by Edmund Burke
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, humanly 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 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 respects to innovation, should take up in policy with the tradition of their monarchy. Under his ancestors the Monarchy had subsisted, and even been strengthened by the generation or support of Republicks. First, the Swiss Republicks grew under the guardianship of the French Monarchy. The Dutch Republicks were hatched and cherished 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 establishment of the Protestants in Germany as a law of the Empire, the same Monarchy under Louis the XIIIth, had force enough to destroy the republican system of the Protestants at home.
Louis the XVIth was a diligent reader of history. 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 political, and prepared it. It became of more importance than ever what examples were given, and what measures were adopted. Their causes no 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 influence 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 subordination, 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 politicks; and the preponderating weight to decide on them. There were all the energies by which fortune 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 populace; and the influence on the lower classes was with them. The spirit of ambition had taken 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 intercourse of academies; but, above all, the press, of which they had in a manner, entire possession, made a kind of electrick communication every where. The press, in reality, has made every Government, 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 speculation, 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 neighbour, 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 outwork 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.
With this example before their eyes, does any Administration in England, does any Administration 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 contact 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 Republick, 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 kingdom.
You cannot fail to observe, that I speak as if these powers were actually consenting, and not compelled 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 measure we are madly active, or weakly passive, or pusillanimously panick struck, the effects will be the same. You may call this faction, which has surprized the monarchy and expelled the proprietary, persecuted religion and trampled upon law, — you may call this France if you please: but of the ancient 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 perplexing intrigue. These and these alone remain; and they remain heightened in their principle and augmented 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 institutions. How should such a thing be found there, when every thing has been chosen with care and selection 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 dominion, 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? I mean to proceed next on the question of her facilities, 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 controverted. — I mean, therefore, in my next letter, to take notice of what, in that way, has been recommended 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 recommended 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.
THREE MEMORIALS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS
CONTENTS
PREFACE.
HINTS FOR A MEMORIAL TO BE DELIVERED TO MONSIEUR DE M. M. WRITTEN IN THE EARLY PART OF 1791.
THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS, &c. &c. WRITTEN IN DECEMBER, 1791.
HEADS FOR CONSIDERATION ON THE PRESENT STATE OF AFFAIRS. WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER, 1792.
REMARKS ON THE POLICY OF THE ALLIES WITH RESPECT TO FRANCE. BEGUN IN OCTOBER, 1793.
APPENDIX. EXTRACTS FROM VATTEL’S LAW OF NATIONS.
THREE MEMORIALS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS.
WRITTEN IN THE YEARS 1791, 1792 AND 1793.
BY THE LATE RIGHT HON. EDMUND BURKE.
PREFACE.
TO be engaged in a contention with ingratitude and fraud, is neither pleasing nor honourable; but they who in discharging the sacred obligations of friendship are forced into it, must submit to the humiliation. They would themselves be criminal in the next degree, were they to consult their own personal feelings; they are bound to consider only their duty.
In the beginning of the present year, a confidential paper, written by the late Mr. Burke, was surreptitiously published in his name; and at the end of it was advertised a volume of pretended memoirs, anecdotes, and letters, of the Author. Some of his friends (he was himself at Bath, struggling with the disease which ultimately proved fatal to him) obtained an injunction from the Court of Chancery, on the very day of publication. By this prompt interference of the law, by the general discountenance of all liberal men, and by the bankruptcy of the bookseller, which soon followed, the sale, though not wholly stopped, was considerably checked; and the memoirs, for the time, suppressed. But scarcely is the hand that wrote, and the tongue that dictated, yet cold in death, when, before it has been practicable even to examine and arrange the numerous papers which that admirable man has left behind him, and which bear impressed upon them the living traces of his great mind through his whole career of publick action, and during the previous course of severe study, by which he prepared himself to be what he became, a new notice is thrown forth, enlarged and improved a little in the language and arrangement, but in substance nearly the same with the former. It clearly comes, it can only come, from the same quarter; though perhaps the work itself may be coloured with some more ostensible name.
By this conduct, in addition to the turpitude which marked the former attempt, the will of the dead, regarded by all civilized nations with peculiar sanctity, is violated. The friends, to whose care and judgment Mr. Burke confided the selection and use of his manuscripts, are no longer at liberty to exercise their own discretion. They are not masters even of the time, order, and method to be observed in the execution of their trust. Without a choice, they are dragged along to meet or to overtake the diversified arts of a man, who, fed by his bounty while alive, endeavoured to disquiet the last moments of his dying benefactor, and ceases not to injure him in his grave. It is true, they have already obtained another injunction, but they are well aware, that crafty men will too often contrive to evade the law; desperate men will dare to defy it. They know, indeed, from the former experiment, that no deliberate encouragement will be given to the thefts and fabrications of avarice or indigence: the new system of morals has not made quite so much progress in this kingdom: but they also know that publick curiosity, strongly excited as it must be, by a promise of
“Mr. Burke’s secret correspondence with the most distinguished characters of Europe,”
will demand to be indulged. It will seek irregular, if it be denied regular means of gratification. The thirst which is not permitted to drink of the fresh fountain or the clear stream, will slake itself wherever it can, at the weedy pool or the muddy ditch.
Their determination therefore is taken. It is, upon the whole, they believe, the best which their circumstances would allow; though they may be in some danger of thus furnishing genuine materials, which are in their hands alone, and which mingled up with others of a different description, may be employed to lend a fallacious credit to the idle tales of credulity and folly, or the absurd calumnies of enmity and envy.
The present publication consists of three Memorials, which were written in the years 1791, 1792, 1793, and relate to three very interesting epochs in the French Revolution. They more particularly treat of the effects, which, at those respective periods, the author imagined that event likely to produce on the political state of all Europe. There is reason to suppose that incorrect copies of two out of the three have been fraudulently taken.
Some other pieces are in the hands of the Printer, and will shortly appear in a second pamphlet. They relate to the conduct of our two great parties at home, with a view to French politicks.
These two publications will fill up a very important chasm in the recorded opinions of the Author. There is nothing on French affairs in the quarto edition of his works later than the middle of the year 1791; long before the first approach to actual hostilities between the French and the neighbouring Powers of Germany. What he afterwards published takes up the subject at the point of time, when the King’s Ministers, despairing of success in the great purpose of continuing, whatever was the immediate cause of beginning the war, had avowed a disposition to negociate a peace with the French Republick.
A collection also of Mr. Burke’s more important letters, during the last years of his life, especially on the subject of France, is preparing for the press. Of course it will be much more ample, than any thing which can be furnished by the person from whose scandalous breach of trust alone any spurious compilation can draw it’s materials.
Many of these letters were intended, not for the press indeed, but for free circulation in manuscript; a channel, which through all the principal transactions of his political life, he used instead of the publick prints, for explaining, as occasion required, his principles or his conduct. Of these compositions, sometimes himself, and sometimes those around him kept copies.
Some few of his letters were preserved by him as a sort of private protest and record of his opinions, when on questions of importance he had the misfortune, (such he always sincerely felt it to be) of dissenting from those with whom he generally acted. He was, from conviction, a party-man; but he ever thought that party should be subservient to principle, not principle to party. His principles are now, unhappily for his country and the world, become mere matter of history, and whatever can elucidate them is due to the instruction of the publick.
His other letters, which passed in the unreserved freedom of confidential intercourse, can only be obtained from the liberality of the friends to whom they were addressed, many of whom have kindly promised their contributions, and all of whom are respectfully desired to transmit to Messrs. Rivingtons whatever they may have in that kind, which they may judge not unfit for the publick eye. There is very little indeed of his correspondence (and no man wrote more) which does not contain some portion of a great body of ethicks and politicks, from which mankind may grow wiser and better.
All these, and other such productions of his pen, as it may be thought right to print separately, will be given with all convenient speed in the octavo size, which he himself in his life-time chose for the first editions of his Speeches and Tracts. They will afterwards be formed, with many other original pieces of a less temporary nature, into quarto volumes; and to the whole will be prefixed a Life of the Author, accompanied with various letters and papers of a more early date, some of which were pointed out by himself as
“documents for the history, not of his own life,” he observed, “but of his times.”
It has been frequently supposed, that he was himself employed in writing such a history. But they who supposed this knew little of him. He bore too large a share, much beyond what is commonly known, in the literature and politicks of the age, to be himself the historian. Though not without a just sense of his own merits, he truly loved and practised that humility, which he has so beautifully called,
“the low, but deep and firm foundation of all real virtue.”
On principle, he would never have consented to undertake a task, in performing which, to have done justice to himself he must have risked the imputation of vanity; a vice which he abhorred to a degree, that by such as were not intimately acquainted with his heart, might have been sometimes mistaken for vanity itself. He has left in manuscript some biographical sketches both of his son and his brother; none of himself. None are oftentatiously introduced in any of his works. Cicero seems to have written some of his books almost for the purpose of putting his own praises into the mouths of others, and of scattering around those numberless little intimations, which at this distance of time we gather up with so much delight, of
his childhood, his education, his studies, his amusements, his manners, his relations, his friends, his houses and pleasure-grounds, the gallery of Tusculum, and the oak of Arpinum; but whatever of that kind has fallen from Mr. Burke is only to be found incidentally interspersed, where to have suppressed it would have been to betray his own fair reputation, in which his family, friends, and country, had an interest as well as himself: it is to be found in his public or private answers to those who had brought charges against him, and who were of a dignity to make a vindication of himself decorous, if not necessary. The rest must be supplied by the diligence and judgment of others, partly from memory and partly from information, which, it is hoped, all who in any part of his life have been intimate with him will be so obliging to communicate; but principally from the different sources already mentioned above, and the rich store of detached hints, loose notes, and unfinished fragments which remain in his handwriting, relative to all the more momentous business in which he was engaged. His pen was always in his hand. He seldom thought or read without it.
In the mean time, some important parts of his conduct and character will receive light from this, and the succeeding publications. It will at once be seen, whether the sentiments recently expressed by him were indeed the genuine conclusions of an early sagacity, anticipating calamities to come with a certainty that almost approached to inspired prediction, or nothing more than the false pretences of a tardy wisdom too late instructed by the event.
These papers will contain his inmost doctrines. His countrymen have heard him in the Senate; they have read him in his demegorick writings designed for popular effect; they will now attend him, as it were, into the Cabinet.
The year 1791 was highly critical in the development of the French Revolution. Mr. Neckar and his colleagues had been driven with ignominy from their posts and the country. A new ministry had been patched up from the accomplices and creatures of the original leaders in the National Assembly. Those leaders, to secure the power which they had obtained, shewed a disposition to put a stop to those confusions, which they had themselves excited or promoted. In their turn, they were themselves attacked by a new set of bolder, more ferocious, but more consistent demagogues. The Priests were declaredly persecuted; the Nobles plundered and hunted into emigration. Civil authority there was none. The army and navy were corrupted, and all discipline destroyed. The King and Queen, after a short and insecure interval of comparative tranquillity, were again repeatedly insulted, and their lives openly endangered.