The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 05 (of 12)

In all former hostilities, our exports gradually declined in value, and then (with one single exception) ascended again, till they reached and passed the level of the preceding peace. But this was a work of time, sometimes more, sometimes less slow. In Queen Anne's war, which began in 1702, it was an interval of ten years before this was effected. Nine years only were necessary, in the war of 1739, for the same operation. The Seven Years' War saw the period much shortened: hostilities began in 1755; and in 1758, the fourth year of the war, the exports mounted above the peace-mark. There was, however, a distinguishing feature of that war,—that our tonnage, to the very last moment, was in a state of great depression, while our commerce was chiefly carried on by foreign vessels. The American war was darkened with singular and peculiar adversity. Our exports never came near to their peaceful elevation, and our tonnage continued, with very little fluctuation, to subside lower and lower.57 On the other hand, the present war, with regard to our commerce, has the white mark of as singular felicity. If, from internal causes, as well as the consequence of hostilities, the tide ebbed in 1793, it rushed back again with a bore in the following year, and from that time has continued to swell and run every successive year higher and higher into all our ports. The value of our exports last year above the year 1792 (the mere increase of our commerce during the war) is equal to the average value of all the exports during the wars of William and Anne.

It has been already pointed out, that our imports have not kept pace with our exports: of course, on the face of the account, the balance of trade, both positively and comparatively considered, must have been much more than ever in our favor. In that early little tract of mine, to which I have already more than once referred, I made many observations on the usual method of computing that balance, as well as the usual objection to it, that the entries at the Custom-House were not always true. As you probably remember them, I shall not repeat them here. On the one hand, I am not surprised that the same trite objection is perpetually renewed by the detractors of our national affluence; and on the other hand, I am gratified in perceiving that the balance of trade seems to be now computed in a manner much clearer than it used to be from those errors which I formerly noticed. The Inspector-General appears to have made his estimate with every possible guard and caution. His opinion is entitled to the greatest respect. It was in substance, (I shall again use the words of the Report, as much better than my own,) "that the true balance of our trade amounted, on a medium of the four years preceding January, 1796, to upwards of 6,500,00l. per annum, exclusive of the profits arising from our East and West India trade, which he estimates at upwards of 4,000,000l. per annum, exclusive of the profits derived from our fisheries." So that, including the fisheries, and making a moderate allowance for the exceedings, which Mr. Irving himself supposes, beyond his calculation, without reckoning what the public creditors themselves pay to themselves, and without taking one shilling from the stock of the landed interest, our colonies, our Oriental possessions, our skill and industry, our commerce and navigation, at the commencement of this year, were pouring a new annual capital into the kingdom, hardly half a million short of the whole interest of that tremendous debt from which we are taught to shrink in dismay, as from an overwhelming and intolerable oppression.

If, then, the real state of this nation is such as I have described, (and I am only apprehensive that you may think I have taken too much pains to exclude all doubt on this question,)—if no class is lessened in its numbers, or in its stock, or in its conveniences, or even its luxuries,—if they build as many habitations, and as elegant and as commodious as ever, and furnish them with every chargeable decoration and every prodigality of ingenious invention that can be thought of by those who even incumber their necessities with superfluous accommodation,—if they are as numerously attended,—if their equipages are as splendid,—if they regale at table with as much or more variety of plenty than ever,—if they are clad in as expensive and changeful a diversity, according to their tastes and modes,—if they are not deterred from the pleasures of the field by the charges which government has wisely turned from the culture to the sports of the field,—if the theatres are as rich and as well filled, and greater and at a higher price than ever,—and (what is more important than all) if it is plain, from the treasures which are spread over the soil or confided to the winds and the seas, that there are as many who are indulgent to their propensities of parsimony as others to their voluptuous desires, and that the pecuniary capital grows instead of diminishing,—on what ground are we authorized to say that a nation gambolling in an ocean of superfluity is undone by want? With what face can we pretend that they who have not denied any one gratification to any one appetite have a right to plead poverty in order to famish their virtues and to put their duties on short allowance? that they are to take the law from an imperious enemy, and can contribute no longer to the honor of their king, to the support of the independence of their country, to the salvation of that Europe which, if it falls, must crush them with its gigantic ruins? How can they affect to sweat and stagger and groan under their burdens, to whom the mines of Newfoundland, richer than those of Mexico and Peru, are now thrown in as a make-weight in the scale of their exorbitant opulence? What excuse can they have to faint, and creep, and cringe, and prostrate themselves at the footstool of ambition and crime, who, during a short, though violent struggle, which they have never supported with the energy of men, have amassed more to their annual accumulation than all the well-husbanded capital that enabled their ancestors, by long and doubtful and obstinate conflicts, to defend and liberate and vindicate the civilized world? But I do not accuse the people of England. As to the great majority of the nation, they have done whatever, in their several ranks and conditions and descriptions, was required of them by their relative situations in society: and from those the great mass of mankind cannot depart, without the subversion of all public order. They look up to that government which they obey that they may be protected. They ask to be led and directed by those rulers whom Providence and the laws of their country have set over them, and under their guidance to walk in the ways of safety and honor. They have again delegated the greatest trust which they have to bestow to those faithful representatives who made their true voice heard against the disturbers and destroyers of Europe. They suffered, with unapproving acquiescence, solicitations, which they had in no shape desired, to an unjust and usurping power, whom they had never provoked, and whose hostile menaces they did not dread. When the exigencies of the public service could only be met by their voluntary zeal, they started forth with an ardor which outstripped the wishes of those who had injured them by doubting whether it might not be necessary to have recourse to compulsion. They have in all things reposed an enduring, but not an unreflecting confidence. That confidence demands a full return, and fixes a responsibility on the ministers entire and undivided. The people stands acquitted, if the war is not carried on in a manner suited to its objects. If the public honor is tarnished, if the public safety suffers any detriment, the ministers, not the people, are to answer it, and they alone. Its armies, its navies, are given to them without stint or restriction. Its treasures are poured out at their feet. Its constancy is ready to second all their efforts. They are not to fear a responsibility for acts of manly adventure. The responsibility which they are to dread is lest they should show themselves unequal to the expectation of a brave people. The more doubtful may be the constitutional and economical questions upon which they have received so marked a support, the more loudly they are called upon to support this great war, for the success of which their country is willing to supersede considerations of no slight importance. Where I speak of responsibility, I do not mean to exclude that species of it which the legal powers of the country have a right finally to exact from those who abuse a public trust: but high as this is, there is a responsibility which attaches on them from which the whole legitimate power of the kingdom cannot absolve them; there is a responsibility to conscience and to glory, a responsibility to the existing world, and to that posterity which men of their eminence cannot avoid for glory or for shame,—a responsibility to a tribunal at which not only ministers, but kings and parliaments, but even nations themselves, must one day answer.

END OF VOL. V

1

It is an exception, that in one of his last speeches (but not before) Mr. Fox seemed to think an alliance with Spain might be proper.

2

Presented to the king June 13; delivered to him the preceding Monday.—TRANSLATOR.

3

Letter to the National Assembly, signed, The Minister of the Interior, ROLAND; dated Paris, Sept. 3rd, 4th year of Liberty.

4

See p. 12 and p. 13 of this translation.

5

See the translation of Mallet Du Pan's work, printed for Owen, p. 53.

6

See the translation of the History of the Brissotins by Camille Desmoulins, printed for Owen, p. 2.

7

The most seditious libels upon all governments, in order to excite insurrection in Spain, Holland, and other countries,—TRANSLATOR.

8

It may not be amiss, once for all, to remark on the style of all the philosophical politicians of France. Without any distinction in their several sects and parties, they agree in treating all nations who will not conform their government, laws, manners, and religion to the new French fashion, as an herd of slaves. They consider the content with which men live under those governments as stupidity, and all attachment to religion as the effect of the grossest ignorance.

The people of the Netherlands, by their Constitution, are as much entitled to be called free as any nation upon earth. The Austrian government (until some wild attempts the Emperor Joseph made on the French principle, but which have been since abandoned by the court of Vienna) has been remarkably mild. No people were more at their ease than the Flemish subjects, particularly the lower classes. It is curious to hear this great oculist talk of couching the cataract by which the Netherlands were blinded, and hindered from seeing in its proper colors the beautiful vision of the French republic, which he has himself painted with so masterly an hand. That people must needs be dull, blind, and brutalized by fifteen hundred years of superstition, (the time elapsed since the introduction of Christianity amongst them,) who could prefer their former state to the present state of France! The reader will remark, that the only difference between Brissot and his adversaries is in the mode of bringing other nations into the pale of the French republic. They would abolish the order and classes of society, and all religion, at a stroke: Brissot would have just the same thing done, but with more address and management.—TRANSLATOR.

9

See the correspondence of Dumouriez, especially the letter of the 12th of March.

10

They have not as yet proceeded farther with regard to the English dominions. Here we only see as yet the good writings of Paine, and of his learned associates, and the labors of the missionary clubs, and other zealous instructors.—TRANSLATOR.

11

The same thing will happen in Savoy. The persecution of the clergy has soured people's minds. The commissaries represent them to us as good Frenchmen. I put them to the proof. Where are the legions? How! thirty thousand Savoyards,—are they not armed to defend, in concert with us, their liberty?—BRISSOT.

12

Portefeuille is the word in the original. It signifies all movable property which may be represented in bonds, notes, bills, stocks, or any sort of public or private securities. I do not know of a single word in English that answers it: I have therefore substituted that of Iron Chests, as coming nearest to the idea.—TRANSLATOR.

13

In the original les reduire à la sansculotterie.

14

Mr. Paine is a Norfolk man, from Thetford.

15

Tristius haud illis monstrum, nec sævior ullaPestis et ira Deûm Stygiis sese extulit undis.Virginei volucrum vultus, fœdissima ventrisProluvies, uncæque manus, et pallida semperOra fame.

Here the poet breaks the line, because he (and that he is Virgil) had not verse or language to describe that monster even as he had conceived her. Had he lived to our time, he would have been more overpowered with the reality than he was with the imagination. Virgil only knew the horror of the times before him. Had he lived to see the revolutionists and constitutionalists of France, he would have had more horrid and disgusting features of his harpies to describe, and more frequent failures in the attempt to describe them.

16

London, J. Dodsley, 1792, 3 vols. 4to.—Vol. II. pp. 324-336, in the present edition.

17

See the history of the melancholy catastrophe of the Duke of Buckingham. Temp. Hen. VIII.

18

At si non aliam venturo fata Neroni, etc.

19

Sir George Savile's act, called The Nullum Tempus Act.

20

"Templum in modum arcis."—TACITUS, of the temple of Jerusalem.

21

There is nothing on which the leaders of the Republic one and indivisible value themselves more than on the chemical operations by which; through science, they convert the pride of aristocracy to an instrument of its own destruction,—on the operations by which they reduce the magnificent ancient country-seats of the nobility, decorated with the feudal titles of Duke, Marquis, or Earl, into magazines of what they call revolutionary gunpowder. They tell us, that hitherto things "had not yet been properly and in a revolutionary manner explored,"—"The strong chateaus, those feudal fortresses, that were ordered to be demolished attracted next the attention of your committee. Nature there had secretly regained her rights, and had produced saltpetre, for the purpose, as it should seem, of facilitating the execution of your decree by preparing the means of destruction. From these ruins, which still frown on the liberties of the Republic, we have extracted the means of producing good; and those piles which have hitherto glutted the pride of despots, and covered the plots of La Vendée, will soon furnish wherewithal to tame the traitors and to overwhelm the disaffected,"—"The rebellious cities, also, have afforded a large quantity of saltpetre. Commune Affranchie" (that is, the noble city of Lyons, reduced in many parts to an heap of ruins) "and Toulon will pay a second tribute to our artillery."—Report, 1st February, 1794.

22

"Mussabat tacito medicina timore."

23

Mr. Bird, sent to state the real situation of the Duc de Choiseul.

24

Boissy d'Anglas.

25

"This Court has seen, with regret, how far the tone and spirit of that answer, the nature and extent of the demands which it contains, and the manner of announcing them, are remote from any disposition for peace.

"The inadmissible pretension is there avowed of appropriating to France all that the laws actually existing there may have comprised under the denomination of French territory. To a demand such as this is added an express declaration that no proposal contrary to it will be made or even listened to: and this, under the pretence of an internal regulation, the provisions of which are wholly foreign to all other nations.

"While these dispositions shall be persisted in, nothing is left for the king but to prosecute a war equally just and necessary.

"Whenever his enemies shall manifest more pacific sentiments, his Majesty will at all times be eager to concur in them, by lending himself, in concert with his allies, to all such measures as shall be best calculated to reëstablish general tranquillity on conditions just, honorable, and permanent: either by the establishment of a congress, which has been so often and so happily the means of restoring peace to Europe; or by a preliminary discussion of the principles which may be proposed, on either side, as a foundation of a general pacification; or, lastly, by an impartial examination of any other way which may be pointed out to him for arriving at the same salutary end.

"Downing Street, April 10th, 1796."

26

Official Note, extracted from the Journal of the Defenders of the Country.

"EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY.

"Different journals have advanced that an English plenipotentiary had reached Paris, and had presented himself to the Executive Directory, but that, his propositions not having appeared satisfactory, he had received orders instantly to quit France.

"All these assertions are equally false.

"The notices given in the English papers of a minister having been sent to Paris, there to treat of peace, bring to recollection the overtures of Mr. Wickham to the ambassador of the Republic at Basle, and the rumors circulated relative to the mission of Mr. Hammond to the Court of Prussia. The insignificance, or rather the subtle duplicity, the PUNIC style of Mr. Wickham's note, is not forgotten. According to the partisans of the English ministry, it was to Paris that Mr. Hammond was to come to speak for peace. When his destination became public, and it was known that he went to Prussia, the same writer repeated that it was to accelerate a peace, and not withstanding the object, now well known, of this negotiation was to engage Prussia to break her treaties with the Republic, and to return into the coalition. The Court of Berlin, faithful to its engagements, repulsed these perfidious propositions. But in converting this intrigue into a mission for peace, the English ministry joined to the hope of giving a new enemy to France that of justifying the continuance of the war in the eyes of the English nation, and of throwing all the odium of it on the French, government. Such was also the aim of Mr. Wickham's note. Such is still, that of the notices given at this time in the English papers.

This aim will appear evident, if we reflect how difficult it is that the ambitious government of England should sincerely wish for a, peace that would snatch from it its maritime preponderancy, would reëstablish the freedom of the seas, would give a new impulse to the Spanish, Dutch, and French marines, and would carry to the highest degree of prosperity the industry and commerce of those nations in, which it has always found rivals, and which it has considered as enemies of its commerce, when they were tired of being its dupes.

"But there will no longer he any credit given to the pacific intentions of the English ministry when it is known that its gold and its intrigues, its open practices and its insinuations, besiege more than ever the Cabinet of Vienna, and are one of the principal obstacles to the negotiation which, that Cabinet would of itself be induced to enter on for peace.

"They will no longer be credited, finally, when the moment of the rumor of these overtures being circulated is considered. The English nation supports impatiently the continuance of the war; a reply must be made to its complaints, its reproaches: the Parliament is about to reopen, its sittings; the mouths of the orators who will declaim against the war must be shut, the demand of new taxes must he justified; and to obtain these results, it is necessary to be enabled to advance, that the French government refuses every reasonable proposition of peace."

27

"In their place has succeeded a system destructive of all public order, maintained by proscriptions, exiles, and confiscations without number,—by arbitrary imprisonments,—by massacres which cannot be remembered without horror,—and at length by the execrable murder of a just and beneficent sovereign, and of the illustrious princess, who with, an unshaken firmness has shared all the misfortunes of her royal consort, his protracted sufferings, his cruel captivity, his ignominious death."—"They [the Allies] have had to encounter acts of aggression without pretext, open violations of all treaties, unprovoked declarations of war,—in a word, whatever corruption, intrigue, or violence could effect, for the purpose, so openly avowed, of subverting all the institutions of society, and of extending' over all the nations of Europe that confusion which has produced the misery of France. This state of things cannot exist in France, without involving all the surrounding powers in one common danger,—without giving them the right, without imposing it upon them as a duty, to stop the progress of an evil which exists only by the successive violation of all law and all property, and which attacks the Fundamental principles by which mankind is united in the bonds of civil society."—"The king would propose none other than equitable and moderate conditions: not such as the expenses, the risks, and the sacrifices of the war might justify, but such as his Majesty thinks himself under the indispensable necessity of requiring, with a view to these considerations, and still more to that of his own security and of the future tranquillity of Europe. His Majesty desires nothing more sincerely than thus to terminate a war which he in vain endeavored to avoid, and all the calamities of which, as now experienced by France, are to be attributed only to the ambition, the perfidy, and the violence of those whose crimes have involved their own country in misery and disgraced all civilized nations."—"The king promises on his part the suspension of hostilities, friendship, and (as far as the course of events will allow, of which the will of man cannot dispose) security and protection to all those who, by declaring for a monarchical government, shall shake off the yoke of a sanguinary anarchy: of that anarchy which, has broken all the most sacred bonds of society, dissolved all the relations of civil life, violated every right, confounded every duty; which uses the name of liberty to exercise the most cruel tyranny, to annihilate all property, to seize on all possessions; which founds its power on the pretended consent of the people, and itself carries fire and sword through extensive provinces for having demanded their laws, their religion, and their lawful sovereign."

Declaration sent by his Majesty's command to the commanders of his Majesty's fleets and armies employed against France and to his Majesty's ministers employed at foreign courts. Whitehall, Oct. 29, 1793

28

"Ut lethargicus hic, cum fit pugil, et medicum urget."—HOB.

29

See the Declaration.

30

See Declaration, Whitehall, October 29, 1793.

31

Nothing could be more solemn than their promulgation of this principle, as a preamble to the destructive code of their famous articles for the decomposition of society, into whatever country they should enter. "La Convention Nationale, après avoir entendu le rapport de ses comités de finances, de la guerre, et diplomatiques réunis, fidèle au principe de souveraineté de peuples, qui ne lui permet pas de reconnaître aucune institution qui y porte atteinte" &c., &c.—Décree sur le Rapport de Cambon, Dec. 18, 1702. And see the subsequent proclamation.