea⯑son. It is virtually one great state having the same basis of general law; with some diversity of pro⯑vincial customs and local establishments. The na⯑tions of Europe have had the very same Christian religion, agreeing in the fundamental parts, vary⯑ing a little in the ceremonies and in the subordi⯑nate doctrines. The whole of the polity and oeconomy of every country in Europe have been [49] derived from the ſame ſources. They were drawn from the old Germanic or Gothic cuſtumary; from the feudal inſtitutions which muſt be con⯑ſidered as an emanation from thoſe cuſtoms; and the whole has been improved and digeſted into ſyſtem and diſcipline by the Roman law. From hence aroſe the ſeveral orders, with or without a Monarch, which are called States in every coun⯑try; the ſtrong traces of which, where Monarchy predominated, were never wholly extinguiſhed or merged in deſpotiſm. In the few places where Monarchy was caſt off, the ſpirit of European Monarchy was ſtill left. Thoſe countries ſtill con⯑tinued countries of States, that is, of claſſes, orders, and diſtinctions, ſuch as had before ſubſiſted, or nearly ſo. Indeed the force and form of the inſti⯑tution called States, continued in greater perfec⯑tion in thoſe republican countries than under Mo⯑narchies. From all thoſe ſources aroſe a ſyſtem of manners and of education which was nearly ſimilar in all countries, and which ſoftened, blended, and harmonized the colours of the whole. There was little difference in the form of their Univer⯑ſities for the education of their youth, whether with regard to faculties, to ſciences, or to that erudition which is uſed to impart, with liberal morals, a kind of elegance to the mind. From this reſemblance in the modes of intercourſe, and in the whole form and faſhion of life, no citizen of Europe could [50] be altogether an exile in any part of it. There nothing more than a pleaſing variety to recreate and inſtruct the mind; to enrich the imagina⯑tion; and to meliorate the heart. When a man travelled or reſided for health, pleaſure, buſineſs or neceſſity, from his own country, he never felt himſelf quite abroad. My friend, Mr. Wyld, the late profeſſor of law in Edinburgh, a young man of infinite promiſe, and whoſe loſs at this time is ineſtimable, has beautifully applied two lines of Ovid to this unity and diverſity in Europe, before the curſe of the French Revolution had fallen upon us all.

The whole body of this new ſcheme of manners in ſupport of the new ſcheme of politicks, I con⯑ſider as a ſtrong and deciſive proof of determined ambition and ſyſtematick hoſtility. I defy the moſt refining ingenuity to invent any other cauſe for the total departure of the Jacobin Republick from every one of the ideas and uſages, religious, legal, moral, or ſocial, of this civilized world, and to tear herſelf from it's communion with ſuch ſtu⯑died violence, but from a formed reſolution of keeping no terms with that world. It has not been, as has been falſely and inſidiouſly repreſented, that theſe miſcreants had only broke with their old Go⯑vernment. [51] They made a ſchiſm with the whole univerſe, and that ſchiſm extended to almoſt every thing great and ſmall. For one, I wiſh, ſince it is gone thus far, that the breach had been ſo com⯑pleat, as to make all intercourſe impracticable; but partly by accident, partly by deſign, partly from the reſiſtance of the matter, enough is left to preſerve intercourſe, whilſt amity is deſtroyed or corrupted in its principle.

This violent breach of the community of Eu⯑rope, we muſt conclude to have been made, (even if they had not expreſsly declared it over and over again) either to force mankind into an adoption of their ſyſtem, or to live in perpetual enmity with a community the moſt potent we have ever known. Can any perſon imagine, that in offering to man⯑kind this deſperate alternative, there is no indica⯑tion of a hoſtile mind, becauſe men are ſuppoſed to have a right to act without coercion in their own territories? As to the right of men to act any where according to their pleaſure, without any moral tie, no ſuch right exiſts. Men are never in a ſtate of total independence of each other. It is not the condition of our nature; nor is it conceiv⯑able how any man can purſue a conſiderable courſe of action without its having ſome effect upon others; or, of courſe, without producing ſome de⯑gree of reſponſibility for his conduct. The ſitu⯑ations [52] in which men relatively ſtand produce the rules and principles of that reſponſibility, and afford directions to prudence in exacting it.

Diſtance of place does not extinguiſh the duties or the rights of men; but it often renders their exerciſe impracticable. The ſame circumſtance of diſtance renders the noxious effects of an evil ſyſ⯑tem in any community leſs pernicious. But there are ſituations where this difficulty does not oc⯑cur; and in which, therefore, theſe duties are obligatory, and theſe rights are to be aſſerted. It has ever been the method of publick juriſts to draw the analogies on which they form the law of nations, from the principles of law which prevail in civil community. Civil laws are not all of them merely poſitive. Thoſe which are rather con⯑cluſions of legal reaſon, than matters of ſtatutable proviſion, belong to univerſal equity, and are uni⯑verſally applicable. Almoſt the whole praetorian law is ſuch. There is a Law of Neighbourhood which does not leave a man perfect maſter on his own ground. When a neighbour ſees a new erection, in the nature of a nuiſance, ſet up at his door, he has a right to repreſent it to the judge; who, on his part, has a right to order the work to be ſtaid; or if eſtabliſhed, to be removed. On this head, the parent law is expreſs and clear; and has made many wiſe proviſions, which, without deſtroying, regulate and [53] reſtrain the right of ownerſhip, by the right of vi⯑cinage. No innovation is permitted that may re⯑dound, even ſecondarily, to the prejudice of a neighbour. The whole doctrine of that important head of pretorian law, ‘"De novi operis nunciatione,"’ is founded on the principle, that no new uſe ſhould be made of a man's private liberty of operating upon his private property, from whence a detriment may be juſtly apprehended by his neighbour. This law of denunciation is proſpective. It is to anticipate what is called damnum infectum, or damnum nondum factum, that is a damage juſtly apprehended but not actually done. Even before it is clearly known, whether the innovation be da⯑mageable or not, the judge is competent to iſſue a prohibition to innovate, until the point can be de⯑termined. This prompt interference is grounded on principles favourable to both parties. It is pre⯑ventive of miſcheif difficult to be repaired, and of ill blood difficult to be ſoftened. The rule of law, therefore, which comes before the evil, is amongſt the very beſt parts of equity, and juſtifies the promptneſs of the remedy; becauſe, as it is well obſerved, Res damni infecti celeritatem deſiderat, & periculoſa eſt dilatio. This right of denunciation does not hold, when things continue, however in⯑conveniently to the neighbourhood, according to the antient mode. For there is a ſort of preſump⯑tion againſt novelty, drawn out of a deep conſide⯑ration [54] of human nature and human affairs; and the maxim of juriſprudence is well laid down, Vetuſtas pro lege ſemper habetur.

Such is the law of civil vicinity. Now where there is no conſtituted judge, as between indepen⯑dent ſtates there is not, the vicinage itſelf is the natural judge. It is, preventively, the aſſertor of it's own rights; or remedially, their avenger. Neigh⯑bours are preſumed to take cognizance of each other's acts. ‘"Vicini, vicinorum facta preſumuntur ſcire."’ This principle, which, like the reſt, is as true of nations, as of men, has beſtowed on the grand vicinage of Europe, a duty to know, and a right to prevent, any capital innovation which may amount to the erection of a dangerous nuiſance. Of the importance of that innovation, and the miſcheif of that nuiſance, they are, to be ſure, bound to judge not litigiouſly: but it is in their competence to judge. What in civil ſociety is a ground of action, in politic ſociety is a ground of war. But the exerciſe of that competent juriſdic⯑tion is a matter of moral prudence. As ſuits in civil ſociety, ſo war in the political, is ever a matter of great deliberation. It is not this or that particular proceeding picked out here and there, as a ſubject of quarrel, that will do. There muſt be an aggregate of miſchief. There muſt be marks of deliberation; there muſt be [55] traces of deſign. There muſt be indications of malice; there muſt be tokens of ambition. There muſt be ſorce in the body where they exiſt; there muſt be energy in the mind. When all theſe cir⯑cumſtances combine, or the important parts of them, the duty of the vicinity calls for the exerciſe of it's competence; and the rules of prudence do not reſtrain, but demand it.

In deſcribing the nuiſance erected by ſo peſtilen⯑tial a manufactory, by conſtructing ſo infamous a brothel, by digging a night cellar for ſuch thieves, murderers, and houſebreakers, as never infeſted the world, I am ſo far from aggravating, that I have fallen infinitely ſhort of the evil. No man who has attended to the particulars of what has been done in France, and combined them with the principles there aſſerted, can poſſibly doubt it. When I compare with this great cauſe of nations, the trifling points of honour, the ſtill more con⯑temptible points of intereſt, the light ceremonies, the undefinable punctilios, the diſputes about pre⯑cedency, the lowering or the hoiſting of a ſail, the dealing in a hundred or two of wild cat-ſkins on the other ſide of the Globe, which have often kindled up the flames of war between nations, I ſtand aſtoniſhed at thoſe perſons, who do not feel a reſentment, not more natural than politick, at the attrocious inſults that this monſtrous com⯑pound [56] offers to the dignity of every nation, and who are not alarmed with what it threatens to their ſafety.

I have therefore been decidedly of opinion, that the vicinage of Europe had not only a right, but an indiſpenſible duty, and an exigent intereſt, to de⯑nunciate this new work before it had produced the danger we have ſo ſorely felt, and which we ſhall long feel. The example of what is done by France is too important not to have a vaſt and extenſive influence; and that example backed with it's power, muſt bear with great force on thoſe who are near it; eſpecially on thoſe who ſhall re⯑cognize the pretended Republick on the principle upon which it now ſtands. It is not an old ſtruc⯑ture which you have found as it is, and are not to diſpute of the original end and deſign with which it had been ſo faſhioned. It is a recent wrong, and can plead no preſcription. It violates the rights upon which not only the community of France, but thoſe on which all communities are founded. The principles on which they proceed are general principles, and are as true in England as in any other country. They who recognize the authority of theſe Regicides and robbers upon principle, juſtify their acts; and eſtabliſh them as precidents. It is a queſtion not between France and England. It is a queſtion between property and [57] force. The property claims. Its claim has been allowed: but it ſeems that we are to reject the property, and to take part with the force. The pro⯑perty of the nation is the nation. Thoſe who maſ⯑ſacre, plunder, and expel the body of the proprie⯑tary, are murderers and robbers. They are no Re⯑publick, nor can be treated with as ſuch. The State, in it's eſſence, muſt be moral and juſt; and it may be ſo, though a tyrant or uſurper may be accidentally at the head of it. This is a thing to be lamented: but this notwithſtanding, the body of the com⯑monwealth may remain in all it's integrity and be perfectly ſound in it's compoſition. The preſent caſe is different. It is not a revolution in govern⯑ment. It is a deſtruction and decompoſition of the whole ſociety, which never can be made of right, nor without terrible conſequences to all about it, both in the act and in the example. This pretended Republic is founded in crimes, and ex⯑iſts by wrong and robbery; and wrong and rob⯑bery, far from a title to any thing, is war with mankind. To be at peace with robbery is to be an accomplice with it.

A body politick is not a geographical idea. They who proceed as if it were ſuch, I truſt, do not underſtand what they do. Locality does not conſtitute a body politick. Had Cade and his gang got poſſeſſion of London, they would not have [58] been the Lord-Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council. The body politick of France exiſted in the majeſty of it's throne; in the dignity of it's nobility; in the honour of its gentry; in the ſanc⯑tity of its clergy; in the reverence of it's magi⯑ſtracy; in the weight and conſideration due to it's landed property, in the reſpect due to it's move⯑able ſubſtance repreſented by the corporations of the kingdom in all countries. All theſe particular moleculae united, form the great maſs of what is truly the body politick. They are ſo many de⯑poſits and receptacles of juſtice; becauſe they can only exiſt by juſtice. Nation is a moral eſſence, not a geographical arrangement, or a denomination of the nomenclator. France though out of her territorial poſſeſſion, exiſts; becauſe the ſole poſſible claimant, I mean the proprietary, and the government to which the proprietary adheres, exiſts and claims. God forbid, that if you were expelled from your houſe by ruffians and aſſaſſins, that I ſhould call the material walls, doors and windows of —, the ancient and honour⯑able family of —. Am I to transfer to the intruders, who not content to turn you out naked to the world, would rob you of your very name, all the eſteem and reſpect I owe to you?

To illuſtrate my opinions on this ſubject, let us ſuppoſe a caſe, which after what has happened, we [59] cannot think abſolutely impoſſible, though the augury is to be abominated, and the events depre⯑cated with our moſt ardent prayers—Let us ſup⯑poſe that our gracious ſovereign was ſacrilegiouſly murdered; his exemplary queen, at the head of the matronage of this land, murdered in the ſame manner, together with thoſe Princeſſes whoſe beauty and modeſt elegance are the ornaments of the country, and who are the leaders and patterns of the ingenious youth of their ſex;—that theſe were put to a cruel and ignominious death, with hundreds of others, mothers and daughters, of the firſt diſtinction;—that the Prince of Wales and Duke of York, the hope and pride of the nation, with all their brethren, were forced to fly from the knives of aſſaſſins—that the whole body of our excellent Clergy were either maſſacred or robbed of all, and tranſported—the Chriſtian Religion, in all it's denominations, forbidden and perſecuted; the law totally, fundamentally, and in all it's parts deſtroyed—the judges put to death by revolutionary tribunals—the Peers and Commons robbed to the laſt acre of their eſtates; maſſacred if they ſtaid, obliged to ſeek life in flight, in exile and in beggary—that the whole landed property ſhould ſhare the very ſame fate—that every military and naval officer of honour and rank, almoſt to a man, ſhould be in the ſame deſcription of confiſcation and exile—that the principal merchants and ban⯑kers [60] ſhould be drawn out, as from an hen-coop, for ſlaughter, and the citizens of our greateſt and moſt flouriſhing cities, when the hand and the ma⯑chinery of the hangman was not found ſufficient, were collected in the ſquares, and maſſacred by thouſands with cannon—if three hundred thouſand others were in a ſituation worſe than death, in noi⯑ſome and peſtilential priſons; in ſuch a caſe, is it in the faction of robbers I am to look for my country? Would this be the England that I, and even ſtrangers, admired, honoured, loved, and cheriſhed? Would not the exiles of England alone be my Government and my fellow citizens? Would not their places of refuge be my temporary country? Would not all my duties and all my affections be there and there only? Should I conſider myſelf as a traitor to my country, and deſerving of death, if I knocked at the door and heart of every Potentate in Chriſtendom to ſuccour my friends, and to avenge them on their enemies? Could I, in any way, ſhew myſelf more a patriot? What ſhould I think of thoſe Potentates who inſulted their ſuffer⯑ing brethren; who treated them as vagrants, and could find no allies, no friends, but in Regicide murderers and robbers? What ought I to think and feel, if being geographers inſtead of Kings, they recognized the deſolated cities, the waſted fields, and the rivers polluted with blood, of this geometrical meaſurement, as the honourable [61] member of Europe, called England? In that condi⯑tion, what ſhould we think of Sweden, Denmark, or Holland, or whatever power afforded us a churliſh and treacherous hoſpitality, if they ſhould invite us to join the ſtandard of our King, our Laws, and our Religion, if they ſhould give us a direct promiſe of protection,—if after all this, taking ad⯑vantage of our deplorable ſituation, which left us no choice, they were to treat us as the loweſt and vileſt of all mercenaries? If they were to ſend us far from the aid of our King, and our ſuffering Country, to ſquander us away in the moſt peſtilen⯑tial climates, for a venal enlargement of their own territories, for the purpoſe of trucking them when obtained with our murderers? If in that miſerable ſervice we were not to be conſidered either as Engliſh, or as Swedes, or Dutch, or Danes, but as outcaſts of the human race? Whilſt we were fight⯑ing thoſe battles of their intereſt, and as their ſol⯑diers, how ſhould we feel if we were to be ex⯑cluded from all their cartels? How muſt we feel, if the pride and flower of the Engliſh Nobility and Gentry, who might eſcape the peſtilential clime, and the devouring ſword, ſhould, if taken pri⯑ſoners, be delivered over as rebel ſubjects, to be condemned as rebels, as traitors, as the vileſt of all criminals, by tribunals formed of Maroon ne⯑groe ſlaves, covered over with the blood of their maſters, who were made free, and organiſed into [62] judges, for their robberies and murders? What ſhould we feel under this inhuman, inſulting, and barbarous protection of Swedes and Hollanders? Should we not obteſt Heaven, and whatever juſtice there is yet on earth? Oppreſſion makes wiſe men mad; but the diſtemper is ſtill the madneſs of the wiſe, which is better than the ſobriety of fools. Her cry is the voice of ſacred miſery, exalted, not into wild raving, but into the ſanctified phrenſy of inſpiration and prophecy—in that bitterneſs of ſoul, in that indignation of ſuffering virtue, in that exaltation of deſpair, would not perſecuted Engliſh Loyalty cry out, with an awful warning voice, and denounce the deſtruction that waits on Monarchs, who conſider fidelity to them as the moſt degrading of all vices; who ſuffer it to be puniſhed as the moſt abominable of all crimes; and who have no reſpect but for rebels traitors, Regicides, and furious negro ſlaves, whoſe crimes have broke their chains? Would not this warm language of high indignation have more of ſound reaſon in it, more of real affection, more of true attachment, than all the lullabies of flatterers, who would huſh Monarchs to ſleep in the arms of death? Let them be well convinced, that if ever this ex⯑ample ſhould prevail in its whole extent, it will have its full operation. Whilſt Kings ſtand firm on their baſe, though under that baſe there is a ſure⯑wrought mine, their levees will never want to [63] ſwell them a ſingle perſon of thoſe who are attach⯑ed to their fortune, and not to their perſons or cauſe. Hereafter none will ſupport a tottering throne. Some will fly, for fear of being cruſhed under the ruin; ſome will join in making it. They will ſeek in the preſervation of Royalty, fame, and power, and wealth, and the homage of Kings—with Reubel, with Carnot, and Rovelliere, rather than ſuffer exile and beggary with the Condés, or the Broglios, the Caſtries, the D'Avrais, the Ser⯑rents, the Cazalés, and the long line of loyal ſuf⯑fering Patriot Nobles, or to be butchered with the victims of the laws, the De Sezes, the d'Eſpreme⯑monils, and the Malſherbes.

Theſe examples are the ſchool of mankind, and they will learn at no other. This war, therefore, is not a war for Louis the Eighteenth, or for the property, virtue, fidelity of France; but for George the Third, Francis the Second, and for all the property, honour, virtue and religion of England, of Germany, and all nations.

But, ſay ſome, you force opinion. You can never extirpate opinion without extirpating a whole nation. Nay, by purſuing it, you only increaſe its partizans. Opinions are things out of human juriſdiction. I have formerly heard this from the mouths of great men, with more ſurprize than [64] ſatisfaction. They alledged as a proof of their doctrine, the wars of Charles the Fifth, and ſome of his ſucceſſors, againſt the Reformation.

It is ſo common, though ſo unreaſonable, it is hardly worth remarking, that no perſons purſue more fiercely with criminal proceſs, and with every kind of coercion, the publication of opinions con⯑trary to their own, than thoſe do, who claim in this reſpect the moſt unbounded latitude to them⯑ſelves. If it were not for this inconſiſtency, then war againſt opinions might be juſtified as all others, more or leſs, according to the reaſon of the caſe: for the caſe judged on by moral prudence, and not by any univerſal abſtract principle of right, is to guide government in this delicate point.

As to the mere matter of extirpation of all kinds of opinions, whether right or wrong, without the extirpation of a people, it is a thing ſo very com⯑mon, that would be clouded and obſcured rather than illuſtrated by examples. Every revolution in the predominant opinion made by the force of do⯑meſtic legal government, by the force of any uſur⯑pation, by the force of any conqueſt, is a proof to the contrary;—and there is no nation which has not experienced thoſe changes. Inſtances enough may be furniſhed of people who have enthuſiaſti⯑cally, and with force, propagated thoſe opinions, [65] which ſome time before they reſiſted with their blood. Rarely have ever great changes in opinion taken place without the application of force, more or leſs: Like every thing elſe in human life and human affairs, it is not univerſally true, that a perſecution of opinions leſſens or increaſes the number of their votaries. In finding where it may or may not have gathered theſe effects, the ſagacity of Government ſhines or is diſgraced, as well as in the time, the manner, the choice of the opinions on which it ought to uſe or forbear the ſword of domeſtick or of foreign juſtice. But it is a falſe maxim, that opinions ought to be indifferent to us, either as men or as a State. Opinion is the rudder of human action; and as the opinion is wiſe or fooliſh, vicious or moral, the cauſe of action is noxious or ſalutary. It has even been the great pri⯑mary object of ſpeculative and doctrinal philoſophy to regulate opinion. It is the great object of po⯑litical philoſophy to promote that which is ſound; and to extirpate what is miſchievous, and which directly tends to render men bad citizens in the community, and miſchievous neighbours out of it. Opinions are of infinite conſequence. They make the manners—in fact, they make the laws: they make the Lagiſlator. They are, therefore, of all things, thoſe to which provident Government ought to look moſt to in their beginnings. After a time they may look to them in vain. When, [66] therefore, I am told that a war is a war of opinions, I am told that it is the moſt important of all wars.

Here I muſt not be told that this would lead to eternal war and perſecution. It would certainly, if we argued like metaphyſicians run mad, who do not correct prudence, the queen of virtues, to be any virtue at all,—and would either throw the bridle on the neck of headlong Nature, or tie it up for ever to the poſt. No ſophiſtry—no chicane here. Government is not to refine men out of in⯑nocent and moral liberty by forced inferences, drawn by a torturing logic; or to ſuffer them to go down hill the highway that leads directly to every crime and every vice.

Without entering much into the compariſon of the two caſes, (that of this war and that of Charles the Fifth againſt the reformation) which holds very ill, I ſhall only beg leave to remark, that theological opinions as ſuch, whether ſound or er⯑roneous, do not go directly to the well being of ſocial, of civil, or of politick ſociety. But as long as opinion is the very ground and pillar of Government, and the main ſpring of human ac⯑tion, there are opinions which directly affect theſe very things. An opinion, that it is a man's duty to take from me my goods, and to kill me if I reſiſt him. An opinion that he has a right, at his will, [67] to pull down the Government by which I am pro⯑tected in that life and property, and to place it in the hands of the enemies of both. Theſe it is very ex⯑traordinary to hear compared to the theological dog⯑mas concerning grace and juſtification—and the nature and eſſence of the ſacrament and other pious opinions on the one ſide or on the other—which left human ſociety altogether, or nearly, as it was. They did not preach vices or crimes. The parties diſputed on the beſt means of promoting virtue, religion and morals. Whether any collateral points relative to theſe queſtions or other circumſtances of a more political nature mingled with them, might or might not juſtify a war, is a matter of hiſtorical criticiſm, with which, at this day, we are little con⯑cerned. But in the caſe before us, I muſt declare, that the doctrine and diſcipline of this ſect is one of the moſt alarming circumſtances relating to it, and the attempt to compare them with the opinions of ſchool theologicians, is a thing in itſelf highly alarm⯑ing. I know that when men poſſeſs the beſt princi⯑ples, the paſſions lead them to act in oppoſition to them. But when the moral principles are formed ſyſtematically to play into the hand of the paſſions; when that which is to correct vice and to reſtrain violence, is by an infernal doctrine, daringly avow⯑ed, carefully propagated, enthuſiaſtically held, and practically followed, I ſhall think myſelf treated like a child, when I hear this compared to a controverſy [68] in the ſchools. When I ſee a great country, with all its reſources, poſſeſſed by this ſect, and turned to its purpoſes, I muſt be worſe than a child to con⯑ceive it a thing indifferent to me. When this great country is ſo near me, and otherwiſe ſo ſituated, that except through its territory, I can hardly have a communication with any other, the ſtate of moral and political opinion, and moral and political diſci⯑pline in that country, becomes of ſtill greater im⯑portance to me. When robbers, aſſaſſins, and rebels, are not only debauched, but endoctrinated regularly, by a courſe of inverted education, into murder, in⯑ſurrection, and the violation of all property, I hold, that this, inſtead of excuſing, or palliating their offences, inſpires a peculiar venom into every evil act they do; and that all ſuch univerſities of crimes, and all ſuch profeſſors of robbery, are in a perpetual ſtate of hoſtility with mankind.

Let me now ſay a word upon another topic, and on the caſe put to illuſtrate it, that is, on the indif⯑ference with which we ought to regard the plan of Government, and the ſcheme of morals that pre⯑vail in a State, in any queſtion of peace and war with it. In ſupport of this doctrine, they cite the caſe of Algiers as a ſtrong one—with an hint, that is the ſtronger caſe. I ſhould take no notice of this ſort of inducement, if I had found it only where firſt it was. I do not want reſpect for thoſe from [69] whom I firſt heard it—but having no controverſy at preſent with them, I only think it not amiſs to reſt on it a little, as I find it adopted with much more of the ſame kind, by ſeveral of thoſe on whom ſuch reaſoning before made no apparent impreſſion. I was however miſtaken; they were not rejected, but only ſtored and laid by for an occaſion—condo et compono quae mox depromere poſſim. If it had no force to prevent us from ſubmitting to this neceſſary war, it furniſhes no better ground for our making an un⯑neceſſary and ruinous peace To this Algerian parallel, however, I have to ſay, that arguments of analogy in law are of great weight. Of courſe, in a diſcuſſion of the juſtice of the war I attend to them, provided they are analogies of principle, and not of mere practice. But when they are only ar⯑guments of analogy ad hominem, they only ſerve to confute and ſilence an adverſary, who has acted in ſuch a manner, and on ſuch principles; but to a perſon who doubts the propriety of the action and the motive which is made the ground of the analo⯑gy, it can neither ſhame or perplex him. This analogical argument would lead us a good way. The fact is, we ourſelves, with a little corn, others more directly, pay a tribute to the Republick of Al⯑giers. Is it meant to reconcile us to the payment of a tribute to the French Republick? That this, with other things more ruinous, will be demanded hereafter, I little doubt; but for the preſent, this [70] will not be avowed—though our minds are to be gradually prepared for it.

In truth the arguments from this caſe is worth little even to thoſe who approve the buying an Algerine forbearance of piracy. There are many things which men do not approve, that they muſt do to avoid a greater evil. To argue from thence, that they are to act in the ſame manner in all caſes, is turning neceſſity into a law. Upon what is mat⯑ter of prudence, the argument concludes the con⯑trary way. Becauſe we have done one humiliat⯑ing act, we ought, with infmite caution, to admit more acts of the ſame nature, leſt humiliation ſhould become our habitual ſtate. Matters of pru⯑dence are under the dominion of circumſtances, and not of logical analogies. It is ſo abſurd to take it otherwiſe. In the mouths of the weak and igno⯑rant, it makes me laugh; in the mouths of men of learning and talents, it makes me ſick. I, for one do more than doubt the policy of this kind of con⯑vention with Algiers.

On thoſe who think as I do, the argument can make no ſort of impreſſion. I know ſomething of the Conſtitution and compoſition of this very extra⯑ordinary Republick. It has a Conſtitution, I admit, ſimilar to the preſent tumultuous military tyranny of France, by which an handful of obſcure ruſſians, [71] domineer over a fertile country, and a brave people. For the compoſition, too, I admit, the Algerine community reſembles that of France; being the very ſcum, ſcandal, diſgrace, and peſt of the Turk⯑iſh Aſia. The grand Seignior, to diſburthen the country, ſuffers the Dey to recruit, in his do⯑nions, the corps of Janiſſaries, or Aſaphs which form the Directory, or Council of Elders of the African Republick, one and indviſible. But notwithſtanding this reſemblance, which I allow, I never ſhall ſo far injure the Janiſarian Repub⯑lick of Algiers, as to put it in compariſon for every ſort of crime, turpitude, and oppreſſion with the Jacobin Republick of Paris. There is no queſtion with me to which of the two I ſhould chooſe to be a neighbour or a ſubject. But ſituated as I am, I am in no danger of becoming to Algiers either the one or the other. It is not ſo in my relation to the atheiſtical fanaticks of France. Have the Gentle⯑men who borrowed this happy parallel, no idea of the different conduct to be held with re⯑gard to the very ſame evil at an immenſe diſ⯑tance, and when it is at your door? when its power is enormous, as when it is comparatively as feeble as its diſtance is remote? and when there is a bar⯑rier of language and uſages, which prevents your being corrupted through certain old correſpon⯑dences and habitudes, which cannot for a long time be ſo wholly taken away, as not to make many [72] of your people ſuſceptible of contagion from hor⯑rible novelties that are introduced into every thing elſe? I can contemplate, without horror, a royal or a national tyger on the borders of Pegu. I can look at him, with an eaſy curioſity, as pri⯑ſoner within bars in the menagerie of the Tower. But if, by Habeas Corpus, or otherwiſe, he was to come into the Lobby of the Houſe of Commons, whilſt your door was open, any of you would be more ſtout than wiſe, who would not gladly make his eſcape out of the back windows. This Ambaſſa⯑dor from Bengal, would diſperſe you ſooner than a diſſolution by Royal Prerogative. I certainly ſhould dread more from a wild cat in my bed⯑chamber, than from all the lions that roar in the deſerts behind Algiers. But in this parallel it is the cat that is at a diſtance, and the lions and ty⯑gers that are in our anti-chambers and our lobbies. Algiers is not near; Algiers is not powerful; Al⯑giers is not our neighbour; Algiers is not infec⯑tious. Algiers, whatever it may be, is not an old creation; and we have good data to calculate all the miſchief to be expected from it. When I find Algiers transferred to Calais, I will tell you what I think of that point. In the mean time, the caſe quoted from the Algerine reports, will not apply as authority. We ſhall put it out of court; and ſo far as that goes, let the council for the Jacobin peace take nothing by their motion.

[73] When we voted as we did, we were providing for dangers that were direct, home, preſſing, and not remote, contingent, uncertain, and formed upon looſe analogies. The whole tenor of con⯑duct of France, not one or two doubtful or de⯑tached acts or expreſſions. To us it appeared, that the whole body of its diſcipline, compre⯑hending the form of the State, and the ſcheme of opinion and manners, were adopted both as means and ends; as means, to eſtabliſh univerſal empire; and as ends to fix the ſame ſyſtem in every place to which their empire or their influence could extend. It was againſt this ſyſtem that you and I voted for war. It is with this ſyſtem that I ſhall for ever de⯑precate a relation of peace and amity.

Various perſons may concur in the ſame mea⯑ſure on various grounds. They may be various, without being contrary to, or excluſive of, each other. I thought the inſolent unprovoked ag⯑greſſion of the Regicide upon our Ally of Hol⯑land a good ground of war; I think his manifeſt attempt to overturn the balance of Europe a good ground of war; as a good ground of war I conſider his declaration of war on his Majeſty and his kingdom. But though I have taken all theſe to my aid, I conſider them as nothing more than as a ſort of evidence to indicate the treaſonable mind within. It was not for their [74] former declaration of war, nor for any ſpecific act of hoſtility that I primarily wiſhed to reſiſt them, or to perſevere in my reſiſtance. It was becauſe the faction in France had aſſumed a form, had adopted a body of principles and maxims, and had regularly and ſyſtematically acted on them, by which ſhe virtually had put herſelf in a poſture which was in itſelf a declaration of war againſt mankind.

It is fit that the people ſhould know when the queſtion is concerning peace and amity, the true nature, habits, diſpoſitions, and views of the party with whom they are to cultivate friendſhip. It is of leſs importance to you, what is the character of your enemy, than what are the habits and diſpo⯑ſitions of your friend. The relation of enemy to enemy is ſimple. Enemies aim by force at each other's deſtruction. They are always, there⯑fore, in a ſtate of defiance and diſtruſt; but the character of a friend is a ſerious matter. With a friend, the very nature of the relation muſt take off the guard. The people of England have felt their enemies, it is fit that they ſhould know their friends.

Before our opinions are quoted againſt ourſelves, it is proper that, from our ſerious deliberation they may be worth quoting. It is without reaſon we [75] praiſe the wiſdom of our conſtitution, in putting un⯑der the diſcretion of the Crown, the aweful truſt of war and peace, if the Miniſters of the Crown virtually return it again into our hands. It was placed there as a ſacred depoſit, to ſecure us againſt popular raſhneſs in plunging into wars, and againſt the effects of popular diſmay, diſguſt, or luſſitude in getting out of them as imprudently as we might firſt engage in them. To have no other meaſure in judging of thoſe great objects than our momen⯑tary opinions and deſires, is to throw us back upon that very democracy which, in this part, our con⯑ſtitution was formed to avoid.

It is no excuſe at all for a miniſter, who at our deſire, takes a meaſure contrary to our ſafety, that it is our own act. He who does not ſtay the hand of a ſuicide is guilty of murder. To be inſtruct⯑ed, is not to be degraded or enſlaved. Information is an advantage to us, and we have a right to demand it. He that is bound to act in the dark cannot be ſaid to act freely. When it appears evi⯑dent to our governors, that our deſires and our in⯑tereſts are at variance, they ought not to gratify the former at the expence of the latter. Stateſmen are placed on an eminence, that they may have a larger horizon than we can poſſibly command. They have a whole before them, which we can contemplate only in the parts, and without the [76] relations. Miniſters are not only our natural rulers, but our natural guides. Reaſon clearly and man⯑fully delivered, has in itſelf a mighty force: but reaſon in the mouth of legal authority, is, I may fairly ſay, irreſiſtible.

I admit that reaſon of ſtate will not, in many cir⯑cumſtances permit the diſcloſure of the true ground of a public proceeding. In that caſe ſilence is manly and it is wiſe. It is fair to call for truſt when the principle of reaſon itſelf ſuſpends its public uſe. I take the diſtinction to be this. The ground of a particular meaſure, making a part of a plan, it is rarely proper to divulge. All the broader grounds of policy on which the general plan is to be adopted, ought as rarely to be con⯑cealed. They who have not the whole cauſe be⯑fore them, call them politicians, call them people, call them what you will, are no judges. The diffi⯑culties of the caſe as well as its fair ſide, ought to be preſented. This ought to be done: and it is all that can be done. When we have our true ſi⯑tuation diſtinctly preſented to us, if we reſolve with a blind and headlong violence, to reſiſt the admonitions of our friends, and to caſt ourſelves into the hands of our potent and irreconcileable foes, then, and not till then, the miniſters ſtand acquitted before God and man, for whatever may come.

[77] Lamenting as I do, that the matter has not had ſo full and free a diſcuſſion as it requires, I mean to omit none of the points which ſeem to me neceſſary for conſideration, previous to an ar⯑rangement which is for ever to decide the form and the fate of Europe, In the courſe, there⯑fore, of what I ſhall have the honour to addreſs to you, I propoſe the following queſtions to your ſe⯑rious thoughts. 1. Whether the preſent ſyſtem, which ſtands for a Government in France, be ſuch as in peace and war affects the neighbouring States in a manner different from the internal Govern⯑ment that formerly prevailed in that country? 2. Whether that ſyſtem, ſuppoſing it's views hoſ⯑tile to other nations, poſſeſſes any means of being hurtful to them peculiar to itſelf? 3. Whether there has been lately ſuch a change in France, as to alter the nature of it's ſyſtem or it's effect upon other Powers? 4. Whether any public de⯑clarations or engagements exiſt, on the part of the allied Powers, which ſtand in the way of a treaty of peace, which ſuppoſes the right and confirms the power of the Regicide faction in France? 5. What the ſtate of the other Powers of Europe will be with reſpect to each other, and their colonies, on the concluſion of a Regicide Peace? 6. Whe⯑ther we are driven to the abſolute neceſſity of making that kind of peace?

[78] Theſe heads of enquiry will enable us to make the application of the ſeveral matters of fact and topics of argument, that occur in this vaſt diſ⯑cuſſion, to certain fixed principles. I do not mean to confine myſelf to the order in which they ſtand. I ſhall diſcuſs them in ſuch a manner as ſhall appear to me the beſt adapted for ſhewing their mutual bearings and relations. Here then I cloſe the public matter of my Letter; but before I have done, let me ſay one word in apology for myſelf.

In wiſhing this nominal peace not to be precipi⯑tated, I am ſure no man living is leſs diſpoſed to blame the preſent Miniſtry than I am. Some of my oldeſt friends, (and I wiſh I could ſay it of more of them,) make a part in that Miniſtry. There are ſome indeed, ‘"whom my dim eyes in vain explore."’ In my mind, a greater calamity could not have fallen on the publick than their excluſion. But I drive away that, with other melancholy thoughts. As to the diſtinguiſhed perſons to whom my friends who remain, are joined, if benefits, nobly and generouſly conferred, ought to procure good wiſhes, they are entitled to my beſt vows; and they have them all. They have adminiſtered to me the only conſolation I am capable of receiving, which is to know that no individual will ſuffer by my [79] thirty years ſervice to the public. If things ſhould give us the comparative happineſs of a ſtruggle, I ſhall be found, I was going to ſay, fighting, (that would be fooliſh) but dying by the ſide of Mr. Pitt. I muſt add, that if any thing defenſive in our do⯑meſtic ſyſtem can poſſibly ſave us from the diſſaſ⯑ters of a Regicide peace, he is the man to ſave us. If the finances in ſuch a caſe can be repaired, he is the man to repair them. If I ſhould lament any of his acts, it is only when they appear to me to have no reſemblance to acts of his. But let him not have a confidence in himſelf, which no human abilities can warrant. His abilities are fully equal (and that is to ſay much for any man) to thoſe that are oppoſed to him. But if we look to him as our ſecurity againſt the conſequences of a Regicide Peace, let us be aſſured, that a Re⯑gicide Peace and a Conſtitutional Miniſtry are terms that will not agree. With a Regicide Peace the King cannot long have a Miniſter to ſerve him, nor the Miniſter a King to ſerve. If the Great Diſpoſer, in reward of the royal and the private virtues of our Sovereign, ſhould call him from the calamitous ſpectacles, which will attend a ſtate of amity with Regicide, his ſucceſſor will ſurely ſee them, unleſs the ſame Providence greatly antici⯑pates the courſe of nature. Thinking thus, (and not as I conceive on light grounds) I dare not flatter the reigning ſovereign, nor any Miniſter he [80] has or can have, nor his Succeſſor Apparent, nor any of thoſe who may be called to ſerve him, with what appears to me a falſe ſtate of their ſituation. We cannot have them and that Peace together.

I do not forget that there had been a conſider⯑able difference between me and the great man at the head of Miniſtry in an early ſtage of theſe diſ⯑cuſſions. Under this circumſtance, his ſeconding his Majeſty's generoſity to me ſhines with the brighter luſtre. But I am ſure there was a period in which we agreed better in the danger of a Jacobin exiſtence in France. At one time, he and all Europe ſeemed to feel it. But why am not I converted with ſo many great Powers, and ſo many great Miniſters? It is becauſe I am old and ſlow.—I am in this year, 1796, only where all the powers of Europe were in 1792. I cannot move with this proceſſion of the Equinoxes, which is preparing for us the return of ſome very old, I am afraid no golden aera, or the commencement of ſome new aera that muſt be denominated from ſome new metal. In this criſis I muſt hold my tongue, or I muſt ſpeak with freedom. For the few days I have to linger here, I am removed from the buſy ſcene of the world; and not more in fact than in diſpoſition, retired from all it's affairs, and all its pleaſures. But I hold myſelf to be ſtill reſponſible for every thing I have done in the Houſe, and in the World. [81] If the raweſt Tyro in politicks has been influenced by the authority of my grey hairs, and led by any thing in my ſpeeches, or my writings, to enter into this war, he has a right to call upon me to know why I have changed my opinions, or why, when thoſe I voted with, have adopted better no⯑tions, I perſevere in exploded errour?

When I ſeem not to acquieſce in the acts of thoſe I reſpect in every degree ſhort of ſuperſti⯑tion, I am obliged to give my reaſons fully. I cannot ſet my authority againſt their authority, But to reaſon is not to revolt againſt authority. Reaſon and authority do not move in the ſame parallel. That reaſon is an amicus curiae who ſpeaks de plano, not pro tribunali; who makes an uſeful ſuggeſtion to the Court, without queſtioning its juriſdiction. Whilſt he acknowledges its compe⯑tence, he promotes its efficiency.

LETTER II. On the Genius and Character of the French Revolution as it regards other Nations.

I Cloſed my firſt Letter with ſerious matter; and I hope it has employed your thoughts. The ſyſtem of peace muſt have a reference to the ſyſtem of the war. On that ground, I muſt therefore again recal your mind to our original opinions, which time and events have not taught me to vary.

My ideas and my principles led me, in this conteſt, to encounter France, not as a State, but as a Faction. The vaſt territorial extent of that country, it's immenſe population, it's riches of production, it's riches of commerce and con⯑vention—the whole aggregate maſs of what, in ordinary caſes, conſtitutes the force of a State, to me were but objects of ſecondary conſidera⯑tion. They might be balanced; and they have [84] been often more than balanced. Great as theſe things are, they are not what make the faction formidable. It is the faction that makes them truly dreadful. That faction is the evil ſpirit that poſſeſſes the body of France; that informs it as a ſoul; that ſtamps upon its ambition, and upon all its purſuits, a characteriſtick mark, which ſtrongly diſtinguiſhes them from the ſame general paſſions, and the ſame general views, in other men and in other communities. It is that ſpirit which inſpires into them, a new, a perni⯑cious, a deſolating activity. Conſtituted as France was ten years ago, it was not in that France to ſhake, to ſhatter, and to over⯑whelm Europe in the manner that we behold. A ſure deſtruction impends over thoſe infatuated Princes, who, in the conflict with this new and overheard-of power, proceeds as if they were en⯑gaged in a war that bore a reſemblance to their former conteſts; or that they can make peace in the ſpirit of their former arrangements of paci⯑fication. Here the beaten path is the very reverſe of the ſafe road.

As to me, I was always ſteadily of opi⯑nion, that this diſorder was not in its nature intermittent. I conceived that the conteſt once begun, could not be laid down again, to be reſumed at our diſcretion; but that our [85] firſt ſtruggle with this evil would alſo be our laſt. I never thought we could make peace with this ſyſtem; becauſe it was not for the ſake of an object we purſued in rivalry with each other, but with the ſyſtem itſelf that we were at war. As I underſtood the matter, we were at war not with it's conduct, but with it's exiſt⯑ence; convinced that it's exiſtence and it's hoſ⯑tility were the ſame.

The faction is not local or territorial. It is a general evil. Where it leaſt appears in action, it is ſtill full of life. In it's ſleep it recruits it's ſtrength, and prepares it's exertion. It's ſpirit lies deep in the corruptions of our common nature. The ſocial order which reſtrains it, feeds it. It exiſts in every country in Europe; and among all orders of men in every country, who look up to France as to a common head. The centre is there. The circumference is the world of Eu⯑rope, wherever the race of Europe may be ſet⯑tled. Every where elſe the faction is militant; in France it is triumphant. In France is the bank of depoſit, and the bank of circulation, of all the pernicious principles that are forming in every State. It will be a folly ſcarcely deſerving of pity, and too miſchievous for contempt, to think of reſtraining it in any other country whilſt it is predominant there. War, inſtead of [86] being the cauſe of it's force, has ſuſpended it's operation. It has given a reprieve, at leaſt, to the Chriſtian World.

The true nature of a Jacobin war, in the be⯑ginning, was, by moſt of the Chriſtian Powers, felt, acknowledged, and even in the moſt pre⯑ciſe manner declared. In the joint manifeſto publiſhed by the Emperor and the King of Pruſſia, on the 4th of Auguſt, 1792, it is ex⯑preſſed in the cleareſt terms, and on principles which could not fail, if they had adhered to them, of claſſing thoſe monarchs with the firſt benefactors of mankind. This manifeſto was publiſhed, as they themſelves expreſs it, ‘"to lay open to the preſent generation, as well as to poſterity, their motives, their intentions, and the diſintereſtedneſs of their perſonal views; taking up arms for the purpoſe of preſerving ſocial and political order amongſt all civilized nations, and to ſecure to each ſtate it's reli⯑gion, happineſs, independence, territories, and real conſtitution."—"On this ground, they hoped that all Empires, and all States, ought to be unanimous; and becoming the firm guardians of the happineſs of mankind, they cannot ſail to unite their efforts to reſcue a numerous nation from it's own fury, to pre⯑ſerve Europe from the return of barbariſm, [87] and the Univerſe from the ſubverſion and anarchy with which it was threatened."’ The whole of that noble performance ought to be read at the firſt meeting of any Congreſs, which aſſemble for the purpoſe of pacification. In that piece ‘"theſe Powers expreſsly renounce all views of perſonal aggrandizement,"’ and confine themſelves to objects worthy of ſo generous, ſo heroic, and ſo perfectly wiſe and politick an en⯑terpriſe. It was to the principles of this confe⯑deration and to no other, that we wiſhed our Sovereign and our Country to accede, as a part of the commonwealth of Europe.

As long as theſe powers flattered themſelves that the means of force would produce the ef⯑fect of force, they acted on thoſe declarations: but when their menances failed of ſucceſs, their efforts took a new direction. It did not appear to them that virtue and heroiſm ought to be pur⯑chaſed by millions of rix-dollars. It is a dreadful truth, but it is a truth that cannot be concealed. In ability, in dexterity, in the diſtinctneſs of their views, the Jacobins are our ſuperiours. They ſaw the thing right from the very beginning. What⯑ever were the firſt motives to the war among politicians, they ſaw that it is in it's ſpirit, and for it's objects, a civil war; and as ſuch they purſued it. It is a war between the partizans [88] of the antient, civil, moral, and political order of Europe againſt a ſect of fanatical and ambi⯑tious atheiſts which mean to change them all. It is not France extending a foreign empire over other nations: it is a ſect aiming at univerſal empire, and beginning with the conqueſt of France. The leaders of that ſect ſecured the centre of Europe; and that ſecured, they knew, that whatever might be the event of battles and ſieges, their cauſe was victorious. Whether it's territory had a little more or a little leſs peeled from it's ſurface, or whether an iſland or two was detached from it's commerce, to them was of little moment. The conqueſt of France was a glorious acquiſition. That once well laid as a baſis of empire, opportunities never could be wanting to regain or to replace what had been loſt, and dreadfully to avenge themſelves on the faction of their adverſaries.

They ſaw it was a civil war. It was their bu⯑ſineſs to perſuade their adverſaries that it ought to be a foreign war. The Jacobins every where ſet up a cry againſt the new cruſade; and they intrigued with effect in the cabinet, in the field, and in every private ſociety in Europe. Their taſk was not difficult. The condition of Princes, and ſometimes of firſt Miniſters too, is to be pitied. The creatures of the deſk, and [89] the creatures of favour, had no reliſh for the principles of the manifeſtoes. They pro⯑miſed no governments, no regiments, no reve⯑nues from whence emoluments might ariſe, by perquiſite or by grant. In truth, the tribe of vulgar politicians are the loweſt of our ſpecies. There is no trade ſo vile and mechanical as go⯑vernment in their hands. Virtue is not their habit. They are out of themſelves in any courſe of conduct recommended only by conſcience and glory. A large, liberal, and proſpective view of the intereſts of States paſſes with them for romance; and the principles that recom⯑mended it for the wanderings of a diſordered imagination. The calculators compute them out of their ſenſes. The jeſters and buffoons ſhame them out of every thing grand and ele⯑vated. Littleneſs in object and in means, to them appears ſoundneſs and ſobriety. They think there is nothing worth purſuit, but that which they can handle; which they can meaſure with a two-foot rule; which they can tell upon ten fingers.

Without their principles, perhaps without any principles at all, they played the game of the Jacobins. There was a beaten road before them. The Powers of Europe were armed; France had always appeared dangerous; the [90] war was eaſily diverted from France as a fac⯑tion, to France as a ſtate. The Princes were eaſily taught to ſlide back into their old habitual courſe of politicks. They were eaſily led to conſider the flames that were conſuming France, not as a warning to protect their own buildings, (which were without any party wall, and linked by a contignation into the edifice of France,) as an happy occaſion for the pillag⯑ing the goods, and for carrying off the materials of their neighbour's houſe. Their provident fears were changed into avaricious hopes. They car⯑ried on their new deſigns without ſeeming to abandon the principles of their old policy. They pretended to ſeek, or they flattered themſelves that they ſought, in the acceſſion of new for⯑treſſes, and new territories, a defenſive ſecurity. But the ſecurity wanted was againſt a kind of power, which was not dangerous in its for⯑treſſes nor in it's territories, but in it's ſpirit and it's principles. They aimed, or pretended to aim, at defending themſelves againſt a danger, from which there can be no ſecurity in any de⯑fenſive plan. If armies and fortreſſes were a de⯑fence againſt Jacobiniſm, Louis the Sixteenth would this day reign a powerful monarch over an happy people.

[91] This error obliged them, even in their offen⯑ſive operations, to adopt a plan of war, againſt the ſucceſs of which there was ſomething little ſhort of mathematical demonſtration. They refuſed to take any ſtep which might ſtrike at the heart of affairs. They ſeemed unwilling to wound the enemy in any vital part. They acted through the whole, as if they really wiſhed the conſervation of the Jacobin power; as what might be more favourable than the lawful Go⯑vernment to the attainment of the petty objects they looked for. They always kept on the cir⯑cumference; and the wider and remoter the circle was, the more eagerly they choſe as their ſphere of action. The plan they purſued, in it's na⯑ture demanded great length of time. In it's execution they who went the neareſt way to work were obliged to cover an incredible ex⯑tent of country. It left to the enemy every means of deſtroying this extended line of weakneſs. Ill ſucceſs in any part was ſure to defeat the effect of the whole. This is true of Auſtria. It is ſtill more true of England. On this falſe plan, even good fortune, by further weakening the victor, put him but the further off from his object.

As long as there was any appearance of ſuc⯑ceſs, the ſpirit of aggrandizement, and conſe⯑cuently [92] the ſpirit of mutual jealouſy ſeized upon all the coaleſced Powers. Some ſought an ac⯑ceſſion of territory at the expence of France, ſome at the expence of each other, ſome at the expence of third parties; and when the viciſſi⯑tude of diſaſter took it's turn, they found com⯑mon diſtreſs a treacherous bond of faith and friendſhip.

The greateſt ſkill conducting the greateſt military apparatus has been employed; but it has been worſe than uſeleſsly employed, through the falſe policy of the war. The ope⯑rations of the field ſuffered by the errors of the Cabinet. If the ſame ſpirit continues when peace is made, the peace will fix and perpetuate all the errors of the war; becauſe it will be made upon the ſame falſe principle. What has been loſt in the field, in the field may be regained. An arrangement of peace in it's na⯑ture is a permanent ſettlement; it is the effect of counſel and deliberation, and not of fortui⯑tous events. If built upon ſome baſis totally and fundamentally erroneous, it can only be retrieved by ſome of thoſe unforeſeen diſpoſi⯑tions, which the all-wiſe but myſterious Go⯑vernor of the World, ſometimes interpoſes, to ſnatch nations from ruin. It would not be a pious error, but a mad and impious preſump⯑tion [93] for any one to truſt in an unknown order of diſpenſations, in defiance of the rules of pru⯑dence, which are formed upon the known march of the ordinary providence of God. It was not of that ſort of war that I was amongſt the leaſt conſiderable, but amongſt the moſt zealous adviſers; and it is not by the ſort of peace now talked of that I wiſh it concluded.

It would be to no great purpoſe to enter into the particular errours of the war. The whole has been but one errour. It was but nomi⯑nally a war of alliance. As the allies pur⯑ſued it there was nothing to hold an alli⯑ance together. There could be no tie of honour, in a ſociety for pillage. There could be no tie in a common intereſt where the object did not offer ſuch a diviſion amongſt the parties, as could be equalized. The partition of Poland offered an object of ſpoil in which the parties might agree. They were circumjacent; and each might take a portion convenient to his own territory. They might diſpute about the value; but the contiguity to each of the demandants always furniſhed the means of an adjuſtment. Though hereafter the world will have cauſe to rue this iniquitous meaſure, for the moment there was wherewithal in the object to preſerve peace amongſt confederates in wrong. But in [94] the ſpoil of France, it was obvious that this ſcheme did not afford the ſame facilities for ac⯑commodation. What might ſatisfy the Houſe of Auſtria in her Flemiſh frontier afforded no equivalent to tempt the cupidity of the King of Pruſſia. What might be deſired by Great Bri⯑tain in the Weſt-Indies, could be coldly and remotely, if at all, felt as an intereſt at Vienna; and it would be felt as ſomething worſe than a negative intereſt at Madrid. Auſtria, long poſ⯑ſeſſed with unwiſe and dangerous deſigns on Italy, could not be very much in earneſt about the conſervation of the old patrimony of the Houſe of Savoy: and Sardinia, who owed to an Italian force all her means of ſhutting out France from Italy, of which ſhe has been ſup⯑poſed to hold the key, would not purchaſe the means of ſtrength upon one ſide by yielding it on the other. She would not readily give the poſſeſſion of Novara for the hope of Savoy. No continental Power was willing to loſe any of it's continental objects for the encreaſe of the naval power of Great Britain; and Great Bri⯑tain would not give up any of the objects ſhe ſought for as the means of an encreaſe to her naval power, to further their aggrandizement. There was no method of equalizing their ſeveral pretenſions. They are things incommenſurable. The moment this war came to be conſidered as [95] a war merely of profit, the actual circum⯑ſtances are ſuch, that it never could become really a war of alliance. Nor can the peace be a peace of alliance, until things are put upon their right bottom.

I don't find it denied, that when a treaty is entered into for peace, a demand will be made on the Regicides to ſurrender their conqueſts on the Continent. Will they, in the preſent ſtate of the war, make that ſurrender without an equivalent? This continental ceſſion muſt be made in favour of that party in the alliance, that has ſuffered loſſes. That party has nothing to furniſh towards an equivalent. What equi⯑valent, for inſtance, has Holland to offer, who has loſt her all? What equivalent can come from the Emperor, every part of whoſe territo⯑ries contiguous to France, is already within the pale of the Regicide dominion? What equiva⯑lent has Sardinia to offer for Savoy and for Nice? What has ſhe taken from the faction of France? She has loſt much; and ſhe has gained nothing. What equivalent has Spain to give? Alas! ſhe has already paid for her own ranſom the fund of equivalent, and a dreadful equiva⯑lent it is, to England and to herſelf. But I put Spain out of the queſtion. She is a province of the Jacobin Empire. She is in a ſhocking dilemma. [96] In effect and ſubſtance, her Crown is a fief of Regicide—Whence then can the compenſation be demanded, but from that power which alone has made ſome conqueſts? That power is England. Will the Allies then give away their ancient patrimony, that England may keep Iſlands in the Weſt In⯑dies? They can never protract the war in good earneſt for that object. Nor can they act in concert with us, in our refuſal to grant any thing towards their redemption. In that caſe we are thus ſituated—Either we muſt give Europe, bound hand and foot to France; or we muſt quit the Weſt Indies without any one object, great or ſmall, towards indemnity and ſecurity. If we look to the Eaſt, our moſt decided conqueſts (ſome of them the moſt important) are there. I look at the taking poſſeſſion of the Cape of Good Hope to be the ſecuring a poſt of great moment: it is a mea⯑ſure which does infinite honour to thoſe who planned it, and to thoſe who executed that en⯑terprize. I ſpeak of it always as comparatively good; as good as any thing in this ſcheme of war, which repels us from an, and em⯑ploys all our forces, where nothing can be finally deciſive. It is evident, that if we keep our eaſtern conqueſts, we keep them at the ex⯑pence of Holland, our ally; the immediate [97] cauſe of the war, the nation whom we had un⯑dertaken to protect, and not of the Republic which it was our buſineſs to deſtroy. If we re⯑turn the African and the Afiatic conqueſts, we put them into the hands of a nominal State, (to that Holland is reduced) unable to retain them; and which will virtually leave them under the direction of France. If we withhold them, Holland declines ſtill more as a State: and ſhe loſes that carriage and that means of keeping up the ſmall degree of naval power ſhe holds; for which policy, and not for any commerical gain, ſhe maintains the Cape, or any ſettlement be⯑yond it. It that caſe, reſentment, faction, and even neceſſity will throw her more and more into the power of the new miſchievous Repub⯑lic. But on the probable ſtate of Holland, I ſhall ſay more, when I come to talk over with you the ſtate in which any ſort of Jacobin peace will leave all Europe.

So far as to the Eaſt-Indies.

As to the Weſt-Indies, indeed as to either, if we look for matter of exchange in order to ran⯑ſome Europe, it is eaſy to ſhew that we have taken a terrible round-about road. I cannot conceive, even if, for the ſake of holding con⯑queſts there, we ſhould refuſe to redeem Hol⯑land, [98] and the Auſtrian Netherlands, and the hither Germany, that Spain, merely as ſhe is Spain, (and forgetting that the Regicide Am⯑baſſador governs at Madrid) will ſee with per⯑fect ſatisfaction, Great Britain ſole miſtreſs of the Iſles. In truth it appears to me, that, when we come to balance our account, we ſhall find in the propoſed peace only the pure, ſimple, and unendowed charms of Jacobin amity. We ſhall have the ſatisfaction of knowing, that no blood or treaſure has been ſpared by the allies for ſup⯑port of the Regicide ſyſtem. They will reflect at leiſure on one great truth, that it was ten times more eaſy totally to deſtroy the ſyſtem it⯑ſelf, than when eſtabliſhed, it would be to re⯑duce its power—and that this Republic, moſt formidable abroad, was, of all things, the weak⯑eſt at home. That her frontier was terrible—her interior feeble—that it was matter of choice to attack her where ſhe is invincible; and to ſpare her where ſhe was ready to diſſolve by her own internal diſorders. They will reflect, that their plan was good neither for offence nor de⯑fence.

My dear Friend, I hold it impoſſible that theſe conſiderations ſhould have eſcaped the Stateſman on both ſides of the water, and on both ſides of the Houſe of Commons. How a [99] queſtion of peace can be diſcuſſed without hav⯑ing them in view, I cannot imagine. If you or others ſee a way out of theſe difficulties I am happy. I ſee indeed a fund from whence equi⯑valents will be propoſed. I ſee it. But I can⯑not juſt now touch it. It is a queſtion of high moment. It opens another Iliad of woes to Europe.

Such is the time propoſed for making a com⯑mon political peace, to which no one circumſtance is propitious. As to the grand principle of the peace, it is left, as if by common conſent, wholly out of the queſtion.

It ſeems to me, as if the two parties, who have long divided and diſtracted this kingdom, without abandoning their animoſities, had come to an agreement in their ſentiments. It looks as if they concurred in the eſtabliſhment of Jaco⯑biniſm in France, and in the neceſſity, if not in the advantage, of admitting it as a ſociable and natural member in the republic of Chriſt⯑endom. So far, and no farther, they are agreed amongſt themſelves. Our domeſtic peace re⯑mains where it was; and we ſeek to make amends for this domeſtic diſtraction, by giving (as far as it is in our power to give it) peace and eſtabliſhment to our enemies. In this [100] peace to our foe, we are taught to look, it ſeems, for the term of all our own evils.

Viewing things in this light, I have frequently ſunk into a degree of deſpondency and dejec⯑tion hardly to be deſcribed: yet out of the profoundeſt depths of this deſpair, an impulſe which I have in vain endeavoured to reſiſt, has urged me to raiſe one feeble cry againſt this unfortunate coalition which is formed at home, in order to make a coalition with France, ſubverſive of the whole ancient order of the world. No diſaſter of war, no calamity of ſeaſon could ever ſtrike me with half the horror which I felt from what is introduced to us by this junction of parties, under the ſoothing name of peace. We are apt to ſpeak of a low and pu⯑fillanimous ſpirit as the ordinary cauſe by which dubious wars terminate in humiliating treaties. It is here the direct contrary. I am perfectly aſtoniſhed at the boldneſs of character, at the intrepidity of mind, the firmneſs of nerve, in thoſe who are able with deliberation to face the perils of Jacobin fraternity.

This fraternity is indeed ſo terrible in it's nature, and in it's manifeſt conſequences, that there is no way of quieting our apprehenſions about it, but by totally putting it out of ſight, [101] by ſubſtituting for it, through a ſort of periphra⯑ſis, ſomething of an ambiguous quality, and deſcribing ſuch a connection under the terms of ‘"the uſual relations of peace and amity:"’ By this means the propoſed fraternity is huſtled in the crowd of thoſe treaties, which imply no change in the public law of Europe, and which do not upon ſyſtem affect the interior condition of na⯑tions. It is confounded with thoſe conventions in which matters of diſpute among ſovereign powers are compromiſed, by the taking off a duty more or leſs, by the ſurrender of a frontier town, or a diſputed diſtrict on the one ſide or the other; by pactions in which the pretenſions of families are ſettled, (as by a conveyancer, making family ſubſtitutions and ſucceſſions) without any alte⯑ration in the laws, manners, religion, privileges and cuſtoms of the cities or territories which are the ſubject of ſuch arrangements.

All this body of old conventions, compoſing the vaſt and voluminous collection called the corps diplomatique, forms the code or ſtatute law, as the methodized reaſonings of the great pub⯑liciſts and juriſts form the digeſt and juriſpru⯑dence of the Chriſtian world. In theſe trea⯑ſures are to be found the uſual relations of peace and amity in civilized Europe; and there the [102] relations of ancient France were to be found amongſt the reſt.

The preſent ſyſtem in France is not the an⯑cient France. It is not the ancient France with ordinary ambition and ordinary means. It is not a new power of an old kind. It is a new power of a new ſpecies. When ſuch a queſtionable ſhape is to be admitted for the firſt time into the bro⯑therhood of Chriſtendom, it is not a matter of idle curioſity to conſider how far it is in it's na⯑ture alliable with the reſt, or whether ‘"the re⯑lations of peace and amity"’ with this new State are likely to be of the ſame nature with the uſual relations of the States of Europe.

The Revolution in France had the relation of France to other nations as one of it's princi⯑pal objects. The changes made by that Revo⯑lution were not the better to accommodate her to the old and uſual relations, but to produce new ones. The Revolution was made, not to make France free, but to make her formid⯑able; not to make her a neighbour, but a miſ⯑treſs; not to make her more obſervant of laws, but to put her in a condition to impoſe them. To make France truly formidable it was neceſ⯑ſary that France ſhould be new modelled. They [103] who have not followed the train of the late pro⯑ceedings, have been led by deceitful repreſenta⯑tions (which deceit made a part in the plan) to conceive that this totally new model of a ſtate, in which nothing eſcaped a change, was made with a view to its internal relations only.

In the Revolution of France two ſorts of men were principally concerned in giving a character and determination to its purſuits; the philoſo⯑phers and the politicians. They took different ways, but they met in the ſame end. The philo⯑ſophers had one predominant object, which they purſued with a fanatical fury, that is, the utter extirpation of religion. To that every queſtion of empire was ſubordinate. They had rather domi⯑neer in a pariſh of Atheiſts, than rule over a Chriſ⯑tian world. Their temporal ambition was wholly ſubſervient to their proſelytizing ſpirit, in which they were not exceeded by Mahomet himſelf.

They who have made but ſuperficial ſtudies in the natural hiſtory of the human mind, have been taught to look on religious opinions as the only cauſe of enthuſiaſtic zeal, and ſec⯑tarian propagation. But there is no doctrine whatever, on which men can warm, that is not capable of the very ſame effect. The ſocial nature of man impels him to propagate his prin⯑ciples, [104] as much as phyſical impulſes urge him to propagate his kind. The paſſions give zeal and vehemence. The underſtanding beſtows deſign and ſyſtem. The whole man moves under the diſcipline of his opinions. Religion is among the moſt powerful cauſes of enthuſiaſm. When any thing concerning it becomes an object of much meditation, it cannot be indifferent to the mind. They who do not love religion, hate it. The rebels to God perfectly abhor the Author of their being. They hate him ‘"with all their heart, with all their mind, with all their ſoul, and with all their ſtrength."’ He never pre⯑ſents himſelf to their thoughts, but to menace and alarm them. They cannot ſtrike the Sun out of Heaven, but they are able to raiſe as moulder⯑ing ſmoke that obſcures him from their own eyes. Not being able to revenge themſelves on God, they have a delight in vicariouſly defacing, degrading, torturing, and tearing in pieces his image in man. Let no one judge of them by what he has conceived of them, when they were not incorporated, and had no lead. They were then only paſſengers in a common vehicle. They were then carried along with the general motion of religion in the community, and with⯑out being aware of it, partook of its influence. In that ſituation, at worſt their nature was left free to counterwork their principles. They de⯑ſpaired [105] of giving any very general currency to their opinions. They conſideder them as a re⯑ſerved privilege for the choſen few. But when the poſſibility of dominion; lead, and propaga⯑tion preſented themſelves, and that the ambi⯑tion, which before had ſo often made them hy⯑pocrites, might rather gain than loſe by a daring avowal of their ſentiments, then the nature of this infernal ſpirit, which has ‘"evil for its good,"’ appeared in its full perfection. Nothing, indeed, but the poſſeſſion of ſome power can, with any certainty, diſcover what at the bottom is the true character of any man. Without read⯑ing the ſpeeches of Verginaux, Français of Nantz, Iſnard, and ſome others of that ſort, it would not be eaſy to conceive the paſſion, ran⯑cour, and malice of their tongues and hearts. They worked themſelves up to a perfect phrenzy againſt religion and all its profeſſors. They tore the deputation of the Clergy to pieces by their infuriated declamations and invectives, be⯑fore they lacerated their bodies by their maſ⯑ſacres. This fanatical atheiſm left out, we omit the principal feature in the French Revolution, and a principal conſideration with regard to the effects to be expected from a peace with it.

The other ſort of men were the politicians. To them who had little or not at all reflected on [106] the ſubject, religion was in itſelf no object of love or hatred. They diſbelieved it, and that was all. Neutral with regard to that object, they took the ſide which, in the preſent ſtate of things, might beſt anſwer their purpoſes. They ſoon found that they could not do without the philo⯑ſophers; and the philoſophers ſoon made them ſenſible, that the deſtruction of religion was to ſupply them with means of conqueſt firſt at home, and then abroad. The philoſophers were the active internal agitators, and ſupplied the ſpirit and principles: the ſecond gave the general direction. Sometimes the one predo⯑minated in the compoſition, ſometimes the other. The only difference between them was in the neceſſity of concealing the general deſign for a time, and in dealing with foreign nations; the fanaticks going ſtraight forward and openly, the politicians by the ſurer mode of zig-zag. In the courſe of events, this, among other cauſes, produced fierce and bloody contentions between them. But at the bottom they tho⯑roughly agreed in all the objects of ambition and irreligion, and ſubſtantially in all the means of promoting theſe ends.

Without queſtion, to bring about the un⯑exampled event of the French Revolution, the concurrence of a very great number of views [107] and paſſions was neceſſary. In that ſtupen⯑dous work, no one principle by which the hu⯑man mind may have it's faculties at once in⯑vigorated and depraved, was left unemployed: but I can ſpeak it to a certainty, and ſupport it by undoubted proofs, that the ruling prin⯑ciple of thoſe who acted in the Revolution as ſtateſmen, had the exterior aggrandizement of France as their ultimate end in the moſt minute part of the interior changes that were made. We, who of late years, have been drawn from an attention to foreign affairs by the importance of our domeſtic diſcuſſions, cannot eaſily form a conception of the general eagerneſs of the French nation, previous to it's revolution, upon that ſubject. I am convinced that the foreign ſpe⯑culators in France, under the old Government, were twenty to one of the ſame deſcription in England; and few of that deſcription there were, who did not emulouſly ſet forward the Revolu⯑tion. The whole official ſyſtem, particularly in the diplomatic part, the regulars, the irregulars, down to the clerks in office (a corps, without all compariſon, more numerous than the ſame deſcription amongſt us) co-operated in it. All the intriguers in foreign politicks, all the ſpies, all the intelligencers, actually or late in function, all the candidates for that ſort of employment, acted ſolely upon that principle.

[108] On that ſyſtem of aggrandizement there was but one mind: but two violent factions aroſe about the means. The firſt wiſhed France, diverted from the politicks of the Continent, to attend ſolely to her marine, to feed it by an encreaſe of commerce, and thereby to overpower England on her own element. They contended, that if England were diſabled, the Powers on the Continent would fall into their proper ſubordination; that it was England which deranged the whole conti⯑nental ſyſtem of Europe. The others, who were by far the more numerous, though not the moſt outwardly prevalent at Court, conſidered this plan as contrary to her genius, her ſituation, and her natural means. They agreed as to the ultimate object, the reduction of the Britiſh power; but they conſidered an aſcendancy on the Continent as a neceſſary preliminary to that undertaking. They argued, that the proceed⯑ings of England herſelf had proved the ſound⯑neſs of this policy. That her greateſt and ableſt Stateſmen had not conſidered the ſupport of a continental balance againſt France as a devia⯑tion from the principle of her naval power, but as one of the moſt effectual modes of carrying it into effect. That ſuch had been her po⯑licy ſince the Revolution; during which pe⯑riod the naval ſtrength of Great Britain had [109] gone on encreaſing in the direct ratio of her interference in the politicks of the conti⯑nent. With much ſtronger reaſon ought the politicks of France to take the ſame direction: as well for purſuing objects which her ſituation would dictate to her, if England had no exiſt⯑ence, as for counteracting the politicks of that nation; to France continental politicks are pri⯑mary; they are only of ſecondary conſideration to England.

What is truly aſtoniſhing, the partizans of thoſe two oppoſite ſyſtems were at once preva⯑lent, and at once employed, and in the very ſame tranſactions, the one oſtenſibly, the other ſecretly, during the latter part of the reign of Lewis XV. Nor was there one Court in which an Ambaſſador reſided on the part of the Mi⯑niſters, in which another as a ſpy on him did not alſo reſide on the part of the King. They who purſued the ſcheme for keeping peace on the continent, and particularly with Auſtria, acting officially and publickly, the other fac⯑tion counteracting and oppoſing them. Theſe private agents were continually going from their function to the Baſtille, from the Baſtille to em⯑ployment, and to intereſt or favour again. An inextricable cabal was formed, ſome of perſons of rank, others of ſubordinates. But by this [110] means the corps of politicians was augmented in number, and the whole formed a body of active, adventuring, ambitious, diſcontented people, deſpiſing the regular Miniſtry, deſpiſ⯑ing the Courts at which they were employed, deſpiſing the Courts which employed them.

The unfortunate Lewis the Sixteenth^* was not the firſt cauſe of the evil by which he ſuf⯑fered. He came to it, as to a ſort of inheritance, by the falſe politicks of his immediate predeceſ⯑ſor. [111] This ſyſtem of dark and perplexed in⯑trigue had come to it's perfection before he came to the throne: and even then the Revolution ſtrongly operated in all it's cauſes.

There was no point on which the diſcontented diplomatic politicians ſo bitterly arraigned their Cabinet, as for the decay of the French influ⯑ence in all others. From quarrelling with the Court, they began to complain of Mo⯑narchy itſelf; as a ſyſtem of Government too variable for any regular plan of national ag⯑grandizement. They obſerved, that in that ſort of regimen too much depended on the perſonal character of the Prince; that the vi⯑ciſſitudes produced by the ſucceſſion of Princes of a different character, and even the viciſſitudes produced in the ſame man, by the different views and inclinations belonging to youth, manhood, and age, diſturbed and diſtracted the policy of a country, made by nature for extenſive empire, or what was ſtill more to their taſte, for that ſort of general over-ruling influence which pre⯑pared empire or ſupplied the place of it. They had continually in their hands the obſervations of Machiavel on Livy. They had Monteſquieu's Grandeur & Décadence des Romains as a manual; and they compared with mortification the ſyſ⯑tematic proceedings of a Roman ſenate with the [112] ſluctuations of a Monarchy. They obſerved, the very ſmall additions of territory which all the power of France, actuated by all the ambi⯑tion of France, had acquired in two centuries. The Romans had frequently acquired more in a ſingle year. They ſeverely and in every part of it criticifed the reign of Louis the XIVth, whoſe irregular and deſultory ambition had more provoked than endangered Europe. In⯑deed, they who will be at the pains of ſeri⯑ouſly conſidering the hiſtory of that period will ſee, that thoſe French politicians had ſome rea⯑ſon. They who will not take the trouble of reviewing it through all it's wars and all it's negociations, will conſult the ſhort but judicious criticiſm of the Marquis de Montalambert on that ſubject. It may be read ſeparately from his ingenious ſyſtem of fortification and military defence, on the practical merit of which I am unable to form a judgment.

The diplomatic politicians of whom I ſpeak, and who formed by far the majority in that claſs, made diſadvantageous compariſons even between their more legal and formaliſing Monarchy, and the monarchies of other ſtates, as a ſyſ⯑tem of power and influence. They obſerved, that France not only loſt ground herſelf, but through the languor and unſteadineſs of her pur⯑ſuits, [113] and from her aiming through commerce at naval force which ſhe never could attain, three great powers, each of them (as military ſtates) capable of balancing her, had grown up on the continent. Ruſſia and Pruſſia had been created almoſt within memory; and Auſ⯑tria, though not a new power, and even cur⯑tailed in territory, was by the very colliſion in which ſhe loſt that territory, greatly improved in her military diſcipline and force: and that during the reign of Maria Thereſa the interior oeconomy of the country was made more to cor⯑reſpond with the ſupport of great armies than formerly it had been. As to Pruſſia, a merely military power, they obſerved that one war had enriched her with as conſiderable a conqueſt as France had acquired in centuries. Ruſſia had broken the Turkiſh power by which Auſtria might be, as formerly ſhe had been, balanced in favour of France. They felt it with pain, that the two northern powers of Sweden and Denmark were in general under the ſway of Ruſſia; or that at beſt, France kept up a very doubtful conflict, with many fluctuations of fortune, and at an enormous expence in Swe⯑den. In Holland, the French party ſeemed, if not extinguiſhed, at leaſt utterly obſcured, and kept under by a Stadtholder, ſometimes leaning for ſupport on Great Britain, ſometimes [114] on Pruſſia, ſometimes on both, never on France. Even the ſpreading of the Bourbon family had be⯑come merely a family accommodation; and had little effect on the national politicks. This alli⯑ance, they ſaid, extinguiſhed Spain by deſtroying all it's energy, without adding any thing to the real power of France in the acceſſion of the forces of it's great rival. In Italy, the ſame family accommodation, the ſame national inſignificance were equally viſible. What cure for the radical weakneſs of the French Monarchy, to which all the means which wit could deviſe, or nature and fortune could beſtow, towards univerſal empire, was not of force to give life, or vigour, or conſiſtency,—but in a republick? Out the word came; and it never went back.

Whether they reaſoned right or wrong, or that there was ſome mixture of right and wrong in their reaſoning, I am ſure, that in this man⯑ner they felt and reaſoned. The different ef⯑fects of a great military and ambitious repub⯑lick, and of a monarchy of the ſame deſcription was conſtantly in their mouths. The principle was ready to operate when opportunities ſhould offer, which few of them indeed foreſaw in the extent in which they were afterwards preſented; but theſe opportunities, in ſome degree or other, they all ardently wiſhed for.

[115] When I was in Paris in 1773, the treaty of 1756 between Auſtria and France was deplored as a national calamity; becauſe it united France in friendſhip with a Power, at whoſe expence alone they could hope any continental aggran⯑dizement. When the firſt partition of Poland was made, in which France had no ſhare, and which had farther aggrandized every one of the three Powers of which they were moſt jealous, I found them in a perfect phrenzy of rage and indignation: Not that they were hurt at the ſhocking and uncoloured violence and injuſtice of that partition, but at the debility, improvi⯑dence, and want of activity in their Govern⯑ment, in not preventing it as a means of aggran⯑dizement to their rivals, or in not contriving, by exchanges of ſome kind or other, to obtain their ſhare of advantage from that robbery.

In that, or nearly in that ſtate of things and of opinions, came the Auſtrian match which promiſed to draw the knot, as after⯑wards in effect it did, ſtill more cloſely be⯑tween the old rival houſes. This added ex⯑ceedingly to their hatred and contempt of their monarchy. It was for this reaſon that the late glorious Queen, who on all accounts was formed to produce general love and admiration, and whoſe life was as mild and beneficent as her [116] death was beyond example great and heroic, be⯑came ſo very ſoon and ſo very much the object of an implacable rancour, never to be extin⯑guiſhed but in her blood. When I wrote my letter in anſwer to M. de Menonville, in the beginning of January, 1791, I had good reaſon for thinking that this deſcription of revolu⯑tioniſts did not ſo early nor ſo ſteadily point their murderous deſigns at the martyr King as at the Royal Heroine. It was accident, and the mo⯑mentary depreſſion of that part of the faction, that gave to the huſband the happy priority in death.

From this their reſtleſs deſire of an over-rul⯑ing influence, they bent a very great part of their deſigns and efforts to revive the old French, which was a democratic party in Holland, and to make a revolution there. They were happy at the troubles which the ſingular imprudence of Joſeph the Second had ſtirred up in the Auſ⯑trian Netherlands. They rejoiced, when they ſaw him irritate his ſubjects, profeſs philo⯑ſophy, ſend away the Dutch garriſons, and diſmantle his fortifications. As to Holland, they never forgave either the King or the Mini⯑ſtry, for ſuffering that object, which they juſtly looked on as principal in their deſign of reduc⯑ing the power of England, to eſcape out of their [117] hands. This was the true ſecret of the com⯑mercial treaty, made, on their part, againſt all the old rules and principles of commerce, with a view of diverting the Engliſh nation, by an at⯑tention to profit, from an attention to the pro⯑greſs of France in it's deſigns upon that Repub⯑lic. The ſyſtem of the oeconomiſts, which led to the general opening of commerce, facilitated that treaty, but did not produce it. They were in deſpair when they found that the object, to which they had ſacrificed their manufactures, was loſt to their ambition. Above all, this eager de⯑ſire of raiſing France from the condition into which ſhe had fallen, as they conceived, from her monarchical imbecility, had been the main ſpring of their precedent interference in that un⯑happy American quarrel, the bad effects of which to this nation have not, as yet, fully diſcloſed themſelves.

Theſe ſentiments had been long lurking in their breaſts, though their views were only diſ⯑covered now and then, in heat and as by eſcapes; but on this occaſion they exploded ſuddenly. They were profeſſed with oſtentation, and pro⯑pagated with zeal. Theſe ſentiments were not produced, as ſome think, by their American alliance. The American alliance was produced by their republican principles and republican [118] policy. This new relation undoubtedly did much. The diſcourſes and cabals that it pro⯑duced, the intercourſe that it eſtabliſhed, and above all, the example, which made it ſeem prac⯑ticable to eſtabliſh a Republick in a great extent of country, finiſhed the work, and gave to that part of the Revolutionary faction a degree of ſtrength which required other energies than the late King poſſeſſed, to reſiſt, or even to reſtrain. It ſpread every where; but it was no where more prevalent than in the heart of the Court. The palace of Verſailles, by its language, ſeemed a forum of democracy. To point out to moſt of thoſe politicians, from theſe diſpoſitions and move⯑ments, what has ſince happened, the fall of their own Monarchy, of their own Laws, of their own Religion, would have been to furniſh a motive the more for puſhing forward a ſyſtem on which they conſidered all theſe things as incumbrances.

When I contemplate the ſcheme on which France is formed, and when I compare it with theſe ſyſtems, with which it is, and ever muſt be in conflict, theſe things which ſeem as defects in her polity, are the very things which make me tremble. The States of the Chriſtian World have grown up to their preſent magnitude in a great length of time, and by a great variety of accidents. They have been improved to what [119] we ſee them with greater or leſs degrees of fe⯑licity and ſkill. Not one of them has been formed upon a regular plan, or with any unity of deſign. As their Conſtitutions are not ſyſ⯑tematical, they have not been directed to any peculiar end, eminently diſtinguiſhed, and ſuper⯑ſeding every other. The objects which they em⯑brace are of the greateſt poſſible variety, and have become in a manner infinite. In all theſe old countries the ſtate has been made to the people, and not the people conformed to the ſtate. Every ſtate has purſued, not only every ſort of ſocial advan⯑tage, but it has cultivated the welfare of every indi⯑vidual. His wants, his wiſhes, even his taſtes have been conſulted. This comprehenſive ſcheme, vir⯑tually produced a degree of perſonal liberty in forms the moſt adverſe to it. That was found, un⯑der monarchies ſtiled abſolute, in a degree un⯑known to the ancient commonwealths. From hence the powers of all our modern ſtates, meet in all their movements, with ſome obſtruction. It is therefore no wonder, that when theſe ſtates are to be conſidered as machines to operate for ſome one great end, that this diſſipated and balanced force is not eaſily concentred, or made to bear upon one point.

The Britiſh State is, without queſtion, that which purſues the greateſt variety of ends, [120] and is the leaſt diſpoſed to ſacrifice any one of them to another, or to the whole. It aims at taking in the whole circle of human deſires, and ſecuring for them their fair enjoyment. Our le⯑giſlature has been ever cloſely connected, in it's moſt efficient part, with individual feeling and indivi⯑dual intereſt. Perſonal liberty, the moſt lively of theſe feelings and the moſt important of theſe in⯑tereſts, which in other European countries has rather ariſen from the ſyſtem of manners and the habitudes of life, than from the laws of the ſtate, (in which it flouriſhed more from neglect than at⯑tention) in England, has been a direct object of Government.

Fortunately, the great riches of this kingdom, ariſing from a variety of cauſes, and the diſpoſition of the people, which is as great to ſpend as to accu⯑mulate, has eaſily afforded a diſpoſeable ſurplus that gives a mighty momentum to the ſtate. This dif⯑ficulty, with theſe advantages to overcome it, has called forth the talents of the Engliſh financiers, who, by the ſurplus of induſtry poured out by pro⯑digality, has outdone every thing which has been accompliſhed in other nations. The preſent Mi⯑niſter has outdone his predeceſſors; and as a Miniſter of revenue, is far above my power of praiſe. But ſtill there are caſes in which Eng⯑land feels more than ſeveral others, (though they [121] all feel) the perplexity of an immenſe body of ba⯑lanced advantages, and of individual demands, and of ſome irregularity in the whole maſs.

France differs eſſentially from all thoſe Govern⯑ments which are formed without ſyſtem, which exiſt by habit, and which are confuſed with the multitude, and with the complexity of their pur⯑ſuits. What now ſtands as Government in France is ſtruck out at a heat. The deſign is wicked, im⯑moral, impious, oppreſſive; but it is ſpirited and daring: it is ſyſtematick; it is ſimple in it's princi⯑ple; it has unity and conſiſtency in perfection. In that country entirely to cut off a branch of com⯑merce, to extinguiſh a manufacture, to deſtroy the circulation of money, to violate credit, to ſuſpend the courſe of agriculture, even to burn a city, or to lay waſte a province of their own, does not coſt them a moment's anxiety. To them, the will, the wiſh, the want, the liberty, the toil, the blood of indivi⯑duals is as nothing. Individuality is left out of their ſcheme of Government. The ſtate is all in all. Every thing is referred to the production of force; afterwards every thing is truſted to the uſe of it. It is military in it's principle, in it's maxims, in it's ſpirit, and in all it's movements. The ſtate has dominion and conqueſt for it's ſole objects; do⯑minion over minds by proſelytiſm, over bodies by arms.

[122] Thus conſtituted with an immenſe body of na⯑tural means, which are leſſened in their amount only to be encreaſed in their effect, France has ſince the accompliſhment of the Revolution, a complete unity in it's direction. It has deſtroyed every reſource of the State, which depends upon opinion and the good-will of individuals. The riches of convention diſappear. The advantages of nature in ſome conſiderable meaſure remain; the command over them is complete and abſolute. We go about aſking when aſſignats will expire, and laugh at the laſt price of them; but what ſignifies the fate of theſe tickets of deſpotiſm? The deſpotiſm will find deſpotick means of ſup⯑ply. They have found the ſhort cut to the pro⯑ductions of Nature, while others in purſuit of them, are obliged to wind through the labyrinth of artificial ſociety. They ſeize upon the fruit of the labour; they ſeize upon the labourer himſelf. The natural means of France are ſtill great. They are very materially leſſened, I admit; but the power over them is increaſed. Were France but half of what it is in population, in compactneſs, in applica⯑bility of it's force, ſituated as it is, and being what it is, it would be too ſtrong for moſt of the States of Eu⯑rope, conſtituted as they are, and proceeding as they proceed. Would it be wiſe to eſtimate what the world of Europe, as well as the world of Aſia, had to dread from Jinghiz Khan, upon a contemplation [123] of the reſources of the cold and barren ſpot in the remoteſt Tarrary, from whence firſt iſſued that ſcourge of the human race? Ought we to judge from the exciſe and ſtamp duties of the rocks, or from the paper circulation of the ſands of Arabia, the power by which Mahomet and his tribes laid hold at once on the two moſt powerful Empires of the world; beat one of them totally to the ground, broke to pieces the other, and, in not much lon⯑ger ſpace of time than I have lived, overturned go⯑vernments, laws, manners, religion, and extended an empire from the Indus to the Pyrennees.

Material reſources never have ſupplied, nor ever can ſupply the want of unity in deſign and con⯑ſtancy in purſuit. But unity in deſign, and perſe⯑verance, and boldneſs in purſuit, have never want⯑ed reſources, and never will. We have not con⯑ſidered as we ought the dreadful energy of a State, in which the property has nothing to do with the Government. Reflect, my dear Sir, reflect again and again on a Government, in which the property is in ſubjection, and where nothing rules but the minds of deſperate men. The condition of a com⯑monwealth not governed by its property was a combination of things, which the learned and in⯑genious ſpeculator Harrington, who has toſſed about ſociety into all forms, never could imagine to be poſſible. We have ſeen it; the world has felt [124] it; and if the world will ſhut their eyes to this ſtate of things, they will feel it more. The Rulers there have found their reſources in crimes. The diſcovery is dreadful, the mine exhauſtleſs. They have every thing to gain, and they have nothing to loſe. They have a boundleſs inheritance in hope; and there is no medium for them, betwixt the higheſt elevation, and death with infamy. Never can thoſe, who from the miſerable ſervitude of the deſk have been raiſed to Empire, again ſubmit to the bondage of a ſtarving bureau, or the profit of copying muſic, or writing plaidoyers by the ſheet. It has made me often ſmile in bitterneſs, when I heard talk of an indemnity to ſuch men, provided they returned to their allegiance.

From all this, what is my inference? It is, that this new ſyſtem of robbery in France, cannot be rendered ſafe by any art or any means. That it muſt be deſtroyed, or that it will deſtroy all Eu⯑rope.—That by ſome means or other the force op⯑poſed to her ſhould be made to bear, in a contrary direction, ſome analogy and reſemblance to the force and ſpirit ſhe employs.

The unhappy Lewis XVI. was a man of the beſt intentions that probably ever reigned. He was by no means deficient in talents. He had a moſt laudable deſire to ſupply by general reading, and [125] even by the acquiſition of elemental knowledge, an education in all points originally defective; but nobody told him (and it was no wonder he ſhould not himſelf divine it) that the world of which he read, and the world in which he lived, were no longer the ſame. Deſirous of doing every thing for the beſt, fearful of cabal, diſtruſting his own judgment, he ſought his Miniſters of all kinds upon public teſtimony. But as Courts are the field for caballers, the public is the theatre for mountebanks and impoſtors. The cure for both thoſe evils is in the diſcernment of the Prince. But an accurate and penetrating diſcernment is what in a young Prince could not be looked for.

His conduct in it's principle was not unwiſe; but like moſt other of his well-meant deſigns, it failed in his hands. It failed partly from mere ill fortune, to which ſpeculators are rarely pleaſed to aſſign that very large ſhare to which ſhe is juſtly entitled in all human affairs. The failure, perhaps, in part was owing to his ſuffering his ſyſtem to be vitiated and diſturbed by thoſe intrigues, which it is, hu⯑manly ſpeaking, impoſſible wholly to prevent in Courts, or indeed under any form of Government. However, with theſe aberrations, he gave himſelf over to a ſucceſſion of the ſtateſman of publick opinion. In other things he thought that he might be a King on the terms of his predeceſſors. He [126] ſlattered himſelf, as moſt men in his ſituation will, that he might conſult his eaſe without danger to his ſafety. It is not at all wonderful that both he and his Miniſters, giving way abundantly in other re⯑ſpects to innovation, ſhould take up in policy with the tradition of their monarchy. Under his an⯑ceſtors the Monarchy had ſubſiſted, and even been ſtrengthened by the generation or ſupport of Re⯑publicks. Firſt, the Swiſs Republicks grew un⯑der the guardianſhip of the French Monarchy. The Dutch Republicks were hatched and che⯑riſhed under the ſame incubation. Afterwards, a republican conſtitution was under it's influence eſtabliſhed in the empire againſt the pretenſions of it's Chief. Even whilſt the Monarchy of France, by a ſeries of wars and negotiations, and laſtly by the treaties of Weſtphalia, had obtained the eſta⯑bliſhment of the Proteſtants in Germany as a law of the Empire, the ſame Monarchy under Louis the XIIIth, had force enough to deſtroy the re⯑publican ſyſtem of the Proteſtants at home.

Louis the XVIth was a diligent reader of hiſ⯑tory. But the very lamp of prudence blinded him. The guide of human life led him aſtray. A ſilent revolution in the moral world preceded the politi⯑cal, and prepared it. It became of more impor⯑tance than ever what examples were given, and what meaſures were adopted. Their cauſes no [127] longer lurked in the receſſes of cabinets, or in the private conſpiracies of the factious. They were no longer to be controlled by the force and influ⯑ence of the grandees, who formerly had been able to ſtir up troubles by their diſcontents, and to quiet them by their corruption. The chain of ſub⯑ordination, even in cabal and ſedition, was broken in its moſt important links. It was no longer the great and the populace. Other intereſts were formed, other dependencies, other connexions, other communications. The middle claſs had ſwelled far beyond its former proportions. Like whatever is the moſt effectively rich and great in ſociety, that became the ſeat of all the active poli⯑ticks; and the preponderating weight to decide on them. There were all the energies by which for⯑tune is acquired, there the conſequence of their ſucceſs. There were all the talents which aſſert their pretenſions, and are impatient of the place which ſettled ſociety preſcribes to them. Theſe deſcriptions had got between the great and the po⯑pulace; and the influence on the lower claſſes was with them. The ſpirit of ambition had ta⯑ken poſſeſſion of this claſs as violently as ever it had done of any other. They felt the importance of this ſituation. The correſpondence of the monied and the mercantile world, the literary in⯑tercourſe of academies; but, above all, the preſs, of which they had in a manner, entire poſſeſſion, [128] made a kind of electrick communication every where. The preſs, in reality, has made every Go⯑vernment, in its ſpirit, democratick. Without it the great, the firſt movements could not, perhaps, have been given. But the ſpirit of ambition, now for the firſt time connected with the ſpirit of ſpe⯑culation, was not to be reſtrained at will. There was no longer any means of arreſting a principle in its courſe. When Louis the XVIth. under the influence of the enemies to Monarchy, meant to found but one Republick, he ſet up two. When he meant to take away half the crown of his neigh⯑bour, he loſt the whole of his own. Louis the XVIth could not countenance a new Republick: yet between that dangerous lodgment for an enemy, which he had erected, and his throne, he had the whole Atlantick for a ditch. He had for an out⯑work the Engliſh nation itſelf, friendly to liberty, adverſe to that mode of it. He was ſurrounded by a rampart of Monarchies, moſt of them allied to him, and generally under his influence. Yet even thus ſecured, a Republic erected under his auſpices, and dependent on his power, became fatal to his throne. The very money which he had lent to ſupport this Republick, by a good faith, which to him operated as perfidy, was punctually paid to his enemies, and became a reſource in the hands of his aſſaſſins.

[129] With this example before their eyes, does any Adminiſtration in England, does any Adminiſtra⯑tion in Auſtria really flatter itſelf, that it can crect, not on the remote ſhores of the Atlantick, but in their view, in their vicinity, in abſolute con⯑tact with one of them, not a commercial but a martial Republick—a Republick not of ſimple huſbandmen or fiſhermen, but of intriguers, and of warriors—a Republick of a character the moſt reſtleſs, the moſt enterprizing, the moſt impious, the moſt fierce and bloody, the moſt hypocritical and perfidious that ever has been ſeen, or indeed that can be conceived to exiſt, without their own certain ruin?

Such is the Republick to which we are going to give a place in civilized fellowſhip. The Re⯑publick, which with joint conſent we are going to eſtabliſh in the center of Europe, in a poſt that overlooks and commands every other State, and which eminently confronts and menaces this king⯑dom.

You cannot fail to obſerve, that I ſpeak as if theſe powers were actually conſenting, and not com⯑pelled by events to the eſtabliſhment of this faction in France. The words have not eſcaped me. You will hereafter naturally expect that I ſhould make them good. But whether in adopting this mea⯑ſure [130] we are madly active, or weakly paſſive, or pu⯑ſillanimouſly panick ſtruck, the effects will be the ſame. You may call this faction, which has ſur⯑prized the monarchy and expelled the proprietary, perſecuted religion and trampled upon law,—you may call this France if you pleaſe: but of the an⯑cient France nothing remains but it's dangerous and central geography, it's iron frontier, it's ſpirit of ambition, it's audacity of enterpriſe, it's perplex⯑ing intrigue. Theſe and theſe alone remain; and they remain heightened in their principle and aug⯑mented in their means. All the old correctives, whether of virtue or of weakneſs, which exiſted in the old Monarchy, are gone. No ſingle corrective is to be found in the whole body of the new inſti⯑tutions. How ſhould ſuch a thing be found there, when every thing has been choſen with care and ſe⯑lection to forward all thoſe ambitious deſigns and diſpoſitions, not to controul them? The whole is a body of ways and means for the ſupply of domi⯑nion, without one heterogeneous particle in it.

Here I ſuffer you to breathe, and leave to your meditation what has occurred to me on the genius and character of the French Revolution. From having this before us, we may be better able to judge on the firſt queſtion I propoſed, that is, How far nations, called foreign, are likely to be affected with the ſyſtem eſtabliſhed within that territory? [131] I mean to proceed next on the queſtion of her fa⯑cilities, from the internal ſtate of other nations, and particularly of this, for obtaining her ends: but I ought to be aware, that my notions are controvert⯑ed.—I mean, therefore, in my next letter, to take notice of what, in that way, has been recommend⯑ed to me as the moſt deſerving of notice. In the examination of thoſe pieces, I ſhall have occaſion to diſcuſs ſome others of the topics I have recom⯑mended to your attention.

This diſcuſſion, my Friend, will be long. But the matter is ſerious; and if ever the fate of the world could be truly ſaid to depend in a particular meaſure, it is upon this peace. For the preſent, farewell.