Complete Works of Edmund Burke

by Edmund Burke

  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 dignity, 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.

  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 advance, 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 character to submit to such things. There is a consanguinity 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 Regicides, 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 declaration of the rights of citizens. They never had been in the service of the Regicides, nor at their 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 inhospitable 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 cautious 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 tenderness should not strike athwart the sternness of politicks, and make us recal to painful memory, the difference between this insolent and bloody theatre, and the temperate, natural majesty of a civilized 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 compassionate sex.

  Whilst the fortune of the field was wholly with the Regicides, nothing was thought of but to follow 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 Conventions, 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 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 undoubtedly. 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 paper I have seen (the publication at Hamburgh) making a shew of that pacific disposition, discovered 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.

  We have since seen them take up the matter with great formality. On that occasion they discovered still more clearly the bottom of their character. 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 advances, 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, hitherto, 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 violent of conquerors. Indemnity is capable of some estimate; dignity has no standard. It is impossible to guess what acquisitions pride and ambition may think fit for their dignity. But lest any doubt should remain on what they think for their dignity, 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 accomplished 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 resolved 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 secure. We are constantly in attendance, and nothing you can do shall hinder us from the renewal of our su
pplications.”

  To those, who do not love to contemplate the fall of human greatness, I do not know a more 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 descending scale of political degradation. I never knew dignity much.

  Our proceeding, which has produced this return, 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 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 disclosed.

  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 Republick. 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 proceeding 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 a parliamentary or a judicial proceeding, according 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 supersede 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 sovereigns 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 prerogative of crime; and a temporising humiliation the proper part for venerable authority. If the vilest of mankind are resolved to be the most wicked, they lose all the baseness of their origin, and take their place above Kings. This example in foreign 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 properly theirs. It is said that there is a secret in the House of Commons. That Ministers act not according to the votes, but according to the dispositions, of the majority. I hear that the minority has long since spoken the general sense of the nation; 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 propositions 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 advances 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 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 previous knowledge of the terms, make a surrender. They are conquered. They do not treat; they receive the law. Then the people of England are contented to seek in the kindness of a foreign systematick 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 content to rest their religion on the piety of atheists by establishment. They are satisfied to seek in the clemency of practised murderers the security of their lives. They are pleased to confide their property to the safeguard of those who are robbers by inclination, 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 they are enthusiastically in favour of it. Acquiescence will not do. There must be zeal. Universal zeal in such a cause, and at such a time as this is, cannot be looked for; neither is it necessary. A zeal in the larger part carries the force of the whole. Without this, no Government, certainly 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 Regicide France, that can exhibit such a prodigy. Yet even she, the mother of monsters, more prolific 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 desperately 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. Without doing something of this sort we must proceed absurdly. We should presume as absurdly, 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 information, 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 representative of
the people. This body is that representative; and on this body, more than on the legal constituent, the artificial representative depends. 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 citizens, I look upon one fifth, or about eighty thousand, to be pure Jacobins; utterly incapable of amendment; objects of eternal vigilance; and when they break out, of legal constraint. On these, no reason, no argument, no example, no venerable authority, can have the slightest influence. 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 overthrow of a kingdom, I should wish to be encumbered 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 critical, have the means of debauching or intimidating 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 numerous enough to make a mighty cry for peace, or for war, or for any object they are led vehemently 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 always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.