Letters on a Regicide Peace
By Edmund Burke
This volume includes Burke’s four
Letters on a Regicide Peace, his last published writings on the French Revolution and the policy toward it that he would have Great Britain follow. There is no need to explain here the historical circumstances in which Burke wrote these works or the details of their composition and publication, since E. J. Payne has so thoroughly done that in his Introduction. A few comments will be enough—possibly more than enough…. [From the Editor’s Foreword by Francis Canavan.]
Translator/Editor
E. J. Payne, ed.
First Pub. Date
1795
Publisher
Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, Inc.
Pub. Date
1990
Comments
Compiled and with a foreword and notes by Francis Canavan. Vols. 1-3 originally published Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1874-1878. E. J. Payne, Ed. Foreword and notes by Francis Canavan.
Copyright
Portions of this edited edition are under copyright.
On the Genius and Character of the French Revolution as it regards other Nations
Letter II
[Second Edition. Rivingtons, 1796.]
Two Letters Addressed to A Member of the Present Parliament, on the Proposals for Peace with the Regicide Directory of France by the right honourable Edmund Burke (continued)
[Argument INTRODUCTION, p. 154. The complete transformation of France by its New Government leads the writer to enquire into the nature of the governing faction.PART I, pp. 155-68 (1) Not a local party, p. 155, though their centre is in France: this illustrated by the action of the Allies, p. 155, which was (2) paralysed by the intrigues of the Jacobins, p. 156. Their easy triumph over the routine politicians of Europe, p. 157, and over the ridiculous “centrifugal war” waged against France, p. 159. (3) False policy pursued in the war, p. 159, and impossibility now of compensating the successes of the French, without which they are not likely to make peace, unless “by giving up Europe, bound hand and foot, to France,” p. 161.
(1) Great Diffusion, (2) Great Abilities, and (3) Great Successes of the Jacobin PartyPART II, pp. 168-89 Jacobinism alien from ordinary European relations, p. 168. Two classes of Jacobins, philosophers and politicians; character of the former, p. 170, of the latter, p. 171. Ambition of French politicians, p. 172. Divided into the Anti-Anglican and Anti-Continental factions, p. 173, the existence of which is traced to the reign of Louis XV, p. 174. Causes of discontent on the part of the politicians, and their
Jacobinism implies the Repudiation of the Ordinary Relations of France with the rest of Europe[101] ready conversion to Republicanism, as a more powerful system for aggression, p. 175. Their intrigues in Holland, Austria, and America, before the Revolution, p. 178. Essential antagonism between France since the Revolution, and the rest of Europe, especially England, p. 180. And the only safety for Europe the destruction of the new system in France, illustrated by the fate of Louis XVI, p. 184].
*1wherever the race of Europe may be settled. Everywhere 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
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 its religion, 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, that they cannot fail to unite their efforts to rescue a numerous nation from it’s own fury, to preserve Europe from the return of barbarism, 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 may 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 enterprise. It was to the principles of this consideration, and to no other, that we wished our Sovereign and our Country to accede, as a part of the
*21 And all
*2our friends who did take office acceded to the Ministry (whether wisely or not) as I always understood the matter, on the faith and on the principles of that declaration.
civil war; and as such they pursued it. It is a war between the partizans of the ancient, civil, moral, and political order of Europe against a sect of fanatical and ambitious atheists which means 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
*3conquest 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
civil war. It was their business 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 talk was not difficult. The condition of Princes, and sometimes of first Ministers too, is to be pitied. The creatures of the desk, and the creatures of favour, had no relish for the principles of the manifestoes. They promised no governments, no regiments, no revenues 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 government 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 recommend 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 elevated. 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.
*4linked by a contignation into the edifice of France,) but as an happy occasion for pillaging the goods, and for carrying off the materials of their neighbour’s house. Their provident fears were changed into avaricious hopes. They carried 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 fortresses, and new territories, a
defensive security. But the security wanted was against a kind of power, which was not so truly dangerous in it’s fortresses nor in it’s territories, as 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
defensive plan. If armies and fortresses were a defence against Jacobinism, Louis the Sixteenth would this day reign a powerful monarch over an happy people.
*5centrifugal war. The plan they pursued, in it’s nature, demanded great length of time.
*6nothing to hold an alliance together. There could be no tie of
honour, in a society for pillage. There could be no tie of a common
interest where the object did not offer such a division amongst the parties, as could well give them a warm concern in the gains of each other, or could indeed form such a body of equivalents, as might make one of them willing to abandon a separate object of his ambition for the justification of any other member of the alliance. 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 of their several shares: 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, and they most who were most concerned in it, for the moment there was wherewithal in the object to preserve peace amongst confederates in wrong. But the spoil of France did not afford the same facilities for accommodation. What might satisfy the House of Austria in a Flemish frontier afforded no equivalent to tempt the cupidity of the King of Prussia. What might be desired by Great Britain in the West-Indies, must be coldly and remotely, if at all, felt as an interest at Vienna; and it would be felt as something
*7worse than a negative interest at Madrid. Austria, long possessed 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:
*8No continental Power was willing to lose any of it’s continental objects for the encrease of the naval power of Great Britain; and Great Britain 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.
*9contemptible factories, subsisting by the offal of the private fortunes of English individuals to support them, in any part of India. I look on the taking of the
*10Cape of Good Hope as the securing of a post of great moment. It does honour to those who planned, and to those who
comparatively good; as good as any thing can be in a scheme of war that repels us from a center, and employs all our forces where nothing can be finally decisive. But giving, as I freely give, every possible credit to these eastern conquests, I ask one question—On whom are they made? It is evident, that if we can keep our eastern conquests, we keep them not at the expence of France, but at the expence of Holland, our
ally; of Holland, the immediate cause of the war, the nation whom we had undertaken to protect; and not of the Republic which it was our business to destroy. If we return the African and the Asiatick 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
*11declines still more as a State; and she loses so much carrying trade and that means of keeping up the small degree of naval power she holds; for which policy, and not for any commercial gain, she maintains the Cape, or any settlement beyond it. In that case, resentment, faction, and even necessity will throw her more and more into the power of the new mischievous Republick. But on the probable state of Holland, I shall say more, when in this correspondence 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.
*13fierce barbarians, to whom the poisoned air, in which our youth inhale certain death, is salubrity and life. To them the climate is the surest and most faithful of allies.
*14ally in the heart of the country, who to our hundred thousand, would at one time have added eighty thousand men at the least, and all animated by principle, by enthusiasm, and by vengeance: motives which secured them to the cause in a very different manner from some of our allies whom we subsidized with millions. This ally, or rather this principal in the war, by the confession of the Regicide himself, was more formidable to him than all his other foes united. Warring there, we should have led our arms to the capital of Wrong. Defeated, we could not fail (proper precautions taken) of a sure retreat. Stationary, and only supporting the Royalists, an impenetrable barrier, an impregnable rampart, would have been formed between the enemy and his naval power. We are probably the only nation who have declined to act against an enemy, when it might have been done in his own country; and who having an armed, a powerful, and a long victorious ally in that country, declined all effectual cooperation, and suffered him to perish for want of support. On the plan of a war in France, every advantage that our allies might gain would be doubled in its effect. Disasters on the one side might have a fair chance of being compensated by victories on the other. Had we brought the main of our force to bear upon that quarter, all the operations of the British and Imperial crowns would have been combined. The war would have had system, correspondence, and a certain direction. But as the war has been pursued, the operations of the two crowns have not the smallest degree of mutual bearing or relation.
*15made for the seat and center of a tropical empire, was
*16not improved, to be sure, as the French division had been, before it was systematically destroyed by the cannibal republick: but it is not only the far larger, but the far more salubrious and more fertile part.
*17reclamation on our part, not only in contravention of one of the fundamental treaties that compose the public law of Europe, but in defiance of the fundamental colonial policy of Spain herself. This part of the Treaty of Utrecht was made for great general ends, unquestionably: but whilst it provided for those general ends, it was an affirmance of that particular policy. It was not to injure but to save Spain, by making a settlement of her estate which prohibited her to alienate it to France. It is her policy not to see the balance of West Indian power overturned, by France or by Great Britain. Whilst the monarchies subsisted, this unprincipled cession was what the influence of the elder branch of the House of Bourbon never dared attempt on the younger. But cannibal terror has been more powerful than family influence. The Bourbon
*18ties of
blood.
*19I see indeed a fund from whence equivalents will be proposed. I see it. But I cannot just now touch it. It is a question of high moment. It opens another Iliad of woes to Europe.
a common 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.
the usual relations of peace and amity.” By this means the proposed fraternity is hustled in the crowd of those treaties, which imply no
*20substitutions and successions), without any alteration in the laws, manners, religion, privileges and customs of the cities or territories which are the subject of such arrangements.
corps diplomatique, forms the code or statute law, as the methodized reasonings of the great publicists and jurists form the digest and jurisprudence, of the Christian world. In these treasures are to be found the
usual relations of peace and amity in civilized Europe; and there the relations of ancient France were to be found amongst the rest.
usual relations of the States of Europe.
*21there 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 principles, 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
*22with all their heart, with all their mind, with all their soul, and with all their strength.” He never presents himself to their thoughts but to menace and alarm them. They cannot
*23strike the Sun out of Heaven, but they are able to raise a smouldering 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
*24carried along with the general motion of religion in the community, and without being aware of it, partook of it’s influence. In that situation, at worst, their nature was left free to counterwork their principles. They despaired of giving any very general currency to their opinions. They considered them as a reserved privilege for the chosen few. But when the possibility of dominion, lead, and propagation presented themselves, and that the ambition, which before had so often made them hypocrites, might rather gain than lose by a daring avowal of their sentiments, then the nature of this infernal spirit, which has ”
*25evil for it’s good,” appeared in it’s full perfection.
*26Nothing, indeed, but the possession of some power, can with any certainty discover what at the bottom is the true character of any man. Without reading the speeches of Vergniaux, Français of Nantz, Isnard, and some others of that sort, it would not be easy to conceive the passion, rancour, and malice of their tongues and hearts. They worked themselves up to a perfect phrenzy against religion and all it’s professors. They tore the reputation of the Clergy to pieces by their infuriated declamations and invectives, before they lacerated their bodies by their
as statesmen, had the exterior aggrandizement of France as their ultimate end, in the most minute part of the internal 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 active and energetick part of the French nation itself, the most active and energetick of all nations previous to it’s Revolution, upon that subject. I am convinced that the foreign speculators in France, under the old Government, were twenty to one of the same description then or now in England; and few of that description there were, who did not emulously set forward the Revolution. 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 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.
*22 was not the first cause of the evil by which he suffered. He came to it, as to a sort of inheritance, by the false politicks of his immediate predecessor. This system of dark and perplexed intrigue had come to it’s perfection before he came to the throne: and even then the Revolution strongly operated in all it’s causes.
Machiavel on
Livy. They had
Montesquieu’s Grandeur & Décadence des Romains as a manual; and they compared with mortification the systematic proceedings of a Roman senate with the fluctuations of a Monarchy. They observed the very small additions of territory which all the power of France, actuated by all the ambition 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 criticised the reign of Louis the XIVth, whose irregular and desultory ambition had more provoked than endangered Europe. Indeed, they who will be at the pains of seriously considering the history of that period will see, that those French politicians had some reason. 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
*27Montalembert 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.
*29Russia and Prussia had been created almost within memory; and Austria, though not a new power, and even curtailed in territory, was
*30by the very collision in which she lost that territory, greatly improved in her military discipline and force. During the reign of Maria Theresa the interior oeconomy of the country was made more to correspond 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 Sweden. In Holland, the
*31French party seemed, if not extinguished, at least utterly obscured, and kept under by a Stadtholder, sometimes leaning for support on Great Britain, sometimes on Prussia, sometimes on both, never on France. Even the spreading of the Bourbon family had become merely a family accommodation; and had little effect on the national politicks. This alliance, 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
*32Out the word came; and it never went back.
*33Austrian match; which promised to draw the knot, as afterwards in effect it did, still more closely between the old rival houses. This added exceedingly 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
*34commercial treaty, made, on their part, against all the old rules and principles of commerce, with a view of diverting the English nation, by a pursuit of immediate profit, from an attention to the progress of France in it’s designs upon that Republic. The system of the oeconomists, which led to the general opening of commerce,
*35facilitated that treaty, but did not produce it. They were in despair when they found that by the vigour of Mr. Pitt, supported in this point by Mr. Fox and the opposition, the object, to which they had sacrificed their manufactures, was lost to their ambition. This eager desire of raising
*36unhappy American quarrel, the bad effects of which to this nation have not, as yet, fully disclosed themselves.
*37produced by their republican principles and republican policy. This new relation undoubtedly did much. The discourses and cabals that it produced, the intercourse that it established, and above all, the example, which made it seem practicable to establish a Republick
*38in 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 it’s language, seemed a forum of democracy. To have pointed out to most of those politicians, from their dispositions and movements, 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. Such in truth they were. And we have seen them succeed, not only in the destruction of their monarchy, but in all the objects of ambition that they proposed from that destruction.
peculiar end, eminently distinguished, and superseding every other. The objects which they embrace 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 advantage, but it has cultivated the welfare of every individual. His wants, his wishes, even his tastes have been consulted. This comprehensive scheme virtually produced a degree of personal liberty in forms the most adverse to it. That liberty was
*39found, under monarchies stiled absolute, in a degree unknown 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 concentered, or made to bear with the whole nation upon one point.
*40entire circle of human desires, and securing for them their fair enjoyment. Our legislature has been ever closely connected, in it’s most efficient part, with individual feeling and individual interest. Personal liberty, the most
*41direct object of Government.
*42as great to spend as to accumulate, has easily afforded a disposeable surplus that gives a mighty momentum to the state. This difficulty, with these advantages to overcome it, has called forth the talents of the English financiers, who, by the surplus of industry poured out by prodigality, have outdone every thing which has been accomplished in other nations. The present Minister has outdone his predecessors; and as a Minister of revenue, is far
*43above my power of praise. But still there are cases in which England feels more than several others, (though they all feel) the perplexity of an immense body of balanced advantages, and of individual demands, and of some irregularity in the whole mass.
*44We go about asking when
assignats will expire, and we laugh at the last price of them. But what signifies the fate of those tickets of despotism? The despotism will find despotick means of supply. They have found the short cut to the productions of Nature, while others, in pursuit of them, are obliged to wind through the labyrinth of a very intricate state of society. They seize upon the fruit of the labour; they seize upon the labourer himself. Were France but half of what it is in population, in compactness, in applicability of it’s force, situated as it is, and being what it is, it would be too strong for most of the States of Europe, 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
*45Jinghiz Khân, upon a contemplation of the resources of the cold and barren spot in the remotest Tartary, from
*46Harrington, who has tossed about society into all forms, never could imagine to be possible. We have seen it; the world has felt 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:
*47the 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 they 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
*48copying music, or writing
*49plaidoyers by the sheet. It has made me often smile in bitterness, when I have heard
*50must be destroyed, or that it will destroy all Europe; that to destroy that enemy, by some means or other, the force opposed to it should be made to bear some analogy and resemblance to the force and spirit which that system exerts; that war ought to be made against it in its vulnerable parts. These are my inferences. In one word, with this Republick nothing independent can co-exist. The errors of Louis the XVIth. were more pardonable to prudence, than any of those of the same kind into which the Allied Courts may fall. They have the benefit of his dreadful example.
*51diligent 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
*52but one Republic, 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 with impunity countenance a new Republick: yet between his throne and that dangerous lodgment for an enemy, which he had erected, 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 Republick 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
*53paid to his enemies, and became a resource in the hands of his assassins.
*54husbandmen 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, the most bold and daring that ever has been seen, or indeed that can be conceived to exist, without bringing on their own certain ruin?
*55You may call this faction, which has eradicated the monarchy—expelled the proprietary, persecuted religion, and trampled upon law
*23—you may call this France if you please: but of the ancient France nothing remains but it’s central geography; it’s iron frontier; it’s spirit of ambition; it’s audacity of enterprize; it’s perplexing intrigue. These and these alone remain; and they remain heightened in their principle and augmented in their means. All the former correctives, whether of virtue or of weakness, which existed in the old Monarchy, are gone. No single new 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.
genius and character of the French Revolution. From having this before us, we may be better able to determine 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?
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. You know, that the Letters which I now send to the press, as well as a part of what is to follow, have been long since written.
*56A circumstance which your partiality alone could make of importance to you, but which to the publick is of no importance at all, retarded their appearance. The late events which press upon us obliged me to make some few additions; but no substantial change in the matter.
P. 155, l. 23.wherever the race, &c. i.e. in America as well as in Europe. Incidents in Hayti and in Spanish America suggested the observation. Cp. post, p. 231.
See Declaration. Whitehall, Oct. 29, 1793.
P. 156, l. 29.our friends. The Duke of Portland and his followers.
P. 157, l. 15.Conquest of France. Cp. vol. ii. p. 291, l. 4.
P. 158, l. 24.linked by a contignation, i.e. by a structural tie. The image is Shaksperian:
It is a massy wheel,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortis’d and adjoin’d.
—Hamlet, Act iii. sc. 3.
It is a massy wheel,To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortis’d and adjoin’d.
—Hamlet, Act iii. sc. 3.
P. 159, l. 16.Centrifugal war. The expression aptly characterizes the war policy of the Allies. Cp. 163, l. 12, where it is explained as a “scheme of war that repels as from a centre,” i.e. France itself.
P. 160, l. 22.nothing to hold an alliance together. Burke proceeds to show why the coalition failed. His thorough and exact analysis of the situation may be relied on.
P. 161, l. 11.worse than a negative interest. Because all the West Indian possessions of European powers other than Spain were originally encroachments on Spain. Spain has been losing the West Indies piecemeal ever since she gained them.
P. 163, l. 5.contemptible factories. Pondicherry, Karikal, &c.
P. 164, l. 23, foll. The passage which follows, expanding the criticisms on the general plan of the war, and alluding to the unfortunate campaign in
[366] the West Indies, was inserted by Burke in a subsequent edition. It ends p. 167, l. 28. It belongs to the period of the Third Letter.
P. 165, l. 7.ally in the heart of the country. Burke was always for stirring the strong anti-revolutionary elements which existed unused in France. The subsequent history of French factions has amply shown how much might have been done in this way.
P. 166, l. 15.made for the seat, &c. Burke has in mind the early settlement of the Spaniards in the West Indies, when Hayti was the centre of government, and the transfer of West Indian supremacy to the French with the possession of the west of the island.
P. 167, l. 1.ties of blood. Burke derives the hint from Bacon, speaking of the Social War: “You speak of a naturalisation in blood; there was a naturalisation indeed in blood.” “Of General Naturalisation.”
l. 34.I see, indeed, a fund, &c. Burke alludes to the ecclesiastical electorates of Cologne, Trèves, and Mainz, and to the large sovereign bishoprics of Liège, Paderborn, Munster, &c. These it was proposed to secularize and cede some parts to Austria and Prussia in compensation for the Austrian Netherlands and the Rhenish possessions of Prussia.
P. 169, l. 4.Substitutions, i.e. family settlements. Cp. vol. ii. p. 207, l. 17.
P. 170, l. 19.there is no doctrine whatever, &c. Burke repeats the observation from Bolingbroke (On the true use of Retirement, &c.), who borrows it from Montaigne, Essais, Liv. i. ch. 40: “Toute opinion est assez forte pour se faire espouser au prix de la vie.”
P. 171, l. 7.“carried along with the general motion,” &c.:
For as in Nature’s swiftness, with the throng
Of flying orbs whilst ours is borne along,
All seems at rest to the deluded eye,
Moved by the soul of the same harmony;
So carried on by your unwearied care
We rest in peace, and yet in motion share.
—Dryden, Lines to the Lord Chancellor.
Of flying orbs whilst ours is borne along,
All seems at rest to the deluded eye,
Moved by the soul of the same harmony;
So carried on by your unwearied care
We rest in peace, and yet in motion share.
—Dryden, Lines to the Lord Chancellor.
It may be right to do justice to Louis XVI. He did what he could to destroy the double diplomacy of France. He had all his secret correspondence burnt, except one piece, which was called,
Conjectures raisonnées sur la Situation de la France dans le Système Politique de l’Europe; a work executed by M. Favier, under the direction of Count Broglie. A single copy of this was said to have been found in the Cabinet of Louis XVI. It was published with some subsequent state papers of Vergennes, Turgot, and others, as, “A new Benefit of the Revolution”; and the advertisement to the publication ends with the following words. ”
Il sera facile de se convaincre, qu’
en grande partie,
qu’on ne peut pas sans les avoir lus, être bien au fait des intérêts, & même des vues actuelles des diverses puissances de l’Europe.” The book is entitled,
Politique de tous les Cabinets de l’Europe pendant les règnes de Louis XV. & Louis XVI. It is altogether very curious, and worth reading.
Conjectures raisonnées sur la Situation de la France dans le Système Politique de l’Europe; a work executed by M. Favier, under the direction of Count Broglie. A single copy of this was said to have been found in the Cabinet of Louis XVI. It was published with some subsequent state papers of Vergennes, Turgot, and others, as, “A new Benefit of the Revolution”; and the advertisement to the publication ends with the following words. ”
Il sera facile de se convaincre, qu’
y compris même la revolution,en grande partie,
on trouve dans ces mémoires et ses conjectures le germe de tout ce qu’arriva aujourd’hui, &qu’on ne peut pas sans les avoir lus, être bien au fait des intérêts, & même des vues actuelles des diverses puissances de l’Europe.” The book is entitled,
Politique de tous les Cabinets de l’Europe pendant les règnes de Louis XV. & Louis XVI. It is altogether very curious, and worth reading.
P. 177, l. 4.French party. See p. 175, l. 16.
P. 178, l. 10.Austrian match. Between the Dauphin and Marie Antoinette.
P. 179, l. 4.commercial treaty. Made by Mr. Pitt in 1784.
P. 180, l. 31.found in monarchies stiled absolute. Burke repeats a well-known conclusion of Gibbon.
P. 181, l. 8.entire circle of human desires. Burke alludes to an idea put forth by Montesquieu and developed in Goldsmith’s Traveller. It is fully explained in the note to vol. i. p. 237, l. 31. Burke’s account of the growth of English civilization has been well amplified by Guizot: “The general character of European civilization has especially distinguished the civilization of England. It was exhibited in that country with more sequence and greater clearness than in any other. In England the civil and religious orders, aristocracy, democracy, monarchy, local and central institutions, moral and political development, have increased and advanced together…. Not one of the ancient elements of society ever completely perished; no special principle was ever able to obtain an exclusive dominion. There has always been a simultaneous development of all the different powers, and a sort of compromise between the claims and the interests of all of them….. It cannot, for instance, be denied that the simultaneous development of the different social elements caused England to advance more rapidly than any of the continental states towards the true aim and object of all society—the
[368] establishment of a free and regular government….. Besides, the essence of Liberty is the simultaneous manifestation of all interests, of all rights, of all forces, and of all social elements. England had therefore made a nearer approach to liberty than the greater number of other states.”—Lectures on Civilization, Lect. ix, Beckwith’s translation.
P. 182, l. 27.We go about asking when assignats will expire, &c. “The French, beginning with bankruptcy at home, had proceeded abroad on the maxim of Machiavelli, that men and arms will find money and provide for themselves.” Southey, Essay on State of Public Opinion and the Political Reformers.
P. 183, l. 6.Jinghiz Khan. A famous Asiatic conqueror of the twelfth century.
l. 28.Harrington—never could imagine, &c. Harrington uniformly derives all government from property. A man, he argues, with no estate, either in land, goods, or money, can have nothing to govern, and therefore no share in government. A state of things in which the people, not owning at least two thirds of the land, are supreme, he denominates “an Anarchy.” See his System of Politics in Aphorisms.
P. 184, l. 4.copying music. Burke is perhaps thinking of Rousseau.
P. 185, l. 32.diligent reader of history. “A century after the expulsion of James, Louis XVI was anxious to draw wisdom from the fate of the Stuarts. He was continually reading over the lives of Charles I and James II, and even, it is said, added comments with his own hand on the margin. Determined to avoid their erring policy, he, as we have already seen, temporised and yielded on every possible occasion.”—Lord Mahon’s Essay on the French Revolution.
P. 186, l. 35.but one republic. i.e. America.
P. 187, l. 13.paid to his enemies. i.e. to the new French government.
P. 188, l. 6.you may call this France, &c. We have elsewhere the idea
[369] of a country or city being itself in exile when the worthy have departed and the worthless remain. Coriolanus, when banished by the citizens, retaliates as he departs:
“I banish you,
And here remain with your uncertainties,” &c.
—Act iii. Scene 3.
Thus divided from your noble parts
The kingdom lives in exile.
“I banish you,And here remain with your uncertainties,” &c.
—Act iii. Scene 3.
And Carew to Master William Montague:
Thus divided from your noble partsThe kingdom lives in exile.
“Non te civitas, non regia domus in exilium miserunt, sed tu utrasque.” Cicero, quoted in letters of Swift to Gay.
See our declaration.
Vol. 3, Letter III
The following notes are by Payne.
P. 189, l. 1.a circumstance which, &c. The allusion is to the months of July and August, 1796, during which Burke was at Bath, prostrate under the malady which in the next year carried him off.
Vol. 3, Letters on a Regicide Peace, Letter III
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Edmund Burke