by Edmund Burke
Such is the law of civil vicinity. Now, where there is no constituted judge, as between independent states there is not, the vicinage itself is the natural judge. It is, preventively, the assessor of its own rights, or remedially, their avenger. Neighbours are presumed to take cognizance of each other’s acts. “Vicini vicinorum facta presumuntur scire.” This principle, which, like the rest, is as true of nations as of individual men, has bestowed on the grand vicinage of Europe a duty to know, and a right to prevent, any capital innovation which may amount to the erection of a dangerous nuisance. Of the importance of that innovation, and the mischief of that nuisance, they are, to be sure, bound to judge, not litigiously; but it is in their competence to judge. They have uniformly acted on this right. What in civil society is a ground of action, in politic society is a ground of war. But the exercise of that competent jurisdiction is a matter of moral prudence. As suits in civil society, so war in the political, must ever be a matter of great deliberation. It is not this or that particular proceeding, picked out here and there, as a subject of quarrel, that will do. There must be an aggregate of mischief. There must be marks of deliberation, there must be traces of design, there must be indications of malice, there must be tokens of ambition. There must be force in the body where they exist, there must be energy in the mind. When all these circumstances are combined, or the important parts of them, the duty of the vicinity calls for the exercise of its competence; and the rules of prudence do not restrain, but demand it.
In describing the nuisance erected by so pestilential a manufactory, by the construction of so infamous a brothel, by digging a night-cellar for such thieves, murderers, and house-breakers, as never infested the world, I am so far from aggravating, that I have fallen infinitely short of the evil. No man who has attended to the particulars of what has been done in France, and combined them with the principles there asserted, can possibly doubt it. When I compare with this great cause of nations, the trifling points of honour, the still more contemptible points of interest, the light ceremonies and undefinable punctilios, the disputes about precedency, the lowering or the hoisting of a sail, the dealing in a hundred or two of wild cat-skins on the other side of the globe, which have often kindled up the flames of war between nations, I stand astonished at those persons, who do not feel a resentment, not more natural than politic, at the atrocious insults that this monstrous compound offers to the dignity of every nation, and who are not alarmed with what it threatens to their safety.
I have therefore been decidedly of opinion, with our declaration at Whitehall, in the beginning of this war, that the vicinage of Europe had not only a right, but an indispensable duty, and an exigent interest, to denunciate this new work before it had produced the danger we have so sorely felt, and which we shall long feel. The example of what is done by France is too important not to have a vast and extensive influence; and that example, backed with its power, must bear with great force on those who are near it; especially on those who shall recognise the pretended republic on the principle upon which it now stands. It is not an old structure which you have found as it is, and are not to dispute of the original end and design with which it had been so fashioned. It is a recent wrong, and can plead no prescription. It violates the rights upon which not only the community of France, but those on which all communities are founded. The principles on which they proceed are general principles, and are as true in England as in any other country. They, who (though with the purest intentions) recognise the authority of these regicides and robbers upon principle, justify their acts and establish them as precedents. It is a question not between France and England. It is a question between property and force. The property claims; and its claim has been allowed. The property of the nation is the nation. They, who massacre, plunder, and expel the body of the proprietary, are murderers and robbers. The state, in its essence, must be moral and just: and it may be so, though a tyrant or usurper should be accidentally at the head of it. This is a thing to be lamented: but this notwithstanding, the body of the commonwealth may remain in all its integrity and be perfectly sound in its composition. The present case is different. It is not a revolution in government. It is not the victory of party over party. It is a destruction and decomposition of the whole society; which never can be made of right by any faction, however powerful, nor without terrible consequences to all about it, both in the act and in the example. This pretended republic is founded in crimes, and exists by wrong and robbery; and wrong and robbery, far from a title to anything, is war with mankind. To be at peace with robbery is to be an accomplice with it....
PART VII
SELECTED LETTERS
To the Duke of Richmond
In this letter of November 17, 1772, to Charles Lennox, third duke of Richmond, a member of the Rockingham party, Burke offers his memorable characterization of the aristocracy as “the great oaks that shade a country. ” It is interesting to compare the tone of this letter wlth Burke’s bitter criticism of the Russells in his “Letter to a Noble Lord. ”
... DECORUM, FIRMNESS, consistency, courage, patient, manly perseverance, —these are the virtues of despair. They are worth something, surely; and none has profited so much of that situation as your grace, nor could you have shown of what materials you are made in any other. Persons in your station of life ought to have long views. You people of great families and hereditary trusts and fortunes, are not like such as I am, who, whatever we may be, by the rapidity of our growth, and even by the fruit we bear, and flatter ourselves that, while we creep on the ground, we belly into melons that are exquisite for size and flavour, yet still are but annual plants, that perish with our season, and leave no sort of traces behind us. You, if you are what you ought to be, are in my eye the great oaks that shade a country, and perpetuate your benefits from generation to generation. The immediate power of a Duke of Richmond, or a Marquis of Rockingham, is not so much of moment; but if their conduct and example hand down their principles to their successors, then their houses become the public repositories and offices of record for the constitution; not like the Tower, or Rolls-chapel, where it is searched for and sometimes in vain, in rotten parchments under dripping and perishing walls, but in full vigour, and acting with vital energy and power, in the character of the leading men and natural interests of the country. It has been remarked that there were two eminent families at Rome, that for several ages were distinguished uniformly by opposite characters and principles, the Claudian and Valerian. The former were high and haughty, but public-spirited, firm, and active, and attached to the aristocracy. The latter were popular in their tempers, manners, and principles. So far the remark: —but I add that any one, who looks attentively to their history, will see that the balance of that famous constitution was kept up for some ages, by the personal characters, dispositions, and traditionary politics of certain families, as much as by any thing in the laws and orders of the state; so that I do not look upon your time or lives lost, if, in this sliding away from the genuine spirit of the country, certain parties, if possible, if not the heads of certain families, should make it their business, by the whole course of their lives, principally by their example, to mould into the very vital stamina of their descendants, those principles which ought to be transmitted pure and unmixed to posterity. Neither Lord Rockingham nor your grace have children: however, you do not want successors of your blood; nor, I trust, heirs of your qualities and your virtues, and of the power which sooner or later will be derived from them. This I say to comfort myself, and possibly your grace, in the present melancholy view of our affairs. “Although the field is lost all is not lost,” to give you a line of your Milton, who has somewhat reconciled you to poetry,—and he is an able advocate.
To William Burgh, Esq.
Burke wrote on February 9, 1775, to the Oxford religious writer Dr. William Burgh. He makes very clear that he would prefer official toleration of all religious groups—“Jews, Mahometans, and even Pagans. ”
DEAR SIR,
&n
bsp; I beg you will not think that my delay in returning you the proof sheet of your most ingenious and most obliging dedication, could proceed from a want of the liveliest sensibility to the great honour you have done me. I now return the proof with my sincerest and most grateful acknowledgments.
Some topics are touched in that dedication, on which I could wish to explain myself to you. I should have been glad to do it through Mr. Mason; but to my great loss, on this and many other accounts, he left town suddenly. Indeed, at that time and ever since, the pressure of American business on one hand, and a petition against my election on the other, left me not a single minute at my disposal, and I have now little leisure enough to explain myself clearly on some points in that dedication, which I either misunderstand, or they go upon a misapprehension of some part of my public conduct; for which reason, I wish, if I might presume to interfere, that they may be a little altered.
It is certain that I have, to the best of my power, supported the establishment of the church, upon grounds and principles which I am happy to find countenanced by your approbation. This you have been told; but you have not heard that I supported also the petition of the dissenters, for a larger toleration than they enjoy at present under the letter of the act of King William. In fact, my opinion in favour of toleration goes far beyond the limits of that act, which was no more than a provision for certain sets of men, under certain circumstances, and by no means what is commonly called “an act of toleration.” I am greatly deceived, if my opinions on this subject are not consistent with the strictest and the best supported church establishment. I cannot consider our dissenters, of almost any kind, as schismatics; whatever some of their leaders might originally have been in the eye of Him, who alone knows whether they acted under the direction of such a conscience as they had, or at the instigation of pride and passion. There are many things amongst most of them, which I rather dislike than dare to condemn. My ideas of toleration go far beyond even theirs. I would give a full civil protection, in which I include an immunity from all disturbance of their public religious worship, and a power of teaching in schools as well as temples, to Jews, Mahometans, and even Pagans; especially if they are already possessed of those advantages by long and prescriptive usage, which is as sacred in this exercise of rights, as in any other. Much more am I inclined to tolerate those whom I look upon as our brethren. I mean all those who profess our common hope, extending to all the reformed and unreformed churches, both at home and abroad; in none of whom I find any thing capitally amiss, but their mutual hatred of each other. I can never think any man a heretic, or schismatic, by education. It must be, as I conceive, by an act, in which his own choice (influenced by blamable passions) is more concerned than it can be by his early prejudices, and his being aggregated to bodies, for whom men naturally form a great degree of reverence and affection. This is my opinion, and my conduct has been conformable to it. Another age will see it more general; and I think that this general affection to religion will never introduce indifference, but will rather increase real zeal, Christian fervour, and pious emulation; that it will make a common cause against Epicurism, and every thing that corrupts the mind and renders it unworthy of its family. But toleration does not exclude national preference, either as to mode or opinions, and all the lawful and honest means which may be used for the support of that preference.
I should be happy to converse with you, and such as you, on these subjects, and to unlearn my mistaken opinions, if such they should be; for, however, erroneous, I believe there is no evil ingredient in them. In looking over that dedication, if you should agree with me, that there are some expressions that carry with them an idea of my pushing my ideas of church establishment further than I do, you will naturally soften or change them accordingly. I do not know very well how to excuse the great liberty I take, in troubling you with observations, where I ought to speak only my obligations. Be assured, that I feel myself extremely honoured by your good opinion, and shall be made very happy by your friendship.
I AM, WITH THE GREATEST ESTEEM, & C.
To the Marquis of Rockingham
In this letter to his parliamentary patron, written on August 23, 1775, Burke reveals his sadness at the outbreak of hostilities in America as a result of Britain’s repressive response to events in Boston. Rockingham had “saved”America ten years earlier, Burke notes; would that he could do it again.
... WE ARE, AT LENGTH, actually involved in that war which your lordship, to your infinite honour, has made so many efforts to keep at a distance. It has come upon us in a manner more disagreeable and unpromising, than the most gloomy prognostic had ever foretold it. Your lordship’s observation on the general temper of the nation at this crisis, is certainly just. If any indication is to be taken from external appearances, the king is entirely satisfied with the present state of his government. His spirits at his levees, at the play, every where, seem to be remarkably good. His ministers, too, are perfectly at their ease. Most of them are amusing themselves in the country, while England is disfurnished of its forces in the face of armed Europe, and Gibraltar and Minorca are delivered over to the custody of foreigners. They are at their ease relative to the only point which could give them anxiety,—they are assured of their places.
As to the good people of England, they seem to partake every day, more and more, of the character of that administration which they have been induced to tolerate. I am satisfied, that within a few years, there has been a great change in the national character. We seem no longer that eager, inquisitive, jealous, fiery people, which we have been formerly, and which we have been a very short time ago. The people look back, without pleasure or indignation; and forward, without hope or fear. No man commends the measures which have been pursued, or expects any good from those which are in preparation; but it is a cold, languid opinion, like what men discover in affairs that do not concern them. It excites to no passion; it prompts to no action.
In all this state of things I find my observation and intelligence perfectly agree with your lordship’s. In one point, indeed, I have the misfortune to differ. I do not think that weeks, or even months, or years, will bring the monarch, the ministers, or the people, to feeling. To bring the people to a feeling, such a feeling, I mean, as tends to amendment, or alteration of system, there must be a plan and management. All direction of public humour and opinion must originate in a few. Perhaps a good deal of that humour and opinion must be owing to such direction. Events supply materials; times furnish dispositions; but conduct alone can bring them to bear to any useful purpose. I never yet knew an instance of any general temper in the nation, that might not have been tolerably well traced to some particular persons. If things are left to themselves, it is my clear opinion that a nation may slide down fair and softly from the highest point of grandeur and prosperity to the lowest state of imbecility and meanness, without any one’s marking a particular period in this declension, without asking a question about it, or in the least speculating on any of the innumerable acts which have stolen in this silent and insensible revolution. Every event so prepares the subsequent, that, when it arrives, it produces no surprise, nor any extraordinary alarm. I am certain that if pains, great and immediate pains, are not taken to prevent it, such must be the fate of this country. We look to the merchants in vain—they are gone from us, and from themselves. They consider America as lost, and they look to administration for an indemnity. Hopes are accordingly held out to them, that some equivalent for their debts will be provided. In the mean time, the leading men among them are kept full fed with contracts, and remittances, and jobs of all descriptions; and they are indefatigable in their endeavours to keep the others quiet, with the prospect of their share in those emoluments, of which they see their advisers already so amply in possession. They all, or the greatest number of them, begin to snuff the cadaverous haut gout of lucrative war. War, indeed, is become a sort of substitute for commerce. The freighting business never was so lively, on account of the prodigious taking up for tr
ansport service. Great orders for provisions and stores of all kinds, new clothing for the troops, and the intended six thousand Canadians, puts life into the woollen manufacture; and a number of men of war, ordered to be equipped, has given a pretence for such a quantity of nails and other iron work, as to keep the midland parts tolerably quiet. All this, with the incredible increase of the northern market since the peace between Russia and the Porte, keeps up the spirits of the mercantile world, and induces them to consider the American war, not so much their calamity, as their resource in an inevitable distress. This is the state of most, not of all the merchants.
