Complete Works of Edmund Burke

by Edmund Burke

  — “Facies non omnibus una;

  “Nec diversa tamen; qualem decet esse sororum.

  The whole body of this new scheme of manners in support of the new scheme of politicks, I consider 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 studied 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 Government. 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 compleat, 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 Europe, 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 mankind this desperate alternative, there is no indication 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 conceivable how any man can pursue a considerable course of action without its having some effect upon others; or, of course, without producing some degree of responsibility for his conduct. The situations 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 system in any community less pernicious. But there are situations where this difficulty does not occur; 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 conclusions of legal reason, than matters of statutable provision, belong to universal equity, and are universally 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 restrain the right of ownership, by the right of vicinage. No innovation is permitted that may redound, 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 damageable or not, the judge is competent to issue a prohibition to innovate, until the point can be determined. This prompt interference is grounded on principles favourable to both parties. It is preventive 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 inconveniently to the neighbourhood, according to the antient mode. For there is a sort of presumption against novelty, drawn out of a deep consideration 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 independent 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. Neighbours 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 jurisdiction 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 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 circumstances 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 pestilential 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 contemptible points of interest, the light ceremonies, the undefinable punctilios, the disputes about precedency, 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 compound 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 denunciate 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 recognize the pretended Republick on the principle upon which it now stands. It is not an old structure 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 ro
bbers 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 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 property of the nation is the nation. Those who massacre, plunder, and expel the body of the proprietary, are murderers and robbers. They are no Republick, 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 commonwealth 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 government. 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 exists by wrong and robbery; and wrong and robbery, 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 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 sanctity of its clergy; in the reverence of it’s magistracy; in the weight and consideration due to it’s landed property, in the respect due to it’s moveable 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 deposits 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 honourable 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 cannot think absolutely impossible, though the augury is to be abominated, and the events deprecated with our most ardent prayers — Let us suppose 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 bankers 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 machinery 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 noisome 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 suffering 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 member of Europe, called England? In that condition, 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 advantage 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 pestilential 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 fighting those battles of their interest, and as their soldiers, how should we feel if we were to be excluded 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 prisoners, be delivered over as rebel subjects, to be condemned as rebels, as traitors, as the vilest of all criminals, by tribunals formed of Maroon negroe slaves, covered over with the blood of their masters, who were made free, and organised into 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 example 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 surewrought mine, their levees will never want to swell them a single person of those who are attached 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 Serrents, the Cazalés, and the long line of loyal suffering Patriot Nobles, or to be butchered with the victims of the laws, the De Sezes, the d’Esprememonils, and the Malsherbes.