Complete Works of Edmund Burke

by Edmund Burke

  The third great branch of the Roman revenue was the portorium, which did not differ from those impositions which we now call customs and duties of export and import.

  This was the ordinary revenue; besides which there were occasional impositions for shipping, for military stores and provisions, and for defraying the expense of the prætor and his legates on the various circuits they made for the administration of the province. This last charge became frequently a means of great oppression, and several ways were from time to time attempted, but with little effect, to confine it within reasonable bounds. Amongst the extraordinary impositions must be reckoned the obligation they laid on the provincials to labor at the public works, after the manner of what the French call the corvée, and we term statute-labor.

  As the provinces, burdened by the ordinary charges, were often in no condition of levying these occasional taxes, they were obliged to borrow at interest. Interest was then to communities at the same exorbitant rate as to individuals. No province was free from a most onerous public debt; and that debt was far from operating like the same engagement contracted in modern states, by which, as the creditor is thrown into the power of the debtor, they often add considerably to their strength, and to the number and attachment of their dependants. The prince in this latter case borrows from a subject or from a stranger. The one becomes more the subject, and the other less a stranger. But in the Roman provinces the subject borrowed from his master, and he thereby doubled his slavery. The overgrown favorites and wealthy nobility of Rome advanced money to the provincials; and they were in a condition both to prescribe the terms of the loan and to enforce the payment. The provinces groaned at once under all the severity of public imposition and the rapaciousness of private usury. They were overrun by publicans, farmers of the taxes, agents, confiscators, usurers, bankers, those numerous and insatiable bodies which always flourish in a burdened and complicated revenue. In a word, the taxes in the Roman Empire were so heavy, and in many respects so injudiciously laid on, that they have been not improperly considered as one cause of its decay and ruin. The Roman government, to the very last, carried something of the spirit of conquest in it; and this system of taxes seems rather calculated for the utter impoverishment of nations, in whom a long subjection had not worn away the remembrance of enmity, than for the support of a just commonwealth.

  CHAPTER IV.

  THE FALL OF THE ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

  A.D. 117.After the period which we have just closed, no mention is made of the affairs of Britain until the reign of Adrian. At that time was wrought the first remarkable change in the exterior policy of Rome. Although some of the emperors contented themselves with those limits which they found at their accession, none before this prince had actually contracted the bounds of the Empire: for, being more perfectly acquainted with all the countries that composed it than any of his predecessors, what was strong and what weak, and having formed to himself a plan wholly defensive, he purposely abandoned several large tracts of territory, that he might render what remained more solid and compact.

  A.D. 121.

  A.D. 140.This plan particularly affected Britain. All the conquests of Agricola to the northward of the Tyne were relinquished, and a strong rampart was built from the mouth of that river, on the east, to Solway Frith, on the Irish Sea, a length of about eighty miles. But in the reign of his successor, Antoninus Pius, other reasonings prevailed, and other measures were pursued. The legate who then commanded in Britain, concluding that the Caledonians would construe the defensive policy of Adrian into fear, that they would naturally grow more numerous in a larger territory, and more haughty when they saw it abandoned to them, the frontier was again advanced to Agricola’s second line, which extended between the Friths of Forth and Clyde, and the stations which had been established by that general were connected with a continued wall.

  A.D. 207

  A.D. 208

  A.D. 209From this time those walls become the principal object in the British history. The Caledonians, or (as they are called) the Picts, made very frequent and sometimes successful attempts upon this barrier, taking advantage more particularly of every change in government, whilst the soldiery throughout the Empire were more intent upon the choice of a master than the motions of an enemy. In this dubious state of unquiet peace and unprosecuted war the province continued until Severus came to the purple, who, finding that Britain had grown into one of the most considerable provinces of the Empire, and was at the same time in a dangerous situation, resolved to visit that island in person, and to provide for its security. He led a vast army into the wilds of Caledonia, and was the first of the Romans who penetrated to the most northern boundary of this island. The natives, defeated in some engagements, and wholly unable to resist so great and determined a power, were obliged to submit to such a peace as the emperor thought proper to impose. Contenting himself with a submission, always cheaply won from a barbarous people, and never long regarded, Severus made no sort of military establishment in that country. On the contrary, he abandoned the advanced work which had been raised in the reign of Antoninus, and, limiting himself by the plan of Adrian, he either built a new wall near the former, or he added to the work of that emperor such considerable improvements and repairs that it has since been called the Wall of Severus.

  Severus with great labor and charge terrified the Caledonians; but he did not subdue them. He neglected those easy and assured means of subjection which the nature of that part of Britain affords to a power master of the sea, by the bays, friths, and lakes with which it is everywhere pierced, and in some places almost cut through. A few garrisons at the necks of land, and a fleet to connect them and to awe the coast, must at any time have been sufficient irrecoverably to subdue that part of Britain. This was a neglect in Agricola occasioned probably by a limited command; and it was not rectified by boundless authority in Severus. The Caledonians again resumed their arms, and renewed their ravages on the Roman frontier. Severus died before he could take any new measures; and from his death there is an almost total silence concerning the affairs of Britain until the division of the Empire.

  Had the unwieldy mass of that overgrown dominion been effectively divided, and divided into large portions, each forming a state, separate and absolutely independent, the scheme had been far more perfect. Though the Empire had perished, these states might have subsisted; and they might have made a far better opposition to the inroads of the barbarians even than the whole united; since each nation would have its own strength solely employed in resisting its own particular enemies. For, notwithstanding the resources which might have been expected from the entireness of so great a body, it is clear from history that the Romans were never able to employ with effect and at the same time above two armies, and that on the whole they were very unequal to the defence of a frontier of many thousand miles in circuit.

  But the scheme which was pursued, the scheme of joint emperors, holding by a common title, each governing his proper territory, but not wholly without authority in the other portions, this formed a species of government of which it is hard to conceive any just idea. It was a government in continual fluctuation from one to many, and from many again to a single hand. Each state did not subsist long enough independent to fall into those orders and connected classes of men that are necessary to a regular commonwealth; nor had they time to grow into those virtuous partialities from which nations derive the first principle of their stability.

  The events which follow sufficiently illustrate these reflections, and will show the reason of introducing them in this place, with regard to the Empire in general, and to Britain more particularly.

  In the division which Diocletian first made of the Roman territory, the western provinces, in which Britain was included, fell to Maximian. It was during his reign that Britain, by an extraordinary revolution, was for some time entirely separated from the body of the Empire. Carausius, a man of obscure birth, and a barbarian, (for now not only the army, but the senate, was fille
d with foreigners,) had obtained the government of Boulogne. He was also intrusted with the command of a fleet stationed in that part to oppose the Saxon pirates, who then began cruelly to infest the northwest parts of Gaul and the opposite shore of Britain. But Carausius made use of the power with which he had been intrusted, not so much to suppress the pirates as to aggrandize himself. He even permitted their depredations, that he might intercept them on their return, and enrich himself with the retaken plunder. By such methods he acquired immense wealth, which he distributed with so politic a bounty among the seamen of his fleet and the legions in Britain that by degrees he disposed both the one and the other to a revolt in his favor.

  A.D. 286

  A.D. 290

  A.D. 293As there were then no settled principles either of succession or election in the Empire, and all depended on the uncertain faith of the army, Carausius made his attempt, perhaps, with the less guilt, and found the less difficulty in prevailing upon the provincial Britons to submit to a sovereignty which seemed to reflect a sort of dignity on themselves. In this island he established the seat of his new dominion; but he kept up and augmented his fleet, by which he preserved his communication with his old government, and commanded the intermediate seas. He entered into a close alliance with the Saxons and Frisians, by which he at once preserved his own island from their depredations and rendered his maritime power irresistible. He humbled the Picts by several defeats; he repaired the frontier wall, and supplied it with good garrisons. He made several roads equal to the works of the greatest emperors. He cut canals, with vast labor and expense, through all the low eastern parts of Britain, at the same time draining those fenny countries, and promoting communication and commerce. On these canals he built several cities. Whilst he thus labored to promote the internal strength and happiness of his kingdom, he contended with so much success against his former masters that they were at length obliged not only to relinquish their right to his acquisition, but to admit him to a participation of the imperial titles. He reigned after this for seven years prosperously and with great glory, because he wisely set bounds to his ambition, and contented himself with the possession of a great country, detached from the rest of the world, and therefore easily defended. Had he lived long enough, and pursued this plan with consistency, Britain, in all probability, might then have become, and might have afterwards been, an independent and powerful kingdom, instructed in the Roman arts, and freed from their dominion. But the same distemper of the state which had raised Carausius to power did not suffer him long to enjoy it. The Roman soldiery at that time was wholly destitute of military principle. That religious regard to their oath, the great bond of ancient discipline, had been long worn out; and the want of it was not supplied by that punctilio of honor and loyalty which is the support of modern armies. Carausius was assassinated, and succeeded in his kingdom by Allectus, the captain of his guards. But the murderer, who did not possess abilities to support the power he had acquired by his crimes, was in a short time defeated, and in his turn put to death, by Constantius Chlorus. In about three years from the death of Carausius, Britain, after a short experiment of independency, was again united to the body of the Empire.

  A.D. 304Constantius, after he came to the purple, chose this island for his residence. Many authors affirm that his wife Helena was a Briton. It is more certain that his son Constantine the Great was born here, and enabled to succeed his father principally by the helps which he derived from Britain.

  A.D. 306.Under the reign of this great prince there was an almost total revolution in the internal policy of the Empire. This was the third remarkable change in the Roman government since the dissolution of the Commonwealth. The first was that by which Antoninus had taken away the distinctions of the municipium, province, and colony, communicating to every part of the Empire those privileges which had formerly distinguished a citizen of Rome. Thus the whole government was cast into a more uniform and simple frame, and every mark of conquest was finally effaced. The second alteration was the division of the Empire by Diocletian. The third was the change made in the great offices of the state, and the revolution in religion, under Constantine.

  The præfecti prætorio, who, like the commanders of the janizaries of the Porte, by their ambition and turbulence had kept the government in continual ferment, were reduced by the happiest art imaginable. Their number, only two originally, was increased to four, by which their power was balanced and broken. Their authority was not lessened, but its nature was totally changed: for it became from that time a dignity and office merely civil. The whole Empire was divided into four departments under these four officers. The subordinate districts were governed by their vicarii; and Britain, accordingly, was under a vicar, subject to the præfectus prætorio of Gaul. The military was divided nearly in the same manner; and it was placed under officers also of a new creation, the magistri militiæ. Immediately under these were the duces, and under those the comites, dukes and counts, titles unknown in the time of the Republic or in the higher Empire; but afterwards they extended beyond the Roman territory, and having been conferred by the Northern nations upon their leaders, they subsist to this day, and contribute to the dignity of the modern courts of Europe.

  But Constantine made a much greater change with regard to religion by the establishment of Christianity. At what time the Gospel was first preached in this island I believe it impossible to ascertain, as it came in gradually, and without, or rather contrary to, public authority. It was most probably first introduced among the legionary soldiers; for we find St. Alban, the first British martyr, to have been of that body. As it was introduced privately, so its growth was for a long time insensible; but it shot up at length with great vigor, and spread itself widely, at first under the favor of Constantius and the protection of Helena, and at length under the establishment of Constantine. From this time it is to be considered as the ruling religion; though heathenism subsisted long after, and at last expired imperceptibly, and with as little noise as Christianity had been at first introduced.

  A.D. 368.In this state, with regard to the civil, military, and religious establishment, Britain, remained without any change, and at intervals in a tolerable state of repose, until the reign of Valentinian. Then it was attacked all at once with incredible fury and success, and as it were in concert, by a number of barbarous nations. The principal of these were the Scots, a people of ancient settlement in Ireland, and who had thence been transplanted into the northern part of Britain, which afterwards derived its name from that colony. The Scots of both nations united with the Picts to fall upon the Roman province. To these were added the piratical Saxons, who issued from the mouths of the Rhine. For some years they met but slight resistance, and made a most miserable havoc, until the famous Count Theodosius was sent to the relief of Britain, — who, by an admirable conduct in war, and as vigorous application to the cure of domestic disorders, for a time freed the country from its enemies and oppressors, and having driven the Picts and Scots into the barren extremity of the island, he shut and barred them in with a new wall, advanced as far as the remotest of the former, and, what had hitherto been imprudently neglected, he erected the intermediate space into a Roman province, and a regular government, under the name of Valentia. But this was only a momentary relief. The Empire was perishing by the vices of its constitution.

  A.D. 388.Each province was then possessed by the inconsiderate ambition of appointing a head to the whole; although, when the end was obtained, the victorious province always returned to its ancient insignificance, and was lost in the common slavery. A great army of Britons followed the fortune of Maximus, whom they had raised to the imperial titles, into Gaul. They were there defeated; and from their defeat, as it is said, arose a new people. They are supposed to have settled in Armorica, which was then, like many other parts of the sickly Empire, become a mere desert; and that country, from this accident, has been since called Bretagne.

  The Roman province thus weakened afforded opportunity and en
couragement to the barbarians again to invade and ravage it. Stilicho, indeed during the minority of Honorius, obtained some advantages over them, which procured a short intermission of their hostilities. But as the Empire on the continent was now attacked on all sides, and staggered under the innumerable shocks which, it received, that minister ventured to recall the Roman forces from Britain, in order to sustain those parts which he judged of more importance and in greater danger.

  A.D. 411.On the intelligence of this desertion, their barbarous enemies break in upon the Britons, and are no longer resisted. Their ancient protection withdrawn, the people became stupefied with terror and despair. They petition the emperor for succor in the most moving terms. The emperor, protesting his weakness, commits them to their own defence, absolves them from, their allegiance, and confers on them a freedom which they have no longer the sense to value nor the virtue to defend. The princes whom after this desertion they raised and deposed with a stupid inconstancy were styled Emperors. So hard it is to change ideas to which men have been long accustomed, especially in government, that the Britons had no notion of a sovereign who was not to be emperor, nor of an emperor who was not to be master of the Western world. This single idea ruined Britain. Constantine, a native of this island, one of those shadows of imperial majesty, no sooner found himself established at home than, fatally for himself and his country, he turned his eyes towards the continent. Thither he carried the flower of the British youth, — all who were any ways eminent for birth, for courage, for their skill in the military or mechanic arts; but his success was not equal to his hopes or his forces. The remains of his routed army joined their countrymen in Armorica, and a baffled attempt upon the Empire a second time recruited Gaul and exhausted Britain.