Complete Works of Edmund Burke

by Edmund Burke

  In the mean time the ministerial writers may manufacture paragraphs to amuse the people of England; the Ministers may send out more porter to keep up the spirits of the disheartened troops at Boston; the yet remaining wealth of England may be squandered in various ways, for the purpose of hiding under lucrative contracts for war, the hasty declension of trade; they may buy, or beg, or cheat corporations into flattering addresses. All these are but poor and temporary devices, which may for a while veil from our eyes the real state of our affairs, but are not of power to avert or soften the smallest part of the impending calamity. Insensibility of danger, and security from it, are very different things.

  The African trade has felt the blow already. The West-India trade staggers, and is doomed to fall the next. No trade can long stand the present unwise contest. The loss of the American commerce is a lasting evil; the substitute for it, in the flush which the Russian peace and the Spanish armament have caused, is contingent, casual, inadequate.

  The ministerial Manifesto, from which I have quoted the above extraordinary passages, speaks of it as of a circumstance of astonishing absurdity,

  “that an Englishman should look upon the TRIUMPH of the King’s troops with regret.”

  Englishmen will tell Ministers what they think of such a triumph, when they have the fortune to see it. As yet that triumph has not been cause of joy or sorrow to any man alive.

  Do these men mock at our distress? Do they really think that the precipitous retreat of the King’s troops from Lexington, was a triumph? Do they think that the action at Bunker’s-hill, where at the expence of more than half the number that fought, these troops purchased a small enlargement of their burial ground, was a triumph? Do they imagine that it is a triumph of these poor half-starved troops, to have suffered from the day of that action, as indeed they had long before, as close a blockade as any garrison can suffer in a place that is open to the sea?

  If these be the triumphs of the King’s forces, every public spirited, every humane and honest mind, beholds them with the deepest sorrow and regret. There is no man worthy of bearing the name of Englishman, who does not see with grief the miserable and disgraceful situation of the bravest troops, and the best commanders in the world. That man must be very indifferent to the glory of his country, who does not see and feel too, for the condition into which both have been brought, by the most unexampled imbecility and rashness; a condition which originating from plans laid in gross misinformation and fundamental error, no courage in the troops, and no skill in the commanders, can possibly improve.

  Here, for the present, I am obliged to leave the troops and the triumph. I now turn to the gentlemen who fight, under much more comfortable circumstances, the battles of the Ministry in England. It is not only in the paragraph I quote, that they presume to insult those who differ from them in politics, by charging them with a delight in the national calamities. It is the constant language of these writers. If any man has shewn a disposition to such an unnatural delight, whether he be a Minister or a Patriot, the community must think such men deserving of a severer censure, than any which the pens of such writers seem capable of inflicting.

  There are some indeed, who, if they do not delight in the national distresses, seem at least not to entertain a proper horror of them. These are they, who, in all political disputes, are the constant favourers of violent measures; who are continually urging the people to war, and under the notion of meanness and pusillanimity, decrying every idea of peace and reconciliation.

  These gentlemen may indeed feel some mortification, not from generous sympathy, but from disappointed pride, when the natural, however by them unexpected, issue of their measures, is strongly marked in circumstances of public calamity. But these gentlemen ought to take care how they mistake in others for exultation at the national misfortunes, those emotions of scorn and indignation, which all men of sensibility must discover at the infatuated councils from whence our public misfortunes are derived.

  VALENS.

  LETTER II. ADDRESSES.

  Saturday, September 30.

  Mr. MILLER,

  THE manner in which administration is employed, appears rather extraordinary in the present circumstances of the nation. That period, once so awful; that day of account, once so terrible to statesmen, the meeting of Parliament, is at hand. It might be imagined, that at such a time, Ministry were exceedingly busy in fabricating, for the satisfaction of the two Houses, what they have hitherto thought proper to withhold from the public, — some sort of apology for the total failure of all their projects.

  It might be supposed they were continually occupied in a careful and detailed review of their former measures; that by such a review they might discover to what mistake in the plan, or to what weakness in the execution, we were to ascribe the present calamitous situation of our affairs. One would think they were, at length, bending their attention on some scheme for preventing, if possible, the final dismemberment of the empire. Instead of this, they are wholly occupied in the manufacture of addresses.

  To common observers this seems to be an odd entertainment for men in their condition. If indeed addresses to Ministers could insure victories to armies; if railing at enemies could repair defeats; if flattery could cover disgraces; if servility could give plenty to famine, health to diseases, and cure to wounds, nothing could be more properly applied to the exigencies of Ministers, and to the necessities of those who have the misfortune to bear arms in their support. If addresses had this virtue, these courtly performances would certainly merit all the care and expence which has been so profusely lavished in obtaining them.

  Although I think this proceeding of Ministry in many respects weak and trifling, yet I confess that nothing, no not an address exists in vain. The managers are able to perceive, among the first effects of this hopeful war (into which they have betrayed their country) an immense, an immediate increase of the public burthens. They see at length, and they see only, because they are forced to feel, that they have drawn up the sluices of an expence, which will not be in their power to let down at pleasure. They persevere in their measures, because they wish to continue in their places. They know that the measures, necessary to their opulence, must end in the beggary of their country. When the purse and patience of the people are exhausted by the accumulated charges of an unnatural and disgraceful war, it is then that the present manoeuvres are to take their effect. The Ministry will put the people in mind, that they suffer at their own special request. They will point to their addresses, and tell them

  “TAXATION IS NO TYRANNY.”

  In one part of their project, there is no doubt the Ministry will succeed. They will get addresses enough. None have ever missed who have ever sought them. All the little agitators in boroughs will easily persuade men of much vanity, and no reflection, that their names to an address gives them a consequence at Court. The little, cunning, bustling politicians, in a corporation, think they may with great safety exert themselves to oblige a particular friend, that knows who and who are together, and that, when he pleases, may see those who see the King. If things go well, they may plead merit; if ill, they are lost in the crowd, and protected by their obscurity. One of these snug Machiavels will reason thus: —

  “We are in for it. If the Minister chuses a war, he will go to war, whether we will or not. If the taxes go on, little places, and little jobs as well as great ones, will increase. We too, if we play our cards well, may come in for snacks; whilst the whole burthen of the war, without any alleviation, will fall on the grumblers.”

  The little politician at the Town Hall is not altogether mistaken. If his principal happens to think of him, after the purpose is served, he may be paid for his work; but the little politician at the Cockpit will find himself miserably deluded. When the national debt and national taxes begin to swell; when trade sinks under its oppressions; when Europe begins to be involved; and the civil becomes but an introduction to a general war, the Minister, whoever he is, will find that those who are
willing to flatter, are not able to protect him. Those who are so ready to advise him to plunge his country into a war, will not be in a capacity to furnish him with the means of carrying on that war, nor with the expedient for extricating himself out of it.

  I believe there are very few of these signers, or even of the original promoters of these addresses, who have once given themselves the trouble to enquire, whether this war, of which they are so enamoured, be absolutely necessary? To ask themselves, how it is to be supported? To consider, what end it is to answer, if successful? Or to reflect, if it be unsuccessful, what remedy is to be found in so dreadful a disaster?

  One circumstance methinks ought to make these gentlemen who halloo, or who are hallooed to war, a little cautious how they dip their hands in blood. The Ministers have set out in their war with an avowed confession, that they are not able to carry it on with the strength of this country. They are at this instant suppliant at every Court in Europe. There is not a country in which want and servitude have turned the lives of the subject into an object of traffick to the Prince, in which Ministry are not mortgaging the revenue of England, and plighting the faith of future Parliaments. It is to HANOVERIAN, to HESSIAN, to RUSSIAN Arms, that England is to owe the recovery, and the preservation of our authority in America.

  Such arms are, I admit, the natural instruments for the establishment of arbitrary power. But the addressers of such measures would do well to ask themselves, to whom that arbitrary power is to belong, if foreign force should prove successful? To those, by whom conquests are made, the benefits of conquests will belong. But I abhor the idea — Heaven forbid that slaves should ever become the masters of freemen; or that Russian ferocity should triumph over English valour in any part of the world.

  The Ministry, though they are compleatly disgraced in their principles, for the attempt to terminate British disputes by foreign arms, may be further disgraced by their policy, by their failure in that enterprise. They have not yet been able to gratify their addressers with any certain assurance that they shall be permitted to transport over the Atlantic ocean 20,000 Calmucks and Cossacks, to lay waste with fire and sword the habitations of Englishmen, and to turn one of the fairest part of the British dominions into one of their Tartarian desarts.

  Whoever advises others to war, ought not only to be persuaded that the war is just, but he ought to have a reasonable assurance, that those to whom he applies himself, are of ability to carry it on with success. Otherwise he is not only sacrificing the interest of his country, but he is disgracing and ruining the cause of justice itself. Of the ability of the Ministers for this great task, the addressers may have some private knowledge to which they trust. But I must say their friends in power have not yet been pleased to favour the public, whose approbation they court, with any means of doing their capacity the honour that perhaps it deserves. Nothing has succeeded with them, either in their civil provisions, or in their military arrangements.

  They have made a great number of acts of parliament, which has left the state of government in a thousand times a worse condition than they found it. They followed their acts of parliament with above twenty of the best regiments in the service; with almost the whole of the marines; with such a strength of artillery and artillery companies, as were never employed when we made war with France in America. To give effect to this force, they have sent no less than four Generals. To the great land force, they have added a great naval power. The result of all these immense military arrangements has been, that the Ministers have one town in America — for their armies to starve and die in. — This is the faithful abstract of the first year’s history, of our new social war.

  These are plain matters of fact. An honest man, who sees no more than I can see of the probability of success in the course which has been hitherto pursued, would therefore have his scruples about urging the same men to proceed in the same course, which has been hitherto so very unprosperous. Have these flatterers any ground for confidence, that the future proceedings of Ministers will be more fortunate than the past? If they have, it will be kind of them to open it a little to their expecting country. One circumstance of incapacity in these Ministers is clear beyond all dispute, they have known nothing of the difficulty of the business they were engaged in. As the difficulty was not known, it could not be provided for. In consequence of this ignorance of the real state of America, all the force that has hitherto been sent thither is lost. We have all to begin anew, as if nothing had been attempted. England, under their conduct, exhausted before she has acted, is obliged to rest all her hopes on the capricious alliance of a despotic Court, and the perilous assistance of barbarian mercenary forces.

  It is for this assistance, and for these forces, that some deluded people are persuaded to address. Our misfortunes are aggravated by a mortisying mixture of the ridiculous. We have been brought it seems into this disgraceful situation of foreign dependance, in order to maintain the honour and dignity of Great Britain.

  Upon this topic of our dignity, I may say something hereafter. For the present, I would seriously recommend it to my countrymen, to consider (what never has been considered for them) the difficulties of their proceeding in the course they have begun, and at the same time the facility which appears for getting out of them.

  The way before us, if we pursue the present course, grows every step more and more perplexed. The point at which we propose to rest, recedes further and further from our view. The way, if we change our route, is short and simple. The single condition of peace proposed by America is,

  “That we should put things on the footing they stood in 1762.”

  This is the proposition of the Congress; and this surely is no harsh, cruel, or humiliating injunction. We are desired to put ourselves, and our colonies, into that state, in which, from our happy union, we were the envy of the world. But the first terms proposed, are not the last conclusive ones; better may be obtained by treaty; all may be lost by violence.

  Have we then any rational ground of hope, that by an obstinate war unskilfully carried on, we shall be able to force from America more advantageous terms of peace, than she offers at this moment? Before any man sets his hand to an address, he ought to have a satisfactory answer to the question I have put. To abuse America, and to talk of dignity, is not an answer.

  VALENS.

  LETTER III. DIGNITY.

  Saturday, October 7.

  Mr. MILLER,

  IN this letter I intend to apply myself principally to those of my countrymen, who are commonly distinguished by the name of the Tory Party.

  There are many things in the doctrine and practice of that body, which I never could perfectly approve. A party whose distinguishing characteristic is a desire of exalting the prerogative of the Crown, ought never to take the lead in a government constituted like ours. But though I could not relish the doctrines of this political set, I did not of course condemn the intentions of all who held them. I did not, I confess, think the Tory party entirely well affected to the constitution. Their own favourite phrase,

  “The old constitution,”

  which was, and is continually in their mouths, seems to imply an invidious distinction; and to intimate a dislike to the constitution, as perfected, or if they please, new modelled at the Revolution. But whatever their opinions of the constitution might be, I thought them zealous, according to their ideas, for the interest and honour of their country. In all things which distinguish this island from any other nation, the exclusive and patriotic partiality of their affections has constantly broke out, and sometimes not in the most decent and orderly manner that could be wished.

  It always appeared to me a circumstance rather singular, that they whose principles were so much of foreign growth, should far out go the Whigs themselves in the abhorrence of foreigners. The great blessing derived from the Revolution, could not make them forget that King William was a Dutchman. They did not readily forgive even the founders of the fortune and greatness of his present Majesty, that they were
born in Hanover, and were supposed to entertain sentiments of partial regard to their native country.

  In the principle of all this, though sometimes carried too far, and sometimes misapplied, there was something respectable. I remember perfectly well, that when the Hessian troops were brought hither in the last reign, this party complained very loudly. The imminent invasion of England at that time, did not reconcile them to the measure of committing any part, even of our most necessary defence, to foreign forces. Those foreign troops who were brought over for the purpose of quieting the troubles in Scotland (for I mean to speak gently) in the year 1745, did not meet from that party a more favourable reception. Their unaffected dread of the prevalence of the House of Stuart in that critical contest, could not make them permit a momentary departure from their ancient maxims. Their preservation from the greatest of all calamaties, a subjection to an irritated, a revengeful, a bigotted, even a foreign master, a master who founded his right upon the supposed nullity of every right in his subjects, could not excuse this obnoxious mode of safety.

  It was in vain alledged in mitigation of that measure, that the national troops were engaged abroad, that we had no time to get together, and to discipline a body of English; that our foreign enemies had interfered, that some forces in the French service were actually in Scotland; and the arrival of more was daily apprehended. This was all urged to inattentive ears. The Tories still exclaimed, that the troops of our allies brought hither on that occasion were foreigners; and nothing but the consideration that a late capitulation had bound them not to be of any use, could induce the Tory party to bear the presence of such guests, with any reasonable patience.

  Sudden emergencies may make the departure from the most wise and settled principles justifiable by the evident necessity of the case. But certainly, the general principle of keeping foreign powers from interfering in national disputes, is founded in the truest wisdom, and soundest policy. There is not only, no dignity, but no safety in a different conduct. I was therefore a good deal surprised, when I found so many of the Tories not only tolerating, but rejoicing in the attempts made by Ministers for engaging large bodies of foreigners to act in the present civil war. To what are we to attribute this extraordinary change, which that party has made in the only part of their sentiments, in which they were perfectly justifiable? Instead of murmurs, complaints, and remonstrances, we see the persons most warm in that cause, almost every where active, and bustling to procure addresses of compliment, in order to give the Ministers all kind of credit and support in their negociations for foreign troops.