Is it for this benefit we open "the usual relations of peace and amity"? Is it for this our youth of both sexes are to form themselves by travel? Is it for this that with expense and pains we form their lisping infant accents to the language of France? I shall be told that this abominable medley is made rather to revolt young and ingenuous minds. So it is in the description. So perhaps it may in reality to a chosen few. So it may be, when the magistrate, the law, and the church frown on such manners, and the wretches to whom they belong,—when they are chased from the eye of day, and the society of civil life, into night-cellars and caves and woods. But when these men themselves are the magistrates,—when all the consequence, weight, and authority of a great nation adopt them,—when we see them conjoined with victory, glory, power, and dominion, and homage paid to them by every government,—it is not possible that the downhill should not be slid into, recommended by everything which has opposed it. Let it be remembered that no young man can go to any part of Europe without taking this place of pestilential contagion in his way; and whilst the less active part of the community will be debauched by this travel, whilst children are poisoned at these schools, our trade will put the finishing hand to our ruin. No factory will be settled in France, that will not become a club of complete French Jacobins. The minds of young men of that description will receive a taint in their religion, their morals, and their politics, which they will in a short time communicate to the whole kingdom.
Whilst everything prepares the body to debauch and the mind to crime, a regular church of avowed atheism, established by law, with a direct and sanguinary persecution of Christianity, is formed to prevent all amendment and remorse. Conscience is formally deposed from its dominion over the mind. What fills the measure of horror is, that schools of atheism are set up at the public charge in every part of the country. That some English parents will be wicked enough to send their children to such schools there is no doubt. Better this island should be sunk to the bottom of the sea than that (so far as human infirmity admits) it should not be a country of religion and morals!
With all these causes of corruption, we may well judge what the general fashion of mind will be through both sexes and all conditions. Such spectacles and such examples will overbear all the laws that ever blackened the cumbrous volumes of our statutes. When royalty shall have disavowed itself,—when it shall have relaxed all the principles of its own support,—when it has rendered the system of Regicide fashionable, and received it as triumphant, in the very persons who have consolidated that system by the perpetration, of every crime, who have not only massacred the prince, but the very laws and magistrates which were the support of royalty, and slaughtered with an indiscriminate proscription, without regard to either sex or age, every person that was suspected of an inclination to king, law, or magistracy,—I say, will any one dare to be loyal? Will any one presume, against both authority and opinion, to hold up this unfashionable, antiquated, exploded Constitution?
The Jacobin faction in England must grow in strength and audacity; it will be supported by other intrigues and supplied by other resources than yet we have seen in action. Confounded at its growth, the government may fly to Parliament for its support. But who will answer for the temper of a House of Commons elected under these circumstances? Who will answer for the courage of a House of Commons to arm the crown with the extraordinary powers that it may demand? But the ministers will not venture to ask half of what they know they want. They will lose half of that half in the contest; and when they have obtained their nothing, they will be driven by the cries of faction either to demolish the feeble works they have thrown up in a hurry, or, in effect, to abandon them. As to the House of Lords, it is not worth mentioning. The peers ought naturally to be the pillars of the crown; but when their titles are rendered contemptible, and their property invidious, and a part of their weakness, and not of their strength, they will be found so many degraded and trembling individuals, who will seek by evasion to put off the evil day of their ruin. Both Houses will be in perpetual oscillation between abortive attempts at energy and still more unsuccessful attempts at compromise. You will be impatient of your disease, and abhorrent of your remedy. A spirit of subterfuge and a tone of apology will enter into all your proceedings, whether of law or legislation. Your judges, who now sustain so masculine an authority, will appear more on their trial than the culprits they have before them. The awful frown of criminal justice will be smoothed into the silly smile of seduction. Judges will think to insinuate and soothe the accused into conviction and condemnation, and to wheedle to the gallows the most artful of all delinquents. But they will not be so wheedled. They will not submit even to the appearance of persons on their trial. Their claim to this exemption will be admitted. The place in which some of the greatest names which ever distinguished the history of this country have stood will appear beneath their dignity. The criminal will climb from the dock to the side-bar, and take his place and his tea with the counsel. From the bar of the counsel, by a natural progress, he will ascend to the bench, which long before had been virtually abandoned. They who escape from justice will not suffer a question upon reputation. They will take the crown of the causeway; they will be revered as martyrs; they will triumph as conquerors. Nobody will dare to censure that popular part of the tribunal whose only restraint on misjudgment is the censure of the public. They who find fault with the decision will be represented as enemies to the institution. Juries that convict for the crown will be loaded with obloquy. The juries who acquit will be held up as models of justice. If Parliament orders a prosecution, and fails, (as fail it will,) it will be treated to its face as guilty of a conspiracy maliciously to prosecute. Its care in discovering a conspiracy against the state will be treated as a forged plot to destroy the liberty of the subject: every such discovery, instead of strengthening government, will weaken its reputation.
In this state things will be suffered to proceed, lest measures of vigor should precipitate a crisis. The timid will act thus from character, the wise from necessity. Our laws had done all that the old condition of things dictated to render our judges erect and independent; but they will naturally fail on the side upon which they had taken no precautions. The judicial magistrates will find themselves safe as against the crown, whose will is not their tenure; the power of executing their office will be held at the pleasure of those who deal out fame or abuse as they think fit. They will begin rather to consult their own repose and their own popularity than the critical and perilous trust that is in their hands. They will speculate on consequences, when they see at court an ambassador whose robes are lined with a scarlet dyed in the blood of judges. It is no wonder, nor are they to blame, when they are to consider how they shall answer for their conduct to the criminal of to-day turned into the magistrate of to-morrow.
The press———
The army———
When thus the helm of justice is abandoned, an universal abandonment of all other posts will succeed. Government will be for a while the sport of contending factions, who, whilst they fight with one another, will all strike at her. She will be buffeted and beat forward and backward by the conflict of those billows, until at length, tumbling from the Gallic coast, the victorious tenth wave shall ride, like the bore, over all the rest, and poop the shattered, weather-beaten, leaky, water-logged vessel, and sink her to the bottom of the abyss.
Among other miserable remedies that have been found in the materia medica, of the old college, a change of ministry will be proposed, and probably will take place. They who go out can never long with zeal and good-will support government in the hands of those they hate. In a situation of fatal dependence on popularity, and without one aid from the little remaining power of the crown, it is not to be expected that they will take on them that odium which more or less attaches upon every exertion of strong power. The ministers of popularity will lose all their credit at a stroke, if they pursue any of those means necessary to give life, vigor, and consistence to government. They will be considered as venal wretches, apostates, recreant to all their own principles, acts, and declarations. They cannot preserve their credit, but by betraying that authority of which they are the guardians.
To be sure, no prognosticating symptoms of these things have as yet appeared,—nothing even resembling their beginnings. May they never appear! May these prognostications of the author be justly laughed at and speedily forgotten! If nothing as yet to cause them has discovered itself, let us consider, in the author's excuse, that we have not yet seen a Jacobin legation in England. The natural, declared, sworn ally of sedition has not yet fixed its head-quarters in London.
There never was a political contest, upon better or worse grounds, that by the heat of party-spirit may not ripen into civil confusion. If ever a party adverse to the crown should be in a condition here publicly to declare itself, and to divide, however unequally, the natural force of the kingdom, they are sure of an aid of fifty thousand men, at ten days' warning, from the opposite coast of France. But against this infusion of a foreign force the crown has its guaranties, old and new. But I should be glad to hear something said of the assistance which loyal subjects in France have received from other powers in support of that lawful government which secured their lawful property. I should be glad to know, if they are so disposed to a neighborly, provident, and sympathetic attention to their public engagements, by what means they are to come at us. Is it from the powerful states of Holland we are to reclaim our guaranty? Is it from the King of Prussia, and his steady good affections, and his powerful navy, that we are to look for the guaranty of our security? Is it from the Netherlands, which the French may cover with the swarms of their citizen-soldiers in twenty-four hours, that we are to look for this assistance? This is to suppose, too, that all these powers have no views offensive or necessities defensive of their own. They will cut out work for one another, and France will cut out work for them all.
That the Christian religion cannot exist in this country with such a fraternity will not, I think, be disputed with me. On that religion, according to our mode, all our laws and institutions stand, as upon their base. That scheme is supposed in every transaction of life; and if that were done away, everything else, as in France, must be changed along with it. Thus, religion perishing, and with it this Constitution, it is a matter of endless meditation what order of things would follow it. But what disorder would fill the space between the present and that which is to come, in the gross, is no matter of doubtful conjecture. It is a great evil, that of a civil war. But, in that state of things, a civil war, which would give to good men and a good cause some means of struggle, is a blessing of comparison that England will not enjoy. The moment the struggle begins, it ends. They talk of Mr. Hume's euthanasia of the British Constitution gently expiring, without a groan, in the paternal arms of a mere monarchy. In a monarchy!—fine trifling indeed!—there is no such euthanasia for the British Constitution.
The manuscript copy of this Letter ends here.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] Here I have fallen into an unintentional mistake. Rider's Almanack for 1794 lay before me; and, in troth, I then had no other. For variety, that sage astrologer has made some small changes on the weather side of 1795; but the caution is the same on the opposite page of instruction.
[10] Souverains opprimés.—See the whole proceeding in the Procès-Verbal of the National Assembly.
Hic auratis volitans argenteus anser
Porticibus GALLOS in limine adesse canebat.
[12] See debates in Parliament upon motions made in both Houses for prosecuting Mr. Reeves for a libel upon the Constitution, Dec., 1795.
[13] "In the costume assumed by the members of the legislative body we almost behold the revival of the extinguished insignia of knighthood," &c., &c.—See A View of the Relative State of Great Britain and France at the Commencement of the Year 1796.
A
LETTER
TO
THE EMPRESS OF RUSSIA.
NOVEMBER 1, 1791.
Madam,—The Comte de Woronzow, your Imperial Majesty's minister, and Mr. Fawkener, have informed me of the very gracious manner in which your Imperial Majesty, and, after your example, the Archduke and Archduchess, have condescended to accept my humble endeavors in the service of that cause which connects the rights and duties of sovereigns with the true interest and happiness of their people.
If, confiding in titles derived from your own goodness, I venture to address directly to your Imperial Majesty the expressions of my gratitude for so distinguished an honor, I hope it will not be thought a presumptuous intrusion. I hope, too, that the willing homage I pay to the high and ruling virtues which distinguish your Imperial Majesty, and which form the felicity of so large a part of the world, will not be looked upon as the language of adulation to power and greatness. In my humble situation, I can behold majesty in its splendor without being dazzled, and I am capable of respecting it in its fall.
It is, Madam, from my strong sense of what is due to dignity in undeserved misfortune, that I am led to felicitate your Imperial Majesty on the use you have lately made of your power. The princes and nobility of France, who from honor and duty, from blood and from principle, are attached to that unhappy crown, have experienced your favor and countenance; and there is no doubt that they will finally enjoy the full benefit of your protection. The generosity of your Imperial Majesty has induced you to take an interest in their cause; and your sagacity has made you perceive that in the case of the sovereign of France the cause of all sovereigns is tried,—that in the case of its church, the cause of all churches,—and that in the case of its nobility is tried the cause of all the respectable orders of all society, and even of society itself.
Your Imperial Majesty has sent your minister to reside where the crown of France, in this disastrous eclipse of royalty, can alone truly and freely be represented, that is, in its royal blood,—where alone the nation can be represented, that is, in its natural and inherent dignity. A throne cannot be represented by a prison. The honor of a nation cannot be represented by an assembly which disgraces and degrades it: at Coblentz only the king and the nation of France are to be found.
Your Imperial Majesty, who reigns and lives for glory, has nobly and wisely disdained to associate your crown with a faction which has for its object the subversion of all thrones.
You have not recognized this universal public enemy as a part of the system of Europe. You have refused to sully the lustre of your empire by any communion with a body of fanatical usurpers and tyrants, drawn out of the dregs of society, and exalted to their evil eminence by the enormity of their crimes,—an assemblage of tyrants, wholly destitute of any distinguished qualification in a single person amongst them, that can command reverence from our reason, or seduce it from our prejudices. These enemies of sovereigns, if at all acknowledged, must be acknowledged on account of that enmity alone: they have nothing else to recommend them.
Madam, it is dangerous to praise any human virtue before the accomplishment of the tasks which it imposes on itself. But in expressing my part of what I hope is, or will become, the general voice, in admiration of what you have done, I run no risk at all. With your Imperial Majesty, declaration and execution, beginning and conclusion, are, at their different seasons, one and the same thing.
On the faith and declaration of some of the first potentates of Europe, several thousands of persons, comprehending the best men and the best gentlemen in France, have given up their country, their houses, their fortunes, their professional situation, their all, and are now in foreign lands, struggling under the most grievous distresses. Whatever appearances may menace, nobody fears that they can be finally abandoned. Such a dereliction could not be without a strong imputation on the public and private honor of sovereignty itself, nor without an irreparable injury to its interests. It would give occasion to represent monarchs as natural enemies to each other, and that they never support or countenance any subjects of a brother prince, except when they rebel against him. We individuals, mere spectators of the scene, but who sock our liberties under the shade of legal authority, and of course sympathize with the sufferers in that cause, never can permit ourselves to believe that such an event can disgrace the history of our time. The only thing to be feared is delay, in winch are included many mischiefs. The constancy of the oppressed will be broken; the power of tyrants will be confirmed. Already the multitude of French officers, drawn from their several corps by hopes inspired by the freely declared disposition of sovereigns, have left all the posts in which they might one day have effectually served the good cause abandoned to the enemy.
Tour Imperial Majesty's just influence, which is still greater than your extensive power, will animate and expedite the efforts of other sovereigns. From your wisdom other states will learn that they who wait until all the powers of Europe are at once in motion can never move at all. It would add to the unexampled calamities of our time, if the uncommon union of sentiment in so many powers should prove the very cause of defeating the benefit which ought to flow from their general good disposition. No sovereign can run any risk from the designs of other powers, whilst engaged in tins glorious and necessary work. If any attempt could be feared, your Imperial Majesty's power and justice would secure your allies against all danger. Madam, your glory will be complete, if, after having given peace to Europe by your moderation, you shall bestow stability on all its governments by your vigor and decision. The debt which your Imperial Majesty's august predecessors have contracted to the ancient manners of Europe, by means of which they civilized a vast empire, will be nobly repaid by preserving those manners from the hideous change with which they are now menaced. By the intervention of Russia the world will be preserved from barbarism and ruin.
A private individual, of a remote country, in himself wholly without importance, unauthorized and unconnected, not as an English subject, but as a citizen of the world, presumes to submit his thoughts to one of the greatest and wisest sovereigns that Europe has seen. He does it without fear, because he does not involve in his weakness (if such it is) his king, his country, or his friends. He is not' afraid that he shall offend your Imperial Majesty,—because, secure in itself, true greatness is always accessible, and because respectfully to speak what we conceive to be truth is the best homage which can be paid to true dignity.
I am, Madam, with the utmost possible respect and veneration,
Your Imperial Majesty's
Most obedient and most humble servant,
EDM. BURKE.
BEACONSFIELD, November 1st, 1791.
A
LETTER
TO
SIR CHARLES BINGHAM, BART.,
ON THE
IRISH ABSENTEE TAX.
OCTOBER 30, 1773.
NOTE.
From authentic documents found with the copy of this Letter among Mr. Burke's papers, it appears that in the year 1773 a project of imposing a tax upon all proprietors of landed estates in Ireland, whose ordinary residence should be in Great Britain, had been adopted and avowed by his Majesty's ministers at that time. A remonstrance against this measure, as highly unjust and impolitic, was presented to the ministers by several of the principal Irish absentees, and the project was subsequently abandoned.
LETTER.
Dear Sir,—I am much flattered by your very obliging letter, and the rather because it promises an opening to our future correspondence. This may be my only indemnification for very great losses. One of the most odious parts of the proposed Absentee Tax is its tendency to separate friends, and to make as ugly breaches in private society as it must make in the unity of the great political body. I am sure that much of the satisfaction of some circles in London will be lost by it. Do you think that our friend Mrs. Vesey will suffer her husband to vote for a tax that is to destroy the evenings at Bolton Row? I trust we shall have other supporters of the same sex, equally powerful, and equally deserving to be so, who will not abandon the common cause of their own liberties and our satisfactions. We shall be barbarized on both sides of the water, if we do not see one another now and then. We shall sink into surly, brutish Johns, and you will degenerate into wild Irish. It is impossible that we should be the wiser or the more agreeable, certainly we shall not love one another the better, for this forced separation, which our ministers, who have already done so much for the dissolution of every other sort of good connection, are now meditating for the further improvement of this too well united empire. Their next step will be to encourage all the colonies, about thirty separate governments, to keep their people from all intercourse with each other and with the mother country. A gentleman of New York or Barbadoes will be as much gazed at as a strange animal from Nova Zembla or Otaheite; and those rogues, the travellers, will tell us what stories they please about poor old Ireland.
In all seriousness, (though I am a great deal more than half serious in what I have been saying,) I look upon this projected tax in a very evil light; I think it is not advisable; I am sure it is not necessary; and as it is not a mere matter of finance, but involves a political question of much, importance, I consider the principle and precedent as far worse than the thing itself. You are too kind in imagining I can suggest anything new upon the subject. The objections to it are very glaring, and must strike the eyes of all those who have not their reasons for shutting them against evident truth. I have no feelings or opinions on this subject which I do not partake with all the sensible and informed people that I meet with. At first I could scarcely meet with any one who could believe that this scheme originated from the English government. They considered it not only as absurd, but as something monstrous and unnatural. In the first instance, it strikes at the power of this country; in the end, at the union of the whole empire. I do not mean to express, most certainly I do not entertain in my mind, anything invidious concerning the superintending authority of Great Britain. But if it be true that the several bodies which make up this complicated mass are to be preserved as one empire, an authority sufficient to preserve that unity, and by its equal weight and pressure to consolidate the various parts that compose it, must reside somewhere: that somewhere can only be in England. Possibly any one member, distinctly taken, might decide in favor of that residence within itself; but certainly no member would give its voice for any other except this. So that I look upon the residence of the supreme power to be settled here: not by force, or tyranny, or even by mere long usage, but by the very nature of things, and the joint consent of the whole body.
If all this be admitted, then without question this country must have the sole right to the imperial legislation: by which I mean that law which regulates the polity and economy of the several parts, as they relate to one another and to the whole. But if any of the parts, which (not for oppression, but for order) are placed in a subordinate situation, will assume to themselves the power of hindering or checking the resort of their municipal subjects to the centre, or even to any other part of the empire, they arrogate to themselves the imperial rights, which do not, which cannot, belong to them, and, so far as in them lies, destroy the happy arrangement of the entire empire.
A free communication by discretionary residence is necessary to all the other purposes of communication. For what purpose are the Irish and Plantation laws sent hither, but as means of preserving this sovereign constitution? Whether such a constitution was originally right or wrong this is not the time of day to dispute. If any evils arise from it, let us not strip it of what may be useful in it. By taking the English Privy Council into your legislature, you obtain a new, a further, and possibly a more liberal consideration of all your acts. If a local legislature shall by oblique means tend to deprive any of the people of this benefit, and shall make it penal to them to follow into England the laws which may affect them, then the English Privy Council will have to decide upon your acts without those lights that may enable them to judge upon what grounds you made them, or how far they ought to be modified, received, or rejected.
To what end is the ultimate appeal in judicature lodged in this kingdom, if men may be disabled from following their suits here, and may be taxed into an absolute denied of justice? You observe, my dear Sir, that I do not assert that in all cases two shillings will necessarily cut off this means of correcting legislative and judicial mistakes, and thus amount to a denial of justice. I might, indeed, state cases in which this very quantum of tax would be fully sufficient to defeat this right. But I argue not on the case, but on the principle, and I am sure the principle implies it. They who may restrain may prohibit; they who may impose two shillings may impose ten shillings in the pound; and those who may condition the tax to six months' annual absence may carry that condition to six weeks, or even to six days, and thereby totally defeat the wise means which have been provided for extensive and impartial justice, and for orderly, well-poised, and well-connected government.
What is taxing the resort to and residence in any place, but declaring that your connection with that place is a grievance? Is not such an Irish tax as is now proposed a virtual declaration that England is a foreign country, and a renunciation on your part of the principle of common naturalization, which runs through this whole empire?
Do you, or does any Irish gentleman, think it a mean privilege, that, the moment he sets his foot upon this ground, he is to all intents and purposes an Englishman? You will not be pleased with a law which by its operation tends to disqualify you from a seat in this Parliament; and if your own virtue or fortune, or if that of your children, should carry you or them to it, should you like to be excluded from the possibility of a peerage in this kingdom? If in Ireland we lay it down as a maxim, that a residence in Great Britain is a political evil, and to be discouraged by penal taxes, you must necessarily reject all the privileges and benefits which are connected with such a residence.
I can easily conceive that a citizen of Dublin, who looks no further than his counter, may think that Ireland will be repaid for such a loss by any small diminution of taxes, or any increase in the circulation of money that may be laid out in the purchase of claret or groceries in his corporation. In such a man an error of that kind, as it would be natural, would be excusable. But I cannot think that any educated man, any man who looks with an enlightened eye on the interest of Ireland, can believe that it is not highly for the advantage of Ireland, that this Parliament, which, whether right or wrong, whether we will or not, will make some laws to bind Ireland, should always have in it some persons who by connection, by property, or by early prepossessions and affections, are attached to the welfare of that country. I am so clear upon this point, not only from the clear reason of the thing, but from the constant course of my observation, by now having sat eight sessions in Parliament, that I declare it to you as my sincere opinion, that (if you must do either the one or the other) it would be wiser by far, and far better for Ireland, that some new privileges should attend the estates of Irishmen, members of the two Houses here, than that their characters should be stained by penal impositions, and their properties loaded by unequal and unheard-of modes of taxation. I do really trust, that, when the matter comes a little to be considered, a majority of our gentlemen will never consent to establish such a principle of disqualification against themselves and their posterity, and, for the sake of gratifying the schemes of a transitory administration of the cockpit or the castle, or in compliance with the lightest part of the most vulgar and transient popularity, fix so irreparable an injury on the permanent interest of their country.
This law seems, therefore, to me to go directly against the fundamental points of the legislative and judicial constitution of these kingdoms, and against the happy communion of their privileges. But there is another matter in the tax proposed, that contradicts as essentially a very great principle necessary for preserving the union of the various parts of a state; because it does, in effect, discountenance mutual intermarriage and inheritance, things that bind countries more closely together than any laws or constitutions whatsoever. Is it right that a woman who marries into Ireland, and perhaps well purchases her jointure or her dower there, should not after her husband's death have it in her choice to return to her country and her friends without being taxed for it? If an Irish heiress should marry into an English family, and that great property in both countries should thereby come to be united in this common issue, shall the descendant of that marriage abandon his natural connection, his family interests, his public and his private duties, and be compelled to take up his residence in Ireland? Is there any sense or any justice in it, unless you affirm that there should be no such intermarriage and no such mutual inheritance between the natives? Is there a shadow of reason, that, because a Lord Rockingham, a Duke of Devonshire, a Sir George Savile, possess property in Ireland, which has descended to them without any act of theirs, they should abandon their duty in Parliament, and spend the winters in Dublin? or, having spent the session in Westminster, must they abandon their seats and all their family interests in Yorkshire and Derbyshire, and pass the rest of the year in Wicklow, in Cork, or Tyrone?
See what the consequence must be from a municipal legislature considering itself as an unconnected body, and attempting to enforce a partial residence. A man may have property in more parts than two of this empire. He may have property in Jamaica and in North America, as well as in England and Ireland. I know some that have property in all of them. What shall we say to this case? After the poor distracted citizen of the whole empire has, in compliance with your partial law, removed his family, bid adieu to his connections, and settled himself quietly and snug in a pretty box by the Liffey, he hears that the Parliament of Great Britain is of opinion that all English estates ought to be spent in England, and that they will tax him double, if he does not return. Suppose him then (if the nature of the two laws will permit it) providing a flying camp, and dividing his year as well as he can between England and Ireland, and at the charge of two town houses and two country-houses in both kingdoms; in this situation he receives an account, that a law is transmitted from Jamaica, and another from Pennsylvania, to tax absentees from these provinces, which are impoverished by the European residence of the possessors of their lands. How is he to escape this ricochet cross-firing of so many opposite batteries of police and regulation? If he attempts to comply, he is likely to be more a citizen of the Atlantic Ocean and the Irish Sea than of any of these countries. The matter is absurd and ridiculous, and, while ever the idea of mutual marriages, inheritances, purchases, and privileges subsist, can never be carried into execution with common sense or common justice.
I do not know how gentlemen of Ireland reconcile such an idea to their own liberties, or to the natural use and enjoyment of their estates. If any of their children should be left in a minority, and a guardian should think, as many do, (it matters not whether properly or no,) that his ward had better he educated in a school or university here than in Ireland, is he sure that he can justify the bringing a tax of ten per cent, perhaps twenty, on his pupil's estate, by giving what in his opinion is the best education in general, or the best for that pupil's particular character and circumstances? Can he justify his sending him to travel, a necessary part of the higher style of education, and, notwithstanding what some narrow writers have said, of great benefit to all countries, but very particularly so to Ireland? Suppose a guardian, under the authority or pretence of such a tax of police, had prevented our dear friend, Lord Charlemont, from going abroad, would he have lost no satisfaction? would his friends have lost nothing in the companion? would his country have lost nothing in the cultivated taste with which he has adorned it in so many ways? His natural elegance of mind would undoubtedly do a great deal; but I will venture to assert, without the danger of being contradicted, that he adorns his present residence in Ireland much the more for having resided a long time out of it. Will Mr. Flood himself think he ought to have been driven by taxes into Ireland, whilst he prepared himself by an English education to understand and to defend the rights of the subject in Ireland, or to support the dignity of government there, according as his opinions, or the situation of things, may lead him to take either part, upon respectable principles? I hope it is not forgot that an Irish act of Parliament sends its youth to England for the study of the law, and compels a residence in the inns of court hero for some years. Will you send out with one breath and recall with another? This act plainly provides for that intercourse which supposes the strictest union in laws and policy, in both which the intended tax supposes an entire separation.
It would be endless to go into all the inconveniences this tax will lead to, in the conduct of private life, and the use of property. How many infirm people are obliged to change their climate, whose life depends upon that change! How many families straitened in their circumstances are there, who, from the shame, sometimes from the utter impossibility otherwise of retrenching, are obliged to remove from their country, in order to preserve their estates in their families! You begin, then, to burden these people precisely at the time when their circumstances of health and fortune render them rather objects of relief and commiseration.
I know very well that a great proportion of the money of every subordinate country will flow towards the metropolis. This is unavoidable. Other inconveniences, too, will result to particular parts: and why? Why, because they are particular parts,—each a member of a greater, and not an whole within itself. But those members are to consider whether these inconveniences are not fully balanced, perhaps more than balanced, by the united strength of a great and compact body. I am sensible, too, of a difficulty that will be started against the application of some of the principles which I reason upon to the case of Ireland. It will be said, that Ireland, in many particulars, is not bound to consider itself as a part of the British body; because this country, in many instances, is mistaken enough to treat you as foreigners, and draws away your money by absentees, without suffering you to enjoy your natural advantages in trade and commerce. No man living loves restrictive regulations of any kind less than myself; at best, nine times in ten, they are little better than laborious and vexatious follies. Often, as in your case, they are great oppressions, as well as great absurdities. But still an injury is not always a reason for retaliation; nor is the folly of others with regard to us a reason for imitating it with regard to them. Before we attempt to retort, we ought to consider whether we may not injure ourselves even more than our adversary; since, in the contest who shall go the greatest length in absurdity, the victor is generally the greatest sufferer. Besides, when there is an unfortunate emulation in restraints and oppressions, the question of strength is of the highest importance. It little becomes the feeble to be unjust. Justice is the shield of the weak; and when they choose to lay this down, and fight naked in the contest of mere power, the event will be what must be expected from such imprudence.
I ought to beg your pardon for running into this length. You want no arguments to convince you on this subject, and you want no resources of matter to convince others. I ought, too, to ask pardon for having delayed my answer so long; but I received your letter on Tuesday, in town, and I was obliged to come to the country on business. From the country I write at present; but this day I shall go to town again. I shall see Lord Rockingham, who has spared neither time nor trouble in making a vigorous opposition to this inconsiderate measure. I hope to be able to send you the papers which will give you information of the steps he has taken. He has pursued this business with the foresight, diligence, and good sense with which he generally resists unconstitutional attempts of government. A life of disinterestedness, generosity, and public spirit are his titles to have it believed that the effect which the tax may have upon his private property is not the sole nor the principal motive to his exertions. I know he is of opinion that the opposition in Ireland ought to be carried on with that spirit as if no aid was expected from this country, and here as if nothing would be done in Ireland: many things have been lost by not acting in this manner.
I am told that you are not likely to be alone in the generous stand you are to make against this unnatural monster of court popularity. It is said, Mr. Hussey, who is so very considerable at present, and who is everything in expectation, will give you his assistance. I rejoice to see (that very rare spectacle) a good mind, a great genius, and public activity united together, and united so early in life. By not running into every popular humor, he may depend upon it, the popularity of his character will wear the better.
Ergo postque magisque viri nunc gloria claret.
Adieu, my dear Sir. Give my best respects to Lady Bingham; and believe me, with great truth and esteem,
Your most obedient and most humble servant,
EDM. BURKE.
BEACONSFIELD, 30th October, 1773.
TO SIR CHARLES BINGHAM.
A
LETTER
TO
THE HON. CHARLES JAMES FOX,
ON THE AMERICAN WAR.
OCTOBER 8, 1777.
My Dear Charles,—I am, on many accounts, exceedingly pleased with your journey to Ireland. I do not think it was possible to dispose better of the interval between this and the meeting of Parliament. I told you as much, in the same general terms, by the post. My opinion of the infidelity of that conveyance hindered me from being particular. I now sit down with malice prepense to kill you with a very long letter, and must take my chance for some safe method of conveying the dose. Before I say anything to you of the place you are in, or the business of it, on which, by the way, a great deal might be said, I will turn myself to the concluding part of your letter from Chatsworth.
You are sensible that I do not differ from you in many things; and most certainly I do not dissent from the main of your doctrine concerning the heresy of depending upon contingencies. You must recollect how uniform my sentiments have been on that subject. I have ever wished a settled plan of our own, founded in the very essence of the American business, wholly unconnected with the events of the war, and framed in such a manner as to keep up our credit and maintain our system at home, in spite of anything which may happen abroad. I am now convinced, by a long and somewhat vexatious experience, that such a plan is absolutely impracticable. I think with you, that some faults in the constitution of those whom we must love and trust are among the causes of this impracticability; they are faults, too, that one can hardly wish them perfectly cured of, as I am afraid they are intimately connected with honest, disinterested intentions, plentiful fortunes, assured rank, and quiet homes. A great deal of activity and enterprise can scarcely ever be expected from such men, unless some horrible calamity is just over their heads, or unless they suffer some gross personal insults from power, the resentment of which may be as unquiet and stimulating a principle in their minds as ambition is in those of a different complexion. To say the truth, I cannot greatly blame them. We live at a time when men are not repaid in fame for what they sacrifice in interest or repose.
On the whole, when I consider of what discordant, and particularly of what fleeting materials the opposition has been all along composed, and at the same time review what Lord Rockingham has done, with that and with his own shattered constitution, for these last twelve years, I confess I am rather surprised that he has done so much and persevered so long, than that he has felt now and then some cold fits, and that he grows somewhat languid and desponding at last. I know that he, and those who are much prevalent with him, though they are not thought so much devoted to popularity as others, do very much look to the people, and more than I think is wise in them, who do so little to guide and direct the public opinion. Without this they act, indeed; but they act as it were from compulsion, and because it is impossible, in their situation, to avoid taking some part. All this it is impossible to change, and to no purpose to complain of.
As to that popular humor which is the medium we float in, if I can discern anything at all of its present state, it is far worse than I have ever known or could ever imagine it. The faults of the people are not popular vices; at least, they are not such as grow out of what we used to take to be the English temper and character. The greatest number have a sort of an heavy, lumpish acquiescence in government, without much respect or esteem for those that compose it. I really cannot avoid making some very unpleasant prognostics from this disposition of the people. I think that many of the symptoms must have struck you: I will mention one or two that are to me very remarkable. You must know that at Bristol we grow, as an election interest, and even as a party interest, rather stronger than we were when I was chosen. We have just now a majority in the corporation. In this state of matters, what, think you, have they done? They have voted their freedom to Lord Sandwich and Lord Suffolk!—to the first, at the very moment when the American privateers were domineering in the Irish Sea, and taking the Bristol traders in the Bristol Channel;—to the latter, when his remonstrances on the subject of captures were the jest of Paris and of Europe. This fine step was taken, it seems, in honor of the zeal of these two profound statesmen in the prosecution of John the Painter: so totally negligent are they of everything essential, and so long and so deeply affected with trash the most low and contemptible; just as if they thought the merit of Sir John Fielding was the most shining point in the character of great ministers, in the most critical of all times, and, of all others, the most deeply interesting to the commercial world! My best friends in the corporation had no other doubts on the occasion than whether it did not belong to me, by right of my representative capacity, to be the bearer of this auspicious compliment. In addition to this, if it could receive any addition, they now employ me to solicit, as a favor of no small magnitude, that, after the example of Newcastle, they may be suffered to arm vessels for their own defence in the Channel. Their memorial, under the seal of Merchants' Hall, is now lying on the table before me. Not a soul has the least sensibility, on finding themselves, now for the first time, obliged to act as if the community were dissolved, and, after enormous payments towards the common protection, each part was to defend itself, as if it were a separate state.
I don't mention Bristol as if that were the part furthest gone in this mortification. Far from it: I know that there is, rather, a little more life in us than in any other place. In Liverpool they are literally almost ruined by this American war; but they love it as they suffer from it. In short, from whatever I see, and from whatever quarter I hear, I am convinced that everything that is not absolute stagnation is evidently a party-spirit very adverse to our politics, and to the principles from whence they arise. There are manifest marks of the resurrection of the Tory party. They no longer criticize, as all disengaged people in the world will, on the acts of government; but they are silent under every evil, and hide and cover up every ministerial blander and misfortune, with the officious zeal of men who think they have a party of their own to support in power. The Tories do universally think their power and consequence involved in the success of this American business. The clergy are astonishingly warm in it; and what the Tories are, when embodied and united with their natural head, the crown, and animated by their clergy, no man knows better than yourself. As to the Whigs, I think them far from extinct. They are, what they always were, (except by the able use of opportunities,) by far the weakest party in this country. They have not yet learned the application of their principles to the present state of things; and as to the Dissenters, the main effective part of the Whig strength, they are, to use a favorite expression of our American campaign style, "not all in force." They will do very little, and, as far as I can discern, are rather intimidated than provoked at the denunciations of the court in the Archbishop of York's sermon. I thought that sermon rather imprudent, when I first saw it; but it seems to have done its business.
In this temper of the people, I do not wholly wonder that our Northern friends look a little towards events. In war, particularly, I am afraid it must be so. There is something so weighty and decisive in the events of war, something that so completely overpowers the imagination of the vulgar, that all counsels must in a great degree be subordinate to and attendant on them. I am sure it was so in the last war, very eminently. So that, on the whole, what with the temper of the people, the temper of our own friends, and the domineering necessities of war, we must quietly give up all ideas of any settled, preconcerted plan. We shall be lucky enough, if, keeping ourselves attentive and alert, we can contrive to profit of the occasions as they arise: though I am sensible that those who are best provided with a general scheme are fittest to take advantage of all contingencies. However, to act with any people with the least degree of comfort, I believe we must contrive a little to assimilate to their character. We must gravitate towards them, if we would keep in the same system, or expect that they should approach towards us. They are, indeed, worthy of much concession and management. I am quite convinced that they are the honestest public men that ever appeared in this country, and I am sure that they are the wisest, by far, of those who appear in it at present. None of those who are continually complaining of them, but are themselves just as chargeable with all their faults, and have a decent stock of their own into the bargain. They (our friends) are, I admit, as you very truly represent them, but indifferently qualified for storming a citadel. After all, God knows whether this citadel is to be stormed by them, or by anybody else, by the means they use, or by any means. I know that as they are, abstractedly speaking, to blame, so there are those who cry out against them for it, not with a friendly complaint, as we do, but with the bitterness of enemies. But I know, too, that those who blame them for want of enterprise have shown no activity at all against the common enemy: all their skill and all their spirit have been shown only in weakening, dividing, and indeed destroying their allies. What they are and what we are is now pretty evidently experienced; and it is certain, that, partly by our common faults, but much more by the difficulties of our situation, and some circumstances of unavoidable misfortune, we are in little better than a sort of cul-de-sac. For my part, I do all I can to give ease to my mind in this strange position. I remember, some years ago, when I was pressing some points with great eagerness and anxiety, and complaining with great vexation to the Duke of Richmond of the little progress I make, he told me kindly, and I believe very truly, that, though he was far from thinking so himself, other people could not be persuaded I had not some latent private interest in pushing these matters, which I urged with an earnestness so extreme, and so much approaching to passion. He was certainly in the right. I am thoroughly resolved to give, both to myself and to my friends, less vexation on these subjects than hitherto I have done,—much less, indeed.
If you should grow too earnest, you will be still more inexcusable than I was. Your having entered into affairs so much younger ought to make them too familiar to you to be the cause of much agitation, and you have much more before you for your work. Do not be in haste. Lay your foundations deep in public opinion. Though (as you are sensible) I have never given you the least hint of advice about joining yourself in a declared connection with our party, nor do I now, yet, as I love that party very well, and am clear that you are better able to serve them than any man I know, I wish that things should be so kept as to leave you mutually very open to one another in all changes and contingencies; and I wish this the rather, because, in order to be very great, as I am anxious that you should be, (always presuming that you are disposed to make a good use of power,) you will certainly want some better support than merely that of the crown. For I much doubt, whether, with all your parts, you are the man formed for acquiring real interior favor in this court, or in any; I therefore wish you a firm ground in the country; and I do not know so firm and so sound a bottom to build on as our party.—Well, I have done with this matter; and you think I ought to have finished it long ago. Now I turn to Ireland.
Observe, that I have not heard a word of any news relative to it, from thence or from London; so that I am only going to state to you my conjectures as to facts, and to speculate again on these conjectures. I have a strong notion that the lateness of our meeting is owing to the previous arrangements intended in Ireland. I suspect they mean that Ireland should take a sort of lead, and act an efficient part in this war, both with men and money. It will sound well, when we meet, to tell us of the active zeal and loyalty of the people of Ireland, and contrast it with the rebellious spirit of America. It will be a popular topic,—the perfect confidence of Ireland in the power of the British Parliament. From thence they will argue the little danger which any dependency of the crown has to apprehend from the enforcement of that authority. It will be, too, somewhat flattering to the country gentlemen, who might otherwise begin to be sullen, to hold out that the burden is not wholly to rest upon them; and it will pique our pride to be told that Ireland has cheerfully stepped forward: and when a dependant of this kingdom has already engaged itself in another year's war, merely for our dignity, how can we, who are principals in the quarrel, hold off? This scheme of policy seems to me so very obvious, and is likely to be of so much service to the present system, that I cannot conceive it possible they should neglect it, or something like it. They have already put the people of Ireland to the proof. Have they not borne the Earl of Buckinghamshire, the person who was employed to move the fiery committee in the House of Lords in order to stimulate the ministry to this war, who was in the chair, and who moved the resolutions?
It is within a few days of eleven years since I was in Ireland, and then after an absence of two. Those who have been absent from any scene for even a much shorter time generally lose the true practical notion of the country, and of what may or may not be done in it. When I knew Ireland, it was very different from the state of England, where government is a vast deal, the public something, but individuals comparatively very little. But if Ireland bears any resemblance to what it was some years ago, neither government nor public opinion can do a great deal; almost the whole is in the hands of a few leading people. The populace of Dublin, and some parts in the North, are in some sort an exception. But the Primate, Lord Hillsborough, and Lord Hertford have great sway in the latter; and the former may be considerable or not, pretty much as the Duke of Leinster pleases. On the whole, the success of government usually depended on the bargain made with a very few men. The resident lieutenancy may have made some change, and given a strength to government, which formerly, I know, it had not; still, however, I am of opinion, the former state, though in other hands perhaps, and in another manner, still continues. The house you are connected with is grown into a much greater degree of power than it had, though it was very considerable, at the period I speak of. If the D. of L. takes a popular part, he is sure of the city of Dublin, and he has a young man attached to him who stands very forward in Parliament and in profession, and, by what I hear, with more good-will and less envy than usually attends so rapid a progress. The movement of one or two principal men, if they manage the little popular strength which is to be found in Dublin and Ulster, may do a great deal, especially when money is to be saved and taxes to be kept off. I confess I should despair of your succeeding with any of them, if they cannot be satisfied that every job which they can look for on account of carrying this measure would be just as sure to them for their ordinary support of government. They are essential to government, which at this time must not be disturbed, and their neutrality will be purchased at as high a price as their alliance offensive and defensive. Now, as by supporting they may get as much as by betraying their country, it must be a great leaning to turpitude that can make them take a part in this war. I am satisfied, that, if the Duke of Leinster and Lord Shannon would act together, this business could not go on; or if either of them took part with Ponsonby, it would have no better success. Hutchinson's situation is much altered since I saw you. To please Tisdall, he had been in a manner laid aside at the Castle. It is now to be seen whether he prefers the gratification of his resentment and his appetite for popularity, both of which are strong enough in him, to the advantages which his independence gives him, of making a new bargain, and accumulating new offices on his heap. Pray do not be asleep in this scene of action,—at this time, if I am right, the principal. The Protestants of Ireland will be, I think, in general, backward: they form infinitely the greatest part of the landed and the moneyed interests; and they will not like to pay. The Papists are reduced to beasts of burden: they will give all they have, their shoulders, readily enough, if they are flattered. Surely the state of Ireland ought forever to teach parties moderation in their victories. People crushed by law have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those who have much to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous, more or less. But this is not our present business. If all this should prove a dream, however, let it not hinder you from writing to me and tolling me so. You will easily refute, in your conversation, the little topics which they will set afloat: such as, that Ireland is a boat, and must go with the ship; that, if the Americans contended only for their liberties, it would be different,—but since they have declared independence, and so forth—
You are happy in enjoying Townshend's company. Remember me to him. How does he like his private situation in a country where he was the son of the sovereign?—Mrs. Burke and the two Richards salute you cordially.
E.B.
BEACONSFIELD, October 8th, 1777.