Complete Works of Edmund Burke

by Edmund Burke

  This Preface has been drawn by degrees into an unexpected length. Much of Mr. Burke’s character may have been here anticipated, which might have come with more propriety and force, hereafter. But on the spot where every object, to which the eye can be directed, is full of his image, it was impossible that many little remembrances of his opinions and habits, which must involuntarily arise in the bosom, should not run over on the paper. They will not be the least interesting part to those who enjoyed the blessing of an intimacy with him; and when the name of a deceased friend has been already forged to a despicable libel against him, when intelligence has been received, even while this Preface has been passing under the press, of new artifices, which have been practised through the country, to solicit a party-support to an insidious attack upon his fame, that some correct notion of such a man should be early given, seemed to be of moment to the cause of public virtue.

  Beaconsfield, Sept. 2, 1797.

  HINTS FOR A MEMORIAL TO BE DELIVERED TO MONSIEUR DE M. M. WRITTEN IN THE EARLY PART OF 1791.

  THE King my Master, from his sincere desire of keeping up a good correspondence with his Most Christian Majesty, and the French nation, has for some time beheld with concern, the condition into which that sovereign and nation have fallen.

  Notwithstanding the reality and the warmth of those sentiments, his Britannick Majesty has hitherto forborne in any manner to take a part in their affairs; in hopes, that the common interest of King and subjects would render all parties sensible of the necessity of settling, their government and their freedom, upon principles of moderation; as the only means of securing permanence to both these blessings, as well as internal and external tranquillity, to the Kingdom of France, and to all Europe.

  His Britannick Majesty finds, to his great regret, that his hopes have not been realized. He finds, that confusions and disorders have rather increased than diminished, and that they now threaten to proceed to dangerous extremities.

  In this situation of things, the same regard to a neighbouring Sovereign living in friendship with Great Britain, the same spirit of good-will to the Kingdom of France, the same regard to the general tranquillity, which have caused him to view with concern, the growth and continuance of the present disorders, have induced the King of Great Britain to interpose his good offices towards a reconcilement of those unhappy differences. This his Majesty does with the most cordial regard to the good of all descriptions concerned, and with the most perfect sincerity, wholly removing from his Royal mind, all memory of every circumstance which might impede him in the execution of a plan of benevolence which he has so much at heart.

  His Majesty, having always thought it his greatest glory, that he rules over a people, perfectly and solidly, because soberly, rationally, and legally free, can never be supposed to proceed in offering thus his Royal mediation, but with an unaffected desire and full resolution, to consider the settlement of a free constitution in France, as the very basis of any agreement between the Sovereign and those of his subjects who are unhappily at variance with him; to guarantee it to them, if it should be desired, in the most solemn and authentick manner, and to do all that in him lies to procure the like guarantee from other powers.

  His Britannick Majesty, in the same manner, assures the most Christian King, that he knows too well, and values too highly, what is due to the dignity and rights of crowned Heads, and to the implied faith of treaties which have always been made with the Crown of France, ever to listen to any proposition by which that Monarchy shall be despoiled of all its rights, so essential for the support of the consideration of the Prince, and the concord and welfare of the people.

  If unfortunately, a due attention should not be paid to these his Majesty’s benevolent and neighbourly offers, or, if any circumstances should prevent the Most Christian King from acceding, (as his Majesty has no doubt he is well disposed to do) to this healing mediation in favour of himself and all his subjects, his Majesty has commanded me to take leave of this Court, as not conceiving it to be suitable to the dignity of his Crown, and to what he owes to his faithful people, any longer to keep a publick Minister at the Court of a Sovereign who is not in possession of his own liberty.

  THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS, &c. &c. WRITTEN IN DECEMBER, 1791.

  IN all our transactions with France, and at all periods, we have treated with that State on the footing of a Monarchy. Monarchy was considered in all the external relations of that kingdom with every Power in Europe as it’s legal and constitutional Government, and that in which alone it’s federal capacity was vested.

  It is not yet a year since Monsieur de Montmorin, formally, and with as little respect as can be imagined, to the King, and to all crowned heads, announced a total revolution in that country. He has informed the British Ministry that it’s frame of Government is wholly altered; that he is one of the Ministers of the new system; and in effect, that the King is no longer his master (nor does he even call him such) but the “first of the Ministers” in the new system.

  The second notification was that of the King’s acceptance of the new Constitution; accompanied with fanfaronades in the modern style of the French bureaus, things which have much more the air and character of the saucy declamations of their clubs, than the tone of regular office.

  It has not been very usual to notify to foreign Courts, any thing concerning the internal arrangements of any State. In the present case, the circumstance of these two notifications, with the ob+servations with which they are attended, does not leave it in the choice of the Sovereigns of Christendom to appear ignorant either of this French Revolution, or (what is more important) of it’s principles.

  We know that very soon after this Manifesto of Monsieur de Montmorin, the King of France, in whose name it was made, found himself obliged to fly, with his whole family: leaving behind him a Declaration, in which he disavows and annuls that Constitution, as having been the effect of force on his person and usurpation on his authority. It is equally notorious that this unfortunate Prince was with many circumstances of insult and outrage brought back prisoner, by a deputation of the pretended National Assembly, and afterwards suspended by their authority, from his Government. Under equally notorious constraint, and under menaces of total deposition, he has been compelled to accept what they call a Constitution, and to agree to whatever else the usurped power which holds him in consinement, thinks proper to impose.

  His next brother, who had fled with him, and his third brother, who had fled before him, all the Princes of his blood, who remained faithful to him, and the flower of his Magistracy, his Clergy, and his Nobility, continue in foreign countries, protesting against all acts done by him in his present situation, on the grounds upon which he had himself protested against them at the time of his flight; with this addition, that they deny his very competence, (as on good grounds they may) to abrogate the Royalty, or the ancient constitutional Orders of the Kingdom. In this protest they are joined by three hundred of the late Assembly itself, and in effect, by a great part of the French Nation. The new Government (so far as the people dare to disclose their sentiments) is disdained, I am persuaded, by the greater number; who as M. de la Fayette complains, and as the truth is, have declined to take any share in the new elections to the National Assembly, either as candidates or electors.

  In this state of things (that is in the case of a divided kingdom) by the law of nations, Great Britain, like every other Power, is free to take any part she pleases. She may decline, with more or less formality, according to her discretion, to acknowledge this new system; or she may recognize it as a Covernment de facto, setting aside all discussion of it’s original legality, and considering the ancient Monarchy as at an end. The law of nations leaves our Court open to it’s choice. We have no direction but what is found in the wellunderstood policy of the King and kingdom.

  This Declaration of a new species of Government, on new principles (such it professes itself to be) is a real crisis in the politicks of Europe. The conduct which prudence ough
t to dietate to Great-Britain, will not depend (as hitherto our connexion or quarrel with other States has for some time depended) upon merely external relations; but, in a great measure also upon the system which we may think it right to adopt for the internal government of our own country.

  If it be our policy to assimilate our Government to that of France, we ought to prepare for this change, by encouraging the schemes of authority established there. We ought to wink at the captivity and deposition of a Prince, with whom, if not in close alliance, we were in friendship. We ought to fall in with the ideas of Mons. Montmorin’s circular Manifesto; and to do business of course with the functionaries who act under the new power, by which that King to whom his Majesty’s Minister has been sent to reside, has been deposed and imprisoned. On that idea we ought also to with-hold all sorts of direct or indirect countenance from those who are treating in Germany for the re-establishment of the French Monarchy and the ancient Orders of that State. This conduct is suitable to this policy.

  The question is, whether this policy be suitable to the interests of the Crown and subjects of Great Britain. Let us therefore a little consider the true nature and probable effects of the Revolution which, in such a very unusual manner, has been twice diplomatically announced to his Majesty.

  There have been many internal revolutions in the Government of countries, both as to persons and forms, in which the neighbouring States have had little or no concern. Whatever the Government might be with respect to those persons and those forms, the stationary interests of the nation concerned, have most commonly influenced the new Governments in the same manner in which they influenced the old; and the Revolution, turning on matter of local grievance or of local accommodation, did not extend beyond it’s territory.

  The present Revolution in France seems to me to be quite of another character and description; and to bear little resemblance or analogy to any of those which have been brought about in Europe, upon principles merely political. It is a Revolution of doctrine and theoretick dogma. It has a much greater resemblance to those changes which have been made upon religious grounds, in which a spirit of proselytism makes an essential part.

  The last Revolution of doctrine and theory which has happened in Europe, is the Reformation. It is not for my purpose to take any notice here of the merits of that Revolution, but to state one only of it’s effects.

  That effect was to introduce other interests into all countries, than those which arose from their locality and natural circumstances. The principle of the Reformation was such, as by it’s essence, could not be local or confined to the country in which it had it’s origin. For instance, the doctrine of

  “Justification by Faith or by Works,”

  which was the original basis of the Reformation, could not have one of it’s alternatives true as to Germany, and false as to every other country. Neither are questions of theoretick truth and falsehood governed by circumstances any more than by places. On that occasion, therefore, the spirit of proselytism expanded itself with great elasticity upon all sides; and great divisions were every where the result.

  These divisions however, in appearance merely dogmatick, soon became mixed with the political; and their effects were rendered much more intense from this combination. Europe was for a long time divided into two great factions, under the name of Catholick and Protestant, which not only often alienated State from State, but also divided almost every State within itself. The warm parties in each State were more affectionately attached to those of their own doctrinal interest in some other country than to their fellow citizens, or to their natural Government, when they or either of them happened to be of a different persuasion. These factions, wherever they prevailed, if they did not abselutely destroy, at least weakened and distracted the locality of patriotism. The publick affections came to have other motives and other ties.

  It would be to repeat the history of the two last centuries to exemplify the effects of this Revolution.

  Although the principles to which it gave rise, did not operate with a perfect regularity and constancy, they never wholly ceased to operate. Few wars were made, and few treaties were entered into in which they did not come in for some part. They gave a colour, a character, and direction to all the politicks of Europe.

  These principles of internal, as well as external division and coalition, are but just now extinguished. But they who will examine into the true character and genius of some late events, must be satisfied that other sources of faction, combining parties among the inhabitants of different countries into one connexion, are opened, and that from these sources are likely to arise effects full as important as those which had formerly arisen from the jarring interests of the religious sects. The intention of the several actors in the change in France, is not a matter of doubt. It is very openly prosessed.

  In the modern world, before this time, there has been no instance of this spirit of general political faction, separated from religion, pervading several countries, and forming a principle of union between the partizans in each. But the thing is not less in human nature. The antient world has furnished a strong and striking instance of such a ground for faction, full as powerful and full as mischievous as our spirit of religious system had ever been, exciting in all the States of Greece (European and Asiatick) the most violent animosities, and the most cruel and bloody persecutions and proscriptions. These ancient factions in each commonwealth of Greece, connected themselves with those of the same description in some other States; and secret cabals and publick alliances were carried on and made, not upon a conformity of general political interests, but for the support and aggrandizement of the two leading States which headed the Aristocratick and Democratick Factions. For, as in later times, the King of Spain was at the head of a Catholick, and the King of Sweden of a Protestant interest, France, (though Catholick, acting subordinately to the latter,) in the like manner the Lacedemonians were every where at the head of the Aristocratick interests, and the Athenians of the Democratick. The two leading Powers kept alive a constant cabal and conspiracy in every State, and the political dogmas concerning the constitution of a Republick, were the great instruments by which these leading States chose to aggrandize themselves. Their choice was not unwise; because the interest in opinions (merely as opinions, and without any experimental reference to their effects) when once they take strong hold of the mind, become the most operative of all interests, and indeed very often supercede every other.

  I might further exemplify the possibility of a political sentiment running through various states and combining factions in them, from the history of the middle ages in the Guelfs and Ghibellines. These were political factions originally in favour of the Emperor and the Pope, with no mixture of religious dogmas; or if any thing religiously doctrinal they had in them originally, it very soon disappeared; as their first political objects disappeared also, though the spirit remained. They became no more than names to distinguish factions; but they were not the less powerful in their operation, when they had no direct point of doctrine, either religious or civil, to assert. For a long time, however, those factions gave no small degree of influence to the foreign Chiefs in every commonwealth in which they existed. I do not mean to pursue further the track of these parties. I allude to this part of history only, as it furnishes an instance of that species of faction which broke the locality of publick affections, and united descriptions of citizens more with strangers than with their countrymen of different opinions.

  The political dogma, which upon the new French system, is to unite the factions of different nations, turns is this,

  “That the majority told, by the head, of the taxable people in every country, is the perpetual, natural, unceasing, indefeasible sovereign; that this majority is perfectly master of the form, as well as the administration of the state, and that the magistrates, under whatever names they are called, are only functionaries to obey the orders, (general as laws or particular as decrees) which that majority may make; that this is
the only natural government; that all others are tyranny and usurpation.”

  In order to reduce this dogma into practice, the Republicans in France, and their associates in other countries, make it always their business, and often their publick profession, to destroy all traces of antient establishments, and to form a new common-wealth in each country, upon the basis of the French Rights of Men. On the principle of these rights, they mean to institute in every country, and as it were, the germe of the whole, parochial governments, for the purpose of what they call equal representation. From them is to grow, by some media, a general council and representative of all the parochial governments. In that representative is to be vested the whole national power; totally abolishing hereditary name and office, levelling all conditions of men, (except where money must make a difference) breaking all connexion between territory and dignity, and abolishing every species of nobility, gentry, and church establishments; all their priests, and all their magistrates being only creatures of election, and pensioners at will.