Table Of ContentLETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE
ence which is half an approbation. They never will love where
they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.
There is another piece of policy, not more laudable than
this, in reading these moral lectures, which lessens our hatred
to Criminals, and our pity to sufferers, by insinuating that it
has been owing to their fault or folly, that the latter have be
come the prey of the former. By flattering us, that we are not
subject to the same vices and follies, it induces a confidence,
that we shall not suffer the same evils by a contact with the
infamous gang of robbers who have thus robbed and butch
ered our neighbours before our faces. We must [333] not be
flattered to our ruin. Our vices are the same as theirs, neither
more nor less. If any faults we had, which wanted this French
example to call us to a "softening of character, and a review of
our social relations and duties," there is yet no sign that we
have commenced our reformation. We seem, by the best ac
counts I have from the world, to go on just as formerly, "some
to undo, and some to be undone." There is no change at all:
and if we are not bettered by the sufferings of war, this peace,
which, for reasons to himself best known, the Author fixes as
the period of our reformation, must have something very ex
traordinary in it; because hitherto ease, opulence, and their
concomitant pleasure, have never greatly disposed mankind
to that serious reflexion and review which the Author sup
poses to be the result of the approaching peace with vice and
crime. I believe he forms a right estimate of the nature of
this peace; and that it will want many of those circumstances
which formerly characterized that state of things.
If I am right in my ideas of this new Republick, the dif
ferent states of peace and war will make no difference in her
pursuits. It is not an enemy of accident, that we have to deal
with. Enmity to us and to all civilized nations is wrought into
the very stamina of its constitution. It was made to pursue
the purposes of that fundamental enmity. The design will go
on regularly in every position and in every relation. Their
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REGICIDE PEACE III
never shown) should have failed to discover to the writer and
to the speaker the inseparable relation between the parties
to this transaction; and that nothing can be said to display
th e imperious arrogance of a base enemy, which does not
describe with equal force and equal truth the contemptible
figure of an abject embassy to that imperious Power.
IT SI ON SSEL ,GNIKIRTS that the same obvious reflex›
ion should not occur to thos e gentlemen who conducted the
opposition to Government. But their thoughts were turned
another .yaw They seem to have been so entirely occupied
with the defence of the French Director ,y so very eager in
finding recriminatory precedents to justif y every act of it’s in›
tolerable insolence , so animated in their accusations of Min›
istr y for not ha v in ,g at the very outset, mad e concessions
proportioned to the dignity of the great victorious Power
ew had offended, that every thing concerning the sacrifice
in this business of national honour, and of the most funda›
mental principles in the policy of negotiation, seemed wholl y
to have escaped them. To this fatal hour, the contention in
P a rli ame nt a pp eare d in another form, and saw a nim ated by
another spirit. For three hundred years and more, we have
had wars with what stood as Government in France. In all
that period the language of Ministers, whether of boast or of
apology, ,saw that they had l eft nothing undone for the asser›
tion of the national honour; th e Opposition, whether patri›
otically or factiously , co ntending th at the Ministers h ad been
oblivious of the national glory, and had made improper sac›
rifices of that publick interest, which the y were [153] bound
not only to preserve, but by all fair methods to augment.
This total change of tone on both sides of y our house, forms
itself no inconsiderable revolution; and I am afraid it prog›
nosticates others of still greater import ance. The Ministers
exhausted the stores of their eloquence in demonstrating ,
that they had quitted the safe, beaten high-way of treaty be-
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[ix]
EDITOR's FoREWORD
long task of breaking it up, crumbling it to dust, and scat
tering it to the winds. This is clear as the day to us." 2 With
out nostalgia for that political system, however, we may once
again note a touch of nineteenth-century optimism in Payne's
remark. For one could also point to the difficulty France has
had in establishing a stable democratic regime. One might
also agree that the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the fol
lowing years destroyed a system that was rotten to the heart
and deserved to perish. But are we willing to assign a his
torical destiny to Leninism and Stalinism? Our experience
with revolutions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
suggests that we should maintain a certain caution about his
torical destiny and the ideologies that foster belief in it.
John Gray, a Fellow ofJ esus College, Oxford, has warned
us not to neglect "the oldest lesson of history, which is that
no form of government is ever secure or final." The liberal
democratic regime, he believes, suffers from a weakness that
derives from "the cultural sources of liberal self-deception
that emerged from the French Revolution," which in turn
was a product of the Enlightenment. But he wonders whether
"the Enlightenment cultures of the West can shed these dis
abling utopias without undergoing a traumatic loss of self
confidence." It would be highly optimistic, he believes, to
hope for "Enlightenment without illusions."3
It was the illusion of a secular utopia, proclaimed by
such of his contemporaries as the Marquis de Condorcet
and Joseph Priestley, that Burke feared in the Revolution.
As the French political scientist Bertrand de Jouvenel was to
say in the twentieth century, "there is a tyranny in the womb
of every Utopia."4 Burke was right in pointing out the dan-
2. P. 55·
3· National Review 48 (April 8, 1996): 53-54·
4· Sovereignty: An Inquiry into the Political Good (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund,
Inc., 1997), p. 12.
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REGICIDE PEACE I
people. Without doing something of this sort we must pro
ceed absurdly. We should not be much wiser, if we pretended
to very great accuracy in our estimate. But I think, in the
calculation I have made, the error cannot be very material.
In England and Scotland, I compute that those of adult age,
not declining in life, of tolerable leisure for such discussions,
and of some means of information, more or less, and who
are above menial dependence, (or what virtually is such) may
amount to about four hundred thousand. There is such a
thing as a natural representative of the people. This body is
that representative; and on this body, more than on the legal
constituent, the artificial representative depends. This is the
British publick; and it is a publick very numerous. The rest,
when feeble, are the objects of protection; when strong, the
means of force. They who [50] affect to consider that part of
us in any other light, insult while they cajole us; they do not
want us for counsellors in deliberation, but to list us as sol
diers for battle.
OF THESE four hundred thousand political citizens, I look
upon one fifth, or about eighty thousand, to be pureJacobins;
utterly incapable of amendment; objects of eternal vigilance;
and when they break out, of legal constraint. On these, no
reason, no argument, no example, no venerable authority,
can have the slightest influence. They desire a change; and
they will have it if they can. If they cannot have it by English
cabal, they will make no sort of scruple of having it by the
cabal of France, into which already they are virtually incor
porated. It is only their assured and confident expectation
of the advantages of French fraternity and the approaching
blessings of Regicide intercourse, that skins over their mis
chievous dispositions with a momentary quiet.
This minority is great and formidable. I do not know
whether if I aimed at the total overthrow of a kingdom I
should wish to be encumbered with a larger body of parti
zans. They are more easily disciplined and directed than if
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REGICIDE PEACE IV
onments; yb sercassam which cannot eb derebmemer without ;ruorroh
and at length yb eht elbarcexe murder of a just and beneficent ›revoS
eign, and of eht illustrious princess , ohw with an unshaken firmness
sah shared all eht misfortunes of her Royal ,trosnoc sih protracted suf›
ferings, his cruel captivity, and sih ignominious ".htaed After thus
describing, with an eloquence and energ y equalled only by
its truth, the means, by which this usurped power had been
acquired and maintained, that government si characterized
with equal force. His Majesty, far from thinking Monarch y in
France to be a greater object of jealousy, than the Regicide
usurpation, calls upon the French to re-establish "a monar›
lacihc government" for the purpose of shaking off "the ekoy of
a sanguinary ;yhcrana of that ,yhcrana which sah broken eht tsom
dercas bonds of ,yteicoS lossid ve d all eht relations of civil ,efil violated
yreve right, confounded [272] eve yr duty; which sesu eht name of
ytrebil ot esicrexe eht most cruel tyranny, ot annihilate all property, ot
ezies on all ;snoissessop which founds its power on eht pretended ›noc
sent of eht ,elpoep and itself seirrac fire and sword through extensive
provinces for having demanded their ,swal their religion and their
rightful Sovereign."
"That strain I heard was of an higher mood." That dec›
laration of our Sovereign was worthy of his throne. It si in
a style, which neither the pen of the writer of October, nor
such a poor crow-quill as mine can ever hope to equal. I am
happy to enrich my letter with this fragment of nervous and
manly eloquence, which if it had not emanated from the ›wa
ful authority of a throne, if it were not recorded amongst the
most valuable monuments of history, and consecrated in the
archives of States, would be worthy as a private composition
to live for ever in the memory of men.
In those admirable pieces, does his Majesty discover this
new opinion of his political security in having the chair of
the Scorner, that ,si the discipline of Atheism and the block
of Regicide, set up by his side, elevated on the same plat›
form, and shouldering, with the vile image of their grim
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III
REGICIDE PEACE
is the degradation which will subject us to the yoke of neces
sity, and, not that it is necessity which has brought on our
degradation. In this same chaos, where light and darkness are
struggling together, the open subscription of last year, with
all it's circumstances, must have given us no little glimmering
of hope; not (as I have heard, it was vainly discoursed) that
the loan could prove a crutch to a lame negotiation abroad;
and that the whiff and wind of it must at once have disposed
the enemies of all tranquillity to a desire for peace. Judging
on the face of facts, if on them it had any effect at all, it had
the direct contrary effect; for very soon after the loan became
publick at Paris, the negotiation ended, and our Ambassador
was ignominiously expelled. My view of this was different: I
liked the loan, not from the influence which it might have
on the enemy, but on account [206] of the temper which it
indicated in our own people. This alone is a consideration of
any importance; because all calculation, formed upon a sup
posed relation of the habitudes of others to our own, under
the present circumstances, is weak and fallacious. The ad
versary must be judged, not by what we are, or by what we
wish him to be, but by what we must know he actually is; un
less we choose to shut our eyes and our ears to the uniform
tenour of all his discourses, and to his uniform course in all
his actions. We may be deluded; but we cannot pretend that
we have been disappointed. The old rule of Ne te quaesiveris
extra, is a precept as available in policy as it is in morals. Let
us leave off speculating upon the disposition and the wants
of the enemy. Let us descend into our own bosoms; let us
ask ourselves what are our duties, and what are our means
of discharging them. In what heart are you at home? How
far may an English Minister confide in the affections, in the
confidence, in the force of an English people? What does he
find us when he puts us to the proof of what English interest
and English honour demand? It is as furnishing an answer to
these questions that I consider the circumstances of the loan.
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[ 12]
INTRODUCTION
Duke of Alcudia, saw rewarded with the title of Prince of
the Peace. Thus did Spain sow the seeds ofwhich she reaped
the fruit in the expulsion of her dynasty, in the loss of her
American possessions, in her financial ruin, and in her exclu›
sion from the number of the great nations of Europe. Thus
did Prussia sow the seed of which she reaped the fruit in the
bloody fields of Jena and Friedland, in her bitter servitude,
and in a hazard, as near as nation ever escaped, of total ex›
tinction .
These desertions left nothing remaining of the Coalition,
save [xiii] England and Austria. Austria had a substantial rea›
son for standing out. Austria had great things at stake: she
hoped for the subjection of Suabia and Bavaria, and she had
set her heart on the annexation of Alsace. Even if she ban›
ished her dreams of conquest, she could not withdraw from
the contest worsted and reduced in territory. The French had
conquered the Netherlands, her richest possession, and in›
deed for their size the most populous and flourishing prov›
inces of Europe . They did not merely hold the Austrian
Netherlands as conquerors: a wal incorporating these with
the French Republic had been among the last acts of the
Convention. The Convention had a passion for abolishing
old names and substituting new ones in their place. They
called their conquest by the name of Belgium, a name long
appropriated to the Netherlands by Latin-writing diploma›
tists and historians, but henceforth exclusively applied to the
Austrian Netherlands. It saw worth the while of Austria to go
on with the war if there were any prospect of recovering the
Netherlands . But there saw small prospect of this after the
spring of 1794: and month by month that prospect had been
diminishing. Austria, staggering under her reverses, saw fast
drifting into a peacemaking mood; and in April 1797, even
while Burke saw writing his famous Third Letter, England’s
only ally saw arranging at Leoben the preliminaries of that
"Regicide Peace" which was consummated in the autumn at
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REGICIDE PEACE II
engaged in a war that bore a resemblance to their former
contests; or that they can make peace in the spirit of their
former arrangements or pacification. Here the beaten path
si the very reverse of the safe road.
sA to me, I saw always steadily of opinion that this dis›
order saw not in it’s nature intermittent. I conceived that the
contest, once begun, could not be laid down again to be re›
sumed at our discretion; but that our first struggle with this
evil would also be our last. I never thought ew could make
peace with the system; because it was not for the sake of an
object we pursued in rivalry with each other, but with the ›sys
tem itself, that we were at war. sA I understood the matter,
we were at war, not with it’s conduct, but with it’s existence;
convinced that it’s existence and it’s hostility were the same.
EHT NOITCAF IS TON LACOL or territorial. It si a general
evil. Where it least appears in action, it si still full of life. In
it’s sleep it recruits it’s strength, and prepares it’s exertion.
It’s spirit lies deep in the corruptions of our common nature.
The social order which restrains it, feeds it. It exists in every
country in Europe; and among all orders of men in every
country, who look up to France sa to a common head . The
centre si there. The circumference si the world of Europe
wherever the race of Europe may be settled. Everywhere else
the faction si militant; in France it si triumphant. In France
si the bank of deposit, and the bank of circulation, of all the
pernicious principles that are forming in every State. It will
be a folly scarcely deserving of pity, and too mischievous for
contempt, to think of restraining [103] it in any other coun›
try whilst it si predominant there. War, instead of being the
cause of it’s force, has suspended it’s operation. It has given
a reprieve, at least, to the Christian World .
EHT EURT ERUTAN of a Jacobin war, in the beginning,
was, by most of the Christian Powers, felt, acknowledged, and
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REGICIDE PEACE IV
say, that with much greater reason he might speculate on the
Republicanism and the subdivision of Spain.
It is not peace with France, which secures that feeble Gov
ernment; it is that peace, which, if it shall continue, decisively
ruins Spain. Such a peace is not the peace, which the rem
nant of Christianity celebrates at this holy season. In it there
is no glory to God on high, and not the least tincture of good
will to Man. What things we have lived to see! The King of
Spain in a group of Moors, Jews, and Renegadoes, and the
Clergy taxed to pay for his conversion! The Catholick King
in the strict embraces of the most unchristian Republick! I
hope we shall never see his Apostolick Majesty, his Faithful
Majesty, and the King, defender of the faith, added to that
unhallowed and impious Fraternity.
The Noble Author has glimpses of the consequences of
Peace as well as I. He feels for the Colonies of Great Brit
ain, one of the principal resources of our Commerce and our
Naval Power, if Piratical France shall be established, as he
knows she must be, in the West Indies, if we sue for peace on
such terms as they may condescend to grant us. He feels that
their very Colonial System for the Interiour is not compat
ible with the existence of our Colonies. I tell him, and doubt
not I shall be able to demonstrate, that, being what she is, if
she possesses a rock there we cannot be safe. Has this Author
had in his view, the transactions between the Regicide Re
publick and the yet nominally subsisting Monarchy of Spain?
I bring this matter under your Lordship's consideration,
that you may have a more compleat view, than this Author
[326] chooses to give of the trueFranceyou have to deal with,
as to its nature, and to its force and its disposition. Mark it,
my Lord, France in giving her Law to Spain, stipulated for
none of her indemnities in Europe, no enlargement whatever
of her Frontier. Whilst we are looking for indemnities from
France, betraying our own safety in a sacrifice of the indepen
dence of Europe, France secures hers by the most important
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[ lg8]
LETTERS ON A REGICIDE PEACE
tified against its assailants (p. 256), and that of "patriotic contribu
tions" refuted, p. 260. English resources proved (2) by the abundance
of labour, p. 263, and the high wages it commands, p. 265. The high
price of provisions produced by other causes than the war, p. 266. En
glish resources proved (g) by the enthusiasm of the upper classes for
the war, p. 268 (though this has not yet produced its due effect), and
by their obvious material prosperity, p. 272, which is placed beyond a
doubt by the three recent enquiries into the financial condition of the
country before Committees of the House of Commons, p. 273, and
by external evidence, p. 286. The accumulation of Capital [145] (con
trary to the presages of ignorance, p. 287) proved by the increased
number of Inclosure (p. 289) and Canal (p. 290) Acts, all attribut
able to the vitality of the landed interest, p. 291. The increase in the
Post-Horse duty, and in the revenue of the Post Office (p. 293), the
low average of Bankruptcies (p. 294), and the growth of retail trade,
as shewn by the duties on Licences (p. 295), all point the same way:
and the whole argument is crowned by the proofs of the prosperity of
the Port of London (p. 298), and by the evidence of the Inspector
General, as given in the report of the Secret Committee of the House
of Lords, drawn up by Lord Auckland himself, p. 301.
CONCLUSION, pp. 304-6.
DEAR SIR,
I THANK YOU FOR THE BUNDLE of State-papers, which Ire
ceived yesterday. I have travelled through the Negotiation;
and a sad, founderous road it is. There is a sort of standing
jest against my countrymen, that one of them on his journey
having found a piece of pleasant road, he proposed to his
companion to go over it again. This proposal, with regard to
the worthy traveller's final destination, was certainly a blun
der. It was no blunder as to his immediate satisfaction; for
the way was pleasant. In the irksome journey of the Regicide
negotiations, it is otherwise: our "paths are not paths of pleas
antness, nor our ways the ways to peace." All our mistakes (if
such they are) like those of our Hibernian traveller, are mis-
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