The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Volume V Part 4

Joseph the Second also borrowed the language of philosophy, when he wished to suppress the monks in Belgium, and to seize upon their revenues. There was seen on him a mask only of philosophy, covering the hideous countenance of a greedy despot; and the people ran to arms.

Nothing better than another kind of despotism has been seen in the _revolutionary power_.

We have seen in the commissioners of the National Convention nothing but proconsuls working the mine of Belgium for the profit of the French nation, seeking to conquer it for the sovereign of Paris,--either to aggrandize his empire, or to share the burdens of the debts, and furnish a rich prize to the robbers who domineered in France.

Do you believe the Belgians have ever been the dupes of those well-rounded periods which they vended in the pulpit in order to familiarize them to the idea of an union with France? Do you believe they were ever imposed upon by those votes and resolutions, made by what is called acclamation, for their union, of which corruption paid one part,[9] and fear forced the remainder? Who, at this time of day, is unacquainted with the springs and wires of their miserable puppet-show?

_Who does not know the farces of primary a.s.semblies, composed of a president, of a secretary, and of some a.s.sistants, whose day's work was paid for?_ No: it is not by means which belong only to thieves and despots that the foundations of liberty can be laid in an enslaved country. It is not by those means, that a new-born republic, a people who know not yet the elements of republican governments, can be united to us. Even slaves do not suffer themselves to be seduced by such artifices; and if they have not the strength to resist, they have at least the sense to know how to appreciate the value of such an attempt.

If we would attach the Belgians to us, we must at least enlighten their minds by _good writings_; we must send to them _missionaries_, and not despotic commissioners.[10] We ought to give them time to see,--to perceive by themselves the advantages of liberty, the unhappy effects of superst.i.tion, the fatal spirit of priesthood. And whilst we waited for this moral revolution, we should have accepted the offers which they incessantly repeated to join to the French army an army of fifty thousand men, to entertain them at their own expense, and to advance to France the specie of which she stood in need.

But have we ever seen those fifty thousand soldiers who were to join our army as soon as the standard of liberty should be displayed in Belgium?

Have we ever seen those treasures which they were to count into our hands? Can we either accuse the sterility of their country, or the penury of their treasure, or the coldness of their love for liberty? No!

despotism and anarchy, these are the benefits which we have transplanted into their soil. We have acted, we have spoken, like masters; and from that time we have found the Flemings nothing but jugglers, who made the grimace of liberty for money, or slaves, who in their hearts cursed their new tyrants. Our commissioners address them in this sort: "You have n.o.bles and priests among you: drive them out without delay, or we will neither be your brethren nor your patrons." They answered: "Give us but time; only leave to us the care of reforming these inst.i.tutions."

Our answer to them was: "No! it must be at the moment, it must be on the spot; or we will treat you as enemies, we will abandon you to the resentment of the Austrians."

What could the disarmed Belgians object to all this, surrounded as they were by seventy thousand men? They had only to hold their tongues, and to bow down their heads before their masters. They did hold their tongues, and their silence is received as a sincere and free a.s.sent.

Have not the strangest artifices been adopted to prevent that people from retreating, and to constrain them to an union? It was foreseen, that, as long as they were unable to effect an union, the States would preserve the supreme authority amongst themselves. Under pretence, therefore, of relieving the people, and of exercising the sovereignty in their right, at one stroke they abolished all the duties and taxes, they shut up all the treasuries. From that time no more receipts, no more public money, no more means of paying the salaries of any man in office appointed by the States. Thus was anarchy organized amongst the people, that they might be compelled to throw themselves into our arms. It became necessary for those who administered their affairs, under the penalty of being exposed to sedition, and in order to avoid their throats being cut, to have recourse to the treasury of France. What did they find in this treasury? a.s.sIGNATS.--These a.s.signats were advanced at par to Belgium. By this means, on the one hand, they naturalized this currency in that country, and on the other, they expected to make a good pecuniary transaction. Thus it is that covetousness cut its throat with its own hands. _The Belgians have seen in this forced introduction of a.s.signats nothing but a double robbery_; and they have only the more violently hated the union with France.

Recollect the solicitude of the Belgians on that subject. With what earnestness did they conjure you to take off a retroactive effect from these a.s.signats, and to prevent them from being applied to the payment of debts that were contracted anterior to the union!

Did not this language energetically enough signify that they looked upon the a.s.signats as a leprosy, and the union as a deadly contagion?

And yet what regard was paid to so just a demand? It was buried in the Committee of Finance. That committee wanted to make anarchy the means of an union. They only busied themselves in making the Belgic Provinces subservient to their finances.

Cambon said loftily before the Belgians themselves: The Belgian war costs us hundreds of millions. Their ordinary revenues, and even some extraordinary taxes, will not answer to our reimburs.e.m.e.nts; and yet we have occasion for them. The mortgage of our a.s.signats draws near its end. What must be done? Sell the Church property of Brabant. There is a mortgage of two thousand millions (eighty millions sterling). How shall we get possession of them? By an immediate union. Instantly they decreed this union. Men's minds were not disposed to it. What does it signify?

Let us make them vote by means of money. Without delay, therefore, they secretly order the Minister of Foreign Affairs to dispose of four or five hundred thousand livres (20,000_l._ sterling) _to make the vagabonds of Brussels drunk, and to buy proselytes to the union in all the States_. But even these means, it was said, will obtain but a weak minority in our favor. What does that signify? _Revolutions_, said they, _are made only by minorities. It is the minority which has made the Revolution of France; it is a minority which, has made the people triumph_.

The Belgic Provinces were not sufficient to satisfy the voracious cravings of this financial system. Cambon wanted to unite everything, that he might sell everything. Thus he forced the union of Savoy. In the war with Holland, he saw nothing but gold to seize on, and a.s.signats to sell at par.[11] "Do not let us dissemble," said he one day to the Committee of General Defence, in presence even of the patriot deputies of Holland, "you have no ecclesiastical goods to offer us for our indemnity. IT IS A REVOLUTION IN THEIR COUNTERS AND IRON CHESTS[12]

that must be made amongst the DUTCH." The word was said, and the bankers Abema and Van Staphorst understood it.

Do you think that that word has not been worth an army to the Stadtholder? that it has not cooled the ardor of the Dutch patriots?

that it has not commanded the vigorous defence of Williamstadt?

Do you believe that the patriots of Amsterdam, when they read the preparatory decree which gave France an execution on their goods,--do you believe that those patriots would not have liked better to have remained under the government of the Stadtholder, who took from them no more than a fixed portion of their property, than to pa.s.s under that of a revolutionary power, which would make a complete revolution in their bureaus and strong-boxes, and reduce them to wretchedness and rags?[13]

Robbery and anarchy, instead of encouraging, will always stifle revolutions.

"But why," they object to me, "have not you and your friends chosen to expose these measures in the rostrum of the National Convention? Why have you not opposed yourself to all these fatal projects of union?"

There are two answers to make here,--one general, one particular.

You complain of the silence of honest men! You quite forget, then, honest men are the objects of your suspicion. Suspicion, if it does not stain the soul of a courageous man, at least arrests his thoughts in their pa.s.sage to his lips. The suspicions of a good citizen freeze those men whom the calumny of the wicked could not stop in their progress.

You complain of their silence! You forget, then, that you have often established an insulting equality between them and men covered with crimes and made up of ignominy.

You forget, then, that you have twenty times left them covered with opprobrium by your galleries.

You forget, then, that you have not thought yourself sufficiently powerful to impose silence upon these galleries.

What ought a wise man to do in the midst of these circ.u.mstances? He is silent. He waits the moment when the pa.s.sions give way; he waits till reason shall preside, and till the mult.i.tude shall listen to her voice.

What has been the tactic displayed during all these unions? Cambon, incapable of political calculation, boasting his ignorance in the diplomatic, flattering the ignorant mult.i.tude, lending his name and popularity to the anarchists, seconded by their vociferations, denounced incessantly, as counter-revolutionists, those intelligent persons who were desirous at least of having things discussed. To oppose the acts of union appeared to Cambon an overt act of treason. The wish so much as to reflect and to deliberate was in his eyes a great crime. He calumniated our intentions. The voice of every deputy, especially my voice, would infallibly have been stifled. There were spies on the very monosyllables that escaped our lips.

FOOTNOTES:

[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 Const.i.tution, are as much ent.i.tled 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 cla.s.ses. 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 superst.i.tion, (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 cla.s.ses 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 a.s.sociates, 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 subst.i.tuted that of _Iron Chests_, as coming nearest to the idea.--TRANSLATOR.

[13] In the original _les reduire a la sansculotterie_.

A

LETTER

TO

WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ.,

OCCASIONED BY

THE ACCOUNT GIVEN IN A NEWSPAPER OF THE SPEECH MADE IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS BY THE **** OF *******

IN THE DEBATE

CONCERNING LORD FITZWILLIAM.

1795.

LETTER.

BEACONSFIELD, May 28,1795.