The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Volume III Part 12

Fox's words. And that he wished, as amongst the greatest benefits he could wish the country, an eminent share of power to that right honorable gentleman; because he knew that to his great and masterly understanding he had joined the greatest possible degree of that natural moderation which is the best corrective of power: that he was of the most artless, candid, open, and benevolent disposition; disinterested in the extreme; of a temper mild and placable even to a fault; without one drop of gall in his whole const.i.tution.

That the House must perceive, from his coming forward to mark an expression or two of his best friend, how anxious he was to keep the distemper of France from the least countenance in England, where he was sure some wicked persons had shown a strong disposition to recommend an imitation of the French spirit of reform. He was so strongly opposed to any the least tendency towards the _means_ of introducing a democracy like theirs, as well as to the _end_ itself, that, much as it would afflict him, if such a thing could be attempted, and that any friend of his could concur in such measures, (he was far, very far, from believing they could,) he would abandon his best friends, and join with his worst enemies, to oppose either the means or the end,--and to resist all violent exertions of the spirit of innovation, so distant from all principles of true and safe reformation: a spirit well calculated to overturn states, but perfectly unfit to amend them.

That he was no enemy to reformation. Almost every business in which he was much concerned, from the first day he sat in that House to that hour, was a business of reformation; and when he had not been employed in correcting, he had been employed in resisting abuses. Some traces of this spirit in him now stand on their statute-book. In his opinion, anything which unnecessarily tore to pieces the contexture of the state not only prevented all real reformation, but introduced evils which would call, but perhaps call in vain, for new reformation.

That he thought the French nation very unwise. What they valued themselves on was a disgrace to them. They had gloried (and some people in England had thought fit to take share in that glory) in making a Revolution, as if revolutions were good things in themselves. All the horrors and all the crimes of the anarchy which led to their Revolution, which attend its progress, and which may virtually attend it in its establishment, pa.s.s for nothing with the lovers of revolutions. The French have made their way, through the destruction of their country, to a bad const.i.tution, when they were absolutely in possession of a good one. They were in possession of it the day the states met in separate orders. Their business, had they been either virtuous or wise, or had been left to their own judgment, was to secure the stability and independence of the states, according to those orders, under the monarch on the throne. It was then their duty to redress grievances.

Instead of redressing grievances, and improving the fabric of their state, to which they were called by their monarch and sent by their country, they were made to take a very different course. They first destroyed all the balances and counterpoises which serve to fix the state and to give it a steady direction, and which furnish sure correctives to any violent spirit which may prevail in any of the orders. These balances existed in their oldest const.i.tution, and in the const.i.tution of this country, and in the const.i.tution of all the countries in Europe. These they rashly destroyed, and then they melted down the whole into one incongruous, ill-connected ma.s.s.

When they had done this, they instantly, and with the most atrocious perfidy and breach of all faith among men, laid the axe to the root of all property, and consequently of all national prosperity, by the principles they established and the example they set, in confiscating all the possessions of the Church. They made and recorded a sort of _inst.i.tute_ and _digest_ of anarchy, called the Rights of Man, in such a pedantic abuse of elementary principles as would have disgraced boys at school: but this declaration of rights was worse than trifling and pedantic in them; as by their name and authority they systematically destroyed every hold of authority by opinion, religious or civil, on the minds of the people. By this mad declaration they subverted the state, and brought on such calamities as no country, without a long war, has ever been known to suffer, and which may in the end produce such a war, and perhaps many such.

With them the question was not between despotism and liberty. The sacrifice they made of the peace and power of their country was not made on the altar of freedom. Freedom, and a better security for freedom than that they have taken, they might have had without any sacrifice at all.

They brought themselves into all the calamities they suffer, not that through them they might obtain a British const.i.tution; they plunged themselves headlong into those calamities to prevent themselves from settling into that const.i.tution, or into anything resembling it.

That, if they should perfectly succeed in what they propose, as they are likely enough to do, and establish a democracy, or a mob of democracies, in a country circ.u.mstanced like France, they will establish a very bad government,--a very bad species of tyranny.

That the worst effect of all their proceeding was on their military, which was rendered an army for every purpose but that of defence. That, if the question was, whether soldiers were to forget they were citizens, as an abstract proposition, he could have no difference about it; though, as it is usual, when abstract principles are to be applied, much was to be thought on the manner of uniting the character of citizen and soldier. But as applied to the events which had happened in France, where the abstract principle was clothed with its circ.u.mstances, he thought that his friend would agree with him, that what was done there furnished no matter of exultation, either in the act or the example.

These soldiers were not citizens, but base, hireling mutineers, and mercenary, sordid deserters, wholly dest.i.tute of any honorable principle. Their conduct was one of the fruits of that anarchic spirit from the evils of which a democracy itself was to be resorted to, by those who were the least disposed to that form, as a sort of refuge. It was not an army in corps and with discipline, and embodied under the respectable patriot citizens of the state in resisting tyranny. Nothing like it. It was the case of common soldiers deserting from their officers, to join a furious, licentious populace. It was a desertion to a cause the real object of which was to level all those inst.i.tutions, and to break all those connections, natural and civil, that regulate and hold together the community by a chain of subordination: to raise soldiers against their officers, servants against their masters, tradesmen against their customers, artificers against their employers, tenants against their landlords, curates against their bishops, and children against their parents. That this cause of theirs was not an enemy to servitude, but to society.

He wished the House to consider how the members would like to have their mansions pulled down and pillaged, their persons abused, insulted, and destroyed, their t.i.tle-deeds brought out and burned before their faces, and themselves and their families driven to seek refuge in every nation throughout Europe, for no other reason than this, that, without any fault of theirs, they were born gentlemen and men of property, and were suspected of a desire to preserve their consideration and their estates.

The desertion in France was to aid an abominable sedition, the very professed principle of which was an implacable hostility to n.o.bility and gentry, and whose savage war-whoop was, _"A l'Aristocrate!"_--by which senseless, b.l.o.o.d.y cry they animated one another to rapine and murder; whilst abetted by ambitious men of another cla.s.s, they were crushing everything respectable and virtuous in their nation, and to their power disgracing almost every name by which we formerly knew there was such a country in the world as France.

He knew too well, and he felt as much as any man, how difficult it was to accommodate a standing army to a free const.i.tution, or to any const.i.tution. An armed disciplined body is, in its essence, dangerous to liberty; undisciplined, it is ruinous to society. Its component parts are in the latter case neither good citizens nor good soldiers. What have they thought of in France, under such a difficulty as almost puts the human faculties to a stand? They have put their army under such a variety of principles of duty, that it is more likely to breed litigants, pettifoggers, and mutineers than soldiers.[76] They have set up, to balance their crown army, another army, deriving under another authority, called a munic.i.p.al army,--a balance of armies, not of orders.

These latter they have destroyed with every mark of insult and oppression. States may, and they will best, exist with a part.i.tion of civil powers. Armies cannot exist under a divided command. This state of things he thought in effect a state of war, or at best but a truce, instead of peace, in the country.

What a dreadful thing is a standing army for the conduct of the whole or any part of which no man is responsible! In the present state of the French crown army, is the crown responsible for the whole of it? Is there any general who can be responsible for the obedience of a brigade, any colonel for that of a regiment, any captain for that of a company? And as to the munic.i.p.al army, reinforced as it is by the new citizen deserters, under whose command are they? Have we not seen them, not led by, but dragging, their nominal commander, with a rope about his neck, when they, or those whom they accompanied, proceeded to the most atrocious acts of treason and murder? Are any of these armies? Are any of these citizens?

We have in such a difficulty as that of fitting a standing army to the state, he conceived, done much better. We have not distracted our army by divided principles of obedience. We have put them under a single authority, with a simple (our common) oath of fidelity; and we keep the whole under our annual inspection. This was doing all that could be safely done.

He felt some concern that this strange thing called a Revolution in France should be compared with the glorious event commonly called the Revolution in England, and the conduct of the soldiery on that occasion compared with the behavior of some of the troops of France in the present instance. At that period, the Prince of Orange, a prince of the blood-royal in England, was called in by the flower of the English aristocracy to defend its ancient Const.i.tution, and not to level all distinctions. To this prince, so invited, the aristocratic leaders who commanded the troops went over with their several corps, in bodies, to the deliverer of their country. Aristocratic leaders brought up the corps of citizens who newly enlisted in this cause. Military obedience changed its object; but military discipline was not for a moment interrupted in its principle. The troops were ready for war, but indisposed to mutiny.

But as the conduct of the English armies was different, so was that of the whole English nation at that time. In truth, the circ.u.mstances of our Revolution (as it is called) and that of France are just the reverse of each other in almost every particular, and in the whole spirit of the transaction. With us it was the case of a legal monarch attempting arbitrary power; in France it is the case of an arbitrary monarch beginning, from whatever cause, to legalize his authority. The one was to be resisted, the other was to be managed and directed; but in neither case was the order of the state to be changed, lest government might be ruined, which ought only to be corrected and legalized. With us we got rid of the man, and preserved the const.i.tuent parts of the state. There they get rid of the const.i.tuent parts of the state, and keep the man.

What we did was in truth and substance, and in a const.i.tutional light, a revolution, not made, but prevented. We took solid securities; we settled doubtful questions; we corrected anomalies in our law. In the stable, fundamental parts of our Const.i.tution we made no revolution,--no, nor any alteration at all. We did not impair the monarchy. Perhaps it might be shown that we strengthened it very considerably. The nation kept the same ranks, the same orders, the same privileges, the same franchises, the same rules for property, the same subordinations, the same order in the law, in the revenue, and in the magistracy,--the same lords, the same commons, the same corporations, the same electors.

The Church was not impaired. Her estates, her majesty, her splendor, her orders and gradations, continued the same. She was preserved in her full efficiency, and cleared only of a certain intolerance, which was her weakness and disgrace. The Church and the State were the same after the Revolution that they were before, but better secured in every part.

Was little done because a revolution was not made in the Const.i.tution?

No! Everything was done; because we commenced with reparation, not with ruin. Accordingly, the state flourished. Instead of lying as dead, in a sort of trance, or exposed, as some others, in an epileptic fit, to the pity or derision of the world, for her wild, ridiculous, convulsive movements, impotent to every purpose but that of dashing out her brains against the pavement, Great Britain rose above the standard even of her former self. An era of a more improved domestic prosperity then commenced, and still continues, not only unimpaired, but growing, under the wasting hand of time. All the energies of the country were awakened.

England never preserved a firmer countenance or a more vigorous arm to all her enemies and to all her rivals. Europe under her respired and revived. Everywhere she appeared as the protector, a.s.sertor, or avenger of liberty. A war was made and supported against fortune itself. The treaty of Ryswick, which first limited the power of France, was soon after made; the grand alliance very shortly followed, which shook to the foundations the dreadful power which menaced the independence of mankind. The states of Europe lay happy under the shade of a great and free monarchy, which knew how to be great without endangering its own peace at home or the internal or external peace of any of its neighbors.

Mr. Burke said he should have felt very unpleasantly, if he had not delivered these sentiments. He was near the end of his natural, probably still nearer the end of his political career. That he was weak and weary, and wished for rest. That he was little disposed to controversies, or what is called a detailed opposition. That at his time of life, if he could not do something by some sort of weight of opinion, natural or acquired, it was useless and indecorous to attempt anything by mere struggle. _Turpe senex miles_. That he had for that reason little attended the army business, or that of the revenue, or almost any other matter of detail, for some years past. That he had, however, his task. He was far from condemning such opposition; on the contrary, he most highly applauded it, where a just occasion existed for it, and gentlemen had vigor and capacity to pursue it. Where a great occasion occurred, he was, and, while he continued in Parliament, would be, amongst the most active and the most earnest,--as he hoped he had shown on a late event. With respect to the Const.i.tution itself, he wished few alterations in it,--happy if he left it not the worse for any share he had taken in its service.

Mr. Fox then rose, and declared, in substance, that, so far as regarded the French army, he went no farther than the general principle, by which that army showed itself indisposed to be an instrument in the servitude of their fellow-citizens, but did not enter into the particulars of their conduct. He declared that he did not affect a democracy: that he always thought any of the simple, unbalanced governments bad: simple monarchy, simple aristocracy, simple democracy,--he held them all imperfect or vicious; all were bad by themselves; the composition alone was good. That these had been always his principles, in which he had agreed with his friend Mr. Burke,--of whom he had said many kind and flattering things, which Mr. Burke, I take it for granted, will know himself too well to think he merits from anything but Mr. Fox's acknowledged good-nature. Mr. Fox thought, however, that, in many cases, Mr. Burke was rather carried too far by his hatred to innovation.

Mr. Burke said, he well knew that these had been Mr. Fox's invariable opinions; that they were a sure ground for the confidence of his country. But he had been fearful that cabals of very different intentions would be ready to make use of his great name, against his character and sentiments, in order to derive a credit to their destructive machinations.

Mr. Sheridan then rose, and made a lively and eloquent speech against Mr. Burke; in which, among other things, he said that Mr. Burke had libelled the National a.s.sembly of France, and had cast out reflections on such characters as those of the Marquis de La Fayette and Mr. Bailly.

Mr. Burke said, that he did not libel the National a.s.sembly of France, whom he considered very little in the discussion of these matters. That he thought all the substantial power resided in the republic of Paris, whose authority guided, or whose example was followed by, all the republics of France. The republic of Paris had an army under their orders, and not under those of the National a.s.sembly.

N.B. As to the particular gentlemen, I do not remember that Mr. Burke mentioned either of them,--certainly not Mr. Bailly. He alluded, undoubtedly, to the case of the Marquis de La Fayette; but whether what he a.s.serted of him be a libel on him must be left to those who are acquainted with the business.

Mr. Pitt concluded the debate with becoming gravity and dignity, and a reserve on both sides of the question, as related to France, fit for a person in a ministerial situation. He said, that what he had spoken only regarded France when she should unite, which he rather thought she soon might, with the liberty she had acquired, the blessings of law and order. He, too, said several civil things concerning the sentiments of Mr. Burke, as applied to this country.

FOOTNOTES:

[75] Mr. Burke probably had in his mind the remainder of the pa.s.sage, and was filled with some congenial apprehensions:--

Haec finis Priami fatorum; hic exitus illum Sorte tulit, Trojam incensam et prolapsa videntem Pergama, tot quondam populis terrisque superb.u.m Regnatorem Asiae. Jacet ingens littore truncus, Avolsumque humeris caput, et sine nomine corpus.

_At me_ tum primum saevus circ.u.mstet.i.t horror.

Obstupui: _subiit chari genitoris imago_.

[76] They are Sworn to obey the king, the nation, and the law.

REFLECTIONS

ON THE

REVOLUTION IN FRANCE,

THE PROCEEDINGS IN CERTAIN SOCIETIES IN

LONDON RELATIVE TO THAT EVENT:

IN A LETTER

INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN SENT TO A GENTLEMAN IN PARIS.

1790.

It may not be unnecessary to inform the reader that the following Reflections had their origin in a correspondence between the author and a very young gentleman at Paris, who did him the honor of desiring his opinion upon the important transactions which then, and ever since have, so much occupied the attention of all men. An answer was written some time in the month of October, 1789; but it was kept back upon prudential considerations. That letter is alluded to in the beginning of the following sheets. It has been since forwarded to the person to whom it was addressed. The reasons for the delay in sending it were a.s.signed in a short letter to the same gentleman. This produced on his part a new and pressing application for the author's sentiments.

The author began a second and more full discussion on the subject. This he had some thoughts of publishing early in the last spring; but the matter gaining upon him, he found that what he had undertaken not only far exceeded the measure of a letter, but that its importance required rather a more detailed consideration than at that time he had any leisure to bestow upon it. However, having thrown down his first thoughts in the form of a letter, and, indeed, when he sat down to write, having intended it for a private letter, he found it difficult to change the form of address, when his sentiments had grown into a greater extent and had received another direction. A different plan, he is sensible, might be more favorable to a commodious division and distribution of his matter.

REFLECTIONS

ON