by Edmund Burke
With all due deference to my Lord Suffolk, I do not believe so ill of the abilities either of General Howe, or of his Lordship. I can never believe the alledged confusion of General Howe’s ideas, to be the real reason for concealing from us every single circumstance of his precipitate dereliction of the precious purchase of millions. His Lordship told the Peers, that this confusion disabled him from doing justice to General Howe’s merits. Under favour there was no question of that General’s merits. We are very sure that He did his duty, and that He gave an account of it naturally and clearly. This concealment was never for his sake, or the sake of his operations. But for whatever purpose this account of Lord Suffolk’s was given, it could answer no rational end. If we could believe this account, the friends of the war would be obliged to entertain but gloomy hopes of its future success. Partial as they are to the authors of civil contention, they must condemn the Minister for committing the fortune of their pious quarrel into such hands. To admit their plea in the justification of their Gazette, is to find a verdict against the wisdom of their Cabinet.
No sooner had that Gazette notified to us that General Howe had taken this resolution, than we were entertained with verbal comments upon it, more curious than the original text. The Ministry assumed a face of joy equal to that which would have attended the most decisive victory. As soon as Boston was evacuated, Boston at once changed its nature. It no longer stood under the same parallel of latitude. It then became the worst chosen spot on the whole continent for the operations of war. We were too happy in getting rid of it. The Americans were anew charged with cowardice for letting us escape. The Lords publicly congratulated each other on having shaken off so intolerable a yoke.
In this exultation they forgot one trifling circumstance, which somewhat regards their credit for the present; and may perhaps a little affect their safety on some future day of account. Suppose a spirit of enquiry should arise, and it should be asked, who were they who brought his Majesty’s army into a place from whence it was a triumph to escape? If Boston was not a spot worth holding for its own sake, or for its convenience for other operations, why did the troops continue there for near two years? Why were they reinforced day after day, and regiment after regiment, for the defence of that place, until they amounted to upwards of 12,000 men? Why were four Generals sent to command them? Why was the Ordnance Office emptied to defend Boston? Why was the sinking fund swallowed up, only by its military extraordinaries, which amounted to upwards of 850,000l.? Why were 60,000 ton of transports employed in that service? Why was this nation almost starved to feed that town? Why was a fleet commanded by a succession of British Admirals, and at an incredible expence stationed in its harbour? Why was so much brave blood shed at Bunker’s-Hill to prevent its being insulted? Every shilling spent at Boston is a peculation of public money; every life lost there is a cruel murder, if Boston was not a place worth preserving. To exhaust yourself in defence of an object that is not worth having, or not to take sufficient means of defending an object of real value, are both of them crimes. If there be any difference, the first crime is the worst; as it is worse wholly to mistake the end, than to miscalculate the means. It is, however, for this capital blunder, that the Ministers claim the applauses of their country. According to this rule, the merit of our Generals is to escape from the place where the providence of our Ministers had stationed them; no hopes are entertained by themselves of the war, if all its plans are not wholly reversed in the execution.
Such is the case on their own representation, which is worse than the most malignant adversary could have stated it. But as they are poor in counsel, the Court must not record the plea. General Howe did not abandon Boston, because it was a place ill fitted, and never went to Halifax, because it was a place well fitted for a center of military operations. The Ministers of the Gazette suppose we know nothing of American geography, when we are told that in order to direct his operations on the middle colonies, General Howe fled to the very extremity of the northern. It is neither more nor less than to tell us, that a General in London, who intended to attack Dover Castle, would find it his best way thither to march his troops from hence to Edinburgh.
I was at first at a loss to know how the Ministry could give into this apparently insolent and unfeeling discourse. How they could think to glory in their shame, and to defend themselves by the very circumstances which aggravate their offence. But on putting things together, it may be accounted for. It was to prepare the minds of the people for the events which in spite of any favour of fortune, must inevitably follow from the course they have pursued. They have told the public that Boston was worth nothing, because they were not able to keep it, and had no hopes of recovering it. If they find that the nation can be persuaded to make violent efforts, on a supposition of the value of the object, and then to take comfort on their failure, from a consideration of its insignificance, all they wish is effected. They have already, by many speeches and publications concerning the Colonies, been preparing the public for the loss of the whole. They are already spreading with infinite diligence, an opinion that extensive empire is mischievous, and that the vast acquisitions in the east and west corrupt our minds, and weaken our industry.
This is the consolation they hoard up for us against the day of our bitter distress, when we shall have undone ourselves in an attempt to ruin our countrymen. Stripped of her dependencies, the nakedness of England is to be covered with the tattered cloak of a compelled, beggarly, Cynic philosophy. The loss of glory and dominion are to be compensated by dull, common-place observations on the instability of empire, and the emptiness of all human honours. Our Ministers of State are preparing themselves to become ministers of the church, and to preach patience and resignation to a tractable auditory, reduced at length to a real Christian humility, and to a true poverty of purse and of spirit, by the salutary operation of their councils.
Hitherto they have done every thing to bring us to the state for which they are preparing us. But if the events of war should belye their plans; and if the bravery of General Heister and his Hessian troops, should recover what British valour (under the direction of our Ministers) could not keep, it is then that in their success the mischief and weakness of their plans will appear in full lustre. The sunshine of fortune will only display, in a glare of light, the inanity of the object for which the Ministry and their German troops are contending.
The Colonies, in all the submission of disaster and defeat, will prove full as unfruitful of the revenue for which we are at war, and which alone can pay for that war, as the same colonies in all the heighth and insolence of successful resistance. Then it will appear that the Ministry and their runners were not idly employed when they told us the Colonies are of no advantage to this country. This will be the event when Lord George Sackville’s Gazette shall have satiated us with the pompous narrative of the victories obtained by the troops of the Duke of Brunswick (disciplined by Prince Ferdinand) over the miserable English on the other side of the water.
Until that glorious day, announced with such singular propriety, arrives, when the Gazette shall flow in as copious streams as the Weser or the Elbe, its scanty current continues to be directed so as to fructify the proper plants, and to starve the rest. In my last paper I remarked on the manner in which the Secretary’s Office communicates and witholds intelligence. They profit of my praises; and so encouraged, they persevere religiously in the plan, for which I had commended them.
In the Gazette of the 29th of last month, Lord George copies the best of examples, himself. In the last war the captures of merchant ships was never the food of the Gazette. But now a Secretary of State serves up an account of the taking of 26 ships and vessels of the rebels, exactly on the principles I stated in my last letter; but not a word of the transport loaded with arms and ammunition that these rebels have taken.
His Lordship has, on the same principles, carefully avoided all mention of the arrival of Sir Peter Parker and Lord Cornwallis at Cape Fear; although he has certainly
received an account of that event; and although it might be thought that the public would feel some degree of anxiety concerning the fate of so great a fleet and army, which had been considered as lost. The production of the credit side of the account of captures, with the total silence on the important expedition of Sir Peter Parker and Lord Cornwallies, shews, that the Minister considers the whole people of this once great country as the mercenary inhabitants of some little sea port, some nest of fishermen, smugglers, and pirates, such as Dunkirk, St. Sebastian, the Isle of Providence, or any other dirty hole at home or abroad, where they are in high spirits on hearing of the arrival of some miserable plunder, but are totally indifferent to all the great and important operations of war. It must give the Minister heart-felt pleasure if they should find that the spirit of the late act for animating the exertions of the navy by the holding out the plunder of their fellow citizens, is grown as diffusive as they could wish, that the whole nation feel in the same way. If this should be the case, one act of theirs has not been made in vain.
VALENS.
LETTER XIV. PROSPECT FROM SUCCESS.
Tuesday, Nov. 5, 1776.
MR. MILLER,
IT is now the third winter since the commencement of the present natural and auspicious war against our Colonies. It is, I think, so long since General Gage was sent to Boston with a fleet and army, together with a heavy train of artillery, formed of the well-tempered metal of those sound Acts of Parliament, which were to batter down all resistance to the authority of British Government. For the greatest part of that period our expences were continually on the increase, and our hopes continually on the wane. At length news arrives, as unexpected as it is satisfactory; — that 25,000 Hessian and British troops, with the aid of a squadron of men of war, had surprised 7000 Provincials out of their intrenchments, turned their flanks, and thrown them into confusion; on which their lines are abandoned, and the city of New-York left exposed and untenable.
This news arrives in the very nick of time, as if it had been bespoke. It is done to a turn. It came just at the meeting of Parliament. Without it Ministry had been sadly at a loss. Without this victory, the expulsion from Boston, the repulse at Charles-Town, and the petty defeats in almost every creek and harbour of North-America, together with the capture of so many valuable merchantmen in the seas of the West-Indies, and even of Europe, would have furnished more suitable matter for an impeachment of Ministers, than a speech from the throne.
I have heard, that as this news did not arrive early in the season, the speech, as first prepared, was (as in reason, it ought) written in a very different style from the present. The expressions were at least as gracious to the English subject here; and the epithets not nearly so high seasoned with regard to those on the other side of the great water. There was not a word of treason in it. It expressed, according to report, some disposition to concede and reconcile, of which this speech shews no signs at all. But on the whole, it was as fine a performance in the tender and pathetic style, as the present is in the grand and lofty. It is a pity we are not favoured with the first sketch; for Ministers, like poets,
— Lose half the praise they would have got,
Were it but known what they discrectly blot.
Victory has deprived us for ever of that fine composition. It has, however, made full amends. This victory, and the effect of it, is most happily and ably described in the present (not evasive and hypocritical) but clear and ingenuous, as well as most gracious, humane, and merciful oration.
“The success in that province (says the speech) has been so important, as to give the strongest hopes of the most decisive good consequences.”
I suppose the royal and noble authors of this finished performance, are so intent on enforcing the laws of the land, that they quite forget those of grammar; and are so eager about breaking stubborn heads, that in their hurry they mistake Priscian for Yankee. I therefore make no remarks on the construction of this sentence. I am carried away by the higher beauties of the performance. I am sensible that it was fashioned on the principles of the sciences now in the greatest estimation. Writers have done much for gardening. Gardening again has paid its tribute to literary composition. This rural science even Kings do not disdain to cultivate. One of the leading principles in this modish gardening, is, as Pope expresses it,
“Decently to hide.”
All must not come upon us at once. We are to be on the very edge of the skulking haha, and ready to tumble into it, before we are to be put on our guard. This the rules of the art require; and the principle is transplanted into the speech. Had that speech bluntly and plainly told us, that the action was decisive, the terms would be well enough understood; that is, decisive of the fortune of war; but then (observe the judgment) the main point would be lost. For we should immediately begin to think of enjoying the revenue of the conquered country, and of some sort of oeconomy in regard to our own. On the other hand, had the Ministry, who are equally communicative through their goodness, and reserved through their wisdom, held out no hopes at all of an end to that business, this nation would hardly be persuaded to go on this journey with her usual alacrity. But here we have a new phrase to express a new situation. — What
“an hope of decisive good consequences”
means, I do not perfectly understand; though the words are brave words, and certainly very pleasing; because hope, decision, and good consequences, are always agreeable sounds to well-tuned ears, let them be placed or connected in what manner they may. What the good consequences are — when they will probably happen — from whence they are to arise — or how far they are to extend, we know not. All this lies wrapt in clouds and darkness.
But for this obscurity we are soon made ample amends, and the whole is cleared up in the next sentence. We lost sight of the building in the mazes of the serpentine walk; but we catch it again in a very agreeable manner; it breaks in upon us with double effect.
“But notwithstanding this fair prospect, (says the speech) we must at all events prepare for another campaign.”
Thus the riddle of the
“decisive good consequences”
is solved. It signifies neither more nor less than this; that we are in an happy train of spending twenty millions this year in addition to the fifteen millions which we spent in the last. I heartily congratulate the Ministry and my country on those strong hopes, and those decisive good consequences. If defeat entitled us to spend fifteen millions, it is certainly reasonable that victory, as it is more worth, should be more expensive. This is indeed at length distinctly promised, though in terms rather unusual;
“This important consideration will necessarily be followed with great expence.”
— With submis+sion, I fear, that all the great expence incurred and likely to be incurred, has arisen from want consideration.
The next paragraph of the speech is full of hopes too. It has likewise its windings and mazes.
“The assurances of amity from the several Courts of Europe”
are not (it seems) now for the first time given, — but his Majesty
“continues to receive them.”
You would naturally expect, in consequence of this uniformity of faithful assurances, that his Majesty’s mind still rested in the same perfect repose it has hitherto enjoyed on that soft cushion of state from the beginning of these troubles. From these assurances, nobody living, I am persuaded, could expect the conclusion, which comes on you like a stroke of thunder,
“that it is expedient in the present situation of affairs, that we should be in a respectable state of defence at home.”
It seems then, that the effect of royal assurances (I mean from abroad) is to lessen confidence in the direct ratio of their continuance. When I read this, I was immediately put in mind of the good old adage
“Multa levant promissa fidem,”
Which I never saw so thoroughly exemplified before.
In this part of the speech we discover a second point, perfectly worthy the congrat
ulations which our gracious Sovereign has condescended to make to his obedient people; namely, — that we are likely to have a Spanish and French war to enliven the dull uniformity of our civil dissentions.”
Such an event we were told last year was absolutely impossible; and what is very remarkable, it was expressly said to be impossible, then, for the very reasons given for apprehending it in the speech of this year; that is, from the tendency of the success of America to unsettle the system of Europe. If I perfectly understand the expression in the speech, it means, that the success of the Americans would encourage the colonies of other nations, to rebel. Our rulers therefore (last year) concluded it impossible that those nations should give them encouragement. Be this as it may, we know that the impossibility of last year on the principles assigned in the speech of this year, has already cost to our constitution two illegal embargoes; to our credit an heavy fall of stock; and to our finances it will be immediately followed by an augmentation of 20,000 seamen; a call of the militia; an increase of the standing army. These are some of the decisive good consequences of “continuing to receive assurances of amity from the several foreign Courts; and of a favourite and popular civil war; in which possibility and impossibility, hope and fear, loss or gain, victory and defeat, all alike, as rays from every part of a vast circumference, tend to a common centre, meeting in this one point — Public Bankruptcy.
I believe that those who have addressed so dutifully, and prayed so charitably for the blessing of an American war, hardly insisted on this European war into the bargain; even with all its decisive good consequences. But a gracious and bountiful Ministry always gives heaped measure. Perhaps the addressers, though they so chearfully voted lives and fortunes, did not absolutely insist upon giving near a million sterling of their trading property, in order to nurse to maturity the infant naval power of the Colonies; though after the loss, the captures have, I admit, given the Admiralty an opportunity of displaying its vigilance and soresight in providing convoys. Another advantage, not within the stipulation, and which is given to the addressers of free grace and bounty, is the rise of insurance on the trade! which amounts to a prodigious sum; and is therefore, to all intents and purposes, a tax to that amount on the commercial property of England.
