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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund
+Burke, Vol. III. (of 12), by Edmund Burke
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12)
+
+Author: Edmund Burke
+
+Release Date: April 22, 2005 [EBook #15679]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: Unicode UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BURKE VOL III ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Paul Murray, Susan Skinner and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team from images generously made
+available by the Bibliotheque nationale de France
+(BnF/Gallica) at http://gallica.bnf.fr
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WORKS
+
+OF
+
+THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
+
+EDMUND BURKE
+
+
+IN TWELVE VOLUMES
+
+VOLUME THE THIRD
+
+
+[Illustration: Burke Coat of Arms.]
+
+
+LONDON
+JOHN C. NIMMO
+14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C.
+MDCCCLXXXVII
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOL. III.
+
+SPEECH ON THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS, February 28, 1785;
+  with an Appendix                                                     1
+
+SUBSTANCE OF SPEECH ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES, February 9, 1790          211
+
+REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE                              231
+
+
+
+
+SPEECH
+
+ON THE
+
+MOTION MADE FOR PAPERS
+
+RELATIVE TO THE
+
+DIRECTIONS FOR CHARGING THE NABOB OF ARCOT'S PRIVATE DEBTS TO EUROPEANS
+ON THE REVENUES OF THE CARNATIC,
+
+FEBRUARY 28, 1785.
+
+WITH AN APPENDIX,
+
+CONTAINING SEVERAL DOCUMENTS.
+
+
+Ἐνταῦθα τί πράττειν ἐχρῆν ἄνδρα τῶν Πλάτωνος καὶ Ἀριστοτέλους ζηλωτὴν
+δογμάτων; ἆρα περιορᾶν ἀνθρώπους ἀθλίους τοῖς κλέπταις ἐκδιδομένους, ἢ
+κατὰ δύναμιν αὐτοῖς ἀμύνειν, οἶμαι ὡς ἤδη τὸ κύκνειον; ἐξᾴδουσι διὰ τὸ
+θεμισές ἐργαστήριον τῶν τοιούτων; Ἐμοὶ μὲν οὖν αἰσχρὸν εἶναι δοκεῖ τοὺς
+μὲν χιλιάρχους, ὅταν λείπωσι τὴν τάξιν, καταδικάζειν' ... τὴν δὲ ὑπέρ
+ἀθλίων ἀνθρώπων ἀπολείπειν τάξιν, ὅταν δὲῃ πρὸς κλέπτας ἀγωνίζεσθαι
+τοιούτους, καὶ ταῦτα τοῦ θεοῦ συμμαχοῦντος ἡμῖν, ὅσπερ οὖν ἔταξεν.
+
+JULIANI Epist. 17.
+
+
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+
+That the least informed reader of this speech may be enabled to enter
+fully into the spirit of the transaction on occasion of which it was
+delivered, it may be proper to acquaint him, that, among the princes
+dependent on this nation in the southern part of India, the most
+considerable at present is commonly known by the title of the Nabob of
+Arcot.
+
+This prince owed the establishment of his government, against the claims
+of his elder brother, as well as those of other competitors, to the arms
+and influence of the British East India Company. Being thus established
+in a considerable part of the dominions he now possesses, he began,
+about the year 1765, to form, at the instigation (as he asserts) of the
+servants of the East India Company, a variety of designs for the further
+extension of his territories. Some years after, he carried his views to
+certain objects of interior arrangement, of a very pernicious nature.
+None of these designs could be compassed without the aid of the
+Company's arms; nor could those arms be employed consistently with an
+obedience to the Company's orders. He was therefore advised to form a
+more secret, but an equally powerful, interest among the servants of
+that Company, and among others both at home and abroad. By engaging them
+in his interests, the use of the Company's power might be obtained
+without their ostensible authority; the power might even be employed in
+defiance of the authority, if the case should require, as in truth it
+often did require, a proceeding of that degree of boldness.
+
+The Company had put him into possession of several great cities and
+magnificent castles. The good order of his affairs, his sense of
+personal dignity, his ideas of Oriental splendor, and the habits of an
+Asiatic life, (to which, being a native of India, and a Mahometan, he
+had from his infancy been inured,) would naturally have led him to fix
+the seat of his government within his own dominions. Instead of this, he
+totally sequestered himself from his country, and, abandoning all
+appearance of state, he took up his residence in an ordinary house,
+which he purchased in the suburbs of the Company's factory at Madras. In
+that place he has lived, without removing one day from thence, for
+several years past. He has there continued a constant cabal with the
+Company's servants, from the highest to the lowest,--creating, out of
+the ruins of the country, brilliant fortunes for those who will, and
+entirely destroying those who will not, be subservient to his purposes.
+
+An opinion prevailed, strongly confirmed by several passages in his own
+letters, as well as by a combination of circumstances forming a body of
+evidence which cannot be resisted, that very great sums have been by him
+distributed, through a long course of years, to some of the Company's
+servants. Besides these presumed payments in ready money, (of which,
+from the nature of the thing, the direct proof is very difficult,) debts
+have at several periods been acknowledged to those gentlemen, to an
+immense amount,--that is, to some millions of sterling money. There is
+strong reason to suspect that the body of these debts is wholly
+fictitious, and was never created by money _bonâ fide_ lent. But even on
+a supposition that this vast sum was really advanced, it was impossible
+that the very reality of such an astonishing transaction should not
+cause some degree of alarm and incite to some sort of inquiry.
+
+It was not at all seemly, at a moment when the Company itself was so
+distressed as to require a suspension, by act of Parliament, of the
+payment of bills drawn on them from India,--and also a direct tax upon
+every house in England, in order to facilitate the vent of their goods,
+and to avoid instant insolvency,--at that very moment, that their
+servants should appear in so flourishing a condition, as, besides ten
+millions of other demands on their masters, to be entitled to claim a
+debt of three or four millions more from the territorial revenue of one
+of their dependent princes.
+
+The ostensible pecuniary transactions of the Nabob of Arcot with very
+private persons are so enormous, that they evidently set aside every
+pretence of policy which might induce a prudent government in some
+instances to wink at ordinary loose practice in ill-managed departments.
+No caution could be too great in handling this matter, no scrutiny too
+exact. It was evidently the interest, and as evidently at least in the
+power, of the creditors, by admitting secret participation in this dark
+and undefined concern, to spread corruption to the greatest and the most
+alarming extent.
+
+These facts relative to the debts were so notorious, the opinion of
+their being a principal source of the disorders of the British
+government in India was so undisputed and universal, that there was no
+party, no description of men in Parliament, who did not think themselves
+bound, if not in honor and conscience, at least in common decency, to
+institute a vigorous inquiry into the very bottom of the business,
+before they admitted any part of that vast and suspicious charge to be
+laid upon an exhausted country. Every plan concurred in directing such
+an inquiry, in order that whatever was discovered to be corrupt,
+fraudulent, or oppressive should lead to a due animadversion on the
+offenders, and, if anything fair and equitable in its origin should be
+found, (nobody suspected that much, comparatively speaking, would be so
+found,) it might be provided for,--in due subordination, however, to the
+ease of the subject and the service of the state.
+
+These were the alleged grounds for an inquiry, settled in all the bills
+brought into Parliament relative to India,--and there were, I think, no
+less than four of them. By the bill commonly called Mr. Pitt's bill, the
+inquiry was specially, and by express words, committed to the Court of
+Directors, without any reserve for the interference of any other person
+or persons whatsoever. It was ordered that _they_ should make the
+inquiry into the origin and justice of these debts, as far as the
+materials in _their_ possession enabled them to proceed; and where
+_they_ found those materials deficient, _they_ should order the
+Presidency of Fort St. George (Madras) to complete the inquiry.
+
+The Court of Directors applied themselves to the execution of the trust
+reposed in them. They first examined into the amount of the debt, which
+they computed, at compound interest, to be 2,945,600_l._ sterling.
+Whether their mode of computation, either of the original sums or the
+amount on compound interest, was exact, that is, whether they took the
+interest too high or the several capitals too low, is not material. On
+whatever principle any of the calculations were made up, none of them
+found the debt to differ from the recital of the act, which asserted
+that the sums claimed were "_very_ large." The last head of these debts
+the Directors compute at 2,465,680_l._ sterling. Of the existence of
+this debt the Directors heard nothing until 1776, and they say, that,
+"although they had _repeatedly_ written to the Nabob of Arcot, and to
+their servants, respecting the debt, yet they _had never been able to
+trace the origin thereof, or to obtain any satisfactory information on
+the subject_."
+
+The Court of Directors, after stating the circumstances under which the
+debts appeared to them to have been contracted, add as follows:--"For
+these reasons we should have thought it our duty to inquire _very
+minutely_ into those debts, even if the act of Parliament had been
+silent on the subject, before we concurred in any measure for their
+payment. But with the positive injunctions of the act before us to
+examine into their nature and origin, we are indispensably bound to
+direct such an inquiry to be instituted." They then order the President
+and Council of Madras to enter into a full examination, &c., &c.
+
+The Directors, having drawn up their order to the Presidency on these
+principles, communicated the draught of the general letter in which
+those orders were contained to the board of his Majesty's ministers, and
+other servants lately constituted by Mr. Pitt's East India Act. These
+ministers, who had just carried through Parliament the bill ordering a
+specific inquiry, immediately drew up another letter, on a principle
+directly opposite to that which was prescribed by the act of Parliament
+and followed by the Directors. In these second orders, all idea of an
+inquiry into the justice and origin of the pretended debts, particularly
+of the last, the greatest, and the most obnoxious to suspicion, is
+abandoned. They are all admitted and established without any
+investigation whatsoever, (except some private conference with the
+agents of the claimants is to pass for an investigation,) and a fund for
+their discharge is assigned and set apart out of the revenues of the
+Carnatic. To this arrangement in favor of their servants, servants
+suspected of corruption and convicted of disobedience, the Directors of
+the East India Company were ordered to set their hands, asserting it to
+arise from their own conviction and opinion, in flat contradiction to
+their recorded sentiments, their strong remonstrance, and their declared
+sense of their duty, as well under their general trust and their oath as
+Directors, as under the express injunctions of an act of Parliament.
+
+The principles upon which this summary proceeding was adopted by the
+ministerial board are stated by themselves in a number in the appendix
+to this speech.
+
+By another section of the same act, the same Court of Directors were
+ordered to take into consideration and to decide on the indeterminate
+rights of the Rajah of Tanjore and the Nabob of Arcot; and in this, as
+in the former case, no power of appeal, revision, or alteration was
+reserved to any other. It was a jurisdiction, in a cause between party
+and party, given to the Court of Directors specifically. It was known
+that the territories of the former of these princes had been twice
+invaded and pillaged, and the prince deposed and imprisoned, by the
+Company's servants, influenced by the intrigues of the latter, and for
+the purpose of paying his pretended debts. The Company had, in the year
+1775, ordered a restoration of the Rajah to his government, under
+certain conditions. The Rajah complained, that his territories had not
+been completely restored to him, and that no part of his goods, money,
+revenues, or records, unjustly taken and withheld from him, were ever
+returned. The Nabob, on the other hand, never ceased to claim the
+country itself, and carried on a continued train of negotiation, that it
+should again be given up to him, in violation of the Company's public
+faith.
+
+The Directors, in obedience to this part of the act, ordered an inquiry,
+and came to a determination to restore certain of his territories to the
+Rajah. The ministers, proceeding as in the former case, without hearing
+any party, rescinded the decision of the Directors, refused the
+restitution of the territory, and, without regard to the condition of
+the country of Tanjore, which had been within a few years four times
+plundered, (twice by the Nabob of Arcot, and twice by enemies brought
+upon it solely by the politics of the same Nabob, the declared enemy of
+that people,) and without discounting a shilling for their sufferings,
+they accumulate an arrear of about four hundred thousand pounds of
+pretended tribute to this enemy; and then they order the Directors to
+put their hands to a new adjudication, directly contrary to a judgment
+in a judicial character and trust solemnly given by them and entered on
+their records.
+
+These proceedings naturally called for some inquiry. On the 28th of
+February, 1785, Mr. Fox made the following motion in the House of
+Commons, after moving that the clauses of the act should be read:--"That
+the proper officer do lay before this House copies or extracts of all
+letters and orders of the Court of Directors of the United East India
+Company, in pursuance of the injunctions contained in the 37th and 38th
+clauses of the said act"; and the question being put, it passed in the
+negative by a very great majority.
+
+The last speech in the debate was the following; which is given to the
+public, not as being more worthy of its attention than others, (some of
+which were of consummate ability,) but as entering more into the detail
+of the subject.
+
+
+
+
+SPEECH.
+
+
+The times we live in, Mr. Speaker, have been distinguished by
+extraordinary events. Habituated, however, as we are, to uncommon
+combinations of men and of affairs, I believe nobody recollects anything
+more surprising than the spectacle of this day. The right honorable
+gentleman[1] whose conduct is now in question formerly stood forth in
+this House, the prosecutor of the worthy baronet[2] who spoke after him.
+He charged him with several grievous acts of malversation in office,
+with abuses of a public trust of a great and heinous nature. In less
+than two years we see the situation of the parties reversed; and a
+singular revolution puts the worthy baronet in a fair way of returning
+the prosecution in a recriminatory bill of pains and penalties, grounded
+on a breach of public trust relative to the government of the very same
+part of India. If he should undertake a bill of that kind, he will find
+no difficulty in conducting it with a degree of skill and vigor fully
+equal to all that have been exerted against him.
+
+But the change of relation between these two gentlemen is not so
+striking as the total difference of their deportment under the same
+unhappy circumstances. Whatever the merits of the worthy baronet's
+defence might have been, he did not shrink from the charge. He met it
+with manliness of spirit and decency of behavior. What would have been
+thought of him, if he had held the present language of his old accuser?
+When articles were exhibited against him by that right honorable
+gentleman, he did not think proper to tell the House that we ought to
+institute no inquiry, to inspect no paper, to examine no witness. He did
+not tell us (what at that time he might have told us with some show of
+reason) that our concerns in India were matters of delicacy, that to
+divulge anything relative to them would be mischievous to the state. He
+did not tell us that those who would inquire into his proceedings were
+disposed to dismember the empire. He had not the presumption to say,
+that, for his part, having obtained, in his Indian presidency, the
+ultimate object of his ambition, his honor was concerned in executing
+with integrity the trust which had been legally committed to his charge:
+that others, not having been so fortunate, could not be so
+disinterested; and therefore their accusations could spring from no
+other source than faction, and envy to his fortune.
+
+Had he been frontless enough to hold such vain, vaporing language in the
+face of a grave, a detailed, a specified matter of accusation, whilst he
+violently resisted everything which could bring the merits of his cause
+to the test,--had he been wild enough to anticipate the absurdities of
+this day,--that is, had he inferred, as his late accuser has thought
+proper to do, that he could not have been guilty of malversation in
+office, for this sole and curious reason, that he had been in
+office,--had he argued the impossibility of his abusing his power on
+this sole principle, that he had power to abuse,--he would have left
+but one impression on the mind of every man who heard him, and who
+believed him in his senses: that in the utmost extent he was guilty of
+the charge.
+
+But, Sir, leaving these two gentlemen to alternate as criminal and
+accuser upon what principles they think expedient, it is for us to
+consider whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Treasurer of
+the Navy, acting as a Board of Control, are justified by law or policy
+in suspending the legal arrangements made by the Court of Directors, in
+order to transfer the public revenues to the private emolument of
+certain servants of the East India Company, without the inquiry into the
+origin and justice of their claims prescribed by an act of Parliament.
+
+It is not contended that the act of Parliament did not expressly ordain
+an inquiry. It is not asserted that this inquiry was not, with equal
+precision of terms, specially committed, under particular regulations,
+to the Court of Directors. I conceive, therefore, the Board of Control
+had no right whatsoever to intermeddle in that business. There is
+nothing certain in the principles of jurisprudence, if this be not
+undeniably true, that when, a special authority is given to any persons
+by name to do some particular act, that no others, by virtue of general
+powers, can obtain a legal title to intrude themselves into that trust,
+and to exercise those special functions in their place. I therefore
+consider the intermeddling of ministers in this affair as a downright
+usurpation. But if the strained construction by which they have forced
+themselves into a suspicious office (which every man delicate with
+regard to character would rather have sought constructions to avoid)
+were perfectly sound and perfectly legal, of this I am certain, that
+they cannot be justified in declining the inquiry which had been
+prescribed to the Court of Directors. If the Board of Control did
+lawfully possess the right of executing the special trust given to that
+court, they must take it as they found it, subject to the very same
+regulations which bound the Court of Directors. It will be allowed that
+the Court of Directors had no authority to dispense with either the
+substance or the mode of inquiry prescribed by the act of Parliament. If
+they had not, where in the act did the Board of Control acquire that
+capacity? Indeed, it was impossible they should acquire it. What must we
+think of the fabric and texture of an act of Parliament which should
+find it necessary to prescribe a strict inquisition, that should descend
+into minute regulations for the conduct of that inquisition, that should
+commit this trust to a particular description of men, and in the very
+same breath should enable another body, at their own pleasure, to
+supersede all the provisions the legislature had made, and to defeat the
+whole purpose, end, and object of the law? This cannot be supposed even
+of an act of Parliament conceived by the ministers themselves, and
+brought forth during the delirium of the last session.
+
+My honorable friend has told you in the speech which introduced his
+motion, that fortunately this question is not a great deal involved in
+the labyrinths of Indian detail. Certainly not. But if it were, I beg
+leave to assure you that there is nothing in the Indian detail which is
+more difficult than in the detail of any other business. I admit,
+because I have some experience of the fact, that for the interior
+regulation of India a minute knowledge of India is requisite. But on
+any specific matter of delinquency in its government you are as capable
+of judging as if the same thing were done at your door. Fraud,
+injustice, oppression, peculation, engendered in India, are crimes of
+the same blood, family, and cast with those that are born and bred in
+England. To go no farther than the case before us: you are just as
+competent to judge whether the sum of four millions sterling ought or
+ought not to be passed from the public treasury into a private pocket
+without any title except the claim of the parties, when the issue of
+fact is laid in Madras, as when it is laid in Westminster. Terms of art,
+indeed, are different in different places; but they are generally
+understood in none. The technical style of an Indian treasury is not one
+jot more remote than the jargon of our own Exchequer from the train of
+our ordinary ideas or the idiom of our common language. The difference,
+therefore, in the two cases is not in the comparative difficulty or
+facility of the two subjects, but in our attention to the one and our
+total neglect of the other. Had this attention and neglect been
+regulated by the value of the several objects, there would be nothing to
+complain of. But the reverse of that supposition is true. The scene of
+the Indian abuse is distant, indeed; but we must not infer that the
+value of our interest in it is decreased in proportion as it recedes
+from our view. In our politics, as in our common conduct, we shall be
+worse than infants, if we do not put our senses under the tuition of our
+judgment, and effectually cure ourselves of that optical illusion which
+makes a brier at our nose of greater magnitude than an oak at five
+hundred yards' distance.
+
+I think I can trace all the calamities of this country to the single
+source of our not having had steadily before our eyes a general,
+comprehensive, well-connected, and well-proportioned view of the whole
+of our dominions, and a just sense of their true bearings and relations.
+After all its reductions, the British empire is still vast and various.
+After all the reductions of the House of Commons, (stripped as we are of
+our brightest ornaments and of our most important privileges,) enough
+are yet left to furnish us, if we please, with means of showing to the
+world that we deserve the superintendence of as large an empire as this
+kingdom ever held, and the continuance of as ample privileges as the
+House of Commons, in the plenitude of its power, had been habituated to
+assert. But if we make ourselves too little for the sphere of our duty,
+if, on the contrary, we do not stretch and expand our minds to the
+compass of their object, be well assured that everything about us will
+dwindle by degrees, until at length our concerns are shrunk to the
+dimensions of our minds. It is not a predilection to mean, sordid,
+home-bred cares that will avert the consequences of a false estimation
+of our interest, or prevent the shameful dilapidation into which a great
+empire must fall by mean reparations upon mighty ruins.
+
+I confess I feel a degree of disgust, almost leading to despair, at the
+manner in which we are acting in the great exigencies of our country.
+There is now a bill in this House appointing a rigid inquisition into
+the minutest detail of our offices at home. The collection of sixteen
+millions annually, a collection on which the public greatness, safety,
+and credit have their reliance, the whole order of criminal
+jurisprudence, which holds together society itself, have at no time
+obliged us to call forth such powers,--no, nor anything like them. There
+is not a principle of the law and Constitution of this country that is
+not subverted to favor the execution of that project.[3] And for what is
+all this apparatus of bustle and terror? Is it because anything
+substantial is expected from it? No. The stir and bustle itself is the
+end proposed. The eye-servants of a short-sighted master will employ
+themselves, not on what is most essential to his affairs, but on what is
+nearest to his ken. Great difficulties have given a just value to
+economy; and our minister of the day must be an economist, whatever it
+may cost us. But where is he to exert his talents? At home, to be sure;
+for where else can he obtain a profitable credit for their exertion? It
+is nothing to him, whether the object on which he works under our eye be
+promising or not. If he does not obtain any public benefit, he may make
+regulations without end. Those are sure to pay in present expectation,
+whilst the effect is at a distance, and may be the concern of other
+times and other men. On these principles, he chooses to suppose (for he
+does not pretend more than to suppose) a naked possibility that he shall
+draw some resource out of crumbs dropped from the trenchers of penury;
+that something shall be laid in store from the short allowance of
+revenue-officers overloaded with duty and famished for want of
+bread,--by a reduction from officers who are at this very hour ready to
+batter the Treasury with what breaks through stone walls for an
+_increase_ of their appointments. From the marrowless bones of these
+skeleton establishments, by the use of every sort of cutting and of
+every sort of fretting tool, he flatters himself that he may chip and
+rasp an empirical alimentary powder, to diet into some similitude of
+health and substance the languishing chimeras of fraudulent reformation.
+
+Whilst he is thus employed according to his policy and to his taste, he
+has not leisure to inquire into those abuses in India that are drawing
+off money by millions from the treasures of this country, which are
+exhausting the vital juices from members of the state, where the public
+inanition is far more sorely felt than in the local exchequer of
+England. Not content with winking at these abuses, whilst he attempts to
+squeeze the laborious, ill-paid drudges of English revenue, he lavishes,
+in one act of corrupt prodigality, upon those who never served the
+public in any honest occupation at all, an annual income equal to two
+thirds of the whole collection of the revenues of this kingdom.
+
+Actuated by the same principle of choice, he has now on the anvil
+another scheme, full of difficulty and desperate hazard, which totally
+alters the commercial relation of two kingdoms, and, what end soever it
+shall have, may bequeath a legacy of heartburning and discontent to one
+of the countries, perhaps to both, to be perpetuated to the latest
+posterity. This project is also undertaken on the hope of profit. It is
+provided, that, out of some (I know not what) remains of the Irish
+hereditary revenue, a fund, at some time, and of some sort, should be
+applied to the protection of the Irish trade. Here we are commanded
+again to task our faith, and to persuade ourselves, that, out of the
+surplus of deficiency, out of the savings of habitual and systematic
+prodigality, the minister of wonders will provide support for this
+nation, sinking under the mountainous load of two hundred and thirty
+millions of debt. But whilst we look with pain at his desperate and
+laborious trifling, whilst we are apprehensive that he will break his
+back in stooping to pick up chaff and straws, he recovers himself at an
+elastic bound, and with a broadcast swing of his arm he squanders over
+his Indian field a sum far greater than the clear produce of the whole
+hereditary revenue of the kingdom of Ireland.[4]
+
+Strange as this scheme of conduct in ministry is, and inconsistent with
+all just policy, it is still true to itself, and faithful to its own
+perverted order. Those who are bountiful to crimes will be rigid to
+merit and penurious to service. Their penury is even held out as a blind
+and cover to their prodigality. The economy of injustice is to furnish
+resources for the fund of corruption. Then they pay off their protection
+to great crimes and great criminals by being inexorable to the paltry
+frailties of little men; and these modern flagellants are sure, with a
+rigid fidelity, to whip their own enormities on the vicarious back of
+every small offender.
+
+It is to draw your attention to economy of quite another order, it is to
+animadvert on offences of a far different description, that my honorable
+friend has brought before you the motion of this day. It is to
+perpetuate the abuses which are subverting the fabric of your empire,
+that the motion is opposed. It is, therefore, with reason (and if he has
+power to carry himself through, I commend his prudence) that the right
+honorable gentleman makes his stand at the very outset, and boldly
+refuses all Parliamentary information. Let him admit but one step
+towards inquiry, and he is undone. You must be ignorant, or he cannot be
+safe. But before his curtain is let down, and the shades of eternal
+night shall veil our Eastern dominions from our view, permit me, Sir, to
+avail myself of the means which were furnished in anxious and
+inquisitive times to demonstrate out of this single act of the present
+minister what advantages you are to derive from permitting the greatest
+concern of this nation to be separated from the cognizance, and exempted
+even out of the competence, of Parliament. The greatest body of your
+revenue, your most numerous armies, your most important commerce, the
+richest sources of your public credit, (contrary to every idea of the
+known, settled policy of England,) are on the point of being converted
+into a mystery of state. You are going to have one half of the globe hid
+even from the common liberal curiosity of an English gentleman. Here a
+grand revolution commences. Mark the period, and mark the circumstances.
+In most of the capital changes that are recorded in the principles and
+system of any government, a public benefit of some kind or other has
+been pretended. The revolution commenced in something plausible, in
+something which carried the appearance at least of punishment of
+delinquency or correction of abuse. But here, in the very moment of the
+conversion of a department of British government into an Indian mystery,
+and in the very act in which the change commences, a corrupt private
+interest is set up in direct opposition to the necessities of the
+nation. A diversion is made of millions of the public money from the
+public treasury to a private purse. It is not into secret negotiations
+for war, peace, or alliance that the House of Commons is forbidden to
+inquire. It is a matter of account; it is a pecuniary transaction; it is
+the demand of a suspected steward upon ruined tenants and an embarrassed
+master that the Commons of Great Britain are commanded not to inspect.
+The whole tenor of the right honorable gentleman's argument is consonant
+to the nature of his policy. The system of concealment is fostered by a
+system of falsehood. False facts, false colors, false names of persons
+and things, are its whole support.
+
+Sir, I mean to follow the right honorable gentleman over that field of
+deception, clearing what he has purposely obscured, and fairly stating
+what it was necessary for him to misrepresent. For this purpose, it is
+necessary you should know, with some degree of distinctness, a little of
+the locality, the nature, the circumstances, the magnitude of the
+pretended debts on which this marvellous donation is founded, as well as
+of the persons from whom and by whom it is claimed.
+
+Madras, with its dependencies, is the second (but with a long interval,
+the second) member of the British empire in the East. The trade of that
+city, and of the adjacent territory, was not very long ago among the
+most flourishing in Asia. But since the establishment of the British
+power it has wasted away under an uniform gradual decline, insomuch that
+in the year 1779 not one merchant of eminence was to be found in the
+whole country.[5] During this period of decay, about six hundred
+thousand sterling pounds a year have been drawn off by English gentlemen
+on their private account, by the way of China alone.[6] If we add four
+hundred thousand, as probably remitted through other channels, and in
+other mediums, that is, in jewels, gold, and silver, directly brought to
+Europe, and in bills upon the British and foreign companies, you will
+scarcely think the matter overrated. If we fix the commencement of this
+extraction of money from the Carnatic at a period no earlier than the
+year 1760, and close it in the year 1780, it probably will not amount to
+a great deal less than twenty millions of money.
+
+During the deep, silent flow of this steady stream of wealth which set
+from India into Europe, it generally passed on with no adequate
+observation; but happening at some periods to meet rifts of rocks that
+checked its course, it grew more noisy and attracted more notice. The
+pecuniary discussions caused by an accumulation of part of the fortunes
+of their servants in a debt from the Nabob of Arcot was the first thing
+which very particularly called for, and long engaged, the attention of
+the Court of Directors. This debt amounted to eight hundred and eighty
+thousand pounds sterling, and was claimed, for the greater part, by
+English gentlemen residing at Madras. This grand capital, settled at
+length by order at ten per cent, afforded an annuity of eighty-eight
+thousand pounds.[7]
+
+Whilst the Directors were digesting their astonishment at this
+information, a memorial was presented to them from three gentlemen,
+informing them that their friends had lent, likewise, to merchants of
+Canton in China, a sum of not more than one million sterling. In this
+memorial they called upon the Company for their assistance and
+interposition with the Chinese government for the recovery of the debt.
+This sum lent to Chinese merchants was at twenty-four per cent, which
+would yield, if paid, an annuity of two hundred and forty thousand
+pounds.[8]
+
+Perplexed as the Directors were with these demands, you may conceive,
+Sir, that they did not find themselves very much disembarrassed by being
+made acquainted that they must again exert their influence for a new
+reserve of the happy parsimony of their servants, collected into a
+second debt from the Nabob of Arcot, amounting to two millions four
+hundred thousand pounds, settled at an interest of twelve per cent. This
+is known by the name of the Consolidation of 1777, as the former of the
+Nabob's debts was by the title of the Consolidation of 1767. To this was
+added, in a separate parcel, a little reserve, called the Cavalry Debt,
+of one hundred and sixty thousand pounds, at the same interest. The
+whole of these four capitals, amounting to four millions four hundred
+and forty thousand pounds, produced at their several rates, annuities
+amounting to six hundred and twenty-three thousand pounds a year: a good
+deal more than one third of the clear land-tax of England, at four
+shillings in the pound; a good deal more than double the whole annual
+dividend of the East India Company, the nominal masters to the
+proprietors in these funds. Of this interest, three hundred and
+eighty-three thousand two hundred pounds a year stood chargeable on the
+public revenues of the Carnatic.
+
+Sir, at this moment, it will not be necessary to consider the various
+operations which the capital and interest of this debt have successively
+undergone. I shall speak to these operations when I come particularly to
+answer the right honorable gentleman on each of the heads, as he has
+thought proper to divide them. But this was the exact view in which
+these debts first appeared to the Court of Directors, and to the world.
+It varied afterwards. But it never appeared in any other than a most
+questionable shape. When this gigantic phantom of debt first appeared
+before a young minister, it naturally would have justified some degree
+of doubt and apprehension. Such a prodigy would have filled any common
+man with superstitious fears. He would exorcise that shapeless, nameless
+form, and by everything sacred would have adjured it to tell by what
+means a small number of slight individuals, of no consequence or
+situation, possessed of no lucrative offices, without the command of
+armies or the known administration of revenues, without profession of
+any kind, without any sort of trade sufficient to employ a peddler,
+could have, in a few years, (as to some, even in a few months,) amassed
+treasures equal to the revenues of a respectable kingdom? Was it not
+enough to put these gentlemen, in the novitiate of their administration,
+on their guard, and to call upon them for a strict inquiry, (if not to
+justify them in a reprobation of those demands without any inquiry at
+all,) that, when all England, Scotland, and Ireland had for years been
+witness to the immense sums laid out by the servants of the Company in
+stocks of all denominations, in the purchase of lands, in the buying and
+building of houses, in the securing quiet seats in Parliament or in the
+tumultuous riot of contested elections, in wandering throughout the
+whole range of those variegated modes of inventive prodigality which
+sometimes have excited our wonder, sometimes roused our indignation,
+that, after all, India was four millions still in debt to _them_? India
+in debt to _them_! For what? Every debt, for which an equivalent of some
+kind or other is not given, is, on the face of it, a fraud. What is the
+equivalent they have given? What equivalent had they to give? What are
+the articles of commerce, or the branches of manufacture, which those
+gentlemen have carried hence to enrich India? What are the sciences they
+beamed out to enlighten it? What are the arts they introduced to cheer
+and to adorn it? What are the religious, what the moral institutions
+they have taught among that people, as a guide to life, or as a
+consolation when life is to be no more, that there is an eternal debt, a
+debt "still paying, still to owe," which must be bound on the present
+generation in India, and entailed on their mortgaged posterity forever?
+A debt of millions, in favor of a set of men whose names, with few
+exceptions, are either buried in the obscurity of their origin and
+talents or dragged into light by the enormity of their crimes!
+
+In my opinion the courage of the minister was the most wonderful part of
+the transaction, especially as he must have read, or rather the right
+honorable gentleman says he has read for him, whole volumes upon the
+subject. The volumes, by the way, are not by one tenth part so numerous
+as the right honorable gentleman has thought proper to pretend, in order
+to frighten you from inquiry; but in these volumes, such as they are,
+the minister must have found a full authority for a suspicion (at the
+very least) of everything relative to the great fortunes made at Madras.
+What is that authority? Why, no other than the standing authority for
+all the claims which the ministry has thought fit to provide for,--the
+grand debtor,--the Nabob of Arcot himself. Hear that prince, in the
+letter written to the Court of Directors, at the precise period whilst
+the main body of these debts were contracting. In his letter he states
+himself to be, what undoubtedly he is, a most competent witness to this
+point. After speaking of the war with Hyder Ali in 1768 and 1769, and of
+other measures which he censures, (whether right or wrong it signifies
+nothing,) and into which he says he had been led by the Company's
+servants, he proceeds in this manner:--"If all these things were against
+the real interests of the Company, they are ten thousand times more
+against mine, and against the prosperity of my country and the happiness
+of my people; for your interests and mine are the same. _What were they
+owing to, then? To the private views of a few individuals, who have
+enriched themselves at the expense of your influence and of my country:
+for your servants HAVE NO TRADE IN THIS COUNTRY, neither do you pay them
+high wages; yet in a few years they return to England with many lacs of
+pagodas. How can you or I account for such immense fortunes acquired in
+so short a time, without any visible means of getting them?_"
+
+When he asked this question, which involves its answer, it is
+extraordinary that curiosity did not prompt the Chancellor of the
+Exchequer to that inquiry which might come in vain recommended to him by
+his own act of Parliament. Does not the Nabob of Arcot tell us, in so
+many words, that there was no fair way of making the enormous sums sent
+by the Company's servants to England? And do you imagine that there was
+or could be more honesty and good faith in the demands for what remained
+behind in India? Of what nature were the transactions with himself? If
+you follow the train of his information, you must see, that, if these
+great sums were at all lent, it was not property, but spoil, that was
+lent; if not lent, the transaction was not a contract, but a fraud.
+Either way, if light enough could not be furnished to authorize a full
+condemnation of these demands, they ought to have been left to the
+parties, who best knew and understood each other's proceedings. It was
+not necessary that the authority of government should interpose in favor
+of claims whose very foundation was a defiance of that authority, and
+whose object and end was its entire subversion.
+
+It may be said that this letter was written by the Nabob of Arcot in a
+moody humor, under the influence of some chagrin. Certainly it was; but
+it is in such humors that truth comes out. And when he tells you, from
+his own knowledge, what every one must presume, from the extreme
+probability of the thing, whether he told it or not, one such testimony
+is worth a thousand that contradict that probability, when the parties
+have a better understanding with each other, and when they have a point
+to carry that may unite them in a common deceit.
+
+If this body of private claims of debt, real or devised, were a
+question, as it is falsely pretended, between the Nabob of Arcot, as
+debtor, and Paul Benfield and his associates, as creditors, I am sure I
+should give myself but little trouble about it. If the hoards of
+oppression were the fund for satisfying the claims of bribery and
+peculation, who would wish to interfere between such litigants? If the
+demands were confined to what might be drawn from the treasures which
+the Company's records uniformly assert that the Nabob is in possession
+of, or if he had mines of gold or silver or diamonds, (as we know that
+he has none,) these gentlemen might break open his hoards or dig in his
+mines without any disturbance from me. But the gentlemen on the other
+side of the House know as well as I do, and they dare not contradict me,
+that the Nabob of Arcot and his creditors are not adversaries, but
+collusive parties, and that the whole transaction is under a false color
+and false names. The litigation is not, nor ever has been, between their
+rapacity and his hoarded riches. No: it is between him and them
+combining and confederating, on one side, and the public revenues, and
+the miserable inhabitants of a ruined country, on the other. These are
+the real plaintiffs and the real defendants in the suit. Refusing a
+shilling from his hoards for the satisfaction of any demand, the Nabob
+of Arcot is always ready, nay, he earnestly, and with eagerness and
+passion, contends for delivering up to these pretended creditors his
+territory and his subjects. It is, therefore, not from treasuries and
+mines, but from the food of your unpaid armies, from the blood withheld
+from the veins and whipped out of the backs of the most miserable of
+men, that we are to pamper extortion, usury, and peculation, under the
+false names of debtors and creditors of state.
+
+The great patron of these creditors, (to whose honor they ought to erect
+statues,) the right honorable gentleman,[9] in stating the merits which
+recommended them to his favor, has ranked them under three grand
+divisions. The first, the creditors of 1767; then the creditors of the
+cavalry loan; and lastly, the creditors of the loan in 1777. Let us
+examine them, one by one, as they pass in review before us.
+
+The first of these loans, that of 1767, he insists, has an indisputable
+claim upon the public justice. The creditors, he affirms, lent their
+money publicly; they advanced it with the express knowledge and
+approbation of the Company; and it was contracted at the moderate
+interest of ten per cent. In this loan, the demand is, according to him,
+not only just, but meritorious in a very high degree: and one would be
+inclined to believe he thought so, because he has put it last in the
+provision he has made for these claims.
+
+I readily admit this debt to stand the fairest of the whole; for,
+whatever may be my suspicions concerning a part of it, I can convict it
+of nothing worse than the most enormous usury. But I can convict, upon
+the spot, the right honorable gentleman of the most daring
+misrepresentation in every one fact, without any exception, that he has
+alleged in defence of this loan, and of his own conduct with regard to
+it. I will show you that this debt was never contracted with the
+knowledge of the Company; that it had not their approbation; that they
+received the first intelligence of it with the utmost possible surprise,
+indignation, and alarm.
+
+So for from being previously apprised of the transaction from its
+origin, it was two years before the Court of Directors obtained any
+official intelligence of it. "The dealings of the servants with the
+Nabob were concealed from the first, until they were found out" (says
+Mr. Sayer, the Company's counsel) "by the report of the country." The
+Presidency, however, at last thought proper to send an official account.
+On this the Directors tell them, "To your great reproach, it has been
+_concealed from us_. We cannot but suspect this debt to have had its
+weight in _your proposed aggrandizement of Mahomed Ali_ [the Nabob of
+Arcot]; but whether it has or has not, certain it is you are guilty of
+an high breach of duty in _concealing_ it from us."
+
+These expressions, concerning the ground of the transaction, its effect,
+and its clandestine nature, are in the letters bearing date March 17,
+1769. After receiving a more full account, on the 23d March, 1770, they
+state, that "Messrs. John Pybus, John Call, and James Bourchier, as
+trustees for themselves and others of the Nabob's private creditors, had
+proved a deed of assignment upon the Nabob and his son of FIFTEEN
+districts of the Nabob's country, the revenues of which yielded, in time
+of peace, eight lacs of pagodas [320,000_l._ sterling] annually; and
+likewise an assignment of the yearly tribute paid the Nabob from the
+Rajah of Tanjore, amounting to four lacs of rupees [40,000_l._]." The
+territorial revenue at that time possessed by these gentlemen, without
+the knowledge or consent of their masters, amounted to three hundred and
+sixty thousand pounds sterling annually. They were making rapid strides
+to the entire possession of the country, when the Directors, whom the
+right honorable gentleman states as having authorized these
+proceedings, were kept in such profound ignorance of this royal
+acquisition of territorial revenue by their servants, that in the same
+letter they say, "This assignment was obtained by _three of the members
+of your board_ in January, 1767; yet we do not find the _least trace_ of
+it upon your Consultations until August, 1768, nor do any of your
+letters to us afford any information relative to such transactions till
+the 1st of November, 1768. By your last letters of the 8th of May, 1769,
+you bring the whole proceedings to light in one view."
+
+As to the previous knowledge of the Company, and its sanction to the
+debts, you see that this assertion of that knowledge is utterly
+unfounded. But did the Directors approve of it, and ratify the
+transaction, when it was known? The very reverse. On the same 3d of
+March, the Directors declare, "upon an _impartial examination_ of the
+whole conduct of our late Governor and Council of Fort George [Madras],
+and on the fullest consideration, that the said Governor and Council
+have, _in notorious violation of the trust_ reposed in them, manifestly
+_preferred the interest of private individuals to that of the Company_,
+in permitting the assignment of the revenues of certain valuable
+districts, to a very large amount, from the Nabob to individuals"; and
+then, highly aggravating their crimes, they add,--"We order and direct
+that you do examine, in the most impartial manner, all the
+above-mentioned transactions, and that you _punish_, by suspension,
+degradation, dismission, or otherwise, as to you shall seem meet, all
+and every such servant or servants of the Company who may by you be
+found guilty of any of the above offences." "We had" (say the
+Directors) "the mortification to find that the servants of the Company,
+who had been _raised, supported, and owed their present opulence to the
+advantages_ gained in such service, have in this instance most
+_unfaithfully betrayed_ their trust, _abandoned_ the Company's interest,
+and _prostituted_ its influence to accomplish the _purposes of
+individuals, whilst the interest of the Company is almost wholly
+neglected_, and payment to us rendered extremely precarious." Here,
+then, is the rock of approbation of the Court of Directors, on which the
+right honorable gentleman says this debt was founded. Any member, Mr.
+Speaker, who should come into the House, on my reading this sentence of
+condemnation of the Court of Directors against their unfaithful
+servants, might well imagine that he had heard an harsh, severe,
+unqualified invective against the present ministerial Board of Control.
+So exactly do the proceedings of the patrons of this abuse tally with
+those of the actors in it, that the expressions used in the condemnation
+of the one may serve for the reprobation of the other, without the
+change of a word.
+
+To read you all the expressions of wrath and indignation fulminated in
+this dispatch against the meritorious creditors of the right honorable
+gentleman, who according to him have been so fully approved by the
+Company, would be to read the whole.
+
+The right honorable gentleman, with an address peculiar to himself,
+every now and then slides in the Presidency of Madras, as synonymous to
+the Company. That the Presidency did approve the debt is certain. But
+the right honorable gentleman, as prudent in suppressing as skilful in
+bringing forward his matter, has not chosen to tell you that the
+Presidency were the very persons guilty of contracting this
+loan,--creditors themselves, and agents and trustees for all the other
+creditors. For this the Court of Directors accuse them of breach of
+trust; and for this the right honorable gentleman considers them as
+perfectly good authority for those claims. It is pleasant to hear a
+gentleman of the law quote the approbation of creditors as an authority
+for their own debt.
+
+How they came to contract the debt to themselves, how they came to act
+as agents for those whom they ought to have controlled, is for your
+inquiry. The policy of this debt was announced to the Court of Directors
+by the very persons concerned in creating it. "Till very lately," say
+the Presidency, "the Nabob placed his dependence on the Company. Now he
+has been taught by ill advisers that an interest out of doors may stand
+him in good stead. He has been made to believe that _his private
+creditors have power and interest to overrule the Court of
+Directors_."[10] The Nabob was not misinformed. The private creditors
+instantly qualified a vast number of votes; and having made themselves
+masters of the Court of Proprietors, as well as extending a powerful
+cabal in other places as important, they so completely overturned the
+authority of the Court of Directors at home and abroad, that this poor,
+baffled government was soon obliged to lower its tone. It was glad to be
+admitted into partnership with its own servants. The Court of
+Directors, establishing the debt which they had reprobated as a breach
+of trust, and which was planned for the subversion of their authority,
+settled its payments on a par with those of the public; and even so were
+not able to obtain peace, or even equality in their demands. All the
+consequences lay in a regular and irresistible train. By employing their
+influence for the recovery of this debt, their orders, issued in the
+same breath, against creating new debts, only animated the strong
+desires of their servants to this prohibited prolific sport, and it soon
+produced a swarm of sons and daughters, not in the least degenerated
+from the virtue of their parents.
+
+From that moment the authority of the Court of Directors expired in the
+Carnatic, and everywhere else. "Every man," says the Presidency, "who
+opposes the government and its measures, finds an immediate countenance
+from the Nabob; even our discarded officers, however unworthy, are
+received into the Nabob's service."[11] It was, indeed, a matter of no
+wonderful sagacity to determine whether the Court of Directors, with
+their miserable salaries to their servants, of four or five hundred
+pounds a year, or the distributor of millions, was most likely to be
+obeyed. It was an invention beyond the imagination of all the
+speculatists of our speculating age, to see a government quietly settled
+in one and the same town, composed of two distinct members: one to pay
+scantily for obedience, and the other to bribe high for rebellion and
+revolt.
+
+The next thing which recommends this particular debt to the right
+honorable gentleman is, it seems, the moderate interest of ten per cent.
+It would be lost labor to observe on this assertion. The Nabob, in a
+long apologetic letter[12] for the transaction between him and the body
+of the creditors, states the fact as I shall state it to you. In the
+accumulation of this debt, the first interest paid was from thirty to
+thirty-six per cent; it was then brought down to twenty-five per cent;
+at length it was reduced to twenty; and there it found its rest. During
+the whole process, as often as any of these monstrous interests fell
+into an arrear, (into which they were continually falling,) the arrear,
+formed into a new capital,[13] was added to the old, and the same
+interest of twenty per cent accrued upon both. The Company, having got
+some scent of the enormous usury which prevailed at Madras, thought it
+necessary to interfere, and to order all interests to be lowered to ten
+per cent. This order, which contained no exception, though it by no
+means pointed particularly to this class of debts, came like a
+thunderclap on the Nabob. He considered his political credit as ruined;
+but to find a remedy to this unexpected evil, he again added to the old
+principal twenty per cent interest accruing for the last year. Thus a
+new fund was formed; and it was on that accumulation of various
+principals, and interests heaped upon interests, not on the sum
+originally lent, as the right honorable gentleman would make you
+believe, that ten per cent was settled on the whole.
+
+When you consider the enormity of the interest at which these debts were
+contracted, and the several interests added to the principal, I believe
+you will not think me so skeptical, if I should doubt whether for this
+debt of 880,000_l._ the Nabob ever saw 100,000_l._ in real money. The
+right honorable gentleman suspecting, with all his absolute dominion
+over fact, that he never will be able to defend even this venerable
+patriarchal job, though sanctified by its numerous issue, and hoary with
+prescriptive years, has recourse to recrimination, the last resource of
+guilt. He says that this loan of 1767 was provided for in Mr. Fox's
+India bill; and judging of others by his own nature and principles, he
+more than insinuates that this provision was made, not from any sense of
+merit in the claim, but from partiality to General Smith, a proprietor,
+and an agent for that debt. If partiality could have had any weight
+against justice and policy with the then ministers and their friends,
+General Smith had titles to it. But the right honorable gentleman knows
+as well as I do, that General Smith was very far from looking on himself
+as partially treated in the arrangements of that time; indeed, what man
+dared to hope for private partiality in that sacred plan for relief to
+nations?
+
+It is not necessary that the right honorable gentleman should
+sarcastically call that time to our recollection. Well do I remember
+every circumstance of that memorable period. God forbid I should forget
+it! O illustrious disgrace! O victorious defeat! May your memorial be
+fresh and new to the latest generations! May the day of that generous
+conflict be stamped in characters never to be cancelled or worn out from
+the records of time! Let no man hear of us, who shall not hear, that, in
+a struggle against the intrigues of courts and the perfidious levity of
+the multitude, we fell in the cause of honor, in the cause of our
+country, in the cause of human nature itself! But if fortune should be
+as powerful over fame as she has been prevalent over virtue, at least
+our conscience is beyond her jurisdiction. My poor share in the support
+of that great measure no man shall ravish from me. It shall be safely
+lodged in the sanctuary of my heart,--never, never to be torn from
+thence, but with those holds that grapple it to life.
+
+I say, I well remember that bill, and every one of its honest and its
+wise provisions. It is not true that this debt was ever protected or
+enforced, or any revenue whatsoever set apart for it. It was left in
+that bill just where it stood: to be paid or not to be paid out of the
+Nabob's private treasures, according to his own discretion. The Company
+had actually given it their sanction, though always relying for its
+validity on the sole security of the faith of him[14] who without their
+knowledge or consent entered into the original obligation. It had no
+other sanction; it ought to have had no other. So far was Mr. Fox's bill
+from providing _funds_ for it, as this ministry have wickedly done for
+this, and for ten times worse transactions, out of the public estate,
+that an express clause immediately preceded, positively forbidding any
+British subject from receiving assignments upon any part of the
+territorial revenue, on any pretence whatsoever.[15]
+
+You recollect, Mr. Speaker, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer
+strongly professed to retain every part of Mr. Fox's bill which was
+intended to prevent abuse; but in _his_ India bill, which (let me do
+justice) is as able and skilful a performance, for its own purposes, as
+ever issued from the wit of man, premeditating this iniquity,--
+
+    Hoc ipsum ut strueret, Trojamque aperiret Achivis,--
+
+expunged this essential clause, broke down the fence which was raised to
+cover the public property against the rapacity of his partisans, and
+thus levelling every obstruction, he made a firm, broad highway for sin
+and death, for usury and oppression, to renew their ravages throughout
+the devoted revenues of the Carnatic.
+
+The tenor, the policy, and the consequences of this debt of 1767 are in
+the eyes of ministry so excellent, that its merits are irresistible; and
+it takes the lead to give credit and countenance to all the rest. Along
+with this chosen body of heavy-armed infantry, and to support it in the
+line, the right honorable gentleman has stationed his corps of black
+cavalry. If there be any advantage between this debt and that of 1769,
+according to him the cavalry debt has it. It is not a subject of
+defence: it is a theme of panegyric. Listen to the right honorable
+gentleman, and you will find it was contracted to save the country,--to
+prevent mutiny in armies,--to introduce economy in revenues; and for
+all these honorable purposes, it originated at the express desire and by
+the representative authority of the Company itself.
+
+First let me say a word to the authority. This debt was contracted, not
+by the authority of the Company, not by its representatives, (as the
+right honorable gentleman has the unparalleled confidence to assert,)
+but in the ever-memorable period of 1777, by the usurped power of those
+who rebelliously, in conjunction with the Nabob of Arcot, had overturned
+the lawful government of Madras. For that rebellion this House
+unanimously directed a public prosecution. The delinquents, after they
+had subverted government, in order to make to themselves a party to
+support them in their power, are universally known to have dealt jobs
+about to the right and to the left, and to any who were willing to
+receive them. This usurpation, which the right honorable gentleman well
+knows was brought about by and for the great mass of these pretended
+debts, is the authority which is set up by him to represent the
+Company,--to represent that Company which, from the first moment of
+their hearing of this corrupt and fraudulent transaction to this hour,
+have uniformly disowned and disavowed it.
+
+So much for the authority. As to the facts, partly true, and partly
+colorable, as they stand recorded, they are in substance these. The
+Nabob of Arcot, as soon as he had thrown off the superiority of this
+country by means of these creditors, kept up a great army which he never
+paid. Of course his soldiers were generally in a state of mutiny.[16]
+The usurping Council say that they labored hard with their master, the
+Nabob, to persuade him to reduce these mutinous and useless troops. He
+consented; but, as usual, pleaded inability to pay them their arrears.
+Here was a difficulty. The Nabob had no money; the Company had no money;
+every public supply was empty. But there was one resource which no
+season has ever yet dried up in that climate. The _soucars_ were at
+hand: that is, private English money-jobbers offered their assistance.
+Messieurs Taylor, Majendie, and Call proposed to advance the small sum
+of 160,000_l._ to pay off the Nabob's black cavalry, provided the
+Company's authority was given for their loan. This was the great point
+of policy always aimed at, and pursued through a hundred devices by the
+servants at Madras. The Presidency, who themselves had no authority for
+the functions they presumed to exercise, very readily gave the sanction
+of the Company to those servants who knew that the Company, whose
+sanction was demanded, had positively prohibited all such transactions.
+
+However, so far as the reality of the dealing goes, all is hitherto fair
+and plausible; and here the right honorable gentleman concludes, with
+commendable prudence, his account of the business. But here it is I
+shall beg leave to commence my supplement: for the gentleman's discreet
+modesty has led him to cut the thread of the story somewhat abruptly.
+One of the most essential parties is quite forgotten. Why should the
+episode of the poor Nabob be omitted? When that prince chooses it,
+nobody can tell his story better. Excuse me, if I apply again to my
+book, and give it you from the first hand: from the Nabob himself.
+
+"Mr. Stratton became acquainted with this, and got Mr. Taylor and
+others to lend me four lacs of pagodas towards discharging the arrears
+of pay of my troops. Upon this, I wrote a letter of thanks to Mr.
+Stratton; and upon the faith of this money being paid immediately, I
+ordered many of my troops to be discharged by a certain day, and
+lessened the number of my servants. Mr. Taylor, &c., some time after
+acquainted me, that they had no ready money, but they would grant teeps
+payable in four months. This astonished me; for I did not know what
+might happen, when the sepoys were dismissed from my service. I begged
+of Mr. Taylor and the others to pay this sum to the officers of my
+regiments at the time they mentioned; and desired the officers, at the
+same time, to pacify and persuade the men belonging to them that their
+pay would be given to them _at the end of four months_, and that, till
+those arrears were discharged, their pay should be continued to them.
+_Two years_ are nearly expired since that time, but Mr. Taylor has not
+yet entirely discharged the arrears of those troops, and I am obliged to
+continue their pay from that time till this. I hoped to have been able,
+by this expedient, to have lessened the number of my troops, and
+discharged the arrears due to them, considering the trifle of interest
+to Mr. Taylor and the others as no great matter; but instead of this, _I
+am oppressed with the burden of pay due to those troops, and the
+interest, which is going on to Mr. Taylor from the day the teeps were
+granted to him_." What I have read to you is an extract of a letter from
+the Nabob of the Carnatic to Governor Rumbold, dated the 22d, and
+received the 24th of March, 1779.[17]
+
+Suppose his Highness not to be well broken in to things of this kind,
+it must, indeed, surprise so known and established a bond-vender as the
+Nabob of Arcot, one who keeps himself the largest bond-warehouse in the
+world, to find that he was now to receive in kind: not to take money for
+his obligations, but to give his bond in exchange for the bond of
+Messieurs Taylor, Majendie, and Call, and to pay, besides, a good, smart
+interest, legally twelve per cent, (in reality, perhaps, twenty or
+twenty-four per cent,) for this exchange of paper. But his troops were
+not to be so paid, or so disbanded. They wanted bread, and could not
+live by cutting and shuffling of bonds. The Nabob still kept the troops
+in service, and was obliged to continue, as you have seen, the whole
+expense to exonerate himself from which he became indebted to the
+soucars.
+
+Had it stood here, the transaction would have been of the most audacious
+strain of fraud and usury perhaps ever before discovered, whatever might
+have been practised and concealed. But the same authority (I mean the
+Nabob's) brings before you something, if possible, more striking. He
+states, that, for this their paper, he immediately handed over to these
+gentlemen something very different from paper,--that is, the receipt of
+a territorial revenue, of which, it seems, they continued as long in
+possession as the Nabob himself continued in possession of anything.
+Their payments, therefore, not being to commence before the end of four
+months, and not being completed in two years, it must be presumed
+(unless they prove the contrary) that their payments to the Nabob were
+made out of the revenues they had received from his assignment. Thus
+they condescended to accumulate a debt of 160,000_l._ with an interest
+of twelve per cent, in compensation for a lingering payment to the
+Nabob of 160,000_l._ of his own money.
+
+Still we have not the whole. About two years after the assignment of
+those territorial revenues to these gentlemen, the Nabob receives a
+remonstrance from his chief manager in a principal province, of which
+this is the tenor. "The _entire_ revenue of those districts is by your
+Highness's order set apart to discharge the tunkaws [assignments]
+granted to the Europeans. The gomastahs [agents] of Mr. Taylor to Mr. De
+Fries are there in order to collect those tunkaws; and as they receive
+_all_ the revenue that is collected, your Highness's troops have _seven
+or eight months' pay due_, which they cannot receive, and are thereby
+reduced to the greatest _distress_. _In such times_ it is highly
+necessary to provide for the sustenance of the troops, that they may be
+ready to exert themselves in the service of your Highness."
+
+Here, Sir, you see how these causes and effects act upon one another.
+One body of troops mutinies for want of pay; a debt is contracted to pay
+them; and they still remain unpaid. A territory destined to pay other
+troops is assigned for this debt; and these other troops fall into the
+same state of indigence and mutiny with the first. Bond is paid by bond;
+arrear is turned into new arrear; usury engenders new usury; mutiny,
+suspended in one quarter, starts up in another; until all the revenues
+and all the establishments are entangled into one inextricable knot of
+confusion, from which they are only disengaged by being entirely
+destroyed. In that state of confusion, in a very few months after the
+date of the memorial I have just read to you, things were found, when
+the Nabob's troops, famished to feed English soucars, instead of
+defending the country, joined the invaders, and deserted in entire
+bodies to Hyder Ali.[18]
+
+The manner in which this transaction was carried on shows that good
+examples are not easily forgot, especially by those who are bred in a
+great school. One of those splendid examples give me leave to mention,
+at a somewhat more early period; because one fraud furnishes light to
+the discovery of another, and so on, until the whole secret of
+mysterious iniquity bursts upon you in a blaze of detection. The paper I
+shall read you is not on record. If you please, you may take it on my
+word. It is a letter written from one of undoubted information in Madras
+to Sir John Clavering, describing the practice that prevailed there,
+whilst the Company's allies were under sale, during the time of Governor
+Winch's administration.
+
+"One mode," says Clavering's correspondent, "of amassing money at the
+Nabob's cost is curious. He is generally in arrears to the Company. Here
+the Governor, being cash-keeper, is generally on good terms with the
+banker, who manages matters thus. The Governor presses the Nabob for the
+balance due from him; the Nabob flies to his banker for relief; the
+banker engages to pay the money, and grants his notes accordingly, which
+he puts in the cash-book as ready money; the Nabob pays him an interest
+for it at two and three per cent _per mensem_, till the tunkaws he
+grants on the particular districts for it are paid. Matters in the mean
+time are so managed that there is no call for this money for the
+Company's service till the tunkaws become due. By this means not a cash
+is advanced by the banker, though he receives a heavy interest from the
+Nabob, which is divided as lawful spoil."
+
+Here, Mr. Speaker, you have the whole art and mystery, the true
+free-mason secret, of the profession of _soucaring_; by which a few
+innocent, inexperienced young Englishmen, such as Mr. Paul Benfield, for
+instance, without property upon which any one would lend to themselves a
+single shilling, are enabled at once to take provinces in mortgage, to
+make princes their debtors, and to become creditors for millions.
+
+But it seems the right honorable gentleman's favorite soucar cavalry
+have proved the payment before the Mayor's Court at Madras! Have they
+so? Why, then, defraud our anxiety and their characters of that proof?
+Is it not enough that the charges which I have laid before you have
+stood on record against these poor injured gentlemen for eight years? Is
+it not enough that they are in print by the orders of the East India
+Company for five years? After these gentlemen have borne all the odium
+of this publication and all the indignation of the Directors with such
+unexampled equanimity, now that they are at length stimulated into
+feeling are you to deny them their just relief? But will the right
+honorable gentleman be pleased to tell us how they came not to give this
+satisfaction to the Court of Directors, their lawful masters, during all
+the eight years of this litigated claim? Were they not bound, by every
+tie that can bind man, to give them this satisfaction? This day, for the
+first time, we hear of the proofs. But when were these proofs offered?
+In what cause? Who were the parties? Who inspected, who contested this
+belated account? Let us see something to oppose to the body of record
+which appears against them. The Mayor's Court! the Mayor's Court!
+Pleasant! Does not the honorable gentleman know that the first corps of
+creditors (the creditors of 1767) stated it as a sort of hardship to
+them, that they could not have justice at Madras, from the impossibility
+of their supporting their claims in the Mayor's Court? Why? Because, say
+they, the members of that court were themselves creditors, and therefore
+could not sit as judges.[19] Are we ripe to say that no creditor under
+similar circumstances was member of the court, when the payment which is
+the ground of this cavalry debt was put in proof?[20] Nay, are we not in
+a manner compelled to conclude that the court was so constituted, when
+we know there is scarcely a man in Madras who has not some participation
+in these transactions? It is a shame to hear such proofs mentioned,
+instead of the honest, vigorous scrutiny which the circumstances of such
+an affair so indispensably call for.
+
+But his Majesty's ministers, indulgent enough to other scrutinies, have
+not been satisfied with authorizing the payment of this demand without
+such inquiry as the act has prescribed; but they have added the arrear
+of twelve per cent interest, from the year 1777 to the year 1784, to
+make a new capital, raising thereby 160 to 294,000_l._ Then they charge
+a new twelve per cent on the whole from that period, for a transaction
+in which it will be a miracle if a single penny will be ever found
+really advanced from the private stock of the pretended creditors.
+
+In this manner, and at such an interest, the ministers have thought
+proper to dispose of 294,000_l._ of the public revenues, for what is
+called the Cavalry Loan. After dispatching this, the right honorable
+gentleman leads to battle his last grand division, the consolidated debt
+of 1777. But having exhausted all his panegyric on the two first, he has
+nothing at all to say in favor of the last. On the contrary, he admits
+that it was contracted in defiance of the Company's orders, without even
+the pretended sanction of any pretended representatives. Nobody, indeed,
+has yet been found hardy enough to stand forth avowedly in its defence.
+But it is little to the credit of the age, that what has not
+plausibility enough to find an advocate has influence enough to obtain a
+protector. Could any man expect to find that protector anywhere? But
+what must every man think, when he finds that protector in the chairman
+of the Committee of Secrecy[21], who had published to the House, and to
+the world, the facts that condemn these debts, the orders that forbid
+the incurring of them, the dreadful consequences which attended them?
+Even in his official letter, when he tramples on his Parliamentary
+report, yet his general language is the same. Read the preface to this
+part of the ministerial arrangement, and you would imagine that this
+debt was to be crushed, with all the weight of indignation which could
+fall from a vigilant guardian of the public treasury upon those who
+attempted to rob it. What must be felt by every man who has feeling,
+when, after such a thundering preamble of condemnation, this debt is
+ordered to be paid without any sort of inquiry into its
+authenticity,--without a single step taken to settle even the amount of
+the demand,--without an attempt so much as to ascertain the real persons
+claiming a sum which rises in the accounts from one million three
+hundred thousand pound sterling to two million four hundred thousand
+pound, principal money,[22]--without an attempt made to ascertain the
+proprietors, of whom no list has ever yet been laid before the Court of
+Directors,--of proprietors who are known to be in a collusive shuffle,
+by which they never appear to be the same in any two lists handed about
+for their own particular purposes?
+
+My honorable friend who made you the motion has sufficiently exposed the
+nature of this debt. He has stated to you, that _its own agents_, in the
+year 1781, in the arrangement _they proposed_ to make at Calcutta, were
+satisfied to have twenty-five per cent at once struck off from the
+capital of a great part of this debt, and prayed to have a provision
+made for this reduced principal, without any interest at all. This was
+an arrangement of _their own_, an arrangement made by those who best
+knew the true constitution of their own debt, who knew how little favor
+it merited,[23] and how little hopes they had to find any persons in
+authority abandoned enough to support it as it stood.
+
+But what corrupt men, in the fond imaginations of a sanguine avarice,
+had not the confidence to propose, they have found a Chancellor of the
+Exchequer in England hardy enough to undertake for them. He has cheered
+their drooping spirits. He has thanked the peculators for not despairing
+of their commonwealth. He has told them they were too modest. He has
+replaced the twenty-five per cent which, in order to lighten themselves,
+they had abandoned in their conscious terror. Instead of cutting off the
+interest, as they had themselves consented to do, with the fourth of the
+capital, he has added the whole growth of four years' usury of twelve
+per cent to the first overgrown principal; and has again grafted on this
+meliorated stock a perpetual annuity of six per cent, to take place from
+the year 1781. Let no man hereafter talk of the decaying energies of
+Nature. All the acts and monuments in the records of peculation, the
+consolidated corruption of ages, the patterns of exemplary plunder in
+the heroic times of Roman iniquity, never equalled the gigantic
+corruption of this single act. Never did Nero, in all the insolent
+prodigality of despotism, deal out to his prætorian guards a donation
+fit to be named with the largess showered down by the bounty of our
+Chancellor of the Exchequer on the faithful band of his Indian sepoys.
+
+The right honorable gentleman[24] lets you freely and voluntarily into
+the whole transaction. So perfectly has his conduct confounded his
+understanding, that he fairly tells you that through the course of the
+whole business he has never conferred with any but the agents of the
+pretended creditors. After this, do you want more to establish a secret
+understanding with the parties,--to fix, beyond a doubt, their collusion
+and participation in a common fraud?
+
+If this were not enough, he has furnished you with other presumptions
+that are not to be shaken. It is one of the known indications of guilt
+to stagger and prevaricate in a story, and to vary in the motives that
+are assigned to conduct. Try these ministers by this rule. In their
+official dispatch, they tell the Presidency of Madras that they have
+established the debt for two reasons: first, because the Nabob (the
+party indebted) does not dispute it; secondly, because it is mischievous
+to keep it longer afloat, and that the payment of the European creditors
+will promote circulation in the country. These two motives (for the
+plainest reasons in the world) the right honorable gentleman has this
+day thought fit totally to abandon. In the first place, he rejects the
+authority of the Nabob of Arcot. It would, indeed, be pleasant to see
+him adhere to this exploded testimony. He next, upon grounds equally
+solid, abandons the benefits of that circulation which was to be
+produced by drawing out all the juices of the body. Laying aside, or
+forgetting, these pretences of his dispatch, he has just now assumed a
+principle totally different, but to the full as extraordinary. He
+proceeds upon a supposition that many of the claims may be fictitious.
+He then finds, that, in a case where many valid and many fraudulent
+claims are blended together, the best course for their discrimination is
+indiscriminately to establish them all. He trusts, (I suppose,) as there
+may not be a fund sufficient for every description of creditors, that
+the best warranted claimants will exert themselves in bringing to light
+those debts which will not bear an inquiry. What he will not do himself
+he is persuaded will be done by others; and for this purpose he leaves
+to any person a general power of excepting to the debt. This total
+change of language and prevarication in principle is enough, if it stood
+alone, to fix the presumption of unfair dealing. His dispatch assigns
+motives of policy, concord, trade, and circulation: his speech proclaims
+discord and litigations, and proposes, as the ultimate end, detection.
+
+But he may shift his reasons, and wind and turn as he will, confusion
+waits him at all his doubles. Who will undertake this detection? Will
+the Nabob? But the right honorable gentleman has himself this moment
+told us that no prince of the country can by any motive be prevailed
+upon to discover any fraud that is practised upon him by the Company's
+servants. He says what (with the exception of the complaint against the
+Cavalry Loan) all the world knows to be true: and without that prince's
+concurrence, what evidence can be had of the fraud of any the smallest
+of these demands? The ministers never authorized any person to enter
+into his exchequer and to search his records. Why, then, this shameful
+and insulting mockery of a pretended contest? Already contests for a
+preference have arisen among these rival bond-creditors. Has not the
+Company itself struggled for a preference for years, without any attempt
+at detection of the nature of those debts with which they contended?
+Well is the Nabob of Arcot attended to in the only specific complaint he
+has ever made. He complained of unfair dealing in the Cavalry Loan. It
+is fixed upon him with interest on interest; and this loan is excepted
+from all power of litigation.
+
+This day, and not before, the right honorable gentleman thinks that the
+general establishment of all claims is the surest way of laying open the
+fraud of some of them. In India this is a reach of deep policy. But what
+would be thought of this mode of acting on a demand upon the Treasury in
+England? Instead of all this cunning, is there not one plain way
+open,--that is, to put the burden of the proof on those who make the
+demand? Ought not ministry to have said to the creditors, "The person
+who admits your debt stands excepted to as evidence; he stands charged
+as a collusive party, to hand over the public revenues to you for
+sinister purposes. You say, you have a demand of some millions on the
+Indian Treasury; prove that you have acted by lawful authority; prove,
+at least, that your money has been _bonâ fide_ advanced; entitle
+yourself to my protection by the fairness and fulness of the
+communications you make"? Did an honest creditor ever refuse that
+reasonable and honest test?
+
+There is little doubt that several individuals have been seduced by the
+purveyors to the Nabob of Arcot to put their money (perhaps the whole of
+honest and laborious earnings) into their hands, and that at such high
+interest as, being condemned at law, leaves them at the mercy of the
+great managers whom they trusted. These seduced creditors are probably
+persons of no power or interest either in England or India, and may be
+just objects of compassion. By taking, in this arrangement, no measures
+for discrimination and discovery, the fraudulent and the fair are in the
+first instance confounded in one mass. The subsequent selection and
+distribution is left to the Nabob. With him the agents and instruments
+of his corruption, whom he sees to be omnipotent in England, and who may
+serve him in future, as they have done in times past, will have
+precedence, if not an exclusive preference. These leading interests
+domineer, and have always domineered, over the whole. By this
+arrangement, the persons seduced are made dependent on their seducers;
+honesty (comparative honesty at least) must become of the party of
+fraud, and must quit its proper character and its just claims, to
+entitle itself to the alms of bribery and peculation.
+
+But be these English creditors what they may, the creditors most
+certainly not fraudulent are the natives, who are numerous and wretched
+indeed: by exhausting the whole revenues of the Carnatic, nothing is
+left for them. They lent _bonâ fide_; in all probability they were even
+forced to lend, or to give goods and service for the Nabob's
+obligations. They had no trusts to carry to his market. They had no
+faith of alliances to sell. They had no nations to betray to robbery and
+ruin. They had no lawful government seditiously to overturn; nor had
+they a governor, to whom it is owing that you exist in India, to deliver
+over to captivity, and to death in a shameful prison.[25]
+
+These were the merits of the principal part of the debt of 1777, and the
+universally conceived causes of its growth; and thus the unhappy natives
+are deprived of every hope of payment for their real debts, to make
+provision for the arrears of unsatisfied bribery and treason. You see in
+this instance that the presumption of guilt is not only no exception to
+the demands on the public treasury, but with these ministers it is a
+necessary condition to their support. But that you may not think this
+preference solely owing to their known contempt of the natives, who
+ought with every generous mind to claim their first charities, you will
+find the same rule religiously observed with Europeans too. Attend, Sir,
+to this decisive case. Since the beginning of the war, besides arrears
+of every kind, a bond-debt has been contracted at Madras, uncertain in
+its amount, but represented from four hundred thousand pound to a
+million sterling. It stands only at the low interest of eight per cent.
+Of the legal authority on which this debt was contracted, of its
+purposes for the very being of the state, of its publicity and fairness,
+no doubt has been entertained for a moment. For this debt no sort of
+provision whatever has been made. It is rejected as an outcast, whilst
+the whole undissipated attention of the minister has been employed for
+the discharge of claims entitled to his favor by the merits we have
+seen.
+
+I have endeavored to find out, if possible, the amount of the whole of
+those demands, in order to see how much, supposing the country in a
+condition to furnish the fund, may remain to satisfy the public debt and
+the necessary establishments. But I have been foiled in my attempt.
+
+About one fourth, that is, about 220,000_l._, of the loan of 1767
+remains unpaid. How much interest is in arrear I could never discover:
+seven or eight years' at least, which would make the whole of that debt
+about 396,000_l._ This stock, which the ministers in their instructions
+to the Governor of Madras state as the least exceptionable, they have
+thought proper to distinguish by a marked severity, leaving it the only
+one on which the interest is not added to the principal to beget a new
+interest.
+
+The Cavalry Loan, by the operation of the same authority, is made up to
+294,000_l._; and this 294,000_l._, made up of principal and interest, is
+crowned with a new interest of twelve per cent.
+
+What the grand loan, the bribery loan of 1777, may be is amongst the
+deepest mysteries of state. It is probably the first debt ever assuming
+the title of Consolidation that did not express what the amount of the
+sum consolidated was. It is little less than a contradiction in terms.
+In the debt of the year 1767 the sum was stated in the act of
+consolidation, and made to amount to 880,000_l._ capital. When this
+consolidation of 1777 was first announced at the Durbar, it was
+represented authentically at 2,400,000_l._ In that, or rather in a
+higher state, Sir Thomas Rumbold found and condemned it.[26] It
+afterwards fell into such a terror as to sweat away a million of its
+weight at once; and it sunk to 1,400,000_l._[27] However, it never was
+without a resource for recruiting it to its old plumpness. There was a
+sort of floating debt of about four or five hundred thousand pounds more
+ready to be added, as occasion should require.
+
+In short, when you pressed this sensitive-plant, it always contracted
+its dimensions. When the rude hand of inquiry was withdrawn, it expanded
+in all the luxuriant vigor of its original vegetation. In the treaty of
+1781, the whole of the Nabob's debt to private Europeans is by Mr.
+Sulivan, agent to the Nabob and his creditors, stated at 2,800,000_l._,
+which, if the Cavalry Loan and the remains of the debt of 1767 be
+subtracted, leaves it nearly at the amount originally declared at the
+Durbar in 1777: but then there is a private instruction to Mr. Sulivan,
+which, it seems, will reduce it again to the lower standard of
+1,400,000_l._
+
+Failing in all my attempts, by a direct account, to ascertain the extent
+of the capital claimed, (where in all probability no capital was ever
+advanced,) I endeavored, if possible, to discover it by the interest
+which was to be paid. For that purpose, I looked to the several
+agreements for assigning the territories of the Carnatic to secure the
+principal and interest of this debt. In one of them,[28] I found, in a
+sort of postscript, by way of an additional remark, (not in the body of
+the obligation,) the debt represented at 1,400,000_l._: but when I
+computed the sums to be paid for interest by instalments in another
+paper, I found they produced an interest of two millions, at twelve per
+cent; and the assignment supposed, that, if these instalments might
+exceed, they might also fall short of, the real provision for that
+interest.[29] Another instalment-bond was afterwards granted: in that
+bond the interest exactly tallies with a capital of 1,400,000_l._:[30]
+but pursuing this capital through the correspondence, I lost sight of it
+again, and it was asserted that this instalment-bond was considerably
+short of the interest that ought to be computed to the time
+mentioned.[31]
+
+Here are, therefore, two statements of equal authority, differing at
+least a million from each other; and as neither persons claiming, nor
+any special sum as belonging to each particular claimant, is ascertained
+in the instruments of consolidation, or in the installment-bonds, a
+large scope was left to throw in any sums for any persons, as their
+merits in advancing the interest of that loan might require; a power was
+also left for reduction, in case a harder hand, or more scanty funds,
+might be found to require it. Stronger grounds for a presumption of
+fraud never appeared in any transaction. But the ministers, faithful to
+the plan of the interested persons, whom alone they thought fit to
+confer with on this occasion, have ordered the payment of the whole mass
+of these unknown, unliquidated sums, without an attempt to ascertain
+them. On this conduct, Sir, I leave you to make your own reflections.
+
+It is impossible (at least I have found it impossible) to fix on the
+real amount of the pretended debts with which your ministers have
+thought proper to load the Carnatic. They are obscure; they shun
+inquiry; they are enormous. That is all you know of them.
+
+That you may judge what chance any honorable and useful end of
+government has for a provision that comes in for the leavings of these
+gluttonous demands, I must take it on myself to bring before you the
+real condition of that abused, insulted, racked, and ruined country;
+though in truth my mind revolts from it, though you will hear it with
+horror, and I confess I tremble when I think on these awful and
+confounding dispensations of Providence. I shall first trouble you with
+a few words as to the cause.
+
+The great fortunes made in India, in the beginnings of conquest,
+naturally excited an emulation in all the parts and through the whole
+succession of the Company's service. But in the Company it gave rise to
+other sentiments. They did not find the new channels of acquisition flow
+with equal riches to them. On the contrary, the high flood-tide of
+private emolument was generally in the lowest ebb of their affairs. They
+began also to fear that the fortune of war might take away what the
+fortune of war had given. Wars were accordingly discouraged by repeated
+injunctions and menaces: and that the servants might not be bribed into
+them by the native princes, they were strictly forbidden to take any
+money whatsoever from their hands. But vehement passion is ingenious in
+resources. The Company's servants were not only stimulated, but better
+instructed by the prohibition. They soon fell upon a contrivance which
+answered their purposes far better than the methods which were
+forbidden: though in this also they violated an ancient, but they
+thought, an abrogated order. They reversed their proceedings. Instead of
+receiving presents, they made loans. Instead of carrying on wars in
+their own name, they contrived an authority, at once irresistible and
+irresponsible, in whose name they might ravage at pleasure; and being
+thus freed from all restraint, they indulged themselves in the most
+extravagant speculations of plunder. The cabal of creditors who have
+been the object of the late bountiful grant from his Majesty's
+ministers, in order to possess themselves, under the name of creditors
+and assignees, of every country in India, as fast as it should be
+conquered, inspired into the mind of the Nabob of Arcot (then a
+dependant on the Company of the humblest order) a scheme of the most
+wild and desperate ambition that I believe ever was admitted into the
+thoughts of a man so situated.[32] First, they persuaded him to
+consider himself as a principal member in the political system of
+Europe. In the next place, they held out to him, and he readily imbibed,
+the idea of the general empire of Hindostan. As a preliminary to this
+undertaking, they prevailed on him to propose a tripartite division of
+that vast country: one part to the Company; another to the Mahrattas;
+and the third to himself. To himself he reserved all the southern part
+of the great peninsula, comprehended under the general name of the
+Deccan.
+
+On this scheme of their servants, the Company was to appear in the
+Carnatic in no other light than as a contractor for the provision of
+armies, and the hire of mercenaries for his use and under his direction.
+This disposition was to be secured by the Nabob's putting himself under
+the guaranty of France, and, by the means of that rival nation,
+preventing the English forever from assuming an equality, much less a
+superiority, in the Carnatic. In pursuance of this treasonable project,
+(treasonable on the part of the English,) they extinguished the Company
+as a sovereign power in that part of India; they withdrew the Company's
+garrisons out of all the forts and strongholds of the Carnatic; they
+declined to receive the ambassadors from foreign courts, and remitted
+them to the Nabob of Arcot; they fell upon, and totally destroyed, the
+oldest ally of the Company, the king of Tanjore, and plundered the
+country to the amount of near five millions sterling; one after
+another, in the Nabob's name, but with English force, they brought into
+a miserable servitude all the princes and great independent nobility of
+a vast country.[33] In proportion to these treasons and violences, which
+ruined the people, the fund of the Nabob's debt grew and flourished.
+
+Among the victims to this magnificent plan of universal plunder, worthy
+of the heroic avarice of the projectors, you have all heard (and he has
+made himself to be well remembered) of an Indian chief called Hyder Ali
+Khan. This man possessed the western, as the Company, under the name of
+the Nabob of Arcot, does the eastern division of the Carnatic. It was
+among the leading measures in the design of this cabal (according to
+their own emphatic language) to _extirpate_ this Hyder Ali.[34] They
+declared the Nabob of Arcot to be his sovereign, and himself to be a
+rebel, and publicly invested their instrument with the sovereignty of
+the kingdom of Mysore. But their victim was not of the passive kind.
+They were soon obliged to conclude a treaty of peace and close alliance
+with this rebel, at the gates of Madras. Both before and since that
+treaty, every principle of policy pointed out this power as a natural
+alliance; and on his part it was courted by every sort of amicable
+office. But the cabinet council of English creditors would not suffer
+their Nabob of Arcot to sign the treaty, nor even to give to a prince at
+least his equal the ordinary titles of respect and courtesy.[35] From
+that time forward, a continued plot was carried on within the divan,
+black and white, of the Nabob of Arcot, for the destruction of Hyder
+Ali. As to the outward members of the double, or rather treble
+government of Madras, which had signed the treaty, they were always
+prevented by some overruling influence (which they do not describe, but
+which cannot be misunderstood) from performing what justice and interest
+combined so evidently to enforce.[36]
+
+When at length Hyder Ali found that he had to do with men who either
+would sign no convention, or whom no treaty and no signature could bind,
+and who were the determined enemies of human intercourse itself, he
+decreed to make the country possessed by these incorrigible and
+predestinated criminals a memorable example to mankind. He resolved, in
+the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious of such things, to leave the
+whole Carnatic an everlasting monument of vengeance, and to put
+perpetual desolation as a barrier between him and those against whom the
+faith which holds the moral elements of the world together was no
+protection. He became at length so confident of his force, so collected
+in his might, that he made no secret whatsoever of his dreadful
+resolution. Having terminated his disputes with every enemy and every
+rival, who buried their mutual animosities in their common detestation
+against the creditors of the Nabob of Arcot, he drew from every quarter
+whatever a savage ferocity could add to his new rudiments in the arts of
+destruction; and compounding all the materials of fury, havoc, and
+desolation into one black cloud, he hung for a while on the declivities
+of the mountains. Whilst the authors of all these evils were idly and
+stupidly gazing on this menacing meteor, which blackened all their
+horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured down the whole of its contents
+upon the plains of the Carnatic. Then ensued a scene of woe, the like of
+which no eye had seen, no heart conceived, and which no tongue can
+adequately tell. All the horrors of war before known or heard of were
+mercy to that new havoc. A storm of universal fire blasted every field,
+consumed every house, destroyed every temple. The miserable inhabitants,
+flying from their flaming villages, in part were slaughtered; others,
+without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank or sacredness of
+function, fathers torn from children, husbands from wives, enveloped in
+a whirlwind of cavalry, and amidst the goading spears of drivers, and
+the trampling of pursuing horses, were swept into captivity in an
+unknown and hostile land. Those who were able to evade this tempest fled
+to the walled cities; but escaping from fire, sword, and exile, they
+fell into the jaws of famine.
+
+The alms of the settlement, in this dreadful exigency, were certainly
+liberal; and all was done by charity that private charity could do: but
+it was a people in beggary; it was a nation which stretched out its
+hands for food. For months together, these creatures of sufferance,
+whose very excess and luxury in their most plenteous days had fallen
+short of the allowance of our austerest fasts, silent, patient,
+resigned, without sedition or disturbance, almost without complaint,
+perished by an hundred a day in the streets of Madras; every day seventy
+at least laid their bodies in the streets or on the glacis of Tanjore,
+and expired of famine in the granary of India. I was going to awake your
+justice towards this unhappy part of our fellow-citizens, by bringing
+before you some of the circumstances of this plague of hunger: of all
+the calamities which beset and waylay the life of man, this comes the
+nearest to our heart, and is that wherein the proudest of us all feels
+himself to be nothing more than he is: but I find myself unable to
+manage it with decorum; these details are of a species of horror so
+nauseous and disgusting, they are so degrading to the sufferers and to
+the hearers, they are so humiliating to human nature itself, that, on
+better thoughts, I find it more advisable to throw a pall over this
+hideous object, and to leave it to your general conceptions.
+
+For eighteen months,[37] without intermission, this destruction raged
+from the gates of Madras to the gates of Tanjore; and so completely did
+these masters in their art, Hyder Ali and his more ferocious son,
+absolve themselves of their impious vow, that, when the British armies
+traversed, as they did, the Carnatic for hundreds of miles in all
+directions, through the whole line of their march they did not see one
+man, not one woman, not one child, not one four-footed beast of any
+description whatever. One dead, uniform silence reigned over the whole
+region. With the inconsiderable exceptions of the narrow vicinage of
+some few forts, I wish to be understood as speaking literally. I mean to
+produce to you more than three witnesses, above all exception, who will
+support this assertion in its full extent. That hurricane of war passed
+through every part of the central provinces of the Carnatic. Six or
+seven districts to the north and to the south (and these not wholly
+untouched) escaped the general ravage.
+
+The Carnatic is a country not much inferior in extent to England. Figure
+to yourself, Mr. Speaker, the land in whose representative chair you
+sit; figure to yourself the form and fashion of your sweet and cheerful
+country from Thames to Trent, north and south, and from the Irish to the
+German Sea, east and west, emptied and embowelled (may God avert the
+omen of our crimes!) by so accomplished a desolation. Extend your
+imagination a little further, and then suppose your ministers taking a
+survey of this scene of waste and desolation. What would be your
+thoughts, if you should be informed that they were computing how much
+had been the amount of the excises, how much the customs, how much the
+land and malt tax, in order that they should charge (take it in the most
+favorable light) for public service, upon the relics of the satiated
+vengeance of relentless enemies, the whole of what England had yielded
+in the most exuberant seasons of peace and abundance? What would you
+call it? To call it tyranny sublimed into madness would be too faint an
+image; yet this very madness is the principle upon which the ministers
+at your right hand have proceeded in their estimate of the revenues of
+the Carnatic, when they were providing, not supply for the
+establishments of its protection, but rewards for the authors of its
+ruin.
+
+Every day you are fatigued and disgusted with this cant, "The Carnatic
+is a country that will soon recover, and become instantly as prosperous
+as ever." They think they are talking to innocents, who will believe,
+that, by sowing of dragons' teeth, men may come up ready grown and ready
+armed. They who will give themselves the trouble of considering (for it
+requires no great reach of thought, no very profound knowledge) the
+manner in which mankind are increased, and countries cultivated, will
+regard all this raving as it ought to be regarded. In order that the
+people, after a long period of vexation and plunder, may be in a
+condition to maintain government, government must begin by maintaining
+them. Here the road to economy lies not through receipt, but through
+expense; and in that country Nature has given no short cut to your
+object. Men must propagate, like other animals, by the mouth. Never did
+oppression light the nuptial torch; never did extortion and usury spread
+out the genial bed. Does any of you think that England, so wasted,
+would, under such a nursing attendance, so rapidly and cheaply recover?
+But he is meanly acquainted with either England or India who does not
+know that England would a thousand times sooner resume population,
+fertility, and what ought to be the ultimate secretion from both,
+revenue, than such a country as the Carnatic.
+
+The Carnatic is not by the bounty of Nature a fertile soil. The general
+size of its cattle is proof enough that it is much otherwise. It is some
+days since I moved that a curious and interesting map, kept in the
+India House, should be laid before you.[38] The India House is not yet
+in readiness to send it; I have therefore brought down my own copy, and
+there it lies for the use of any gentleman who may think such a matter
+worthy of his attention. It is, indeed, a noble map, and of noble
+things; but it is decisive against the golden dreams and sanguine
+speculations of avarice run mad. In addition to what you know must be
+the case in every part of the world, (the necessity of a previous
+provision of habitation, seed, stock, capital,) that map will show you
+that the uses of the influences of Heaven itself are in that country a
+work of art. The Carnatic is refreshed by few or no living brooks or
+running streams, and it has rain only at a season; but its product of
+rice exacts the use of water subject to perpetual command. This is the
+national bank of the Carnatic, on which it must have a perpetual credit,
+or it perishes irretrievably. For that reason, in the happier times of
+India, a number, almost incredible, of reservoirs have been made in
+chosen places throughout the whole country: they are formed, for the
+greater part, of mounds of earth and stones, with sluices of solid
+masonry; the whole constructed with admirable skill and labor, and
+maintained at a mighty charge. In the territory contained in that map
+alone, I have been at the trouble of reckoning the reservoirs, and they
+amount to upwards of eleven hundred, from the extent of two or three
+acres to five miles in circuit. From these reservoirs currents are
+occasionally drawn over the fields, and these watercourses again call
+for a considerable expense to keep them properly scoured and duly
+levelled. Taking the district in that map as a measure, there cannot be
+in the Carnatic and Tanjore fewer than ten thousand of these reservoirs
+of the larger and middling dimensions, to say nothing of those for
+domestic services, and the use of religious purification. These are not
+the enterprises of your power, nor in a style of magnificence suited to
+the taste of your minister. These are the monuments of real kings, who
+were the fathers of their people,--testators to a posterity which they
+embraced as their own. These are the grand sepulchres built by
+ambition,--but by the ambition of an insatiable benevolence, which, not
+contented with reigning in the dispensation of happiness during the
+contracted term of human life, had strained, with all the reachings and
+graspings of a vivacious mind, to extend the dominion of their bounty
+beyond the limits of Nature, and to perpetuate themselves through
+generations of generations, the guardians, the protectors, the
+nourishers of mankind.
+
+Long before the late invasion, the persons who are objects of the grant
+of public money now before you had so diverted the supply of the pious
+funds of culture and population, that everywhere the reservoirs were
+fallen into a miserable decay.[39] But after those domestic enemies had
+provoked the entry of a cruel foreign foe into the country, he did not
+leave it, until his revenge had completed the destruction begun by their
+avarice. Few, very few indeed, of these magazines of water that are not
+either totally destroyed, or cut through with such gaps as to require a
+serious attention and much cost to reëstablish them, as the means of
+present subsistence to the people and of future revenue to the state.
+
+What, Sir, would a virtuous and enlightened ministry do, on the view of
+the ruins of such works before them?--on the view of such a chasm of
+desolation as that which yawned in the midst of those countries, to the
+north and south, which still bore some vestiges of cultivation? They
+would have reduced all their most necessary establishments; they would
+have suspended the justest payments; they would have employed every
+shilling derived from the producing to reanimate the powers of the
+unproductive parts. While they were performing this fundamental duty,
+whilst they were celebrating these mysteries of justice and humanity,
+they would have told the corps of fictitious creditors, whose crimes
+were their claims, that they must keep an awful distance,--that they
+must silence their inauspicious tongues,--that they must hold off their
+profane, unhallowed paws from this holy work; they would have
+proclaimed, with a voice that should make itself heard, that on every
+country the first creditor is the plough,--that this original,
+indefeasible claim supersedes every other demand.
+
+This is what a wise and virtuous ministry would have done and said.
+This, therefore, is what our minister could never think of saying or
+doing. A ministry of another kind would have first improved the country,
+and have thus laid a solid foundation for future opulence and future
+force. But on this grand point of the restoration of the country there
+is not one syllable to be found in the correspondence of our ministers,
+from the first to the last; they felt nothing for a land desolated by
+fire, sword, and famine: their sympathies took another direction; they
+were touched with pity for bribery, so long tormented with a fruitless
+itching of its palms; their bowels yearned for usury, that had long
+missed the harvest of its returning months;[40] they felt for
+peculation, which had been for so many years raking in the dust of an
+empty treasury; they were melted into compassion for rapine and
+oppression, licking their dry, parched, unbloody jaws. These were the
+objects of their solicitude. These were the necessities for which they
+were studious to provide.
+
+To state the country and its revenues in their real condition, and to
+provide for those fictitious claims, consistently with the support of an
+army and a civil establishment, would have been impossible; therefore
+the ministers are silent on that head, and rest themselves on the
+authority of Lord Macartney, who, in a letter to the Court of Directors,
+written in the year 1781, speculating on what might be the result of a
+wise management of the countries assigned by the Nabob of Arcot, rates
+the revenue, as in time of peace, at twelve hundred thousand pounds a
+year, as he does those of the king of Tanjore (which had not been
+assigned) at four hundred and fifty. On this Lord Macartney grounds his
+calculations, and on this they choose to ground theirs. It was on this
+calculation that the ministry, in direct opposition to the remonstrances
+of the Court of Directors, have compelled that miserable enslaved body
+to put their hands to an order for appropriating the enormous sum of
+480,000_l._ annually, as a fund for paying to their rebellious servants
+a debt contracted in defiance of their clearest and most positive
+injunctions.
+
+The authority and information of Lord Macartney is held high on this
+occasion, though it is totally rejected in every other particular of
+this business. I believe I have the honor of being almost as old an
+acquaintance as any Lord Macartney has. A constant and unbroken
+friendship has subsisted between us from a very early period; and I
+trust he thinks, that, as I respect his character, and in general admire
+his conduct, I am one of those who feel no common interest in his
+reputation. Yet I do not hesitate wholly to disallow the calculation of
+1781, without any apprehension that I shall appear to distrust his
+veracity or his judgment. This peace estimate of revenue was not
+grounded on the state of the Carnatic, as it then, or as it had
+recently, stood. It was a statement of former and better times. There is
+no doubt that a period did exist, when the large portion of the Carnatic
+held by the Nabob of Arcot might be fairly reputed to produce a revenue
+to that, or to a greater amount. But the whole had so melted away by the
+slow and silent hostility of oppression and mismanagement, that the
+revenues, sinking with the prosperity of the country, had fallen to
+about 800,000_l._ a year, even before an enemy's horse had imprinted his
+hoof on the soil of the Carnatic. From that view, and independently of
+the decisive effects of the war which ensued, Sir Eyre Coote conceived
+that years must pass before the country could be restored to its former
+prosperity, and production. It was that state of revenue (namely, the
+actual state before the war) which the Directors have opposed to Lord
+Macartney's speculation. They refused to take the revenues for more than
+800,000_l._ In this they are justified by Lord Macartney himself, who,
+in a subsequent letter, informs the court that his sketch is a matter of
+speculation; it supposes the country restored to its ancient prosperity,
+and the revenue to be in a course of effective and honest collection.
+If, therefore, the ministers have gone wrong, they were not deceived by
+Lord Macartney: they were deceived by no man. The estimate of the
+Directors is nearly the very estimate furnished by the right honorable
+gentleman himself, and published to the world in one of the printed
+reports of his own committee;[41] but as soon as he obtained his power,
+he chose to abandon his account. No part of his official conduct can be
+defended on the ground of his Parliamentary information.
+
+In this clashing of accounts and estimates, ought not the ministry, if
+they wished to preserve even appearances, to have waited for information
+of the actual result of these speculations, before they laid a charge,
+and such a charge, not conditionally and eventually, but positively and
+authoritatively, upon a country which they all knew, and which one of
+them had registered on the records of this House, to be wasted, beyond
+all example, by every oppression of an abusive government, and every
+ravage of a desolating war? But that you may discern in what manner they
+use the correspondence of office, and that thereby you may enter into
+the true spirit of the ministerial Board of Control, I desire you, Mr.
+Speaker, to remark, that, through their whole controversy with the Court
+of Directors, they do not so much as hint at their ever having seen any
+other paper from Lord Macartney, or any other estimate of revenue than
+this of 1781. To this they hold. Here they take post; here they intrench
+themselves.
+
+When I first read this curious controversy between the ministerial
+board and the Court of Directors, common candor obliged me to attribute
+their tenacious adherence to the estimate of 1781 to a total ignorance
+of what had appeared upon the records. But the right honorable gentleman
+has chosen to come forward with an uncalled-for declaration; he
+boastingly tells you, that he has seen, read, digested, compared
+everything,--and that, if he has sinned, he has sinned with his eyes
+broad open. Since, then, the ministers will obstinately shut the gates
+of mercy on themselves, let them add to their crimes what aggravations
+they please. They have, then, (since it must be so,) wilfully and
+corruptly suppressed the information which they ought to have produced,
+and, for the support of peculation, have made themselves guilty of
+spoliation and suppression of evidence.[42] The paper I hold in my hand,
+which totally overturns (for the present, at least) the estimate of
+1781, they have no more taken notice of, in their controversy with the
+Court of Directors, than if it had no existence. It is the report made
+by a committee appointed at Madras to manage the whole of the six
+countries assigned to the Company by the Nabob of Arcot. This committee
+was wisely instituted by Lord Macartney, to remove from himself the
+suspicion of all improper management in so invidious a trust; and it
+seems to have been well chosen. This committee has made a comparative
+estimate of the only six districts which were in a condition to be let
+to farm. In one set of columns they state the gross and net produce of
+the districts as let by the Nabob. To that statement they oppose the
+terms on which the same districts were rented for five years under
+their authority. Under the Nabob, the gross farm was so high as
+570,000_l._ sterling. What was the clear produce? Why, no more than
+about 250,000_l._; and this was the whole profit of the Nabob's
+treasury, under his own management of all the districts which were in a
+condition to be let to farm on the 27th of May, 1782. Lord Macartney's
+leases stipulated a gross produce of no more than about 530,000_l._; but
+then the estimated net amount was nearly double the Nabob's. It,
+however, did not then exceed 480,000_l._; and Lord Macartney's
+commissioners take credit for an annual revenue amounting to this clear
+sum. Here is no speculation; here is no inaccurate account clandestinely
+obtained from those who might wish, and were enabled, to deceive. It is
+the authorized, recorded state of a real, recent transaction. Here is
+not twelve hundred thousand pound,--not eight hundred. The whole revenue
+of the Carnatic yielded no more, in May, 1782, than four hundred and
+eighty thousand pounds: nearly the very precise sum which your minister,
+who is so careful of the public security, has carried from all
+descriptions of establishment to form a fund for the private emolument
+of his creatures.
+
+In this estimate, we see, as I have just observed, the Nabob's farms
+rated so high as 570,000_l._ Hitherto all is well: but follow on to the
+effective net revenue; there the illusion vanishes; and you will not
+find nearly so much as half the produce. It is with reason, therefore,
+Lord Macartney invariably, throughout the whole correspondence,
+qualifies all his views and expectations of revenue, and all his plans
+for its application, with this indispensable condition, that the
+management is not in the hands of the Nabob of Arcot. Should that fatal
+measure take place, he has over and over again told you that he has no
+prospect of realizing anything whatsoever for any public purpose. With
+these weighty declarations, confirmed by such a state of indisputable
+fact before them, what has been done by the Chancellor of the Exchequer
+and his accomplices? Shall I be believed? They have delivered over those
+very territories, on the keeping of which in the hands of the committee
+the defence of our dominions, and, what was more dear to them, possibly,
+their own job, depended,--they have delivered back again, without
+condition, without arrangement, without stipulation of any sort for the
+natives of any rank, the whole of those vast countries, to many of which
+he had no just claim, into the ruinous mismanagement of the Nabob of
+Arcot. To crown all, according to their miserable practice, whenever
+they do anything transcendently absurd, they preface this their
+abdication of their trust by a solemn declaration that they were not
+obliged to it by any principle of policy or any demand of justice
+whatsoever.
+
+I have stated to you the estimated produce of the territories of the
+Carnatic in a condition to be farmed in 1782, according to the different
+managements into which they might fall; and this estimate the ministers
+have thought proper to suppress. Since that, two other accounts have
+been received. The first informs us, that there has been a recovery of
+what is called arrear, as well as of an improvement of the revenue of
+one of the six provinces which were let in 1782.[43] It was brought
+about by making a new war. After some sharp actions, by the resolution
+and skill of Colonel Fullarton several of the petty princes of the most
+southerly of the unwasted provinces were compelled to pay very heavy
+rents and tributes, who for a long time before had not paid any
+acknowledgment. After this reduction, by the care of Mr. Irwin, one of
+the committee, that province was divided into twelve farms. This
+operation raised the income of that particular province; the others
+remain as they were first farmed. So that, instead of producing only
+their original rent of 480,000_l._, they netted, in about two years and
+a quarter, 1,320,000_l._ sterling, which would be about 660,000_l._ a
+year, if the recovered arrear was not included. What deduction is to be
+made on account of that arrear I cannot determine, but certainly what
+would reduce the annual income considerably below the rate I have
+allowed.
+
+The second account received is the letting of the wasted provinces of
+the Carnatic. This I understand is at a growing rent, which may or may
+not realize what it promises; but if it should answer, it will raise the
+whole, at some future time, to 1,200,000_l._
+
+You must here remark, Mr. Speaker, that this revenue is the produce of
+_all_ the Nabob's dominions. During the assignment, the Nabob paid
+nothing, because the Company had all. Supposing the whole of the lately
+assigned territory to yield up to the most sanguine expectations of the
+right honorable gentleman, and suppose 1,200,000_l._ to be annually
+realized, (of which we actually know of no more than the realizing of
+six hundred thousand,) out of this you must deduct the subsidy and rent
+which the Nabob paid before the assignment,--namely, 340,000_l._ a year.
+This reduces back the revenue applicable to the new distribution made by
+his Majesty's ministers to about 800,000_l._ Of that sum five eighths
+are by them surrendered to the debts. The remaining three are the only
+fund left for all the purposes so magnificently displayed in the letter
+of the Board of Control: that is, for a new-cast peace establishment, a
+now fund for ordnance and fortifications, and a large allowance for what
+they call "the splendor of the Durbar."
+
+You have heard the account of these territories as they stood in 1782.
+You have seen the _actual_ receipt since the assignment in 1781, of
+which I reckon about two years and a quarter productive. I have stated
+to you the expectation from the wasted part. For realizing all this you
+may value yourselves on the vigor and diligence of a governor and
+committee that have done so much. If these hopes from the committee are
+rational, remember that the committee is no more. Your ministers, who
+have formed their fund for these debts on the presumed effect of the
+committee's management, have put a complete end to that committee. Their
+acts are rescinded; their leases are broken; their renters are
+dispersed. Your ministers knew, when they signed the death-warrant of
+the Carnatic, that the Nabob would not only turn all these unfortunate
+farmers of revenue out of employment, but that he has denounced his
+severest vengeance against them, for acting under British authority.
+With a knowledge of this disposition, a British Chancellor of the
+Exchequer and Treasurer of the Navy, incited by no public advantage,
+impelled by no public necessity, in a strain of the most wanton perfidy
+which has ever stained the annals of mankind, have delivered over to
+plunder, imprisonment, exile, and death itself, according to the mercy
+of such execrable tyrants as Amir-ul-Omrah and Paul Benfield, the
+unhappy and deluded souls who, untaught by uniform example, were still
+weak enough to put their trust in English faith.[44] They have gone
+farther: they have thought proper to mock and outrage their misery by
+ordering them protection and compensation. From what power is this
+protection to be derived, and from what fund is this compensation to
+arise? The revenues are delivered over to their oppressor; the
+territorial jurisdiction, from whence that revenue is to arise, and
+under which they live, is surrendered to the same iron hands: and that
+they shall be deprived of all refuge and all hope, the minister has made
+a solemn, voluntary declaration that he never will interfere with the
+Nabob's internal government.[45]
+
+The last thing considered by the Board of Control among the debts of the
+Carnatic was that arising to the East India Company, which, after the
+provision for the cavalry, and the consolidation of 1777, was to divide
+the residue of the fund of 480,000_l._ a year with the lenders of 1767.
+This debt the worthy chairman, who sits opposite to me, contends to be
+three millions sterling. Lord Macartney's account of 1781 states it to
+be at that period 1,200,000_l._ The first account of the Court of
+Directors makes it 900,000_l._ This, like the private debt, being
+without any solid existence, is incapable of any distinct limits.
+Whatever its amount or its validity may be, one thing is clear: it is of
+the nature and quality of a public debt. In that light nothing is
+provided for it, but an eventual surplus to be divided with one class
+of the private demands, after satisfying the two first classes. Never
+was a more shameful postponing a public demand, which, by the reason of
+the thing, and the uniform practice of all nations, supersedes every
+private claim.
+
+Those who gave this preference to private claims consider the Company's
+as a lawful demand; else why did they pretend to provide for it? On
+their own principles they are condemned.
+
+But I, Sir, who profess to speak to your understanding and to your
+conscience, and to brush away from this business all false colors, all
+false appellations, as well as false facts, do positively deny that the
+Carnatic owes a shilling to the Company,--whatever the Company may be
+indebted to that undone country. It owes nothing to the Company, for
+this plain and simple reason: the territory charged with the debt is
+their own. To say that their revenues fall short, and owe them money, is
+to say they are in debt to themselves, which is only talking nonsense.
+The fact is, that, by the invasion of an enemy, and the ruin of the
+country, the Company, either in its own name, or in the names of the
+Nabob of Arcot and Rajah of Tanjore, has lost for several years what it
+might have looked to receive from its own estate. If men were allowed to
+credit themselves upon such principles, any one might soon grow rich by
+this mode of accounting. A flood comes down upon a man's estate in the
+Bedford Level of a thousand pounds a year, and drowns his rents for ten
+years. The Chancellor would put that man into the hands of a trustee,
+who would gravely make up his books, and for this loss credit himself in
+his account for a debt due to him of 10,000_l._ It is, however, on this
+principle the Company makes up its demands on the Carnatic. In peace
+they go the full length, and indeed more than the full length, of what
+the people can bear for current establishments; then they are absurd
+enough to consolidate all the calamities of war into debts,--to
+metamorphose the devastations of the country into demands upon its
+future production. What is this but to avow a resolution utterly to
+destroy their own country, and to force the people to pay for their
+sufferings to a government which has proved unable to protect either the
+share of the husbandman or their own? In every lease of a farm, the
+invasion of an enemy, instead of forming a demand for arrear, is a
+release of rent: nor for that release is it at all necessary to show
+that the invasion has left nothing to the occupier of the soil; though
+in the present case it would be too easy to prove that melancholy
+fact.[46] I therefore applauded my right honorable friend, who, when he
+canvassed the Company's accounts, as a preliminary to a bill that ought
+not to stand on falsehood of any kind, fixed his discerning eye and his
+deciding hand on these debts of the Company from the Nabob of Arcot and
+Rajah of Tanjore, and at one stroke expunged them all, as utterly
+irrecoverable: he might have added, as utterly unfounded.
+
+On these grounds I do not blame the arrangement this day in question, as
+a preference given to the debt of individuals over the Company's debt.
+In my eye it is no more than the preference of a fiction over a chimera;
+but I blame the preference given to those fictitious private debts over
+the standing defence and the standing government. It is there the public
+is robbed. It is robbed in its army; it is robbed in its civil
+administration; it is robbed in its credit; it is robbed in its
+investment, which forms the commercial connection between that country
+and Europe. There is the robbery.
+
+But my principal objection lies a good deal deeper. That debt to the
+Company is the pretext under which all the other debts lurk and cover
+themselves. That debt forms the foul, putrid mucus in which are
+engendered the whole brood of creeping ascarides, all the endless
+involutions, the eternal knot, added to a knot of those inexpugnable
+tape-worms which devour the nutriment and eat up the bowels of
+India.[47] It is necessary, Sir, you should recollect two things. First,
+that the Nabob's debt to the Company carries no interest. In the next
+place, you will observe, that, whenever the Company has occasion to
+borrow, she has always commanded whatever she thought fit at eight per
+cent. Carrying in your mind these two facts, attend to the process with
+regard to the public and private debt, and with what little appearance
+of decency they play into each other's hands a game of utter perdition
+to the unhappy natives of India. The Nabob falls into an arrear to the
+Company. The Presidency presses for payment. The Nabob's answer is, "I
+have no money." Good! But there are soucars who will supply you on the
+mortgage of your territories. Then steps forward some Paul Benfield,
+and, from his grateful compassion to the Nabob, and his filial regard
+to the Company, he unlocks the treasures of his virtuous industry, and,
+for a consideration of twenty-four or thirty-six per cent on a mortgage
+of the territorial revenue, becomes security to the Company for the
+Nabob's arrear.
+
+All this intermediate usury thus becomes sanctified by the ultimate view
+to the Company's payment. In this case, would not a plain man ask this
+plain question of the Company: If you know that the Nabob must annually
+mortgage his territories to your servants to pay his annual arrear to
+you, why is not the assignment or mortgage made directly to the Company
+itself? By this simple, obvious operation, the Company would be relieved
+and the debt paid, without the charge of a shilling interest to that
+prince. But if that course should be thought too indulgent, why do they
+not take that assignment with such interest to themselves as they pay to
+others, that is, eight per cent? Or if it were thought more advisable
+(why it should I know not) that he must borrow, why do not the Company
+lend their own credit to the Nabob for their own payment? That credit
+would not be weakened by the collateral security of his territorial
+mortgage. The money might still be had at eight per cent. Instead of any
+of these honest and obvious methods, the Company has for years kept up a
+show of disinterestedness and moderation, by suffering a debt to
+accumulate to them from the country powers without any interest at all;
+and at the same time have seen before their eyes, on a pretext of
+borrowing to pay that debt, the revenues of the country charged with an
+usury of twenty, twenty-four, thirty-six, and even eight-and-forty per
+cent, with compound interest,[48] for the benefit of their servants. All
+this time they know that by having a debt subsisting without any
+interest, which is to be paid by contracting a debt on the highest
+interest, they manifestly render it necessary to the Nabob of Arcot to
+give the private demand a preference to the public; and, by binding him
+and their servants together in a common cause, they enable him to form a
+party to the utter ruin of their own authority and their own affairs.
+Thus their false moderation, and their affected purity, by the natural
+operation of everything false and everything affected, becomes pander
+and bawd to the unbridled debauchery and licentious lewdness of usury
+and extortion.
+
+In consequence of this double game, all the territorial revenues have at
+one time or other been covered by those locusts, the English soucars.
+Not one single foot of the Carnatic has escaped them: a territory as
+large as England. During these operations what a scene has that country
+presented![49] The usurious European assignee supersedes the Nabob's
+native farmer of the revenue; the farmer flies to the Nabob's presence
+to claim his bargain; whilst his servants murmur for wages, and his
+soldiers mutiny for pay. The mortgage to the European assignee is then
+resumed, and the native farmer replaced,--replaced, again to be removed
+on the new clamor of the European assignee.[50] Every man of rank and
+landed fortune being long since extinguished, the remaining miserable
+last cultivator, who grows to the soil, after having his back scored by
+the farmer, has it again flayed by the whip of the assignee, and is
+thus, by a ravenous, because a short-lived succession of claimants,
+lashed from oppressor to oppressor, whilst a single drop of blood is
+left as the means of extorting a single grain of corn. Do not think I
+paint. Far, very far, from it: I do not reach the fact, nor approach to
+it. Men of respectable condition, men equal to your substantial English
+yeomen, are daily tied up and scourged to answer the multiplied demands
+of various contending and contradictory titles, all issuing from one and
+the same source. Tyrannous exaction brings on servile concealment; and
+that again calls forth tyrannous coercion. They move in a circle,
+mutually producing and produced; till at length nothing of humanity is
+left in the government, no trace of integrity, spirit, or manliness in
+the people, who drag out a precarious and degraded existence under this
+system of outrage upon human nature. Such is the effect of the
+establishment of a debt to the Company, as it has hitherto been managed,
+and as it ever will remain, until ideas are adopted totally different
+from those which prevail at this time.
+
+Your worthy ministers, supporting what they are obliged to condemn, have
+thought fit to renew the Company's old order against contracting private
+debts in future. They begin by rewarding the violation of the ancient
+law; and then they gravely reenact provisions, of which they have given
+bounties for the breach. This inconsistency has been well exposed.[51]
+But what will you say to their having gone the length of giving positive
+directions for contracting the debt which they positively forbid?
+
+I will explain myself. They order the Nabob, out of the revenues of the
+Carnatic, to allot four hundred and eighty thousand pounds a year, as a
+fund for the debts before us. For the punctual payment of this annuity,
+they order him to give soucar security.[52] When a soucar, that is, a
+money-dealer, becomes security for any native prince, the course is for
+the native prince to counter-secure the money-dealer, by making over to
+him in mortgage a portion of his territory equal to the sum annually to
+be paid, with an interest of at least twenty-four per cent. The point
+fit for the House to know is, who are these soucars to whom this
+security on the revenues in favor of the Nabob's creditors is to be
+given? The majority of the House, unaccustomed to these transactions,
+will hear with astonishment that these soucars are no other than the
+creditors themselves. The minister, not content with authorizing these
+transactions in a manner and to an extent unhoped for by the rapacious
+expectations of usury itself, loads the broken back of the Indian
+revenues, in favor of his worthy friends, the soucars, with an
+additional twenty-four per cent for being security to themselves for
+their own claims, for condescending to take the country in mortgage to
+pay to themselves the fruits of their own extortions.
+
+The interest to be paid for this security, according to the most
+moderate strain of soucar demand, comes to 118,000_l._ a year, which,
+added to the 480,000_l._ on which it is to accrue, will make the whole
+charge amount to 598,000_l._ a year,--as much as even a long peace will
+enable those revenues to produce. Can any one reflect for a moment on
+all those claims of debt, which the minister exhausts himself in
+contrivances to augment with new usuries, without lifting up his hands
+and eyes in astonishment at the impudence both of the claim and of the
+adjudication? Services of some kind or other these servants of the
+Company must have done, so great and eminent that the Chancellor of the
+Exchequer cannot think that all they have brought home is half enough.
+He hallooes after them, "Gentlemen, you have forgot a large packet
+behind you, in your hurry; you have not sufficiently recovered
+yourselves; you ought to have, and you shall have, interest upon
+interest upon a prohibited debt that is made up of interest upon
+interest. Even this is too little. I have thought of another character
+for you, by which you may add something to your gains: you shall be
+security to yourselves; and hence will arise a new usury, which shall
+efface the memory of all the usuries suggested to you by your own dull
+inventions."
+
+I have done with the arrangement relative to the Carnatic. After this it
+is to little purpose to observe on what the ministers have done to
+Tanjore. Your ministers have not observed even form and ceremony in
+their outrageous and insulting robbery of that country, whose only crime
+has been its early and constant adherence to the power of this, and the
+suffering of an uniform pillage in consequence of it. The debt of the
+Company from the Rajah of Tanjore is just of the same stuff with that of
+the Nabob of Arcot.
+
+The subsidy from Tanjore, on the arrear of which this pretended debt (if
+any there be) has accrued to the Company, is not, like that paid by the
+Nabob of Arcot, a compensation for vast countries obtained, augmented,
+and preserved for him; not the price of pillaged treasuries, ransacked
+houses, and plundered territories: it is a large grant, from a small
+kingdom not obtained by our arms; robbed, not protected, by our power; a
+grant for which no equivalent was ever given, or pretended to be given.
+The right honorable gentleman, however, bears witness in his reports to
+the punctuality of the payments of this grant of bounty, or, if you
+please, of fear. It amounts to one hundred and sixty thousand pounds
+sterling net annual subsidy. He bears witness to a further grant of a
+town and port, with an annexed district of thirty thousand pound a year,
+surrendered to the Company since the first donation. He has not borne
+witness, but the fact is, (he will not deny it,) that in the midst of
+war, and during the ruin and desolation of a considerable part of his
+territories, this prince made many very large payments. Notwithstanding
+these merits and services, the first regulation of ministry is to force
+from him a territory of an extent which they have not yet thought proper
+to ascertain,[53] for a military peace establishment the particulars of
+which they have not yet been pleased to settle.
+
+The next part of their arrangement is with regard to war. As confessedly
+this prince had no share in stirring up any of the former wars, so all
+future wars are completely out of his power; for he has no troops
+whatever, and is under a stipulation not so much as to correspond with
+any foreign state, except through the Company. Yet, in case the
+Company's servants should be again involved in war, or should think
+proper again to provoke any enemy, as in times past they have wantonly
+provoked all India, he is to be subjected to a new penalty. To what
+penalty? Why, to no less than the confiscation of all his revenues. But
+this is to end with the war, and they are to be faithfully returned? Oh,
+no! nothing like it. The country is to remain under confiscation until
+all the debt which the Company shall think fit to incur in such war
+shall be discharged: that is to say, forever. His sole comfort is, to
+find his old enemy, the Nabob of Arcot, placed in the very same
+condition.
+
+The revenues of that miserable country were, before the invasion of
+Hyder, reduced to a _gross_ annual receipt of three hundred and sixty
+thousand pound.[54] From this receipt the subsidy I have just stated is
+taken. This again, by payments in advance, by extorting deposits of
+additional sums to a vast amount for the benefit of their soucars, and
+by an endless variety of other extortions, public and private, is loaded
+with a debt, the amount of which I never could ascertain, but which is
+large undoubtedly, generating an usury the most completely ruinous that
+probably was ever heard of: _that is, forty-eight per cent, payable
+monthly, with compound interest_.[55]
+
+Such is the state to which the Company's servants have reduced that
+country. Now come the reformers, restorers, and comforters of India.
+What have they done? In addition to all these tyrannous exactions, with
+all these ruinous debts in their train, looking to one side of an
+agreement whilst they wilfully shut their eyes to the other, they
+withdraw from Tanjore all the benefits of the treaty of 1762, and they
+subject that nation to a perpetual tribute of forty thousand a year to
+the Nabob of Arcot: a tribute never due, or pretended to be due, to
+_him_, even when he appeared to be something; a tribute, as things now
+stand, not to a real potentate, but to a shadow, a dream, an incubus of
+oppression. After the Company has accepted in subsidy, in grant of
+territory, in remission of rent, as a compensation for their own
+protection, at least two hundred thousand pound a year, without
+discounting a shilling for that receipt, the ministers condemn this
+harassed nation to be tributary to a person who is himself, by their own
+arrangement, deprived of the right of war or peace, deprived of the
+power of the sword, forbid to keep up a single regiment of soldiers, and
+is therefore wholly disabled from all protection of the country which is
+the object of the pretended tribute. Tribute hangs on the sword. It is
+an incident inseparable from real, sovereign power. In the present case,
+to suppose its existence is as absurd as it is cruel and oppressive. And
+here, Mr. Speaker, you have a clear exemplification of the use of those
+false names and false colors which the gentlemen who have lately taken
+possession of India choose to lay on for the purpose of disguising their
+plan of oppression. The Nabob of Arcot and Rajah of Tanjore have, in
+truth and substance, no more than a merely civil authority, held in the
+most entire dependence on the Company. The Nabob, without military,
+without federal capacity, is extinguished as a potentate; but then he is
+carefully kept alive as an independent and sovereign power, for the
+purpose of rapine and extortion,--for the purpose of perpetuating the
+old intrigues, animosities, usuries, and corruptions.
+
+It was not enough that this mockery of tribute was to be continued
+without the correspondent protection, or any of the stipulated
+equivalents, but ten years of arrear, to the amount of 400,000_l._
+sterling, is added to all the debts to the Company and to individuals,
+in order to create a new debt, to be paid (if at all possible to be paid
+in whole or in part) only by new usuries,--and all this for the Nabob of
+Arcot, or rather for Mr. Benfield and the corps of the Nabob's creditors
+and their soucars. Thus these miserable Indian princes are continued in
+their seats for no other purpose than to render them, in the first
+instance, objects of every species of extortion, and, in the second, to
+force them to become, for the sake of a momentary shadow of reduced
+authority, a sort of subordinate tyrants, the ruin and calamity, not the
+fathers and cherishers, of their people.
+
+But take this tribute only as a mere charge (without title, cause, or
+equivalent) on this people; what one step has been taken to furnish
+grounds for a just calculation and estimate of the proportion of the
+burden and the ability? None,--not an attempt at it. They do not adapt
+the burden to the strength, but they estimate the strength of the
+bearers by the burden they impose. Then what care is taken to leave a
+fund sufficient to the future reproduction of the revenues that are to
+bear all these loads? Every one, but tolerably conversant in Indian
+affairs, must know that the existence of this little kingdom depends on
+its control over the river Cavery. The benefits of Heaven to any
+community ought never to be connected with political arrangements, or
+made to depend on the personal conduct of princes, in which the mistake,
+or error, or neglect, or distress, or passion of a moment, on either
+side, may bring famine on millions, and ruin an innocent nation perhaps
+for ages. The means of the subsistence of mankind should be as immutable
+as the laws of Nature, let power and dominion take what course they
+may.--Observe what has been done with regard to this important concern.
+The use of this river is, indeed, at length given to the Rajah, and a
+power provided for its enjoyment _at his own charge_; but the means of
+furnishing that charge (and a mighty one it is) are wholly out off. This
+use of the water, which ought to have no more connection than clouds and
+rains and sunshine with the politics of the Rajah, the Nabob, or the
+Company, is expressly contrived as a means of enforcing demands and
+arrears of tribute. This horrid and unnatural instrument of extortion
+had been a distinguishing feature in the enormities of the Carnatic
+politics, that loudly called for reformation. But the food of a whole
+people is by the reformers of India conditioned on payments from its
+prince, at a moment that he is overpowered with a swarm of their
+demands, without regard to the ability of either prince or people. In
+fine, by opening an avenue to the irruption of the Nabob of Arcot's
+creditors and soucars, whom every man, who did not fall in love with
+oppression and corruption on an experience of the calamities they
+produced, would have raised wall before wall and mound before mound to
+keep from a possibility of entrance, a more destructive enemy than Hyder
+Ali is introduced into that kingdom. By this part of their arrangement,
+in which they establish a debt to the Nabob of Arcot, in effect and
+substance, they deliver over Tanjore, bound hand and foot, to Paul
+Benfield, the old betrayer, insulter, oppressor, and scourge of a
+country which has for years been an object of an unremitted, but,
+unhappily, an unequal struggle, between the bounties of Providence to
+renovate and the wickedness of mankind to destroy.
+
+The right honorable gentleman[56] talks of his fairness in determining
+the territorial dispute between the Nabob of Arcot and the prince of
+that country, when he superseded the determination of the Directors, in
+whom the law had vested the decision of that controversy. He is in this
+just as feeble as he is in every other part. But it is not necessary to
+say a word in refutation of any part of his argument. The mode of the
+proceeding sufficiently speaks the spirit of it. It is enough to fix his
+character as a judge, that he _never heard the Directors in defence of
+their adjudication, nor either of the parties in support of their
+respective claims_. It is sufficient for me that he takes from the Rajah
+of Tanjore by this pretended adjudication, or rather from his unhappy
+subjects, 40,000_l._ a year of his and their revenue, and leaves upon
+his and their shoulders all the charges that can be made on the part of
+the Nabob, on the part of his creditors, and on the part of the Company,
+without so much as hearing him as to right or to ability. But what
+principally induces me to leave the affair of the territorial dispute
+between the Nabob and the Rajah to another day is this,--that, both the
+parties being stripped of their all, it little signifies under which of
+their names the unhappy, undone people are delivered over to the
+merciless soucars, the allies of that right honorable gentleman and the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer. In them ends the account of this long
+dispute of the Nabob of Arcot and the Rajah of Tanjore.
+
+The right honorable gentleman is of opinion that his judgment in this
+case can be censured by none but those who seem to act as if they were
+paid agents to one of the parties. What does he think of his Court of
+Directors? If they are paid by either of the parties, by which of them
+does he think they are paid? He knows that their decision has been
+directly contrary to his. Shall I believe that it does not enter into
+his heart to conceive that any person can steadily and actively interest
+himself in the protection of the injured and oppressed without being
+well paid for his service? I have taken notice of this sort of discourse
+some days ago, so far as it may be supposed to relate to me. I then
+contented myself, as I shall now do, with giving it a cold, though a
+very direct contradiction. Thus much I do from respect to truth. If I
+did more, it might be supposed, by my anxiety to clear myself, that I
+had imbibed the ideas which, for obvious reasons, the right honorable
+gentleman wishes to have received concerning all attempts to plead the
+cause of the natives of India, as if it were a disreputable employment.
+If he had not forgot, in his present occupation, every principle which
+ought to have guided him, and I hope did guide him, in his late
+profession, he would have known that he who takes a fee for pleading the
+cause of distress against power, and manfully performs the duty he has
+assumed, receives an honorable recompense for a virtuous service. But if
+the right honorable gentleman will have no regard to fact in his
+insinuations or to reason in his opinions, I wish him at least to
+consider, that, if taking an earnest part with regard to the oppressions
+exercised in India, and with regard to this most oppressive case of
+Tanjore in particular, can ground a presumption of interested motives,
+he is himself the most mercenary man I know. His conduct, indeed, is
+such that he is on all occasions the standing testimony against himself.
+He it was that first called to that case the attention of the House; the
+reports of his own committee are ample and affecting upon that
+subject;[57] and as many of us as have escaped his massacre must
+remember the very pathetic picture he made of the sufferings of the
+Tanjore country, on the day when he moved the unwieldy code of his
+Indian resolutions. Has he not stated over and over again, in his
+reports, the ill treatment of the Rajah of Tanjore (a branch of the
+royal house of the Mahrattas, every injury to whom the Mahrattas felt as
+offered to themselves) as a main cause of the alienation of that people
+from the British power? And does he now think that to betray his
+principles, to contradict his declarations, and to become himself an
+active instrument in those oppressions which he had so tragically
+lamented, is the way to clear himself of having been actuated by a
+pecuniary interest at the time when he chose to appear full of
+tenderness to that ruined nation?
+
+The right honorable gentleman is fond of parading on the motives of
+others, and on his own. As to himself, he despises the imputations of
+those who suppose that anything corrupt could influence him in this his
+unexampled liberality of the public treasure. I do not know that I am
+obliged to speak to the motives of ministry, in the arrangements they
+have made of the pretended debts of Arcot and Tanjore. If I prove fraud
+and collusion with regard to public money on those right honorable
+gentlemen, I am not obliged to assign their motives; because no good
+motives can be pleaded in favor of their conduct. Upon that case I
+stand; we are at issue; and I desire to go to trial. This, I am sure, is
+not loose railing, or mean insinuation, according to their low and
+degenerate fashion, when they make attacks on the measures of their
+adversaries. It is a regular and juridical course; and unless I choose
+it, nothing can compel me to go further.
+
+But since these unhappy gentlemen have dared to hold a lofty tone about
+their motives, and affect to despise suspicion, instead of being careful
+not to give cause for it, I shall beg leave to lay before you some
+general observations on what I conceive was their duty in so delicate a
+business.
+
+If I were worthy to suggest any line of prudence to that right honorable
+gentleman, I would tell him that the way to avoid suspicion in the
+settlement of pecuniary transactions, in which great frauds have been
+very strongly presumed, is, to attend to these few plain
+principles:--First, to hear all parties equally, and not the managers
+for the suspected claimants only; not to proceed in the dark, but to act
+with as much publicity as possible; not to precipitate decision; to be
+religious in following the rules prescribed in the commission under
+which we act; and, lastly, and above all, not to be fond of straining
+constructions, to force a jurisdiction, and to draw to ourselves the
+management of a trust in its nature invidious and obnoxious to
+suspicion, where the plainest letter of the law does not compel it. If
+these few plain rules are observed, no corruption ought to be suspected;
+if any of them are violated, suspicion will attach in proportion; if all
+of them are violated, a corrupt motive of some kind or other will not
+only be suspected, but must be violently presumed.
+
+The persons in whose favor all these rules have been violated, and the
+conduct of ministers towards them, will naturally call for your
+consideration, and will serve to lead you through a series and
+combination of facts and characters, if I do not mistake, into the very
+inmost recesses of this mysterious business. You will then be in
+possession of all the materials on which the principles of sound
+jurisprudence will found, or will reject, the presumption of corrupt
+motives, or, if such motives are indicated, will point out to you of
+what particular nature the corruption is.
+
+Our wonderful minister, as you all know, formed a new plan, a plan
+_insigne, recens, indictum ore alio_, a plan for supporting the freedom
+of our Constitution by court intrigues, and for removing its corruptions
+by Indian delinquency. To carry that bold, paradoxical design into
+execution, sufficient funds and apt instruments became necessary. You
+are perfectly sensible that a Parliamentary reform occupies his
+thoughts day and night, as an essential member in this extraordinary
+project. In his anxious researches upon this subject, natural instinct,
+as well as sound policy, would direct his eyes and settle his choice on
+Paul Benfield. Paul Benfield is the grand Parliamentary reformer, the
+reformer to whom the whole choir of reformers bow, and to whom even the
+right honorable gentleman himself must yield the palm: for what region
+in the empire, what city, what borough, what county, what tribunal in
+this kingdom is not full of his labors? Others have been only
+speculators; he is the grand practical reformer; and whilst the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer pledges in vain the man and the minister, to
+increase the provincial members, Mr. Benfield has auspiciously and
+practically begun it. Leaving far behind him even Lord Camelford's
+generous design of bestowing Old Sarum on the Bank of England, Mr.
+Benfield has thrown in the borough of Cricklade to reinforce the county
+representation. Not content with this, in order to station a steady
+phalanx for all future reforms, this public-spirited usurer, amidst his
+charitable toils for the relief of India, did not forget the poor,
+rotten Constitution of his native country. For her, he did not disdain
+to stoop to the trade of a wholesale upholsterer for this House,--to
+furnish it, not with the faded tapestry figures of antiquated merit,
+such as decorate, and may reproach, some other houses, but with real,
+solid, living patterns of true modern virtue. Paul Benfield made
+(reckoning himself) no fewer than eight members in the last Parliament.
+What copious streams of pure blood must he not have transfused into the
+veins of the present!
+
+But what is even more striking than the real services of this
+new-imported patriot is his modesty. As soon as he had conferred this
+benefit on the Constitution, he withdrew himself from our applause. He
+conceived that the duties of a member of Parliament (which with the
+elect faithful, the true believers, the _Islam_ of Parliamentary reform,
+are of little or no merit, perhaps not much better than specious sins)
+might he as well attended to in India as in England, and the means of
+reformation to Parliament itself be far better provided. Mr. Benfield
+was therefore no sooner elected than he set off for Madras, and
+defrauded the longing eyes of Parliament. We have never enjoyed in this
+House the luxury of beholding that minion of the human race, and
+contemplating that visage which has so long reflected the happiness of
+nations.
+
+It was therefore not possible for the minister to consult personally
+with this great man. What, then, was he to do? Through a sagacity that
+never failed him in these pursuits, he found out, in Mr. Benfield's
+representative, his exact resemblance. A specific attraction, by which
+he gravitates towards all such characters, soon brought our minister
+into a close connection with Mr. Benfield's agent and attorney, that is,
+with the grand contractor, (whom I name to honor,) Mr. Richard
+Atkinson,--a name that will be well remembered as long as the records of
+this House, as long as the records of the British Treasury, as long as
+the monumental debt of England, shall endure.
+
+This gentleman, Sir, acts as attorney for Mr. Paul Benfield. Every one
+who hears me is well acquainted with the sacred friendship and the
+steady mutual attachment that subsists between him and the present
+minister. As many members as chose to attend in the first session of
+this Parliament can best tell their own feelings at the scenes which
+were then acted. How much that honorable gentleman was consulted in the
+original frame and fabric of the bill, commonly called Mr. Pitt's India
+Bill, is matter only of conjecture, though by no means difficult to
+divine. But the public was an indignant witness of the ostentation with
+which the measure was made his own, and the authority with which he
+brought up clause after clause, to stuff and fatten the rankness of that
+corrupt act. As fast as the clauses were brought up to the table, they
+were accepted. No hesitation, no discussion. They were received by the
+new minister, not with approbation, but with implicit submission. The
+reformation may be estimated by seeing who was the reformer. Paul
+Benfield's associate and agent was held up to the world as legislator of
+Hindostan. But it was necessary to authenticate the coalition between
+the men of intrigue in India and the minister of intrigue in England by
+a studied display of the power of this their connecting link. Every
+trust, every honor, every distinction, was to be heaped upon him. He was
+at once made a Director of the India Company, made an alderman of
+London, and to be made, if ministry could prevail, (and I am sorry to
+say how near, how very near, they were prevailing,) representative of
+the capital of this kingdom. But to secure his services against all
+risk, he was brought in for a ministerial borough. On his part, he was
+not wanting in zeal for the common cause. His advertisements show his
+motives, and the merits upon which he stood. For your minister, this
+worn-out veteran submitted to enter into the dusty field of the London
+contest; and you all remember that in the same virtuous cause he
+submitted to keep a sort of public office or counting-house, where the
+whole business of the last general election was managed. It was openly
+managed by the direct agent and attorney of Benfield. It was managed
+upon Indian principles and for an Indian interest. This was the golden
+cup of abominations,--this the chalice of the fornications of rapine,
+usury, and oppression, which was held out by the gorgeous Eastern
+harlot,--which so many of the people, so many of the nobles of this land
+had drained to the very dregs. Do you think that no reckoning was to
+follow this lewd debauch? that no payment was to be demanded for this
+riot of public drunkenness and national prostitution? Here, you have it
+here before you! The principal of the grand election-manager must be
+indemnified; accordingly, the claims of Benfield and his crew must be
+put above all inquiry.
+
+For several years Benfield appeared as the chief proprietor, as well as
+the chief agent, director, and controller of this system of debt. The
+worthy chairman of the Company has stated the claims of this single
+gentleman on the Nabob of Arcot as amounting to five hundred thousand
+pound.[58] Possibly at the time of the chairman's state they might have
+been as high. Eight hundred thousand pound had been mentioned some time
+before;[59] and, according to the practice of shifting the names of
+creditors in these transactions, and reducing or raising the debt itself
+at pleasure, I think it not impossible that at one period the name of
+Benfield might have stood before those frightful figures. But my best
+information goes to fix his share no higher than four hundred thousand
+pounds. By the scheme of the present ministry for adding to the
+principal twelve per cent from the year 1777 to the year 1781, four
+hundred thousand pounds, that smallest of the sums ever mentioned for
+Mr. Benfield, will form a capital of 592,000_l._ at six per cent. Thus,
+besides the arrears of three years, amounting to 106,500_l._, (which, as
+fast as received, may be legally lent out at twelve per cent,) Benfield
+has received, by the ministerial grant before you, an annuity of
+35,520_l._ a year, charged on the public revenues.
+
+Our mirror of ministers of finance did not think this enough for the
+services of such a friend as Benfield. He found that Lord Macartney, in
+order to frighten the Court of Directors from the project of obliging
+the Nabob to give soucar security for his debt, assured them, that, if
+they should take that step, Benfield[60] would infallibly be the soucar,
+and would thereby become the entire master of the Carnatic. What Lord
+Macartney thought sufficient to deter the very agents and partakers with
+Benfield in his iniquities was the inducement to the two right honorable
+gentlemen to order this very soucar security to be given, and to recall
+Benfield to the city of Madras from the sort of decent exile into which
+he had been relegated by Lord Macartney. You must therefore consider
+Benfield as soucar security for 480,000_l._ a year, which, at
+twenty-four per cent, (supposing him contented with that profit,) will,
+with the interest of his old debt, produce an annual income of
+149,520_l._ a year.
+
+Here is a specimen of the new and pure aristocracy created by the right
+honorable gentleman,[61] as the support of the crown and Constitution
+against the old, corrupt, refractory, natural interests of this kingdom;
+and this is the grand counterpoise against all odious coalitions of
+these interests. A single Benfield outweighs them all: a criminal, who
+long since ought to have fattened the region kites with his offal, is by
+his Majesty's ministers enthroned in the government of a great kingdom,
+and enfeoffed with an estate which in the comparison effaces the
+splendor of all the nobility of Europe. To bring a little more
+distinctly into view the true secret of this dark transaction, I beg you
+particularly to advert to the circumstances which I am going to place
+before you.
+
+The general corps of creditors, as well as Mr. Benfield himself, not
+looking well into futurity, nor presaging the minister of this day,
+thought it not expedient for their common interest that such a name as
+his should stand at the head of their list. It was therefore agreed
+amongst them that Mr. Benfield should disappear, by making over his debt
+to Messrs. Taylor, Majendie, and Call, and should in return be secured
+by their bond.
+
+The debt thus exonerated of so great a weight of its odium, and
+otherwise reduced from its alarming bulk, the agents thought they might
+venture to print a list of the creditors. This was done for the first
+time in the year 1783, during the Duke of Portland's administration. In
+this list the name of Benfield was not to be seen. To this strong
+negative testimony was added the further testimony of the Nabob of
+Arcot. That prince[62] (or rather Mr. Benfield for him) writes to the
+Court of Directors a letter[63] full of complaints and accusations
+against Lord Macartney, conveyed in such terms as were natural for one
+of Mr. Benfield's habits and education to employ. Amongst the rest he is
+made to complain of his Lordship's endeavoring to prevent an intercourse
+of politeness and sentiment between him and Mr. Benfield; and to
+aggravate the affront, he expressly declares Mr. Benfield's visits to be
+only on account of respect and of gratitude, as no pecuniary transaction
+subsisted between them.
+
+Such, for a considerable space of time, was the outward form of the loan
+of 1777, in which Mr. Benfield had no sort of concern. At length
+intelligence arrived at Madras, that this debt, which had always been
+renounced by the Court of Directors, was rather like to become the
+subject of something more like a criminal inquiry than of any patronage
+or sanction from Parliament. Every ship brought accounts, one stronger
+than the other, of the prevalence of the determined enemies of the
+Indian system. The public revenues became an object desperate to the
+hopes of Mr. Benfield; he therefore resolved to fall upon his
+associates, and, in violation of that faith which subsists among those
+who have abandoned all other, commences a suit in the Mayor's Court
+against Taylor, Majendie, and Call, for the bond given to him, when he
+agreed to disappear for his own benefit as well as that of the common
+concern. The assignees of his debt, who little expected the springing of
+this mine, even from such an engineer as Mr. Benfield, after recovering
+their first alarm, thought it best to take ground on the real state of
+the transaction. They divulged the whole mystery, and were prepared to
+plead that they had never received from Mr. Benfield any other
+consideration for the bond than a transfer, in trust for himself, of his
+demand on the Nabob of Arcot. An universal indignation arose against the
+perfidy of Mr. Benfield's proceeding; the event of the suit was looked
+upon as so certain, that Benfield was compelled to retreat as
+precipitately as he had advanced boldly; he gave up his bond, and was
+reinstated in his original demand, to wait the fortune of other
+claimants. At that time, and at Madras, this hope was dull indeed; but
+at home another scene was preparing.
+
+It was long before any public account of this discovery at Madras had
+arrived in England, that the present minister and his Board of Control
+thought fit to determine on the debt of 1777. The recorded proceedings
+at this time knew nothing of any debt to Benfield. There was his own
+testimony, there was the testimony of the list, there was the testimony
+of the Nabob of Arcot, against it. Yet such was the ministers' feeling
+of the true secret of this transaction, that they thought proper, in the
+teeth of all these testimonies, to give him license to return to Madras.
+Here the ministers were under some embarrassment. Confounded between
+their resolution of rewarding the good services of Benfield's friends
+and associates in England, and the shame of sending that notorious
+incendiary to the court of the Nabob of Arcot, to renew his intrigues
+against the British government, at the time they authorize his return,
+they forbid him, under the severest penalties, from any conversation
+with the Nabob or his ministers: that is, they forbid his communication
+with the very person on account of his dealings with whom they permit
+his return to that city. To overtop this contradiction, there is not a
+word restraining him from the freest intercourse with the Nabob's second
+son, the real author of all that is done in the Nabob's name; who, in
+conjunction with this very Benfield, has acquired an absolute dominion
+over that unhappy man, is able to persuade him to put his signature to
+whatever paper they please, and often without any communication of the
+contents. This management was detailed to them at full length by Lord
+Macartney, and they cannot pretend ignorance of it.[64]
+
+I believe, after this exposure of facts, no man can entertain a doubt of
+the collusion of ministers with the corrupt interest of the delinquents
+in India. Whenever those in authority provide for the interest of any
+person, on the real, but concealed state of his affairs, without regard
+to his avowed, public, and ostensible pretences, it must be presumed
+that they are in confederacy with him, because they act for him on the
+same fraudulent principles on which he acts for himself. It is plain
+that the ministers were fully apprised of Benfield's real situation,
+which he had used means to conceal, whilst concealment answered his
+purposes. They were, or the person on whom they relied was, of the
+cabinet council of Benfield, in the very depth of all his mysteries. An
+honest magistrate compels men to abide by one story. An equitable judge
+would not hear of the claim of a man who had himself thought proper to
+renounce it. With such a judge his shuffling and prevarication would
+have damned his claims; such a judge never would have known, but in
+order to animadvert upon, proceedings of that character.
+
+I have thus laid before you, Mr. Speaker, I think with sufficient
+clearness, the connection of the ministers with Mr. Atkinson at the
+general election; I have laid open to you the connection of Atkinson
+with Benfield; I have shown Benfield's employment of his wealth in
+creating a Parliamentary interest to procure a ministerial protection; I
+have set before your eyes his large concern in the debt, his practices
+to hide that concern from the public eye, and the liberal protection
+which he has received from the minister. If this chain of circumstances
+does not lead you necessarily to conclude that the minister has paid to
+the avarice of Benfield the services done by Benfield's connections to
+his ambition, I do not know anything short of the confession of the
+party that can persuade you of his guilt. Clandestine and collusive
+practice can only be traced by combination and comparison of
+circumstances. To reject such combination and comparison is to reject
+the only means of detecting fraud; it is, indeed, to give it a patent
+and free license to cheat with impunity.
+
+I confine myself to the connection of ministers, mediately or
+immediately, with only two persons concerned in this debt. How many
+others, who support their power and greatness within and without doors,
+are concerned originally, or by transfers of these debts, must be left
+to general opinion. I refer to the reports of the Select Committee for
+the proceedings of some of the agents in these affairs, and their
+attempts, at least, to furnish ministers with the means of buying
+General Courts, and even whole Parliaments, in the gross.[65]
+
+I know that the ministers will think it little less than acquittal, that
+they are not charged with having taken to themselves some part of the
+money of which they have made so liberal a donation to their partisans,
+though the charge may be indisputably fixed upon the corruption of their
+politics. For my part, I follow their crimes to that point to which
+legal presumptions and natural indications lead me, without considering
+what species of evil motive tends most to aggravate or to extenuate the
+guilt of their conduct. But if I am to speak my private sentiments, I
+think that in a thousand cases for one it would be far less mischievous
+to the public, and full as little dishonorable to themselves, to be
+polluted with direct bribery, than thus to become a standing auxiliary
+to the oppression, usury, and peculation of multitudes, in order to
+obtain a corrupt support to their power. It is by bribing, not so often
+by being bribed, that wicked politicians bring rum on mankind. Avarice
+is a rival to the pursuits of many. It finds a multitude of checks, and
+many opposers, in every walk of life. But the objects of ambition are
+for the few; and every person who aims at indirect profit, and therefore
+wants other protection than innocence and law, instead of its rival,
+becomes its instrument. There is a natural allegiance and fealty due to
+this domineering, paramount evil, from all the vassal vices, which
+acknowledge its superiority, and readily militate under its banners; and
+it is under that discipline alone that avarice is able to spread to any
+considerable extent, or to render itself a general, public mischief. It
+is therefore no apology for ministers, that they have not been bought by
+the East India delinquents, but that they have only formed an alliance
+with them for screening each other from justice, according to the
+exigence of their several necessities. That they have done so is
+evident; and the junction of the power of office in England with the
+abuse of authority in the East has not only prevented even the
+appearance of redress to the grievances of India, but I wish it may not
+be found to have dulled, if not extinguished, the honor, the candor, the
+generosity, the good-nature, which used formerly to characterize the
+people of England. I confess, I wish that some more feeling than I have
+yet observed for the sufferings of our fellow-creatures and
+fellow-subjects in that oppressed part of the world had manifested
+itself in any one quarter of the kingdom, or in any one large
+description of men.
+
+That these oppressions exist is a fact no more denied than it is
+resented as it ought to be. Much evil has been done in India under the
+British authority. What has been done to redress it? We are no longer
+surprised at anything. We are above the unlearned and vulgar passion of
+admiration. But it will astonish posterity, when they read our opinions
+in our actions, that, after years of inquiry, we have found out that the
+sole grievance of India consisted in this, that the servants of the
+Company there had not profited enough of their opportunities, nor
+drained it sufficiently of its treasures,--when they shall hear that the
+very first and only important act of a commission specially named by act
+of Parliament is, to charge upon an undone country, in favor of a
+handful of men in the humblest ranks of the public service, the enormous
+sum of perhaps four millions of sterling money.
+
+It is difficult for the most wise and upright government to correct the
+abuses of remote, delegated power, productive of unmeasured wealth, and
+protected by the boldness and strength of the same ill-got riches. These
+abuses, full of their own wild native vigor, will grow and flourish
+under mere neglect. But where the supreme authority, not content with
+winking at the rapacity of its inferior instruments, is so shameless and
+corrupt as openly to give bounties and premiums for disobedience to its
+laws,--when it will not trust to the activity of avarice in the pursuit
+of its own gains,--when it secures public robbery by all the careful
+jealousy and attention with which it ought to protect property from such
+violence,--the commonwealth then is become totally perverted from its
+purposes; neither God nor man will long endure it; nor will it long
+endure itself. In that case, there is an unnatural infection, a
+pestilential taint, fermenting in the constitution of society, which
+fever and convulsions of some kind or other must throw off, or in which
+the vital powers, worsted in an unequal struggle, are pushed back upon
+themselves, and, by a reversal of their whole functions, fester to
+gangrene, to death,--and instead of what was but just now the delight
+and boast of the creation, there will be cast out in the face of the sun
+a bloated, putrid, noisome carcass, full of stench and poison, an
+offence, a horror, a lesson to the world.
+
+In my opinion, we ought not to wait for the fruitless instruction of
+calamity to inquire into the abuses which bring upon us ruin in the
+worst of its forms, in the loss of our fame and virtue. But the right
+honorable gentleman[66] says, in answer to all the powerful arguments of
+my honorable friend, "that this inquiry is of a delicate nature, and
+that the state will suffer detriment by the exposure of this
+transaction." But it is exposed; it is perfectly known in every member,
+in every particle, and in every way, except that which may lead to a
+remedy. He knows that the papers of correspondence are printed, and that
+they are in every hand.
+
+He and delicacy are a rare and a singular coalition. He thinks that to
+divulge our Indian politics may be highly dangerous. He! the mover, the
+chairman, the reporter of the Committee of Secrecy! he, that brought
+forth in the utmost detail, in several vast, printed folios, the most
+recondite parts of the politics, the military, the revenues of the
+British empire in India! With six great chopping bastards,[67] each as
+lusty as an infant Hercules, this delicate creature blushes at the sight
+of his new bridegroom, assumes a virgin delicacy; or, to use a more fit,
+as well as a more poetic comparison, the person so squeamish, so timid,
+so trembling lest the winds of heaven should visit too roughly, is
+expanded to broad sunshine, exposed like the sow of imperial augury,
+lying in the mud with all the prodigies of her fertility about her, as
+evidence of her delicate amours,--
+
+    Triginta capitum fœtus enixa jacebat,
+    Alba, solo recubans, albi circum ubera nati.
+
+Whilst discovery of the misgovernment of others led to his own power, it
+was wise to inquire, it was safe to publish: there was then no
+delicacy; there was then no danger. But when his object is obtained, and
+in his imitation he has outdone the crimes that he had reprobated in
+volumes of reports and in sheets of bills of pains and penalties, then
+concealment becomes prudence, and it concerns the safety of the state
+that we should not know, in a mode of Parliamentary cognizance, what all
+the world knows but too well, that is, in what manner he chooses to
+dispose of the public revenues to the creatures of his politics.
+
+The debate has been long, and as much so on my part, at least, as on the
+part of those who have spoken before me. But long as it is, the more
+material half of the subject has hardly been touched on: that is, the
+corrupt and destructive system to which this debt has been rendered
+subservient, and which seems to be pursued with at least as much vigor
+and regularity as ever. If I considered your ease or my own, rather than
+the weight and importance of this question, I ought to make some apology
+to you, perhaps some apology to myself, for having detained your
+attention so long. I know on what ground I tread. This subject, at one
+time taken up with so much fervor and zeal, is no longer a favorite in
+this House. The House itself has undergone a great and signal
+revolution. To some the subject is strange and uncouth; to several,
+harsh and distasteful; to the relics of the last Parliament it is a
+matter of fear and apprehension. It is natural for those who have seen
+their friends sink in the tornado which raged during the late shift of
+the monsoon, and have hardly escaped on the planks of the general wreck,
+it is but too natural for them, as soon as they make the rocks and
+quicksands of their former disasters, to put about their new-built
+barks, and, as much as possible, to keep aloof from this perilous lee
+shore.
+
+But let us do what we please to put India from our thoughts, we can do
+nothing to separate it from our public interest and our national
+reputation. Our attempts to banish this importunate duty will only make
+it return upon us again and again, and every time in a shape more
+unpleasant than the former. A government has been fabricated for that
+great province; the right honorable gentleman says that therefore you
+ought not to examine into its conduct. Heavens! what an argument is
+this! We are not to examine into the conduct of the Direction, because
+it is an old government; we are not to examine into this Board of
+Control, because it is a new one. Then we are only to examine into the
+conduct of those who have no conduct to account for. Unfortunately, the
+basis of this new government has been laid on old, condemned
+delinquents, and its superstructure is raised out of prosecutors turned
+into protectors. The event has been such as might be expected. But if it
+had been otherwise constituted, had it been constituted even as I
+wished, and as the mover of this question had planned, the better part
+of the proposed establishment was in the publicity of its proceedings,
+in its perpetual responsibility to Parliament. Without this check, what
+is our government at home, even awed, as every European government is,
+by an audience formed of the other states of Europe, by the applause or
+condemnation of the discerning and critical company before which it
+acts? But if the scene on the other side of the globe, which tempts,
+invites, almost compels, to tyranny and rapine, be not inspected with
+the eye of a severe and unremitting vigilance, shame and destruction
+must ensue. For one, the worst event of this day, though it may deject,
+shall not break or subdue me. The call upon us is authoritative. Let who
+will shrink back, I shall be found at my post. Baffled, discountenanced,
+subdued, discredited, as the cause of justice and humanity is, it will
+be only the dearer to me. Whoever, therefore, shall at any time bring
+before you anything towards the relief of our distressed fellow-citizens
+in India, and towards a subversion of the present most corrupt and
+oppressive system for its government, in me shall find a weak, I am
+afraid, but a steady, earnest, and faithful assistant.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Right Honorable Henry Dundas.
+
+[2] Sir Thomas Rumbold, late Governor of Madras.
+
+[3] Appendix, No. 1.
+
+[4] The whole of the net Irish hereditary revenue is, on a medium of the
+last seven years, about 330,000_l._ yearly. The revenues of all
+denominations fall short more than 150,000_l._ yearly of the charges. On
+the _present_ produce, if Mr. Pitt's scheme was to take place, he might
+gain from seven to ten thousand pounds a year.
+
+[5] Mr. Smith's Examination before the Select Committee. Appendix, No.
+2.
+
+[6] Appendix, No. 2.
+
+[7] Fourth Report, Mr. Dundas's Committee, p. 4.
+
+[8] A witness examined before the Committee of Secrecy says that
+eighteen per cent was the usual interest, but he had heard that more had
+been given. The above is the account which Mr. B. received.
+
+[9] Mr. Dundas.
+
+[10] For the threats of the creditors, and total subversion of the
+authority of the Company in favor of the Nabob's power and the increase
+thereby of his evil dispositions, and the great derangement of all
+public concerns, see Select Committee Fort St. George's letters, 21st
+November, 1769, and January 31st, 1770; September 11, 1772; and Governor
+Bourchier's letters to the Nabob of Arcot, 21st November, 1769, and
+December 9th, 1769.
+
+[11] "He [the Nabob] is in a great degree the cause of our present
+inability, by diverting the revenues of the Carnatic through _private
+channels_." "Even this peshcush [the Tanjore tribute], circumstanced as
+he and we are, he has assigned over to others, _who now set themselves
+in opposition to the Company_."--Consultations, October 11, 1769, on the
+12th communicated to the Nabob.
+
+[12] Nabob's letter to Governor Palk. Papers published by the Directors
+in 1775; and papers printed by the same authority, 1781.
+
+[13] See papers printed by order of a General Court in 1780, pp. 222 and
+224; as also Nabob's letter to Governor Dupré, 19th July, 1771: "I have
+taken up loans by which I have suffered a loss of _upwards of a crore of
+pagodas_ [four millions sterling] _by interest on an heavy interest_."
+Letter 15th January, 1772: "Notwithstanding I have taken much trouble,
+and have made many payments to my creditors, yet the load of my debt,
+_which became so great by interest and compound interest_, is not
+cleared."
+
+[14] The Nabob of Arcot.
+
+[15] Appendix, No. 3.
+
+[16] See Mr. Dundas's 1st, 2d, and 3d Reports.
+
+[17] See further Consultations, 3d February, 1778.
+
+[18] Mr. Dundas's 1st Report, pp. 26, 29, and Appendix, No. 2, 10, 18,
+for the mutinous state and desertion of the Nabob's troops for want of
+pay. See also Report IV. of the same committee.
+
+[19] Memorial from the creditors to the Governor and Council, 22d
+January, 1770.
+
+[20] In the year 1778, Mr. James Call, one of the proprietors of this
+specific debt, was actually mayor. (Appendix to 2d Report of Mr.
+Dundas's committee, No. 65.) The only proof which appeared on the
+inquiry instituted in the General Court of 1781 was an affidavit of _the
+lenders themselves_, deposing (what nobody ever denied) that they had
+_engaged_ and _agreed_ to pay--not that they _had_ paid--the sum of
+160,000_l._ This was two years after the transaction; and the affidavit
+is made before George Proctor, mayor, an attorney for certain of the old
+creditors.--Proceedings of the President and Council of Fort St. George,
+22d February, 1779.
+
+[21] Right Honorable Henry Dundas.
+
+[22] Appendix to the 4th Report of Mr. Dundas's committee, No 15.
+
+[23] "No sense of the common danger, in case of a war, can prevail on
+him [the Nabob of Arcot] to furnish the Company with what is absolutely
+necessary to assemble an army, though it is beyond a doubt that money to
+a large amount is now hoarded up in his coffers at Chepauk; and tunkaws
+are granted to _individuals_, upon some of his most _valuable
+countries_, for payment of part of those debts which he has contracted,
+and _which certainly will not bear inspection, as neither debtor nor
+creditors have ever had the confidence to submit the accounts to our
+examination_, though they expressed a wish to consolidate the debts
+under the auspices of this government, agreeably to a plan they had
+formed."--Madras Consultations, 20th July, 1778. Mr. Dundas's Appendix
+to 2nd Report, 143. See also last Appendix to ditto Report, No. 376, B.
+
+[24] Transcriber's note: Footnote missing in original text.
+
+[25] Lord Pigot
+
+[26] In Sir Thomas Rumbold's letter to the Court of Directors, March
+15th, 1778, he represents it as higher, in the following manner:--"How
+shall I paint to you my astonishment, on my arrival here, when I was
+informed, that, independent of this four lacs of pagodas [the Cavalry
+Loan], independent of the Nabob's debt to his old creditors, and the
+money due to the Company, he had contracted a debt to the enormous
+amount of sixty-three lacs of pagodas [2,520,000_l._]. I mention this
+circumstance to you _with horror_; for the creditors being in general
+_servants of the Company_ renders my task, on the part of the Company,
+_difficult and invidious_." "I have freed the sanction of this
+government from so _corrupt_ a transaction. It is in my mind the most
+venal of all proceedings to give the Company's protection to debts that
+cannot bear the light; and though it appears exceedingly alarming, that
+a country on which you are to depend for resources should be so involved
+as to be nearly three years' revenue in debt,--in a country, too, where
+one year's revenue can never be called _secure_, by men who know
+anything of the politics of this part of India." "I think it proper to
+mention to you, that, although _the Nabob reports his private debt to
+amount to upwards of sixty lacs_, yet I understand that it is not quite
+so much." Afterwards Sir Thomas Rumbold recommended this debt to the
+favorable attention of the Company, but without any sufficient reason
+for his change of disposition. However, he went no further.
+
+[27] Nabob's proposals, November 25th, 1778; and memorial of the
+creditors, March 1st, 1779.
+
+[28] Nabob's proposals to his new consolidated creditors, November 25th,
+1778.
+
+[29] Paper signed by the Nabob, 6th January, 1780.
+
+[30] Kistbundi to July 31, 1780.
+
+[31] Governor's letter to the Nabob, 25th July, 1779.
+
+[32] Report of the Select Committee, Madras Consultations, January 7,
+1771. See also papers published by the order of the Court of Directors
+in 1776; and Lord Macartney's correspondence with Mr. Hastings and the
+Nabob of Arcot. See also Mr. Dundas's Appendix, No 376, B. Nabob's
+propositions through Mr. Sulivan and Assam Khân, Art. 6, and indeed the
+whole.
+
+[33] "The principal object of the expedition is, to get money from
+Tanjore to pay the Nabob's debt: if a surplus, to be applied in
+discharge of the Nabob's debts to his private creditors."
+(Consultations, March 20, 1771; and for further lights, Consultations,
+12th June, 1771.) "We are alarmed lest this debt to _individuals_ should
+have been the _real_ motive for the aggrandizement of Mahomed Ali [the
+Nabob of Arcot], and that _we are plunged into a war_ to put him in
+possession of the Mysore revenues _for the discharge of the
+debt_."--Letter from the Directors, March 17, 1769.
+
+[34] Letter from the Nabob, May 1st, 1768; and ditto, 24th April, 1770,
+1st October; ditto, 16th September, 1772, 16th March, 1773.
+
+[35] Letter from the Presidency at Madras to the Court of Directors,
+27th June, 1769.
+
+[36] Mr. Dundas's committee. Report L, Appendix, No. 29.
+
+[37] Appendix, No. 4, Report of the Committee of Assigned Revenue.
+
+[38] Mr. Barnard's map of the Jaghire
+
+[39] See Report IV., Mr. Dundas's committee, p. 46.
+
+[40] Interest is rated in India by the month.
+
+[41] Mr. Dundas's committee. Rep. I. p. 9, and ditto, Rep. IV. 69, where
+the revenue of 1777 stated only at 22 lacs,--30 lacs stated as the
+revenue, "_supposing_ the Carnatic to be _properly_ managed."
+
+[42] See Appendix, No. 4, statement in the Report of the Committee of
+Assigned Revenue.
+
+[43] The province of Tinnevelly.
+
+[44] Appendix, No. 5.
+
+[45] See extract of their letter in the Appendix, No. 9.
+
+[46] "It is certain that the incursion of a _few_ of Hyder's horse into
+the Jaghire, in 1767, cost the Company upwards of pagodas 27,000, _in
+allowances for damages_."--Consultations, February 11th, 1771.
+
+[47] Proceeding at Madras, 11th February, 1769, and throughout the
+correspondence on this subject; particularly Consultations, October 4th,
+1769, and the creditors' memorial, 20th January, 1770.
+
+[48] Appendix, No. 7.
+
+[49] For some part of these usurious transactions, see Consultation,
+28th January, 1781; and for the Nabob's excusing his oppressions on
+account of these debts, Consultation, 26th November, 1770. "Still I
+undertook, first, the payment of the money belonging to the Company, who
+are my kind friends, and by borrowing, and _mortgaging my jewels, &c._,
+by _taking from every one of my servants_, in proportion to their
+circumstances, by _fresh severities_ also on my country,
+_notwithstanding its distressed state_, as you know."--The Board's
+remark is as follows: after controverting some of the facts, they say,
+"That his countries are oppressed is most certain, but not from real
+necessity; _his debts, indeed, have afforded him a constant pretence_
+for using severities and cruel oppressions."
+
+[50] See Consultation, 28th January, 1781, where it is asserted, and not
+denied, that the Nabob's farmers of revenue seldom continue for three
+months together. From this the state of the country may be easily judged
+of.
+
+[51] In Mr. Fox's speech.
+
+[52] The amended letter, Appendix, No. 9.
+
+[53] Appendix, No. 8.
+
+[54] Mr. Petrie's evidence before the Select Committee, Appendix, No. 7.
+
+[55] Appendix, No. 7.
+
+[56] Mr. Dundas.
+
+[57] See Report IV., Committee of Secrecy, pp. 73 and 74; and Appendix,
+in sundry places.
+
+[58] Mr. Smith's protest.
+
+[59] Madras correspondence on this subject.
+
+[60] Appendix, No 6.
+
+[61] Right Honorable William Pitt.
+
+[62] Appendix, No. 10.
+
+[63] Dated 13th October. For further illustration of the style in which
+these letters were written, and the principles on which they proceed,
+see letters from the Nabob to the Court of Directors, dated August 16th
+and September 7th, 1783, delivered by Mr. James Macpherson, minister to
+the Nabob, January 14, 1784. Appendix, No. 10.
+
+[64] Appendix, No. 6.
+
+[65] Second Report of Select (General Smith's) Committee.
+
+[66] Mr. Dundas.
+
+[67] Six Reports of the Committee of Secrecy.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No. 1.
+
+CLAUSES OF MR PITT'S BILL.
+
+Referred to from p. 17.
+
+_Appointing Commissioners to inquire into the Fees, Gratuities,
+Perquisites, Emoluments, which are, or have been lately, received in the
+several Public Offices therein mentioned; to examine into any Abuses
+which may exist in the same, &c._
+
+
+And be it further enacted, that it shall and may be lawful to and for
+the said commissioners, or any two of them, and they are hereby
+empowered, authorized, and required, _to examine upon oath_ (which oath
+they, or any two of them, are hereby authorized to administer) the
+several persons, of _all_ descriptions, belonging to any of the offices
+or departments before mentioned, and _all other persons_ whom the said
+commissioners, or any two of them, shall think fit to examine, touching
+_the business_ of each office or department, and _the fees, gratuities,
+perquisites, and emoluments taken therein_, and touching all other
+matters and things necessary for the execution of the powers vested in
+the said commissioners by this act; _all which persons_ are hereby
+required and directed punctually to attend the said commissioners, _at
+such time and place as they, or any two of them, shall appoint, and also
+to observe and execute such orders and directions_ as the said
+commissioners, or any two of them, shall make or give for the purposes
+before mentioned.
+
+And be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that the said
+commissioners, or any two of them, shall be and are hereby empowered to
+examine into any corrupt and fraudulent practices, or other misconduct,
+committed by any person or persons concerned in the management of any of
+the offices or departments hereinbefore mentioned; and for the better
+execution of this present act, the said commissioners, or _any two of
+them, are hereby authorized to meet and sit, from time to time, in such
+place or places as they shall find most convenient, with, or without
+adjournment, and to send their precept or precepts, under their hands
+and seals, for any person or persons whatsoever, and for such books,
+papers, writings, or records, as they shall judge necessary for their
+information, relating to any of the offices or departments hereinbefore
+mentioned; and all bailiffs, constables, sheriffs, and other his
+Majesty's officers, are hereby required to obey and execute such orders
+and precepts aforesaid as shall be sent to them, or any of them, by the
+said commissioners, or any two of them, touching the premises._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No. 2.
+
+Referred to from p. 22.
+
+NABOB OF ARCOT'S DEBTS.
+
+Mr. George Smith being asked, Whether the debts of the Nabob of Arcot
+have increased since he knew Madras? he said, Yes, they have. He
+distinguishes his debts into two sorts: those contracted before the
+year 1766, and those contracted from that year to the year in which he
+left Madras.--Being asked, What he thinks is the original amount of the
+old debts? he said, Between twenty-three and twenty-four lacs of
+pagodas, as well as he can recollect.--Being asked, What was the amount
+of that debt when he left Madras? he said, Between four and five lacs of
+pagodas, as he understood.--Being asked, What was the amount of the new
+debt when he left Madras? he said, In November, 1777, that debt
+amounted, according to the Nabob's own account, and published at
+Chepauk, his place of residence, to sixty lacs of pagodas, independent
+of the old debt, on which debt of sixty lacs of pagodas the Nabob did
+agree to pay an interest of twelve per cent per annum.--Being asked,
+Whether this debt was approved of by the Court of Directors? he said, He
+does not know it was.--Being asked, Whether the old debt was recognized
+by the Court of Directors? he said, Yes, it has been; and the Court of
+Directors have sent out repeated orders to the President and Council of
+Madras to enforce its recovery and payment.--Being asked, If the
+interest upon the new debt is punctually paid? he said, It was not
+during his residence at Madras, from 1777 to 1779, in which period he
+thinks no more than five per cent interest was paid, in different
+dividends of two and one per cent.--Being asked, What is the usual
+course taken by the Nabob concerning the arrears of interest? he said,
+Not having ever lent him moneys himself, he cannot fully answer as to
+the mode of settling the interest with him.
+
+Being asked, Whether he has reason to believe the sixty lacs of pagodas
+was all principal money really and truly advanced to the Nabob of
+Arcot, or a fictitious capital, made up of obligations given by him,
+where no money or goods were received, or which was increased by the
+uniting into it a greater interest than the twelve per cent expressed to
+be due on the capital? he said, He has no reason to believe that the sum
+of sixty lacs of pagodas was lent in money or goods to the Nabob,
+because that sum he thinks is of more value than all the money, goods,
+and chattels in the settlement; but he does not know in what mode or
+manner this debt of the Nabob's was incurred or accumulated.--Being
+asked, Whether it was not a general and well-grounded opinion at Madras,
+that a great part of this sum was accumulated by obligations, and was
+for services performed or to be performed for the Nabob? he said, He has
+heard that a part of this debt was given for the purposes mentioned in
+the above question, but he does not know that it was so.--Being asked,
+Whether it was the general opinion of the settlement? he said, He cannot
+say that it was the general opinion, but it was the opinion of a
+considerable part of the settlement.--Being asked, Whether it was the
+declared opinion of those that were concerned in the debt, or those that
+were not? he said, It was the opinion of both parties, at least such of
+them as he conversed with.--Being asked, Whether he has reason to
+believe that the interest really paid by the Nabob, upon obligations
+given, or money lent, did not frequently exceed twelve per cent? he
+said, Prior to the 1st of August, 1774, he had had reason to believe
+that a higher interest than twelve per cent was paid by the Nabob on
+moneys lent to him; but from and after that period, when the last act of
+Parliament took place in India, he does not know that more than twelve
+per cent had been paid by the Nabob, or received from him.--Being asked,
+Whether it is not his opinion that the Nabob has paid more than twelve
+per cent for money due since the 1st of August, 1774? he said, He has
+heard that he has, but he does not know it.--Being asked, Whether he has
+been told so by any considerable and weighty authority, that was like to
+know? he said, He has been so informed by persons who he believes had a
+very good opportunity of knowing it.--Being asked, Whether he was ever
+told so by the Nabob of Arcot himself? he said, He does not recollect
+that the Nabob of Arcot directly told him so, but from what he said he
+did infer that he paid a higher interest than twelve per cent.
+
+Mr. Smith being asked, Whether, in the course of trade, he ever sold
+anything to the Nabob of Arcot? he said, In the year 1775 he did sell to
+the Nabob of Arcot pearls to the amount of 32,500 pagodas, for which the
+Nabob gave him an order or tankah on the country of Tanjore, payable in
+six months, without interest.--Being asked, Whether, at the time he
+asked the Nabob his price for the pearls, the Nabob beat down that
+price, as dealers commonly do? he said, No; so far from it, he offered
+him more than he asked by 1000 pagodas, and which he rejected.--Being
+asked, Whether, in settling a transaction of discount with the Nabob's
+agent, he was not offered a greater discount than 12_l._ per cent? he
+said, In discounting a soucar's bill for 180,000 pagodas, the Nabob's
+agent did offer him a discount of twenty-four per cent per annum, saving
+that it was the usual rate of discount paid by the Nabob; but which he
+would not accept of, thinking himself confined by the act of Parliament
+limiting the interest of moneys to twelve per cent, and accordingly he
+discounted the bill at twelve per cent per annum only.--Being asked,
+Whether he does not think those offers were made him because the Nabob
+thought he was a person of some consequence in the settlement? he said,
+Being only a private merchant, he apprehends that the offer was made to
+him more from its being a general practice than from any opinion of his
+importance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No. 3.
+
+Referred to from p. 38.
+
+_A Bill for the Better Government of the Territorial Possessions and
+Dependencies in India_.
+
+[ONE OF MR FOX'S INDIA BILLS.]
+
+
+And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that the Nabob of
+Arcot, the Rajah of Tanjore, or any other native protected prince in
+India, shall not assign, mortgage, or pledge any territory or land
+whatsoever, or the produce or revenue thereof, to any British subject
+whatsoever; neither shall it be lawful to and for any British subject
+whatsoever to take or receive any such assignment, mortgage, or pledge;
+and the same are hereby declared to be null and void; and all payments
+or deliveries of produce or revenue, under any such assignment, shall
+and may be recovered back, by such native prince paying or delivering
+the same, from the person or persons receiving the same, or his or their
+representatives.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No. 4.
+
+Referred to from pp. 64 and 73.
+
+(COPY.)
+
+27th May, 1782.
+
+_Letter from the Committee of Assigned Revenue, to the President and
+Select Committee, dated 27th May, 1782; with Comparative Statement, and
+Minute thereon._
+
+
+To the Right Honorable LORD MACARTNEY, K.B., President, and Governor,
+&c., Select Committee of Fort St. George.
+
+MY LORD, AND GENTLEMEN,--
+
+Although we have, in obedience to your commands of the 5th January,
+regularly laid before you our proceedings at large, and have
+occasionally addressed you upon such points as required your resolutions
+or orders for our guidance, we still think it necessary to collect and
+digest in a summary report those transactions in the management of the
+assigned revenue which have principally engaged our attention, and
+which, upon the proceeding, are too much intermixed with ordinary
+occurrences to be readily traced and understood.
+
+Such a report may be formed with the greater propriety at this time,
+when your Lordship, &c., have been pleased to conclude your arrangements
+for the rent of several of the Nabob's districts. Our aim in it is
+briefly to explain the state of the Carnatic at the period of the
+Nabob's assignment,--the particular causes which existed to the
+prejudice of that assignment, after it was made,--and the measures which
+your Lordship, &c., have, upon our recommendation, adopted for removing
+those causes, and introducing a more regular and beneficial system of
+management in the country.
+
+Hyder Ali having entered the Carnatic with his whole force, about the
+middle of July, 1780, and employed fire and sword in its destruction for
+near eighteen months before the Nabob's assignment took place, it will
+not be difficult to conceive the state of the country at that period. In
+those provinces which were fully exposed to the ravages of horse, scarce
+a vestige remained either of population or agriculture: such of the
+miserable inhabitants as escaped the fury of the sword were either
+carried into the Mysore country or left to struggle under the horrors of
+famine. The Arcot and Trichinopoly districts began early to feel the
+effects of this desolating war. Tinnevelly, Madura, and Ramnadaporum,
+though little infested with Hyder's troops, became a prey to the
+incursions of the Polygars, who stripped them of the greatest part of
+the revenues. Ongole, Nellore, and Palnaud, the only remaining
+districts, had suffered, but in a small degree.
+
+The misfortunes of war, however, were not the only evils which the
+Carnatic experienced. The Nabob's aumildars, and other servants, appear
+to have taken advantage of the general confusion to enrich themselves. A
+very small part of the revenue was accounted for; and so high were the
+ordinary expenses of every district, that double the apparent produce of
+the whole country would not have satisfied them.
+
+In this state, which we believe is no way exaggerated, the Company took
+charge of the assigned countries. Their prospect of relief from the
+heavy burdens of the war was, indeed, but little advanced by the
+Nabob's concession; and the revenues of the Carnatic seemed in danger of
+being irrecoverably lost, unless a speedy and entire change of system
+could be adopted.
+
+On our minutes of the 21st January we treated the subject of the
+assignment at some length, and pointed out the mischiefs which, in
+addition to the effects of the war, had arisen from what we conceived to
+be wrong and oppressive management. We used the freedom to suggest an
+entire alteration in the mode of realizing the revenues. We proposed a
+considerable and immediate reduction of expenses, and a total change of
+the principal aumildars who had been employed under the Nabob.
+
+Our ideas had the good fortune to receive your approbation; but the
+removal of the Nabob's servants being thought improper at that
+particular period of the collections, we employed our attention chiefly
+in preserving what revenue was left the country, and acquiring such
+materials as might lead to a more perfect knowledge of its former and
+present state.
+
+These pursuits, as we apprehended, met with great obstructions from the
+conduct of the Nabob's servants. The orders they received were evaded
+under various pretexts; no attention was paid to the strong and repeated
+applications made to them for the accounts of their management; and
+their attachment to the Company's interest appeared, in every instance,
+so feeble, that we saw no prospect whatever of success, but in the
+appointment of renters under the Company's sole authority.
+
+Upon this principle, we judged it expedient to recommend that such of
+the Nabob's districts as were in a state to be farmed out might be
+immediately let by a public advertisement, issued in the Company's
+name, and circulated through every province of the Carnatic; and, with
+the view of encouraging bidders, we proposed that the countries might be
+advertised for the whole period of the Nabob's assignment, and the
+security of the Company's protection promised in the fullest manner to
+such persons as might become renters.
+
+This plan had the desired effect; and the attempts which were secretly
+made to counteract it afforded an unequivocal proof of its necessity:
+but the advantages resulting from it were more pleasingly evinced by the
+number of proposals that were delivered, and by the terms which were in
+general offered for the districts intended to be farmed out.
+
+Having so far attained the purposes of the assignment, our attention was
+next turned to the heavy expenses entailed upon the different provinces;
+and here, we confess, our astonishment was raised to the highest pitch.
+In the Trichinopoly country the standing disbursements appeared, by the
+Nabob's own accounts, to be one lac of rupees more than the receipts. In
+other districts the charges were not in so high a proportion, but still
+rated on a most extravagant scale; and we saw, by every account that was
+brought before us, the absolute necessity of retrenching considerably in
+all the articles of expense.
+
+Our own reason, aided by such inquiries as we were able to make,
+suggested the alterations we have recommended to your Lordship, &c.,
+under this head. You will observe that we have not acted sparingly, but
+we chose rather, in cases of doubt, to incur the hazard of retrenching
+too much than too little; because it would be easier, after any stated
+allowance for expenses, to add what might be necessary than to
+diminish. We hope, however, there will be no material increase in the
+articles, as they now stand.
+
+One considerable charge upon the Nabob's country was for extraordinary
+sibbendies, sepoys, and horsemen, who appeared to us to be a very
+unnecessary incumbrance on the revenue. Your Lordship, &c., have
+determined to receive such of these people as will enlist into the
+Company's service, and discharge the rest. This measure will not only
+relieve the country of a heavy burden, but tend greatly to fix in the
+Company that kind of authority which is requisite for the due collection
+of the revenues.
+
+In consequence of your determination respecting the Nabob's sepoys, &c.,
+every charge under that head has been struck out of our account of
+expenses. If the whole number of these people be enlisted by the
+Company, there will probably be no more than sufficient to complete
+their ordinary military establishment. But should the present reduction
+of the Nabob's artillery render it expedient, after the war, to make any
+addition to the Company's establishment for the purposes of the assigned
+countries, the expense of such addition, whatever it be, must be
+deducted from the present account of savings.
+
+In considering the charges of the several districts, in order to
+establish better regulations, we were careful to discriminate those
+incurred for troops, kept or supposed to be kept up for the defence of
+the country, from those of the sibbendy, servants, &c., for the
+cultivation of the lands and the collection of the revenues, as well as
+to pay attention, to such of the established customs of the country,
+ancient privileges of the inhabitants, and public charities, as were
+necessarily allowed, and appeared proper to be continued, but which,
+under the Nabob's government, were not only rated much higher, but had
+been blended under one confused and almost unintelligible title of
+expenses of the districts: so joined, perhaps, to afford pleas and means
+of secreting and appropriating great part of the revenues to other
+purposes than fairly appeared; and certainly betraying the utmost
+neglect and mismanagement, as giving latitude for every species of fraud
+and oppression. Such a system has, in the few latter years of the
+Nabob's necessities, brought all his countries into that situation from
+which nothing but the most rigid economy, strict observance of the
+conduct of managers, and the most conciliating attention to the rights
+of the inhabitants can possibly recover them.
+
+It now only remains for us to lay before your Lordship, &c., the
+inclosed statement of the sums at which the districts lately advertised
+have been let, compared with the accounts of their produce delivered by
+the Nabob, and entered on our proceedings of the 21st January,--likewise
+a comparative view of the former and present expenses.
+
+The Nabob's accounts of the produce of these districts state, as we have
+some reason to think, the sums which former renters engaged to pay to
+him, (and which were seldom, if ever, made good,) and not the sums
+actually produced by the districts; yet we have the satisfaction to
+observe that the present aggregate rents, upon an average, are equal to
+those accounts. Your Lordship, &c., cannot, indeed, expect, that, in the
+midst of the danger, invasion, and distress which assail the Carnatic on
+every side, the renters now appointed will be able at present to fulfil
+the terms of their leases; but we trust, from the measures we have
+taken, that very little, if any, of the actual collections will be lost,
+even during the war,--and that, on the return of peace and tranquillity,
+the renters will have it in their power fully to perform their
+respective agreements.
+
+We much regret that the situation of the Arcot province will not admit
+of the same settlement which has been made for the other districts; but
+the enemy being in possession of the capital, together with several
+other strongholds, and having entirely desolated the country, there is
+little room to hope for more from it than a bare subsistence to the few
+garrisons we have left there.
+
+We shall not fail to give our attention towards obtaining every
+information respecting this province that the present times will permit,
+and to take the first opportunity to propose such arrangements for the
+management as we may think eligible.
+
+We have the honor to be
+
+Your most obedient humble servants,
+
+CHARLES OAKLEY,
+EYLES IRWIN,
+HALL PLUMER,
+DAVID HALIBURTON,
+GEORGE MOUBRAY.
+
+FORT ST. GEORGE, 27th May, 1782.
+
+A true copy.
+
+J. HUDLESTON, Sec.
+
+
+COMPARATIVE STATEMENT _of the Revenues and Expenses of the Nellore,
+Ongole, Palnaud, Trichinopoly, Madura, and Tinnevelly Countries, while
+in the Hands of the Nabob, with those of the same Countries on the Terms
+of the Leases lately granted for Four Years, to commence with the
+Beginning of the Phazeley, 1192, or the 12th July, 1782. Abstracted from
+the Accounts received from the Nabob, and from the Rents stipulated for
+and Expenses allowed by the present Leases_.
+
+GROSS REVENUE.
++---------------+------------------+------------------+
+|               | Annual Gross Rent| Annual Rent by   |
+|               | by the Nabob's   | the present      |
+|               | Account.         | Leases, at an    |
+|               | Average of the   | Average of       |
+|               | Four Years imme- | Four Years.      |
+|               | diately preceding|                  |
+|               | the present War. |                  |
++---------------+------------------+------------------+
+|               | Star Pagodas.    |  Star Pagodas.   |
+| Nellore and   |                  |                  |
+|     Sarapilly |      3,22,830    |      3,61,900    |
+| Ongole        |      1,10,967[68]|        55,000    |
+| Palnaud       |        51,355    |        53,500    |
+| Trichinopoly  |      2,89,993[69]|      2,73,214    |
+| Madura        |      1,02,756    |        60,290    |
+| Tinnevelly    |      5,65,537    |      5,79,713    |
++---------------+------------------+------------------+
+| Total         |     14,43,438    |     13,83,617    |
++---------------+------------------+------------------+
+
+EXPENSES.
++---------------+------------------+------------------+------------------+
+|               | Annual Expenses  | Annual Expenses  | Reduction in the |
+|               | by the Nabob's   | allowed by the   | Annual Expenses. |
+|               | Accounts.        | present Leases   |                  |
+|               |                  | at an Estimate.  |                  |
++---------------+------------------+------------------+------------------+
+|               |  Star Pagodas.   |  Star Pagodas.   |  Star Pagodas.   |
+| Nellore and   |                  |                  |                  |
+|     Sarapilly |      1,98,794    |        33,000    |      1,65,794    |
+| Ongole        |        88,254    |           ...    |        88,254    |
+| Palnaud       |        25,721    |         5,698    |        20,023    |
+| Trichinopoly  |      2,82,148    |        13,143    |      2,63,005    |
+| Madura        |        63,710    |        12,037    |        51,673    |
+| Tinnevelly    |      1,64,098    |        70,368    |        93,730    |
++---------------+------------------+------------------+------------------+
+| Total         |      8,22,725    |      1,40,246    |      6,82,479    |
++---------------+------------------+------------------+------------------+
+
+NET REVENUE.
++---------------+------------------+------------------+------------------+
+|               | Net Revenue      | Net Revenue      | Increase of      |
+|               | by the Nabob's   | by the           | Net Revenue.     |
+|               | Accounts.        | present Leases.  |                  |
++---------------+------------------+------------------+------------------+
+|               |  Star Pagodas.   |  Star Pagodas.   |  Star Pagodas.   |
+| Nellore and   |                  |                  |                  |
+|     Sarapilly |      1,24,036    |      3,28,900    |      2,04,864    |
+| Ongole        |        22,713    |        55,000    |        32,287    |
+| Palnaud       |        25,634    |        47,802    |        22,168    |
+| Trichinopoly  |         7,845    |      2,54,071    |      2,46,226    |
+| Madura        |        39,046    |        48,253    |         9,207    |
+| Tinnevelly    |      4,01,439    |      5,09,345    |      1,07,906    |
++---------------+------------------+------------------+------------------+
+| Total         |      6,20,713    |     12,43,371    |      6,22,658    |
++---------------+------------------+------------------+------------------+
+
+
+N.B. In this statement, Madras Pagodas are calculated at 10 per cent
+Batta; Chuckrums at two thirds of a Porto Novo Pagoda, which are
+reckoned at 115 per 100 Star Pagodas; and Rupees at 350 per 100 Star
+Pagodas. To avoid fractions, the nearest integral numbers have been
+taken.
+
+
+Signed,
+
+CHARLES OAKLEY,
+EYLES IRWIN,
+HALL PLUMER,
+DAVID HALIBURTON,
+GEORGE MOUBRAY.
+
+FORT ST. GEORGE, 27th May, 1782.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No. 5.
+
+Referred to from p. 73.
+
+_Case of certain Persons renting the Assigned Lands wider the Authority
+of the East India Company._
+
+Extract of a Letter from the President and Council of Fort St. George,
+25th May, 1783.
+
+
+One of them [the renters], Ram Chunder Raus, was, indeed, one of those
+unfortunate rajahs whose country, _by being near to the territories of
+the Nabob_, forfeited its title to independence, and became the prey of
+ambition and cupidity. This man, though not able to resist the Company's
+arms, _employed in such a deed at the Nabob's instigation_, had industry
+and ability. He acquired, _by a series of services_, even the confidence
+of the Nabob, who suffered him to _rent apart of the country of which he
+had deprived him of the property_. This man had afforded no motive for
+his rejection by the Nabob, but that of being ready to engage with the
+Company: a motive most powerful, indeed, but not to be avowed.
+
+[This is the person whom the English instruments of the Nabob of Arcot
+have had the audacity to charge with a corrupt transaction with Lord
+Macartney, and, in support of that charge, to produce a forged letter
+from his Lordship's steward. The charge and letter the reader may see in
+this Appendix, under the proper head. It is asserted by the unfortunate
+prince above mentioned, that the Company first settled on the coast of
+Coromandel under the protection of one of his ancestors. If this be
+true, (and it is far from unlikely,) the world must judge of the return
+the descendant has met with. The case of another of the victims given up
+by the ministry, though not altogether so striking as the former, is
+worthy of attention. It is that of the renter of the Province of
+Nellore.]
+
+It is, with a wantonness of falsehood, and indifference to detection,
+asserted to you, in proof of the validity of the Nabob's objections,
+that this man's failures had already forced us to remove him: though in
+fact he has continued invariably in office; though our _greatest
+supplies have been received from him_; and that, in the disappointment
+of your remittances [the remittances from Bengal] and of other
+resources, the specie sent us _from Nellore alone_ has sometimes enabled
+us to carry on the public business; and that the _present expedition
+against the French_ must, without _this_ assistance from the assignment,
+have been laid aside, or delayed until it might have become too late.
+
+[This man is by the ministry given over to the mercy of persons capable
+of making charges on him "_with a wantonness of falsehood, and
+indifference to detection_." What is likely to happen to him and the
+rest of the victims may appear by the following.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Letter to the Governor-General and Council, March 13th, 1782._
+
+The speedy termination, to which the people were taught to look, of the
+Company's interference in the revenues, and the vengeance denounced
+against those who, contrary to the mandate of the Durbar, should be
+connected with them, as reported by Mr. Sullivan, may, as much as the
+former exactions and oppressions of the Nabob in the revenue, as
+reported by the commander-in-chief, have deterred some of the fittest
+men from offering to be concerned in it.
+
+The timid disposition of the Hindoo natives of this country was not
+likely to be insensible to the specimen of that vengeance given by his
+Excellency the Amir, who, upon the mere rumor, that a Bramin, of the
+name of Appagee Row, had given proposals to the Company for the
+rentership of Vellore, had the temerity to send for him, and to put him
+in confinement.
+
+A man thus seized by the Nabob's sepoys within the walls of Madras gave
+a general alarm, and government found it necessary to promise the
+protection of the Company, in order to calm the apprehensions of the
+people.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+No. 6.
+
+Referred to from pp. 101 and 105.
+
+_Extract of a Letter from the Council and Select Committee at Fort St.
+George, to the Governor-General and Council, dated 25th May, 1783._
+
+
+In the prosecution of our duty, we beseech you to consider, as an act of
+strict and necessary justice, previous to reiteration of your orders for
+the surrender of the assignment, how far it would be likely to affect
+third persons who do not appear to have committed any breach of their
+engagements. You command us to compel our aumils to deliver over their
+respective charges as shall be appointed by the Nabob, or to retain
+their trust under his sole authority, if he shall choose to confirm
+them. These aumils are really renters; they were appointed in the room
+of the Nabob's aumils, and contrary to his wishes; they have already
+been rejected by him, and are therefore not likely to be confirmed by
+him. They applied to this government, in consequence of public
+advertisements in our name, as possessing in this instance the joint
+authority of the Nabob and the Company, and have entered into mutual and
+strict covenants with us, and we with them, relative to the certain
+districts not actually in the possession of the enemy; by which
+covenants, as they are bound to the punctual payment of their rents and
+due management of the country, so we, and our constituents, and the
+public faith, are in like manner bound to maintain them in the enjoyment
+of their leases, during the continuance of the term. That term was for
+five years, agreeably to the words of the assignment, which declare that
+the time of renting shall be for three or five years, as the Governor
+shall settle with the renters.--Their leases cannot be legally torn from
+them. Nothing but their previous breach of a part could justify our
+breach of the whole. Such a stretch and abuse of power would, indeed,
+not only savor of the assumption of sovereignty, but of arbitrary and
+oppressive despotism. In the present contest, whether the Nabob be
+guilty, or we be guilty, the renters are not guilty. Whichever of the
+contending parties has broken the condition of the assignment, the
+renters have not broken the condition of their leases. These men, in
+conducting the business of the assignment, have acted in opposition to
+the designs of the Nabob, in despite of the menaces denounced against
+all who should dare to oppose the mandates of the Durbar justice.
+Gratitude and humanity require that provision should be made by you,
+before you set the Nabob's ministers loose on the country, for the
+protection of the victims devoted to their vengeance.
+
+Mr. Benfield, to secure the permanency of his power, and the perfection
+of his schemes, thought it necessary to render the Nabob an absolute
+stranger to the state of his affairs. He assured his Highness that full
+justice was not done to the strength of his sentiments and the keenness
+of his attacks, in the translations that were made by the Company's
+servants from the original Persian of his letters. He therefore proposed
+to him that they should for the future be transmitted in English.--Of
+the English language or writing his Highness or the Amir cannot read one
+word, though the latter can converse in it with sufficient fluency. The
+Persian language, as the language of the Mahomedan conquerors, and of
+the court of Delhi, as an appendage or signal of authority, was at all
+times particularly affected by the Nabob. It is the language of all acts
+of state, and all public transactions, among the Mussulman chiefs of
+Hindostan. The Nabob thought to have gained no inconsiderable point, in
+procuring the correspondence from our predecessors to the Rajah of
+Tanjore to be changed from the Mahratta language, which that Hindoo
+prince understands, to the Persian, which he disclaims understanding. To
+force the Rajah to the Nabob's language was gratifying the latter with a
+new species of subserviency. He had formerly contended with considerable
+anxiety, and, it was thought, no inconsiderable cost, for particular
+forms of address to be used towards him in that language. But all of a
+sudden, in favor of Mr. Benfield, he quits his former affections, his
+habits, his knowledge, his curiosity, the increasing mistrust of age, to
+throw himself upon the generous candor, the faithful interpretation, the
+grateful return, and eloquent organ of Mr. Benfield!--_Mr. Benfield
+relates and reads what he pleases to his Excellency the Amir-ul-Omrah;
+his Excellency communicates with the Nabob, his father, in the language
+the latter understands. Through two channels so pure, the truth must
+arrive at the Nabob in perfect refinement; through this double trust,
+his Highness receives whatever impression it may be convenient to make
+on him: he abandons his signature to whatever paper they tell him
+contains, in the English language, the sentiments with which they had
+inspired him. He thus is surrounded on every side. He is totally at
+their mercy, to believe what is not true, and to subscribe to what he
+does not mean. There is no system so new, so foreign to his intentions,
+that they may not pursue in his name, without possibility of detection:
+for they are cautious of who approach him, and have thought prudent to
+decline, for him, the visits of the Governor_, even upon the usual
+solemn and acceptable occasion of delivering to his Highness the
+Company's letters. _Such is the complete ascendency gained by Mr.
+Benfield._ It may be partly explained by the facts observed already,
+some years ago, by Mr. Benfield himself, in regard to the Nabob, of the
+infirmities natural to his advanced age, joined to the decays of his
+constitution. To this ascendency, in proportion as it grew, must chiefly
+be ascribed, if not the origin, at least the continuance and increase,
+of the Nabob's disunion with this Presidency: a disunion which creates
+the importance and subserves the resentments of Mr. Benfield; _and an
+ascendency which, if you effect the surrender of the assignment, will
+entirely leave the exercise of power and accumulation of fortune at his
+boundless discretion: to him, and to the Amir-ul-Omrah, and to Seyd
+Assam Cawn, the assignment would in fact be surrendered. HE WILL (IF
+ANY) BE THE SOUCAR SECURITY; and security in this country is
+counter-secured by possession. You would not choose to take the
+assignment from the Company, to give it to individuals_. Of the
+impropriety of its returning to the Nabob, Mr. Benfield would now again
+argue from his former observations, that, under his Highness's
+management, his country declined, his people emigrated, his revenues
+decreased, and his country was rapidly approaching to a state of
+political insolvency. Of Seyd Assam Cawn we judge only from the
+observations this letter already contains. But of the other two persons
+[Amir-ul-Omrah and Mr. Benfield] we undertake to declare, not as parties
+in a cause, or even as voluntary witnesses, but as executive officers,
+reporting to you, in the discharge of our duty, and under the impression
+of the sacred obligation which binds us to truth, as well as to justice,
+that, from every observation of their principles and dispositions, and
+every information of their character and conduct, they have prosecuted
+projects to the injury and danger of the Company and individuals; _that
+it would be improper to trust, and dangerous to employ them, in any
+public or important situation; that the tranquillity of the Carnatic
+requires a restraint to the power of the Amir; and that the Company,
+whose service and protection Mr. Benfield has repeatedly and recently
+forfeited, would be more secure against danger and confusion, if he
+were removed from their several Presidencies._
+
+[After the above solemn declaration from so weighty an authority, the
+principal object of that awful and deliberate warning, instead of being
+"removed from the several Presidencies," is licensed to return to one of
+the principal of those Presidencies, and the grand theatre of the
+operations on account of which the Presidency recommends his total
+removal. The reason given is, for the accommodation of that very debt
+which has been the chief instrument of his dangerous practices, and the
+main cause of all the confusions in the Company's government.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No. 7.
+
+Referred to from pp. 82, 88, and 89.
+
+_Extracts from the Evidence of Mr. Petrie, late Resident for the Company
+at Tanjore, given to the Select Committee, relative to the Revenues and
+State of the Country, &c., &c._
+
+
+9th May, 1782.
+
+William Petrie, Esq., attending according to order, was asked, In what
+station he was in the Company's service? he said, He went to India in
+the year 1765, a writer upon the Madras establishment: he was employed,
+during the former war with Hyder Ali, in the capacity of paymaster and
+commissary to part of the army, and was afterwards paymaster and
+commissary to the army in the first siege of Tanjore, and the
+subsequent campaigns; then secretary to the Secret Department from 1772
+to 1775; he came to England in 1775, and returned again to Madras the
+beginning of 1778; he was resident at the durbar of the Rajah of Tanjore
+from that time to the month of May; and from that time to January, 1780,
+was chief of Nagore and Carrical, the first of which was received from
+the Rajah of Tanjore, and the second was taken from the French.--Being
+asked, Who sent him to Tanjore? he said, Sir Thomas Rumbold, and the
+Secret Committee.--Being then asked, Upon what errand? he said, He went
+first up with a letter from the Company to the Rajah of Tanjore: he was
+directed to give the Rajah the strongest assurances that he should be
+kept in possession of his country, and every privilege to which he had
+been restored; he was likewise directed to negotiate with the Rajah of
+Tanjore for the cession of the seaport and district of Nagore in lieu of
+the town and district of Devicotta, which he had promised to Lord Pigot:
+these were the principal, and, to the best of his recollection at
+present, the only objects in view, when he was first sent up to Tanjore.
+In the course of his stay at Tanjore, other matters of business occurred
+between the Company and the Rajah, which came under his management as
+resident at that durbar.--Being asked, Whether the Rajah did deliver up
+to him the town and the annexed districts of Nagore voluntarily, or
+whether he was forced to it? he said, When he made the first proposition
+to the Rajah, agreeable to the directions he had received from the
+Secret Committee at Madras, in the most free, open, and liberal manner,
+the Rajah told him the seaport of Nagore was entirely at the service of
+his benefactors, the Company, and that he was happy in having that
+opportunity of testifying his gratitude to them. These may be supposed
+to be words of course; but, from every experience which he had of the
+Rajah's mind and conduct, whilst he was at Tanjore, he has reason to
+believe that his declarations of gratitude to the Company were perfectly
+sincere. He speaks to the town of Nagore at present, and a certain
+district,--not of the districts to the amount of which they afterwards
+received. The Rajah asked him, To what amount he expected a jaghire to
+the Company? And the witness further said, That he acknowledged to the
+committee that he was not instructed upon that head; that he wrote for
+orders to Madras, and was directed to ask the Rajah for a jaghire to a
+certain amount; that this gave rise to a long negotiation, the Rajah
+representing to him his inability to make such a gift to the Company as
+the Secret Committee at Madras seemed to expect; while he (the witness)
+on the other hand, was directed to make as good a bargain as he could
+for the Company. From the view that he then took of the Rajah's
+finances, from the situation of his country, and from the load of debt
+which pressed hard upon him, he believes he at different times, in his
+correspondence with the government, represented the necessity of their
+being moderate in their demands, and it was at last agreed to accept of
+the town of Nagore, valued at a certain annual revenue, and a jaghire
+annexed to the town, the whole amounting to 250,000 rupees.--Being
+asked, Whether it did turn out so valuable? he said, He had not a doubt
+but it would turn out more, as it was let for more than that to farmers
+at Madras, if they had managed the districts properly; _but they were
+strangers to the manners and customs of the people; when they came
+down, they oppressed the inhabitants, and threw the whole district into
+confusion; the inhabitants, many of them, left the country, and deserted
+the cultivation of their lands; of course the farmers were disappointed
+of their collections, and they have since failed, and the Company have
+lost a considerable part of what the farmers were to pay for the
+jaghire_.--Being asked, Who these farmers were? he said, One of them was
+the renter of the St. Thomé district, near Madras, and the other, and
+the most responsible, was a Madras dubash.--Being asked, Whom he was
+dubash to? he said, To Mr. Cass-major.
+
+Being asked, Whether the lease was made upon higher terms than the
+district was rated to him by the Rajah? he said, It was.--Being then
+asked, What reason was assigned why the district was not kept under the
+former management by aumildars, or let to persons in the Tanjore country
+acquainted with the district? he said, No reasons were assigned: he was
+directed from Madras to advertise them to be let to persons of the
+country; but before he received any proposal, he received accounts that
+they were let at Madras, in consequence of public advertisements which
+had been made there: he believes, indeed, there were very few men in
+those districts responsible enough to have been intrusted with the
+management of those lands.--Being asked, Whether, at the time he was
+authorized to negotiate for Nagore in the place of Devicotta, Devicotta
+was given up to the Rajah? he said, No.--Being asked, Whether the Rajah
+of Tanjore did not frequently desire that the districts of Arnee and
+Hanamantagoody should be restored to him, agreeable to treaty, and the
+Company's orders to Lord Pigot? he said, Many a time; and he
+transmitted his representations regularly to Madras.--Being then asked,
+Whether those places were restored to him? he said, Not while he was in
+India.
+
+Being asked, Whether he was not authorized and required by the
+Presidency at Madras to demand a large sum of money over and above the
+four lacs of pagodas that were to be annually paid by a grant of the
+Rajah, made in the time of Lord Pigot? he said, He was: to the amount,
+he believes, of four lacs of pagodas, commonly known by the name of
+deposit-money.--Being asked, Whether the Rajah did not frequently plead
+his inability to pay that money? he said, He did every time he mentioned
+it, and complained loudly of the demand.--Being asked, Whether he thinks
+those complaints were well founded? he says, He thinks the Rajah of
+Tanjore was not only not in a state of ability to pay the deposit-money,
+but that the annual payment of four lacs of pagodas was more than his
+revenues could afford.--Being asked, Whether he was not frequently
+obliged to borrow money, in order to pay the instalments of the annual
+payments, and such parts as he paid of the deposit? he said, Yes, he
+was.--Being asked, Where he borrowed the money? he said, He believes
+principally from soucars or native bankers, and some at Madras, as he
+told him.--Being asked, Whether he told him that his credit was very
+good, and that he borrowed upon moderate interest? he said, That he told
+him he found great difficulties in raising money, and was obliged to
+borrow at a most exorbitant interest, even some of it at forty-eight per
+cent, and he believes not a great deal under it. _He desired him (the
+witness) to speak to one of the soucars or bankers at Tanjore to
+accommodate him with a loan of money: that man showed him an account
+between him and the Rajah, from which it appeared that he charged
+forty-eight per cent, besides compound interest_.--Being asked, Whether
+the sums duo were large? he said, Yes, they were considerable; though he
+does not recollect the amount.--Being asked, Whether the banker lent the
+money? he said, He would not, unless the witness could procure him
+payment of his old arrears.
+
+Being asked, What notice did the government of Madras take of the king
+of Tanjore's representations of the state of his affairs, and his
+inability to pay? he said, He does not recollect, that, in their
+correspondence with him, there was any reasoning upon the subject; and
+in his correspondence with Sir Thomas Rumbold, upon the amount of the
+jaghire, he seemed very desirous of adapting the demand of government to
+the Rajah's circumstances; but, whilst he stayed at Tanjore, the Rajah
+was not exonerated from any part of his burdens.--Being asked, Whether
+they ever desired the Rajah to make up a statement of his accounts,
+disbursements, debts, and payments to the Company, in order to ascertain
+whether the country was able to pay the increasing demands upon it? he
+said, Through him he is certain they never did.--Being then asked, If he
+ever heard whether they did through any one else? he said, He never did.
+
+Being asked, Whether the Rajah is not bound to furnish the cultivators
+of land with seed for their crops, according to the custom of the
+country? he said, _The king of Tanjore, as proprietor of the land,
+always makes advances of money for seed for the cultivation of the
+land._--Being then asked, If money beyond his power of furnishing should
+be extorted from him, might it not prevent, in the first instance, the
+means of cultivating the country? he said, It certainly does; _he knows
+it for a fact; and he knows, that, when he left the country, there were
+several districts which were uncultivated from that cause_.--Being
+asked, Whether it is not necessary to be at a considerable expense in
+order to keep up the mounds and watercourses? he said, _A very
+considerable one annually_.--Being asked, What would be the consequence,
+if money should fail for that? he said, _In the first instance, the
+country would be partially supplied with water, some districts would be
+overflowed, and others would be parched_.--Being asked, Whether there is
+not a considerable dam called the Anicut, on the keeping up of which the
+prosperity of the country greatly depends, and which requires a great
+expense? he said, Yes, there is: the whole of the Tanjore country is
+admirably well supplied with water, nor can he conceive any method could
+be fallen upon more happily adapted to the cultivation and prosperity of
+the country; but, as the Anicut is the source of that prosperity, any
+injury done to that must essentially affect all the other works in the
+country: it is a most stupendous piece of masonry, but, from the very
+great floods, frequently requiring repairs, which if neglected, not only
+the expense of repairing must be greatly increased, but a general injury
+done to the whole country.--Being asked, Whether that dam has been kept
+in as good preservation since the prevalence of the English government
+as before? he said, From his own knowledge he cannot tell, but from
+everything he has read or heard of the former prosperity and opulence of
+the kings of Tanjore, he should suppose not.--Being asked, Whether he
+does not know of several attempts that have been made to prevent the
+repair, and even to damage the work? he said, The Rajah himself
+frequently complained of that to him, and he has likewise heard it from
+others at Tanjore.--Being asked, Who it was that attempted those acts of
+violence? he said, He was told it was the inhabitants of the Nabob's
+country adjoining to the Anicut.--Being asked, Whether they were not set
+on or instigated by the Nabob? he answered, The Rajah said so.--And
+being asked, What steps the President and Council took to punish the
+authors and prevent those violences? he said, To the best of his
+recollection, the Governor told him he would make inquiries into it, but
+he does not know that any inquiries were made; that Sir Thomas Rumbold,
+the Governor, informed him that he had laid his representations with
+respect to the Anicut before the Nabob, who denied that his people had
+given any interruption to the repairs of that work.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+10th May.
+
+Being asked, What he thinks the real clear receipt of the revenues of
+Tanjore were worth when he left it? he said, He cannot say what was the
+net amount, as he does not know the expense of the Rajah's collection;
+but while he was at Tanjore, he understood from the Rajah himself, and
+from his ministers, that the gross collection did not exceed nine lacs
+of pagodas (360,000_l._).--Being asked, Whether he thinks the country
+could pay the eight lacs of pagodas which had been demanded to be paid
+in the course of one year? he said, Clearly not.--Being asked, Whether
+there was not an attempt made to remove the Rajah's minister, upon some
+delay in payment of the deposit? he said, The Governor of Madras wrote
+to that effect, which he represented to the Rajah.--Being asked, Who was
+mentioned to succeed to the minister that then was, in case he should be
+removed? he said, When Sir Hector Munro came afterwards to Tanjore, the
+old daubiere was mentioned, and recommended to the Rajah as successor to
+his then dewan.--Being asked, Of what age was the daubiere at that time?
+he said, Of a very great age: upwards of fourscore.--Being asked,
+Whether a person called Kanonga Saba Pilla was not likewise named? he
+said, Yes, he was: he was recommended by Sir Thomas Rumbold; and one
+recommendation, as well as I can recollect, went through me.--Being
+asked, What was the reason of his being recommended? he said, He
+undertook to pay off the Rajah's debts, and to give security for the
+regular payment of the Rajah's instalments to the Company.--Being asked,
+Whether he offered to give any security for preserving the country from
+oppression, and for supporting the dignity of the Rajah and his people?
+he said, He does not know that he did, or that it was asked of
+him.--Being asked, Whether he was a person agreeable to the Rajah? he
+said, He was not.--Being asked, Whether he was not a person who had fled
+out of the country to avoid the resentment of the Rajah? he said, He
+was.--Being asked, Whether he was not charged by the Rajah with
+malpractices, and breach of trust relative to his effects? he said, He
+was; but he told the Governor that he would account for his conduct, and
+explain everything to the satisfaction of the Rajah.--Being asked,
+Whether the Rajah did not consider this man as in the interest of his
+enemies, and particularly of the Nabob of Arcot and Mr. Benfield? he
+said, He does not recollect that he did mention that to him: he
+remembers to have heard him complain of a transaction between Kanonga
+Saba Pilla and Mr. Benfield; but he told him he had been guilty of a
+variety of malpractices in his administration, that he had oppressed the
+people, and defrauded him.--Being asked, In what branch of business the
+Rajah had formerly employed him? he said, He was at one time, he
+believes, renter of the whole country, was supposed to have great
+influence with the Rajah, and was in fact dewan some time.--Being asked,
+Whether the nomination of that man was not particularly odious to the
+Rajah? he said, He found the Rajah's mind so exceedingly averse to that
+man, that he believes he would almost as soon have submitted to his
+being deposed as to submit to the nomination of that man to be his
+prime-minister.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+13th May.
+
+Mr. Petrie being asked, Whether he was informed by the Rajah, or by
+others, at Tanjore or Madras, that Mr. Benfield, whilst he managed the
+revenues at Tanjore, during the usurpation of the Nabob, did not treat
+the inhabitants with great rigor? he said, He did hear from the Rajah
+that Mr. Benfield did treat the inhabitants with rigor during the time
+he had anything to do with the administration of the revenues of
+Tanjore.--Being asked, If he recollects in what particulars? he said,
+The Rajah particularly complained that grain had been delivered out to
+the inhabitants, for the purposes of cultivation, at a higher price than
+the market price of grain in the country; he cannot say the actual
+difference of price, but it struck him at the time as something very
+considerable.--Being asked, Whether that money was all recovered from
+the inhabitants? he said, The Rajah of Tanjore told him that the money
+was all recovered from the inhabitants.--Being asked, Whether he did not
+hear that the Nabob exacted from the country of Tanjore, whilst he was
+in possession of it? he said, From the accounts which he received at
+Tanjore of the revenues for a number of years past, it appeared that the
+Nabob collected from the country, while he was in possession, rather
+more than sixteen lacs of pagodas annually; whereas, when he was at
+Tanjore, it did not yield more than nine lacs.--Being asked, From whence
+that difference arose? he said, When Tanjore was conquered for the
+Nabob, he has been told that many thousand of the native inhabitants
+fled from the country, some into the country of Mysore, and others into
+the dominions of the Mahrattas; he understood from the same authority,
+that, while the Nabob was in possession of the country, many inhabitants
+from the Carnatic, allured by the superior fertility and opulence of
+Tanjore, and encouraged by the Nabob, took up their residence there,
+which enabled the Nabob to cultivate the whole country; and upon the
+restoration of the Rajah, he has heard that the Carnatic inhabitants
+were carried back to their own country, which left a considerable blank
+in the population, which was not replaced while he was there,
+principally owing to an opinion which prevailed through the country that
+the Rajah's government was not to be permanent, but that another
+revolution was fast approaching. During the Nabob's government, the
+price of grain was considerably higher (owing to a very unusual scarcity
+in the Carnatic) than when he was in Tanjore.--Being asked, Whether he
+was ever in the Marawar country? he said, Yes; he was commissary to the
+army in that expedition.--Being asked, Whether that country was much
+wasted by the war? he said, Plunder was not permitted to the army, nor
+did the country suffer from its operations, except in causing many
+thousands of the inhabitants, who had been employed in the cultivation
+of the country, to leave it.--Being asked, Whether he knows what is done
+with the palace and inhabitants of Ramnaut? he said, The town was taken
+by storm, but not plundered by the troops; it was immediately delivered
+up to the Nabob's eldest son.--Being asked, Whether great riches were
+not supposed to be in that palace and temple? he said, It was
+universally believed so.--Being asked, What account was given of them?
+he said, He cannot tell; everything remained in the possession of the
+Nabob.--Being asked, What became of the children and women of the family
+of the prince of that country? he said, The Rajah was a minor; the
+government was in the hands of the Ranny, his mother: from general
+report he has heard they were carried to Trichinopoly, and placed in
+confinement there.--Being asked, Whether he perceived any difference in
+the face of the Carnatic when he first knew it and when he last knew it?
+he said, He thinks he did, particularly in its population.--Being asked,
+Whether it was better or worse? he said, It was not so populous.--Being
+asked, What is the condition of the Nabob's eldest son? he said, He was
+in the Black Town of Madras, when he left the country.--Being asked,
+Whether he was entertained there in a manner suitable to his birth and
+expectations? he said, No: he lived there without any of those exterior
+marks of splendor which princes of his rank in India are particularly
+fond of.--Being asked, Whether he has not heard that his appointments
+were poor and mean? he said, He has heard that they were not equal to
+his rank and expectations.--Being asked, Whether he had any share in the
+government? he said, He believes none: for some years past the Nabob has
+delegated most of the powers of government to his second son.--Being
+asked, Whether the Rajah did not complain to him of the behavior of Mr.
+Benfield to himself personally; and what were the particulars? he said,
+He did so, and related to him the following particulars. About fifteen
+days after Lord Pigot's confinement, Mr. Benfield came to Tanjore, and
+delivered the Rajah two letters from the then Governor, Mr.
+Stratton,--one public, and the other private. He demanded an immediate
+account of the presents which had been made to Lord Pigot, payment of
+the tunkahs which he (Mr. Benfield) had received from the Nabob upon the
+country, and that the Rajah should only write such letters to the Madras
+government as Mr. Benfield should approve and give to him. The Rajah
+answered, that he did not acknowledge the validity of any demands made
+by the Nabob upon the country; that those tunkahs related to accounts
+which he (the Rajah) had no concern with; that he never had given Lord
+Pigot any presents, but Lord Pigot had given him many; and that as to
+his correspondence with the Madras government, he would not trouble Mr.
+Benfield, because he would write his letters himself. That the Rajah
+told the witness, that by reason of this answer he was much threatened,
+in consequence of which he desired Colonel Harper, who then commanded at
+Tanjore, to be present at his next interview with Mr. Benfield; when
+Mr. Benfield denied many parts of the preceding conversation, and threw
+the blame upon his interpreter, Comroo. When Mr. Benfield found (as the
+Rajah informed him) that he could not carry these points which had
+brought him to Tanjore, he prepared to set off for Madras; that the
+Rajah sent him a letter which he had drawn out in answer to one which
+Mr. Benfield had brought him; that Mr. Benfield disapproved of the
+answer, and returned it by Comroo to the durbar, who did not deliver it
+into the Rajah's hands, but threw it upon the ground, and expressed
+himself improperly to him.
+
+Being asked, Whether it was at the king of Tanjore's desire, that such
+persons as Mr. Benfield and Comroo had been brought into his presence?
+he said, The Rajah told him, that, when Lord Pigot came to Tanjore, to
+restore him to his dominions, Comroo, without being sent for, or desired
+to come to the palace, had found means to get access to his person: he
+made an offer of introducing Mr. Benfield to the Rajah, which he
+declined.--Being asked, Whether the military officer commanding there
+protected the Rajah from the intrusion of such people? he said, The
+Rajah did not tell him that he called upon the military officer to
+prevent these intrusions, but that he desired Colonel Harper to be
+present as a witness to what might pass between him and Mr.
+Benfield.--Being asked, If it is usual for persons of the conditions and
+occupations of Mr. Benfield and Comroo to intrude themselves into the
+presence of the princes of the country, and to treat them with such
+freedom? he said, Certainly it is not: less there than in any other
+country.--Being asked, Whether the king of Tanjore has no ministers to
+whom application might be made to transact such business as Mr. Benfield
+and Comroo had to do in the country? he said, Undoubtedly: his minister
+is the person whose province it is to transact that business.--Being
+asked, Before the invasion of the British troops into Tanjore, what
+would have been the consequence, if Mr. Benfield had intruded himself
+into the Rajah's presence, and behaved in that manner? he said, He could
+not say what would have been the consequence; but the attempt would have
+been madness, and could not have happened.--Being asked, Whether the
+Rajah had not particular exceptions to Comroo, and thought he had
+betrayed him in very essential points? he said, Yes, he had.--Being
+asked, Whether the Rajah has not been apprised that the Company have
+made stipulations that their servants should not interfere in the
+concerns of his government? he said, He signified it to the Rajah, that
+it was the Company's positive orders, and that any of their servants so
+interfering would incur their highest displeasure.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+No. 8.
+
+Referred to from p. 87, &c.
+
+_Commissioners' Amended Clauses for the Fort St. George Dispatch,
+relative to the Indeterminate Mights and Pretensions of the Nabob of
+Arcot and Rajah of Tanjore._
+
+
+In our letter of the 28th January last we stated the reasonableness of
+our expectation that certain contributions towards the expenses of the
+war should be made by the Rajah of Tanjore. Since writing that letter,
+we have received one from the Rajah, of the 15th of October last, which
+contains at length his representations of his inability to make such
+further payment. We think it unnecessary here to discuss whether these
+representations are or are not exaggerated, because, from the
+explanations we have given of our wishes for a new arrangement in
+future, both with the Nabob of Arcot and the Rajah of Tanjore, and the
+directions we have given you to carry that arrangement into execution,
+we think it impolitic to insist upon any demands upon the Rajah for the
+expenses of the late war, beyond the sum of four lacs of pagodas
+annually: such a demand might tend to interrupt the harmony which should
+prevail between the Company and the Rajah, and impede the great objects
+of the general system we have already so fully explained to you.
+
+But although it is not our opinion that any further claim should be made
+on the Rajah for his share of the extraordinary expenses of the late
+war, it is by no means our intention in any manner to affect the just
+claim which the Nabob has on the Rajah for the arrears due to him on
+account of peshcush, for the regular payment of which we became guaranty
+by the treaty of 1762; but we have already expressed to you our hopes
+that the Nabob may be induced to allow these arrears and the growing
+payments, when due, to be received by the Company, and carried in
+discharge of his debt to us. You are at the same time to use every means
+to convince him, that, when this debt shall be discharged, it is our
+intention, as we are bound by the above treaty, to exert ourselves to
+the utmost of our power to insure the constant and regular payment of it
+into his own hands.
+
+We observe, by the plan sent to us by our Governor of Fort St. George,
+on the 30th October, 1781, that an arrangement is there proposed for the
+receipt of those arrears from the Rajah in three years.
+
+We are unable to decide how far this proposal may be consistent with the
+present state of the Rajah's resources; but we direct you to use all
+proper means to bring these arrears to account as soon as possible,
+consistently with a due attention to this consideration.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CLAUSES H.
+
+You will observe, that, by the 38th section of the late act of
+Parliament, it is enacted, that, for settling upon a permanent
+foundation the present indeterminate rights of the Nabob of Arcot and
+the Rajah of Tanjore with respect to each other, we should take into our
+immediate consideration the said indeterminate rights and pretensions,
+and take and pursue such measures as in our judgment and discretion
+shall be best calculated to ascertain and settle the same, according to
+the principles and the terms and stipulations contained in the treaty of
+1762 between the said Nabob and the said Rajah.
+
+On a retrospect of the proceedings transmitted to us from your
+Presidency, on the subject of the disputes which have heretofore arisen
+between the Nabob and the Rajah, we find the following points remain
+unadjusted, viz.
+
+1st, Whether the jaghire of Arnee shall be enjoyed by the Nabob, or
+delivered up, either to the Rajah, or the descendants of Tremaul Row,
+the late jaghiredar.
+
+2d, Whether the fort and district of Hanamantagoody, which is admitted
+by both parties to be within the Marawar, ought to be possessed by the
+Nabob, or to be delivered up by him to the Rajah.
+
+3rd, To whom the government share of the crop of the Tanjore country, of
+the year 1775-6, properly belongs.
+
+Lastly, Whether the Rajah has a right, by usage and custom, or ought,
+from the necessity of the case, to be permitted to repair such part of
+the Anicut, or dam and banks of the Cavery, as lie within the district
+of Trichinopoly, and to take earth and sand in the Trichinopoly
+territory for the repairs of the dam and banks within either or both of
+those districts.
+
+In order to obtain a complete knowledge of the facts and circumstances
+relative to the several points in dispute, and how far they are
+connected with the treaty of 1762, we have with great circumspection
+examined into all the materials before us on these subjects, and will
+proceed to state to you the result of our inquiries and deliberations.
+
+The objects of the treaty of 1762 appear to be restricted to the arrears
+of tribute to be paid to the Nabob for his past claims, and to the
+quantum of the Rajah's future tribute or peshcush; the cancelling of a
+certain bond given by the Rajah's father to the father of the Nabob; the
+confirmation to the Rajah of the districts of Coveladdy and Elangaud,
+and the restoration of Tremaul Row to his jaghire of Arnee, in
+condescension to the Rajah's request, upon certain stipulations, viz.,
+that the fort of Arnee and Doby Gudy should be retained by the Nabob;
+that Tremaul Row should not erect any fortress, walled pagoda, or other
+stronghold, nor any wall round his dwelling-house exceeding eight feet
+high or two feet thick, and should in all things behave himself with
+due obedience to the government; and that he should pay yearly, in the
+month of July, unto the Nabob or his successors, the sum of ten thousand
+rupees: the Rajah thereby becoming the security for Tremaul Row, that he
+should in all things demean and behave himself accordingly, and pay
+yearly the stipulated sum.
+
+Upon a review of this treaty, the only point now in dispute, which
+appears to us to be so immediately connected with it as to bring it
+within the strict line of our duty to ascertain and settle according to
+the terms and stipulations of the treaty, is that respecting Arnee. For,
+although the other points enumerated may in some respects have a
+relation to that treaty, yet, as they are foreign to the purposes
+expressed in it, and could not be in the contemplation of the
+contracting parties at the time of making it, those disputes cannot in
+our comprehension fall within the line of description of rights and
+pretensions to be now ascertained and settled by us, according to any of
+the terms and stipulations of it.
+
+In respect to the jaghire of Arnee, we do not find that our records
+afford us any satisfactory information by what title the Rajah claims
+it, or what degree of relationship or connection has subsisted between
+the Rajah and the Killadar of Arnee, save only that by the treaty of
+1762 the former became the surety for Tremaul Row's performance of his
+engagements specified therein, as the conditions for his restoration to
+that jaghire; on the death of Tremaul Row, we perceive that he was
+succeeded by his widow, and after her death, by his grandson
+Seneewasarow, both of whom were admitted to the jaghire by the Nabob.
+
+From your Minutes of Consultation of the 31st October, 1770, and the
+Nabob's letter to the President of the 21st March, 1771, and the two
+letters from Rajah Beerbur Atchenur Punt (who we presume was then the
+Nabob's manager at Arcot) of the 16th and 18th March, referred to in the
+Nabob's letter, and transmitted therewith to the President, we observe,
+that, previous to the treaty of 1762, Mr. Pigot concurred in the
+expediency of the Nabob's taking possession of this jaghire, on account
+of the troublesome and refractory behavior of the Arnee braminees, by
+their affording protection to all disturbers, who, by reason of the
+little distance between Arnee and Arcot, fled to the former, and were
+there protected, and not given up, though demanded;--that, though the
+jaghire was restored in 1762, it was done under such conditions and
+restrictions as were thought best calculated to preserve the peace and
+good order of the place and due obedience to government;--that,
+nevertheless, the braminees (quarrelling among themselves) did
+afterwards, in express violation of the treaty, enlist and assemble many
+thousand sepoys, and other troops; that they erected gaddies and other
+small forts, provided themselves with wall-pieces, small guns, and other
+warlike stores, and raised troubles and disturbances in the neighborhood
+of the city of Arcot and the forts of Arnee and Shaw Gaddy; and that,
+finally, they imprisoned the hircarrahs of the Nabob, sent with his
+letters and instructions, in pursuance of the advice of your board, to
+require certain of the braminees to repair to the Nabob at Chepauk, and,
+though peremptorily required to repair thither, paid no regard to those,
+or to any other orders from the circar.
+
+By the 13th article contained in the instructions given by the Nabob to
+Mr. Dupré, as the basis for negotiating the treaty made with the Rajah
+in 1771, the Nabob required that the Arnee district should be delivered
+up to the circar, because the braminees had broken the conditions which
+they were to have observed. In the answers given by the Rajah to these
+propositions, he says, "I am to give up to the circar the jaghire
+district of Arnee"; and on the 7th of November, 1771, the Rajah, by
+letter to Seneewasarow, who appears by your Consultations and country
+correspondence to have been the grandson of Tremaul Row, and to have
+been put in possession of the jaghire at your recommendation, (on the
+death of his grandmother,) writes, acquainting him that he had given the
+Arnee country, then in his (Seneewasarow's) possession, to the Nabob, to
+whose aumildars Seneewasarow was to deliver up the possession of the
+country. And in your letter to us of the 28th February, 1772, you
+certified the district of Arnee to be one of the countries acquired by
+this treaty, and to be of the estimated value of two lacs of rupees per
+annum.
+
+In our orders dated the 12th of April, 1775, we declared our
+determination to replace the Rajah upon the throne of his ancestors,
+upon certain terms and conditions, to be agreed upon for the mutual
+benefit of himself and the Company, without infringing the rights of the
+Nabob. We declared that our faith stood pledged by the treaty of 1762 to
+obtain payment of the Rajah's tribute to the Nabob, and that for the
+insuring such payment the fort of Tanjore should be garrisoned by our
+troops. We directed that you should pay no regard to the article of the
+treaty of 1771 which respected the alienation of part of the Rajah's
+dominions; and we declared, that, if the Nabob had not a just title to
+those territories before the conclusion of the treaty, we denied that he
+obtained any right thereby, except such temporary sovereignty, for
+securing the payment of his expenses, as is therein mentioned.
+
+These instructions appear to have been executed in the month of April,
+1776; and by your letter of the 14th May following you certified to us
+that the Rajah had been put into the possession of the whole country his
+father held in 1762, when the treaty was concluded with the Nabob; but
+we do not find that you came to any resolution, either antecedent or
+subsequent to this advice, either for questioning or impeaching the
+right of the Nabob to the sovereignty of Arnee, or expressive of any
+doubt of his title to it. Nevertheless, we find, that, although the
+Board passed no such resolution, yet your President, in his letter to
+the Nabob of the 30th July and 24th August, called upon his Highness to
+give up the possession of Arnee to the Rajah; and the Rajah himself, in
+several letters to us, particularly in those of 21st October, 1776, and
+the 7th of June, 1777, expressed his expectation of our orders for
+delivering up that fort and district to him; and so recently as the 15th
+of October, 1783, he reminds us of his former application, and states,
+that the country of Arnee being guarantied to him by the Company, it of
+course is his right, but that it has not been given up to him, and he
+therefore earnestly entreats our orders for putting him into the
+possession of it. We also observe by your letter of the 14th of October,
+1779, that the Rajah had not then accounted for the Nabob's peshcush
+since his restoration, but had assigned as a reason for his withdrawing
+it, that the Nabob had retained from him the district of Arnee, with a
+certain other district, (Hanamantagoody,) which is made the subject of
+another part of our present dispatches.
+
+We have thus stated to you the result of our inquiry into the grounds of
+the dispute relative to Arnee; and as the research has offered no
+evidence in support of the Rajah's claim, nor even any lights whereby we
+can discover in what degree of relationship, by consanguinity, caste, or
+other circumstances, the Rajah now stands, or formerly stood, with the
+Killadar of Arnee, or the nature of his connection with or command over
+that district, or the authority he exercised or assumed previous to the
+treaty of 1771, we should think ourselves highly reprehensible in
+complying with the Rajah's request,--and the more so, as it is expressly
+stated, in the treaty of 1762, that this fort and district were then in
+the possession of the Nabob, as well as the person of the jaghiredar, on
+account of his disobedience, and were restored him by the Nabob, in
+condescension to the Rajah's request, upon such terms and stipulations
+as could not, in our judgment, have been imposed by the one or submitted
+to by the other, if the sovereignty of the one or the dependency of the
+other had been at that time a matter of doubt.
+
+Although these materials have not furnished us with evidence in support
+of the Rajah's claim, they are far from satisfactory to evince the
+justice of or the political necessity for the Nabob's continuing to
+withhold the jaghire from the descendants of Tremaul Row; his hereditary
+right to that jaghire seems to us to have been fully recognized by the
+stipulations of the treaty of 1762, and so little doubted, that, on his
+death, his widow was admitted by the Nabob to hold it, on account, as
+may be presumed, of the nonage of his grandson and heir, Seneewasarow,
+who appears to have been confirmed in the jaghire, on her death, by the
+Nabob, as the lineal heir and successor to his grandfather.
+
+With respect to Seneewasarow, it does not appear, by any of the
+Proceedings in our possession, that he was concerned in the misconduct
+of the braminees, complained of by the Nabob in the year 1770, which
+rendered it necessary for his Highness to take the jaghire into his own
+hands, or that he was privy to or could have prevented those
+disturbances.
+
+We therefore direct, that, if the heir of Tremaul Row is not at present
+in possession of the jaghire, and has not, by any violation of the
+treaty, or act of disobedience, incurred a forfeiture thereof, he be
+forthwith restored to the possession of it, according to the terms and
+stipulations of the treaty of 1762. But if any powerful motive of regard
+to the peace and tranquillity of the Carnatic shall in your judgment
+render it expedient to suspend the execution of these orders, in that
+case you are with all convenient speed to transmit to us your
+proceedings thereupon, with the full state of the facts, and of the
+reasons which have actuated your conduct.
+
+We have before given it as our opinion that the stipulations of the
+treaty of 1762 do not apply to the points remaining to be decided. But
+the late act of Parliament having, from the nature of our connection
+with the two powers in the Carnatic, pointed out the expediency, and
+even necessity, of settling the several matters in dispute between them
+by a speedy and permanent arrangement, we now proceed to give you our
+instructions upon, the several other heads of disputes before
+enumerated.
+
+With respect to the fort and district of Hanamantagoody, we observe,
+that, on the restoration of the Rajah in 1776, you informed us in your
+letter of the 14th of May, That the Rajah had been put into possession
+of the whole of the country his father held in 1762, when the treaty was
+concluded with the Nabob; and on the 25th of June you came to the
+resolution of putting the Rajah into possession of Hanamantagoody, on
+the ground of its appearing, on reference to the Nabob's instructions to
+Mr. Dupré in June, 1762, to his reply, and to the Rajah's
+representations of 25th March, 1771, that Hanamantagoody was actually in
+the hands of the late Rajah at the time of making the treaty of 1762. We
+have referred as well to those papers as to all the other proceedings on
+this subject, and must confess they fall very short of demonstrating to
+us the truth of that fact. And we find, by the Secret Consultations of
+Fort William of the 7th of August, 1776, that the same doubt was
+entertained by our Governor-General and Council.
+
+But whether, in point of fact, the late Rajah was or was not in
+possession of Hanamantagoody in 1762, it is notorious that the Nabob had
+always claimed the dominion of the countries of which this fort and
+district are a part.
+
+We observe that the Nabob is now in the actual possession of this fort
+and district; and we are not warranted, by any document we have seen, to
+concur with the wishes of the Rajah to dispossess him.
+
+With regard to the government share of the crop of 1775-6, we observe by
+the dobeer's memorandum, recited in your Consultations of the 13th of
+May, 1776, that it was the established custom of the Tanjore country to
+gather in the harvest and complete the collections within the month of
+March, but that, for the causes therein particularly stated, the harvest
+(and of course the collection of the government share of the crop) was
+delayed till the month of March was over. We also observe that the Rajah
+was not restored to his kingdom until the 11th of April, 1776; and from
+hence we infer, that, if the harvest and collection had been finished at
+the usual time, the Nabob (being then sovereign of the country) would
+have received the full benefit of that year's crop.
+
+Although the harvest and collection were delayed beyond the usual time,
+yet we find by the Proceedings of your government, and particularly by
+Mr. Mackay's Minute of the 29th of May, 1776, and also by the dobeer's
+account, that the greatest part of the grain was cut down whilst the
+Nabob remained in the government of the country.
+
+It is difficult, from the contradictory allegations on the subject, to
+ascertain what was the precise amount of the collections made after the
+Nabob ceased to have the possession of the country. But whatever it was,
+it appears from General Stuart's letter of the 2d of April, 1777, that
+it had been asserted with good authority that the far greater part of
+the government share of the crop was plundered by individuals, and never
+came to account in the Rajah's treasury.
+
+Under all the circumstances of this case, we must be of opinion that the
+government share of the crop of 1776 belonged to the Nabob, as the then
+reigning sovereign of the kingdom of Tanjore, he being, _de facto_, in
+the full and absolute possession of the government thereof; and
+consequently that the assignments made by him of the government share of
+the crop were valid.
+
+Nevertheless, we would by no means be understood by this opinion to
+suggest that any further demands ought to be made upon the Rajah, in
+respect of such parts of the government share of the crop as were
+collected by his people.
+
+For, on the contrary, after so great a length of time as hath elapsed,
+we should think it highly unjust that the Rajah should be now compelled
+either to pay the supposed balances, whatever they may be, or be called
+upon to render a specific account of the collection made by his people.
+
+The Rajah has already, in his letter to Governor Stratton of the 21st of
+April, 1777, given his assurance, that the produce of the preceding
+year, accounted for to him, was little more than one lac of pagodas; and
+as you have acquainted us, by your letter of the 14th of October, 1779,
+that the Rajah has actually paid into our treasury one lac of pagodas,
+by way of deposit, on account of the Nabob's claims to the crop, till
+our sentiments should be known, we direct you to surcease any further
+demands from the Rajah on that account.
+
+We learn by the Proceedings, and particularly by the Nabob's letter to
+Lord Pigot of the 6th of July, 1776, that the Nabob, previous to the
+restoration of the Rajah, actually made assignments or granted tunkaws
+of the whole of his share of the crop to his creditors and troops; and
+that your government, (entertaining the same opinion as we do upon the
+question of right to that share,) by letter to the Rajah of the 20th of
+August, 1776, recommended to him "to restore to Mr. Benfield (one of the
+principal assignees or tunkaw-holders of the Nabob) the grain of the
+last year, which was in possession of his people, and said to be
+forcibly taken from them,--and farther, to give Mr. Benfield all
+reasonable assistance in recovering such debts as should appear to have
+been justly due to him from the inhabitants; and acquainted the Rajah
+that it had been judged by a majority of the Council that it was the
+Company's intention to let the Nabob have the produce of the crop of
+1776, but that you had no intention that the Rajah should be accountable
+for more than the government share, whatever that might be; and that you
+did not mean to do more than recommend to him to see justice done,
+leaving the manner and time to himself." Subsequent representations
+appear to have been made to the Rajah by your government on the same
+subject, in favor of the Nabob's mortgages.
+
+In answer to these applications, the Rajah, in his letter to Mr.
+Stratton of the 12th January, 1777, acquainted you "that he had given
+orders respecting the grain which Mr. Benfield had heaped up in his
+country; and with regard to the money due to him by the farmers, that he
+had desired Mr. Benfield to bring accounts of it, that he might limit a
+time for the payment of it proportionably to their ability, and that the
+necessary orders for stopping this money out of the inhabitants' share
+of the crop had been sent to the ryots and aumildars; that Mr.
+Benfield's gomastah was then present there, and oversaw his affairs; and
+that in everything that was just he (the Rajah) willingly obeyed our
+Governor and Council."
+
+Our opinion being that the Rajah ought to be answerable for no more than
+the amount of what he admits was collected by his people for the
+government share of the crop; and the Proceedings before us not
+sufficiently explaining whether, in the sum which the Rajah, by his
+before-mentioned letter of the 21st April, 1777, admits to have
+collected, are included those parts of the government share of the crop
+which were taken by his people from Mr. Benfield, or from any other of
+the assignees or tunkaw-holders; and uninformed, as we also are, what
+compensation the Rajah has or has not made to Mr. Benfield, or any other
+of the parties from whom the grain was taken by the Rajah's people; or
+whether, by means of the Rajah's refusal so to do, or from any other
+circumstance, any of the persons dispossessed of their grain may have
+had recourse to the Nabob for satisfaction: we are, for these reasons,
+incompetent to form a proper judgment what disposition ought in justice
+to be made of the one lac of pagodas deposited by the Rajah. But as our
+sentiments and intentions are so fully expressed upon the whole subject,
+we presume you, who are upon the spot, can have no doubt or difficulty
+in making such an application of the deposit as will be consistent with
+those principles of justice whereon our sentiments are founded. But
+should any such difficulty suggest itself, you will suspend any
+application of the deposit, until you have fully explained the same to
+us, and have received our further orders.
+
+With respect to the repairs of the Anicut and banks of the Cavery we
+have upon various occasions fully expressed to you our sentiments, and
+in particular in our general letter of the 4th July, 1777, we referred
+you to the investigation and correspondence on that subject of the year
+1764, and to the report made by Mr. James Bourchier, on his personal
+survey of the waters, and to several letters of the year 1765 and 1767;
+we also, by our said general letter, acquainted you that it appeared to
+us perfectly reasonable that the Rajah should be permitted to repair
+those banks, and the Anicut, in the same manner as had been practised in
+times past; and we directed you to establish such regulations, by
+reference to former usage, for keeping the said banks in repair, as
+would be effectual, and remove all cause of complaint in future.
+
+Notwithstanding such our instructions, the Rajah, in his letter to us of
+the 15th October, 1783, complains of the destruction of the Anicut; and
+as the cultivation of the Tanjore country appears, by all the surveys
+and reports of our engineers employed on that service, to depend
+altogether on a supply of water by the Cavery, which can only be secured
+by keeping the Anicut and banks in repair, we think it necessary to
+repeat to you our orders of the 4th July, 1777, on the subject of those
+repairs.
+
+And further, as it appears by the survey and report of Mr. Pringle, that
+those repairs are attended with a much heavier expense, when done with
+materials taken from the Tanjore district, than with those of
+Trichinopoly, and that the last-mentioned materials are far preferable
+to the other, it is our order, that, if any occurrences should make it
+necessary or expedient, you apply to the Nabob, in our name, to desire
+that his Highness will permit proper spots of ground to be set out, and
+bounded by proper marks on the Trichinopoly side, where the Rajah and
+his people may at all times take sand and earth sufficient for these
+repairs; and that his Highness will grant his lease of such spots of
+land for a certain term of years to the Company, at a reasonable annual
+rent, to the intent that through you the cultivation of the Tanjore
+country may be secured, without infringing or impairing the rights of
+the Nabob.
+
+If any attempts have been or shall be hereafter made to divert the water
+from the Cavery into the Coleroon, by contracting the current of the
+Upper or Lower Cavery, by planting long grass, as mentioned in Mr.
+Pringle's report, or by any other means, we have no doubt his Highness,
+on a proper representation to him in our name, will prevent his people
+from taking any measures detrimental to the Tanjore country, in the
+prosperity of which his Highness, as well as the Company, is materially
+interested.
+
+Should you succeed in reconciling the Nabob to this measure, we think it
+but just that the proposed lease shall remain no longer in force than
+whilst the Rajah shall be punctual in the payment of the annual peshcush
+to the Nabob, as well as the rent to be reserved for the spots of
+ground. And in order effectually to remove all future occasions of
+jealousy and complaint between the parties,--that the Rajah, on the one
+hand, may be satisfied that all necessary works for the cultivation of
+his country will be made and kept in repair, and that the Nabob, on the
+other hand, may be satisfied that no encroachment on his rights can be
+made, nor any works detrimental to the fertility of his country
+erected,--we think it proper that it should be recommended to the
+parties, as a part of the adjustment of this very important point, that
+skilful engineers, appointed by the Company, be employed at the Rajah's
+expense to conduct all the necessary works, with the strictest attention
+to the respective rights and interests of both parties. This will remove
+every probability of injury or dispute. But should either party
+unexpectedly conceive themselves to be injured, immediate redress might
+be obtained by application to the government of Madras, under whose
+appointment the engineer will act, without any discussion between the
+parties, which might disturb that harmony which it is so much the wish
+of the Company to establish and preserve, as essential to the prosperity
+and peace of the Carnatic.
+
+Having now, in obedience to the directions of the act of Parliament,
+upon the fullest consideration of the indeterminate rights and
+pretensions of the Nabob and Rajah, pointed out such measures and
+arrangements as in our judgment and discretion will be best calculated
+to ascertain and settle the same, we hope, that, upon a candid
+consideration of the whole system, although each of the parties may feel
+disappointed in our decision on particular points, they will be
+convinced that we have been guided in our investigation by principles of
+strict justice and impartiality, and that the most anxious attention has
+been paid to the substantial interests of both parties, and such a
+general and comprehensive plan of arrangement proposed as will most
+effectually prevent all future dissatisfaction.
+
+Approved by the Board.
+
+HENRY DUNDAS,
+WALSINGHAM,
+W.W. GRENVILLE,
+MULGRAVE.
+
+WHITEHALL, October 27, 1784.
+
+No. 9.
+
+Referred to from pp. 78 and 85.
+
+_Extract of a Letter from the Court of Directors to the President and
+Council of Fort St. George, as amended and approved by the Board of
+Control._
+
+
+We have taken into our consideration the several advices and papers
+received from India, relative to the assignment of the revenues of the
+Carnatic, from the conclusion of the Bengal treaty to the date of your
+letter in October, 1783, together with the representations of the Nabob
+of the Carnatic upon that subject; and although we might contend that
+the agreement should subsist till we are fully reimbursed his Highness's
+proportion of the expenses of the war, yet, from a principle of
+moderation, and personal attachment to our old ally, his Highness the
+Nabob of the Carnatic, for whose dignity and happiness we are ever
+solicitous, and to cement more strongly, if possible, that mutual
+harmony and confidence which our connection makes so essentially
+necessary for our reciprocal safety and welfare, _and for removing from
+his mind every idea of secret design on our part to lessen his authority
+over the internal government of the Carnatic_, and the collection and
+administration of its revenues, we have resolved that the assignment
+shall be surrendered; and we do accordingly direct our President, in
+whose name the assignment was taken, _without delay_, to surrender the
+same to his Highness. But while we have adopted this resolution, we
+repose entire confidence in his Highness, that, actuated by the same
+motives of liberality, and feelings of old friendship and alliance, he
+will cheerfully and instantly accede to such arrangements as are
+necessary to be adopted for our common safety, and for preserving the
+respect, rights, and interests we enjoy in the Carnatic. The following
+are the heads and principles of such an arrangement as we are decisively
+of opinion must be adopted for these purposes, viz.
+
+That, for making a provision for discharging the Nabob's just debts to
+the Company and individuals, (for the payment of which his Highness has
+so frequently expressed the greatest solicitude,) _the Nabob shall give
+soucar security for the punctual payment, by instalments_, into the
+Company's treasury, of twelve lacs of pagodas per annum, (as voluntarily
+proposed by his Highness,) until those debts, with interest, shall be
+discharged; and shall also consent that the equitable provision lately
+made by the British legislature for the liquidation of those debts, _and
+such resolutions and determinations as we shall hereafter make_, under
+the authority of that provision for the liquidation and adjustment of
+the said debts, _bonâ fide_ incurred, shall be carried into full force
+and effect.
+
+Should any difficulty arise between his Highness and our government of
+Fort St. George, in respect to _the responsibility of the soucar
+security_, or the times and terms of the instalments, it is our pleasure
+that you pay obedience to the orders and resolutions of our
+Governor-General and Council of Bengal in respect thereto, not doubting
+but the Nabob will in such case consent to abide by the determination of
+our said supreme government.
+
+Although, from the great confidence we repose in the honor and integrity
+of the Nabob, and from an earnest desire not to subject him to any
+embarrassment on this occasion, we have not proposed any specific
+assignment of territory or revenue for securing the payments aforesaid,
+we nevertheless think it our duty, as well to the private creditors,
+whose interests in this respect have been so solemnly intrusted to us by
+the late act of Parliament, as from regard to the debt due to the
+Company, to insist on a declaration, that, in the event of the failure
+of the security proposed, or in default of payment at the stipulated
+periods, we reserve to ourselves full right to demand of the Nabob such
+_additional security_, by assignment on his country, as shall be
+effectual for answering the purposes of the agreement.
+
+After having conciliated the mind of the Nabob to this measure, and
+adjusted the particulars, you are to carry the same into execution by a
+formal deed between his Highness and the Company, according to the tenor
+of these instructions.
+
+As the administration of the British interests and connections in India
+has in some respects assumed a new shape by the late act of Parliament,
+and a general peace in India has been happily accomplished, the present
+appears to us to be the proper period, and which cannot without great
+imprudence be omitted, to settle and arrange, by a just and equitable
+treaty, a plan for the future defence and protection of the Carnatic,
+both in time of peace and war, on a solid and lasting foundation.
+
+For the accomplishment of this great and necessary object, we direct
+you, in the name of the Company, to use your utmost endeavors to impress
+the expediency of, and the good effects to be derived from this measure,
+so strongly upon the minds of the Nabob and the Rajah of Tanjore, as to
+prevail upon them, jointly or separately, to enter into one or more
+treaty or treaties with the Company, grounded on this principle of
+equity: That all the contracting parties shall be bound to contribute
+jointly to the support of the military force and garrisons, as well in
+peace as in war.
+
+That the military peace establishment shall be forthwith settled and
+adjusted by the Company, in pursuance of the authority and directions
+given to them by the late act of Parliament.
+
+As the payment of the troops and garrisons, occasional expenses in the
+repairs and improvements of fortifications, and other services
+incidental to a military establishment, must of necessity be punctual
+and accurate, no latitude of personal assurance or reciprocal confidence
+of either of the parties on the other must be accepted or required; but
+the Nabob and Rajah must of necessity specify particular districts and
+revenues for securing the due and regular payment of their contributions
+into the treasury of the Company, with whom the charge of the defence of
+the coast, and of course the power of the sword, must be exclusively
+intrusted, with power for the Company, in case of failure or default of
+such payments at the stipulated times and seasons, to enter upon and
+possess such districts, and to let the same to renters, to be confirmed
+by the Nabob and the Rajah respectively; but, trusting that in the
+execution of this part of the arrangement no undue obstruction will be
+given by either of those powers, we direct that this part of the treaty
+be coupled with a most positive assurance, on our part, of our
+determination to support the dignity and authority of the Nabob and
+Rajah in the exclusive administration of the civil government and
+revenues of their respective countries;--and further, that, in case of
+_any_ hostility committed against the territories of either of the
+contracting parties on the coast of Coromandel, the whole revenues of
+their respective territories shall be considered as one common stock, to
+be appropriated in the common cause of their defence; that the Company,
+on their part, shall engage to refrain, _during the war_, from the
+application of any part of their revenues to any commercial purposes
+whatsoever, but apply the whole, save only the ordinary charges of their
+civil government, to the purposes of the war; that the Nabob and the
+Rajah shall in like manner engage, on their parts, to refrain, during
+the war, from the application of any part of their revenues, save only
+what shall be actually necessary for the support of themselves and the
+civil government of their respective countries, to any other purposes
+than that of defraying the expenses of such military operations as the
+Company may find it necessary to carry on for the common safety of their
+interests on the coast of Coromandel.
+
+And to obviate any difficulties or misunderstanding which might arise
+from leaving indeterminate the sum necessary to be appropriated for the
+civil establishment of each of the respective powers, that the sum be
+now ascertained which is indispensably necessary to be applied to those
+purposes, and which is to be held sacred under every emergency, and set
+apart previous to the application of the rest of the revenues, as hereby
+stipulated, for the purposes of mutual or common defence against any
+enemy, for _clearing_ the incumbrance which may have become necessarily
+incurred in addition to the expenditure of those revenues _which must be
+always deemed part of the war establishment_. This we think absolutely
+necessary; as nothing can tend so much to the preservation of peace, and
+to prevent the renewal of hostilities, as the early putting the finances
+of the several powers upon a clear footing, and the showing to all other
+powers that the Company, the Nabob, and the Rajah are firmly united in
+one common cause, and combined in one system of permanent and vigorous
+defence, for the preservation of their respective territories and the
+general tranquillity.
+
+That the whole aggregate revenue of the contracting parties shall,
+during the war, be under the application of the Company, and shall
+continue as long after the war _as shall be necessary, to discharge the
+burdens contracted by it_; but it must be declared that this provision
+shall in no respect extend to deprive either the Nabob or the Rajah of
+the substantial authority necessary to the collection of the revenues of
+their respective countries. But it is meant that they shall faithfully
+perform the conditions of this arrangement; and if a division of any
+part of the revenues to any other than the stipulated purposes shall
+take place, the Company shall be entitled to take upon themselves the
+collection of the revenue.
+
+The Company are to engage, during the time they shall administer the
+revenues, to produce to the other contracting parties regular accounts
+of the application thereof to the purposes stipulated by the treaty, and
+faithfully apply them in support of the war.
+
+And, lastly, as the defence of the Carnatic is thus to rest with the
+Company, the Nabob shall be satisfied of the propriety of avoiding all
+unnecessary expense, and will therefore agree not to maintain a greater
+number of troops than shall be necessary for the support of his dignity
+and the splendor of the durbar, which number shall be specified in the
+treaty; and if any military aid is requisite for the security and
+collection of his revenues, other than the fixed establishment employed
+to enforce the ordinary collections and preserve the police of the
+country, the Company must be bound to furnish him with such aid: the
+Rajah of Tanjore must likewise become bound by similar engagements, and
+be entitled to similar aid.
+
+As, in virtue of the powers vested in Lord Macartney by the agreement of
+December, 1781, sundry leases, of various periods, have been granted to
+renters, we direct that you apply to the Nabob, in our name, for his
+consent that they may be _permitted_ to hold their leases to the end of
+the stipulated term; and we have great reliance[70] on the liberality
+and spirit of accommodation manifested by the Nabob on so many
+occasions, that he will be disposed to acquiesce in a proposition so
+_just and reasonable_. But if, contrary to our expectations, his
+Highness should be impressed with any particular aversion to comply with
+this proposition, we do not desire you to insist upon it as an essential
+part of the arrangement to take place between us; but, in that event,
+you must take especial care to give such indemnification to the renters
+for any loss they may sustain as you judge to be reasonable.
+
+It equally concerns the honor of our government, that such natives as
+may have been put in any degree of authority over the collections, in
+consequence of the deed of assignment, and who have proved faithful to
+their trust, shall not suffer inconvenience on account of their
+fidelity.
+
+Having thus given our sentiments at large, as well for the surrender of
+the assignment as with regard to those arrangements which we think
+necessary to adopt in consequence thereof, we cannot dismiss this
+subject without expressing our highest approbation of _the ability,
+moderation, and command of temper_ with which our President at Madras
+has conducted himself in the management of a very delicate and
+embarrassing situation. His conduct, and that of the Select Committee of
+Fort St. George, in the execution of the trust delegated to Lord
+Macartney by the Nabob Mahomed Ali, has been vigorous and effectual, for
+the purpose of realizing as great a revenue, at a crisis of necessity,
+as the nature of the case admitted; and the imputation of corruption,
+suggested in some of the Proceedings, appears to be totally groundless
+and unwarranted.
+
+While we find so much to applaud, it is with regret we are induced to
+advert to anything which may appear worthy of blame: as the step of
+issuing the Torana Chits in Lord Macartney's own name can only be
+justified upon the ground of absolute necessity;[71] and as his Lordship
+had every reason to believe that the demand, when made, would be
+irksome and disagreeable to the feelings of Mahomed Ali, every
+precaution ought to have been used and more time allowed for proving
+that necessity, by previous acts of address, civility, and conciliation,
+applied for the purposes of obtaining his authority to such a measure.
+It appears to us that more of this might have been used; and therefore
+we cannot consider the omission of it as blameless, consistent with our
+wishes of sanctifying no act contrary to the spirit of the agreement, or
+derogatory to the authority of the Nabob of the Carnatic, in the
+exercise of any of his just rights in the government of the people under
+his authority.
+
+We likewise observe, the Nabob has complained that no official
+communication was made to him of the peace, for near a month after the
+cessation of arms took place. This, and every other mark of disrespect
+to the Nabob, will ever appear highly reprehensible in our eyes; and we
+direct that you do, upon all occasions, pay the highest attention to him
+and his family.
+
+Lord Macartney, in his Minute of the 9th of September last, has been
+fully under our consideration. We shall ever applaud the prudence and
+foresight of our servants which induces them to collect and communicate
+to us every opinion, or even ground of suspicion they may entertain,
+relative to any of the powers in India with whose conduct our interest
+and the safety of our settlements is essentially connected. At the same
+time we earnestly recommend that those opinions and speculations be
+communicated to us with prudence, discretion, and all possible secrecy,
+_and the terms in which they are conveyed be expressed in a manner as
+little offensive as possible to the powers whom they may concern and
+into whose hands they may fall._[72]
+
+We next proceed to give you our sentiments respecting the private debts
+of the Nabob; _and we cannot but acknowledge_ that the origin and
+justice, both of the loan of 1767, and the loan of 1777, commonly called
+the Cavalry Loan, appear to us clear and indisputable, agreeable to the
+true sense and spirit of the late act of Parliament.
+
+In speaking of the loan of 1767, we are to be understood as speaking of
+the debt as constituted by the original bonds of that year, bearing
+interest at 10_l._ per cent; and therefore, if any of the Nabob's
+creditors, under a pretence that their debts made part of the
+consolidated debt of 1767, although secured by bonds of a subsequent
+date, carrying an interest exceeding 10_l._ per cent, shall claim the
+benefit of the following orders, we direct that you pay no regard to
+such claims, without further especial instructions for that purpose.
+
+With respect to the consolidated debt of 1777, it certainly stands upon
+a less favorable footing. So early as the 27th March, 1769, it was
+ordered by our then President and Council of Fort St. George, that, for
+the preventing all persons living under the Company's protection from
+having any dealings with any of the country powers or their ministers
+without the knowledge or consent of the Board, an advertisement should
+be published, by fixing it up at the sea-gate, and sending round a copy
+to the Company's servants and inhabitants, and to the different
+subordinates, and our garrisons, and giving it out in general orders,
+stating therein that the President and Council did consider the
+irreversible order of the Court of Directors of the year 1714 (whereby
+their people were prohibited from having any dealings with the country
+governments in money matters) to be in full force and vigor, and thereby
+expressly forbidding all servants of the Company, and other Europeans
+under their jurisdiction, to make loans or have any money transactions
+with any of the princes or states in India, without special license and
+permission of the President and Council for the time being, except only
+in the particular cases there mentioned, and declaring that any wilful
+deviation therefrom should be deemed a breach of orders, and treated as
+such. And on the 4th of March, 1778, it was resolved by our President
+and Council of Fort St George, that the consolidated debt of 1777 was
+not, on any respect whatever, conducted under the auspices or protection
+of that government; and on the circumstance of the consolidation of the
+said debt being made known to us, we did, on the 28rd of December, 1778,
+write to you in the following terms: "Your account of the Nabob's
+private debts is very alarming; but from whatever cause or causes those
+debts have been contracted or increased, we hereby repeat our orders,
+that the sanction of the Company be on no account given to any kind of
+security for the payment or liquidation of any part thereof, (except by
+the express authority of the Court of Directors,) on any account or
+pretence whatever."
+
+The loan of 1777, therefore, has no sanction or authority from us; and
+in considering the situation and circumstances of this loan, we cannot
+omit to observe, that the creditors could not be ignorant how greatly
+the affairs of the Nabob were at that time deranged, and that his debt
+to the Company was then very considerable,--the payment of which the
+parties took the most effectual means to postpone, by procuring an
+assignment of such specific revenues for the discharge of their own
+debts as alone could have enabled the Nabob to have discharged that of
+the Company.
+
+Under all these circumstances, we should be warranted to refuse our aid
+or protection in the recovery of this loan. But when we consider the
+inexpediency of keeping the subject of the Nabob's debts longer afloat
+than is absolutely necessary,--when we consider how much the final
+conclusion of this business will tend to promote tranquillity, credit,
+and circulation of property in the Carnatic,--and when we consider that
+the debtor concurs with the creditor in establishing the justice of
+those debts consolidated in 1777 into gross sums, for which bonds were
+given, liable to be transferred to persons different from the original
+creditors, and having no share or knowledge of the transactions in which
+the debts originated, and of course how little ground there is to expect
+any substantial good to result from an unlimited investigation into
+them, we have resolved so far to recognize the justice of those debts as
+to extend to them that protection which, upon _more_ forcible grounds,
+we have seen cause to allow to the other two classes of debts. But
+although we so far adopt the general presumption in their favor as to
+admit them to a participation in the manner hereafter directed, we do
+not mean to debar you from receiving any complaints against those debts
+of 1777, at the instance either of the Nabob himself, or of other
+creditors injured by their being so admitted, or by any other persons
+having a proper interest, or stating reasonable grounds of objection;
+and if any complaints are offered, we order that the grounds of all such
+be attentively examined by you, and be transmitted to us, together with
+the evidence adduced in support of them, for our final decision; and as
+we have before directed that the sum of twelve lacs of pagodas, to be
+received annually from the Nabob, should be paid into our treasury, it
+is our order that the same be distributed according to the following
+arrangement.
+
+That the debt be made up in the following manner, viz.
+
+The debt consolidated in 1767 to be made up to the end of the year 1784,
+with the current interest at ten per cent.
+
+The Cavalry Loan to be made up to the same period, with the current
+interest at twelve per cent.
+
+The debt consolidated in 1777 to be made up to the same period, with the
+current interest at twelve per cent, to November, 1781, and from thence
+with the current interest at six per cent.
+
+The twelve lacs annually to be received are then to be applied,--
+
+1. To the growing interest on the Cavalry Loan, at twelve per cent.
+
+2. To the growing interest on the debt of 1777, at six per cent.
+
+The remainder to be equally divided: one half to be applied to the
+extinction of the Company's debt; the other half to be applied to the
+payment of growing interest at 10_l._ per cent, and towards the
+discharge of the principal of the debt of 1767.
+
+This arrangement to continue till the principal of the debt 1767 is
+discharged.
+
+The application of the twelve lacs is, then, to be,--
+
+1. To the interest of the debt of 1777, as above. The remainder to be
+then equally divided,--one half towards the discharge of the current
+interest and principal of the Cavalry Loan, and the other half towards
+the discharge of the Company's debt.
+
+When the Cavalry Loan shall be thus discharged, there shall then be paid
+towards the discharge of the Company's debt seven lacs.
+
+To the growing interest and capital of the 1777 loan, five lacs.
+
+When the Company's debt shall be discharged, the whole is then to be
+applied in discharge of the debt 1777.
+
+If the Nabob shall be prevailed upon to apply the arrears and growing
+payments of the Tanjore peshcush in further discharge of his debts, over
+and above the twelve lacs of pagodas, we direct that the whole of that
+payment, when made, shall be applied towards the reduction of the
+Company's debt.
+
+We have laid down these general rules of distribution, as appearing to
+us founded on justice, and the relative circumstances of the different
+debts; and therefore we give our authority and protection to them only
+on the supposition that they who ask our protection acquiesce in the
+condition upon which it is given; and therefore we expressly order,
+that, if any creditor of the Nabob, a servant of the Company, or being
+under our protection, shall refuse to express his acquiescence in these
+arrangements, he shall not only be excluded from receiving any share of
+the fund under your distribution, but shall be prohibited from taking
+any separate measures to recover his debt from the Nabob: it being one
+great inducement to our adopting this arrangement, that the Nabob shall
+be relieved from all further disquietude by the importunities of his
+individual creditors, and be left at liberty to pursue those measures
+for the prosperity of his country which the embarrassments of his
+situation have hitherto deprived him of the means of exerting. And we
+further direct, that, if any creditor shall be found refractory, or
+disposed to disturb the arrangement we have suggested, he shall be
+dismissed the service, and sent home to England.
+
+The directions we have given only apply to the three classes of debts
+which have come under our observation. It has been surmised that the
+Nabob has of late contracted further debts: if any of these are due to
+British subjects, we forbid any countenance or protection whatever to be
+given to them, until the debt is fully investigated, the nature of it
+reported home, and our special instructions upon it received.
+
+We cannot conclude this subject without adverting in the strongest terms
+to the prohibitions which have from time to time issued under the
+authority of different Courts of Directors against any of our servants,
+or of those under our protection, having any money transactions with any
+of the country powers, without the knowledge and previous consent of our
+respective governments abroad. We are happy to find that the Nabob,
+sensible of the great embarrassments, both to his own and the Company's
+affairs, which the enormous amount of their private claims have
+occasioned, is willing to engage not to incur any new debts with
+individuals, and we think little difficulty will be found in persuading
+his Highness into a positive stipulation for that purpose. And though
+the legislature has thus humanely interfered in behalf of such
+individuals as might otherwise have been reduced to great distress by
+the past transactions, we hereby, in the most pointed and positive
+terms, repeat our prohibition upon this subject, and direct that no
+person, being a servant of the Company, or being under our protection,
+shall, on any pretence whatever, be concerned in any loan or other money
+transaction with any of the country powers, unless with the knowledge
+and express permission of our respective governments. And if any of our
+servants, or others, being under our protection, shall be discovered in
+any respect counteracting these orders, we strictly enjoin you to take
+the first opportunity of sending them home to England, to be punished as
+guilty of disobedience of orders, and no protection or assistance of the
+Company shall be given for the recovery of any loans connected with such
+transactions. Your particular attention to this subject is strictly
+enjoined; and any connivance on your parts to a breach of our orders
+upon it will incur our highest displeasure. In order to put an end to
+those intrigues which have been so successfully carried on at the
+Nabob's durbar, we repeat our prohibition in the strongest terms
+respecting any intercourse between British subjects and the Nabob and
+his family; as we are convinced that such an intercourse has been
+carried on greatly to the detriment and expense of the Nabob, and merely
+to the advantage of individuals. We therefore direct that all persons
+who shall offend against the letter and spirit of this necessary order,
+whether in the Company's service or under their protection, be forthwith
+sent to England.
+
+Approved by the Board.
+HENRY DUNDAS,
+WALSINGHAM,
+W.W. GRENVILLE,
+MULGRAVE.
+WHITEHALL, 15th Oct. 1784.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Extract from the Representation of the Court of Directors of the East
+India Company._
+
+MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,--
+
+It is with extreme concern that we express a difference of opinion with
+your right honorable board, in this early exercise of your controlling
+power; but in so novel an institution, it can scarce be thought
+extraordinary, if the exact boundaries of our respective functions and
+duties should not at once, on either side, be precisely and familiarly
+understood, and therefore confide in your justice and candor for
+believing that we have no wish to invade or frustrate the salutary
+purposes of your institution, as we on our part are thoroughly satisfied
+that you have no wish to encroach on the legal powers of the East India
+Company. We shall proceed to state our objections to such of the
+amendments as appear to us to be either insufficient, inexpedient, or
+unwarranted.
+
+     6th. Concerning the private debts of the Nabob of Arcot, and the
+     application of the fund of twelve lacs of pagodas per annum.
+
+Under this head you are pleased, in lieu of our paragraphs, to
+substantiate at once the justice of all those demands which the act
+requires us to investigate, subject only to a right reserved to the
+Nabob, or any other party concerned, to question the justice of any debt
+falling within the last of the three classes. We submit, that at least
+the opportunity of questioning, within the limited time, the justice of
+any of the debts, ought to have been fully preserved; and supposing the
+first and second classes to stand free from imputation, (as we incline
+to believe they do,) no injury can result to individuals from such
+discussion: and we further submit to your consideration, how far the
+express direction of the act to examine the nature and origin of the
+debts has been by the amended paragraphs complied with; and whether at
+least the rate of interest, according to which the debts arising from
+soucar assignment of the land-revenues to the servants of the Company,
+acting in the capacity of native bankers, have been accumulated, ought
+not to be inquired into, as well as the reasonableness of the deduction
+of twenty-five per cent which the Bengal government directed to be made
+from a great part of the debts on certain conditions. But to your
+appropriation of the fund our duty requires that we should state our
+strongest dissent. Our right to be paid the arrears of those expenses by
+which, almost to our own ruin, we have preserved the country and all
+the property connected with it from falling a prey to a foreign
+conqueror, surely stands paramount to all claims for former debts upon
+the revenues of a country so preserved, even if the legislature had not
+expressly limited the assistance to be given the private creditors to be
+such as should be consistent with our own rights. The Nabob had, long
+before passing the act, by treaty with our Bengal government, agreed to
+pay us seven lacs of pagodas, as part of the twelve lacs, in liquidation
+of those arrears; of which seven lacs the arrangement you have been
+pleased to lay down would take away from us more than the half, and give
+it to private creditors, of whose demands there are only about a sixth
+part which do not stand in a predicament that you declare would not
+entitle them to any aid or protection from us in the recovery thereof,
+were it not upon grounds of expediency, as will more particularly appear
+by the annexed estimate. Until our debt shall be discharged, we can by
+no means consent to give up any part of the seven lacs to the private
+creditors; and we humbly apprehend that in this declaration we do not
+exceed the limits of the authority and rights vested in us.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+THE RIGHT HONORABLE THE COMMISSIONERS FOR THE AFFAIRS OF INDIA.
+
+_The Representation of the Court of Directors of the East India
+Company_.
+
+My Lords and Gentlemen,--
+
+The Court, having duly attended to your reasonings and decisions on the
+subjects of Arnee and Hanamantagoody, beg leave to observe, with due
+deference to your judgment, that the directions we had given in these
+paragraphs which did not obtain your approbation still appear to us to
+have been consistent with justice, and agreeable to the late act of
+Parliament, which pointed out to us, as we apprehended, the treaty of
+1762 as our guide.
+
+Signed by order of the said Court,
+
+THO. MORTON, _Sec_.
+
+EAST INDIA HOUSE, the 3rd November, 1784.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Extract of a Letter from the Commissioners for the Affairs of India, to
+the Court of Directors, dated 3rd November, 1784, in Answer to their
+Remonstrance_.
+
+SIXTH ARTICLE.
+
+
+We think it proper, considering the particular nature of the subject, to
+state to you the following remarks on that part of your representation
+which relates to the plan for the discharging of the Nabob's debts.
+
+1st. You compute the revenue which the Carnatic may be expected to
+produce only at twenty lacs of pagodas. If we concurred with you in this
+opinion, we should certainly feel our hopes of advantage to all the
+parties from this arrangement considerably diminished. But we trust that
+we are not too sanguine on this head, when we place the greatest
+reliance on the estimate transmitted to you by your President of Fort
+St. George, having there the best means of information upon the fact,
+and stating it with a particular view to the subject matter of these
+paragraphs. Some allowance, we are sensible, must be made for the
+difference of collection in the Nabob's hands, but, we trust, not such
+as to reduce the receipt nearly to what you suppose.
+
+2ndly. In making up the amount of the private debts, you take in
+compound interest at the different rates specified in our paragraph.
+This it was not our intention to allow; and lest any misconception
+should arise on the spot, we have added an express direction that the
+debts be made up with simple interest only, from the time of their
+respective consolidation. Clause F f.
+
+3rdly. We have also the strongest grounds to believe that the debts will
+be in other respects considerably less than they are now computed by
+you; and consequently, the Company's annual proportion of the twelve
+lacs will be larger than it appears on your estimate. But even on your
+own statement of it, if we add to the 150,000_l._, or 3,75,000 pagodas,
+(which you take as the annual proportion to be received by the Company
+for five years to the end of 1789,) the annual amount of the Tanjore
+peshcush for the same period, and the arrears on the peshcush, (proposed
+by Lord Macartney to be received in three years,) the whole will make a
+sum not falling very short of pagodas 35,00,000, the amount of pagodas
+7,00,000 per annum for the same period. And if we carry our calculations
+farther, it will appear, that, both by the plan proposed by the Nabob
+and adopted in your paragraphs, and by that which we transmitted to you,
+the debt from the Nabob, if taken at 3,000,000_l._, will be discharged
+nearly at the same period, viz., in the course of the eleventh year. We
+cannot, therefore, be of opinion that there is the smallest ground for
+objecting to this arrangement, as injurious to the interests of the
+Company, even if the measure were to be considered on the mere ground
+of expediency, and with a view only to the wisdom of reëstablishing
+credit and circulation in a commercial settlement, without any
+consideration of those motives of attention to the feelings and honor of
+the Nabob, of humanity to individuals, and of justice to persons in your
+service and living under your protection, which have actuated the
+legislature, and which afford not only justifiable, but commendable
+grounds for your conduct.
+
+Impressed with this conviction, we have not made any alteration in the
+general outlines of the arrangement which we had before transmitted to
+you. But, as the amount of the Nabob's revenue is matter of uncertain
+conjecture, and as it does not appear just to us that any deficiency
+should fall wholly on any one class of these debts, we have added a
+direction to your government of Fort St. George, that, if,
+notwithstanding the provisions contained in our former paragraphs, any
+deficiency should arise, the payments of what shall be received shall be
+made in the same proportion which would have obtained in the division of
+the whole twelve lacs, had they been paid.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+No. 10.
+
+Referred to from p. 103.
+
+[The following extracts are subjoined, to show the matter and the style
+of representation employed by those who have obtained that ascendency
+over the Nabob of Arcot which is described in the letter marked No. 6 of
+the present Appendix, and which is so totally destructive of the
+authority and credit of the lawful British government at Madras. The
+charges made by these persons have been solemnly denied by Lord
+Macartney; and to judge from the character of the parties accused and
+accusing, they are probably void of all foundation. But as the letters
+are in the name and under the signature of a person of great rank and
+consequence among the natives,--as they contain matter of the most
+serious nature,--as they charge the most enormous crimes, and
+corruptions of the grossest kind, on a British governor,--and as they
+refer to the Nabob's minister in Great Britain for proof and further
+elucidation of the matters complained of,--common decency and common
+policy demanded an inquiry into their truth or falsehood. The writing is
+obviously the product of some English pen. If, on inquiry, these charges
+should be made good, (a thing very unlikely,) the party accused would
+become a just object of animadversion. If they should be found (as in
+all probability they would be found) false and calumnious, and supported
+by _forgery_, then the censure would fall on the accuser; at the same
+time the necessity would be manifest for proper measures towards the
+security of government against such infamous accusations. It is as
+necessary to protect the honest fame of virtuous governors as it is to
+punish the corrupt and tyrannical. But neither the Court of Directors
+nor the Board of Control have made any inquiry into the truth or
+falsehood of these charges. They have covered over the accusers and
+accused with abundance of compliments; they have insinuated some oblique
+censures; and they have recommended perfect harmony between the chargers
+of corruption and peculation and the persons charged with these
+crimes.]
+
+
+13th October, 1782. _Extract of a Translation of a Letter from the Nabob
+of Arcot to the Chairman of the Court of Directors of the East India
+Company_.
+
+
+Fatally for me, and for the public interest, the Company's favor and my
+unbounded confidence have been lavished on a man totally unfit for the
+exalted station in which he has been placed, and unworthy of the trusts
+that have been reposed in him. When I speak of one who has so deeply
+stabbed my honor, my wounds bleed afresh, and I must be allowed that
+freedom of expression which the galling reflection of my injuries and my
+misfortunes naturally draws from me. Shall your servants, unchecked,
+unrestrained, and unpunished, gratify their private views and ambition
+at the expense of my honor, my peace, and my happiness, and to the ruin
+of my country, as well as of all your affairs? No sooner had Lord
+Macartney obtained the favorite object of his ambition than he betrayed
+the greatest insolence towards me, the most glaring neglect of the
+common civilities and attentions paid me by all former governors in the
+worst of times, and even by the most inveterate of my enemies. He
+insulted my servants, endeavored to defame my character by unjustly
+censuring my administration, and extended his boundless usurpation to
+the whole government of my dominions, in all the branches of judicature
+and police; and, in violation of the express articles of the agreements,
+proceeded to send renters into the countries, unapproved of by me, men
+of bad character, and unequal to my management or responsibility.
+Though he is chargeable with the greatest acts of cruelty, even to the
+shedding the blood and cutting off the noses and ears of my subjects, by
+those exercising his authority in the countries, and that even the
+duties of religion and public worship have been interrupted or
+prevented, and though he carries on all his business by the arbitrary
+exertion of military force, yet does he not collect from the countries
+one fourth of the revenue that should be produced. The statement he
+pretends to hold forth of expected revenue is totally fallacious, and
+can never be realized under the management of his Lordship, in the
+appointment of renters totally disqualified, rapacious, and
+irresponsible, who are actually embezzling and dissipating the public
+revenues that should assist in the support of the war. Totally occupied
+by his private views, and governed by his passions, he has neglected or
+sacrificed all the essential objects of public good, and by want of
+coöperation with Sir Eyre Coote, and refusal to furnish the army with
+the necessary supplies, has rendered the glorious and repeated victories
+of the gallant general ineffectual to the expulsion of our cruel enemy.
+To cover his insufficiency, and veil the discredit attendant on his
+failure in every measure, he throws out the most illiberal expressions,
+and institutes unjust accusations against me; and in aggravation of all
+the distresses imposed upon me, he has abetted the meanest calumniators
+to bring forward false charges against me and my son, Amir-ul-Omrah, in
+order to create embarrassment, and for the distress of my mind. My
+papers and writings sent to you must testify to the whole world the
+malevolence of his designs, and the means that have been used to
+forward them. He has violently seized and opened all letters addressed
+to me and my servants, on my public and private affairs. My vackeel,
+that attended him according to ancient custom, has been ignominiously
+dismissed from his presence, and not suffered to approach the
+Government-House. He has in the meanest manner, and as he thought in
+secret, been tampering and intriguing with my family and relations for
+the worst of purposes. And if I express the agonies of my mind under
+these most pointed injuries and oppressions, and complain of the
+violence and injustice of Lord Macartney, I am insulted by his affected
+construction that my communications are dictated by the insinuations of
+others, at the same time that his conscious apprehensions for his
+misconduct have produced the most abject applications to me to smother
+my feelings, and entreaties to write in his Lordship's favor to England,
+and to submit all my affairs to his direction. When his submissions have
+failed to mould me to his will, he has endeavored to effect his purposes
+by menaces of his secret influence with those in power in England, which
+he pretends to assert shall be effectual to confirm his usurpation, and
+to deprive me, and my family, in succession, of my rights of sovereignty
+and government forever. To such a length have his passions and violences
+carried him, that all my family, my dependants, and even my friends and
+visitors, are persecuted with the strongest marks of his displeasure.
+Every shadow of authority in my person is taken from me, and respect to
+my name discouraged throughout the whole country. When an officer of
+high rank in his Majesty's service was some time since introduced to me
+by Lord Macartney, his Lordship took occasion to show a personal
+derision and contempt of me. Mr. Richard Sulivan, who has attended my
+durbar under the commission of the Governor-General and Council of
+Bengal, has experienced his resentment; and Mr. Benfield, _with whom I
+have no business_, and who, as he has been accustomed to do for many
+years, has continued to pay me his visits of respect, has felt the
+weight of his Lordship's displeasure, and has had every unmerited
+insinuation thrown out against him, to prejudice him, and deter him from
+paying me his compliments as usual.
+
+Thus, Gentlemen, have you delivered me over to a stranger; to a man
+unacquainted with government and business, and too opinionated to learn;
+to a man whose ignorance and prejudices operate to the neglect of every
+good measure, or the liberal coöperation with any that wish well to the
+public interests; to a man who, to pursue his own passions, plans, and
+designs, will certainly ruin all mine, as well as the Company's affairs.
+His mismanagement and obstinacy have caused the loss of many lacs of my
+revenues, dissipated and embezzled, and every public consideration
+sacrificed to his vanity and private views. I beg to offer an instance
+in proof of my assertions, and to justify the hope I have that you will
+cause to be made good to me all the losses I have sustained by the
+maladministration and bad practices of your servants, according to all
+the account of receipts of former years, and which I made known to Lord
+Macartney, amongst other papers of information, in the beginning of his
+management in the collections. The district of Ongole produced annually,
+upon a medium of many years, 90,000 pagodas; but Lord Macartney, _upon
+receiving a sum of money from Ramchundry_[73] let it out to him, in
+April last, for the inadequate rent of 50,000 pagodas per annum,
+diminishing, in this district alone, near half the accustomed revenues.
+After this manner hath he exercised his powers over the countries, to
+suit his own purposes and designs; and this secret mode has he taken to
+reduce the collections.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+1st November, 1782. _Copy of a Letter from the Nabob of Arcot to the
+Court of Directors, &c._ Received 7th April, 1783.
+
+The distresses which I have set forth in my former letters are now
+increased to such an alarming pitch by the imprudent measures of your
+Governor, and by the arbitrary and impolitic conduct pursued with the
+merchants and importers of grain, that the very existence of the Fort of
+Madras seems at stake, and that of the inhabitants of the settlement
+appears to have been totally overlooked: many thousands have died, and
+continue hourly to perish of famine, though the capacity of one of your
+youngest servants, with diligence and attention, by doing justice, and
+giving reasonable encouragement to the merchants, and by drawing the
+supplies of grain which the northern countries would have afforded,
+might have secured us against all those dreadful calamities. I had with
+much difficulty procured and purchased a small quantity of rice, for the
+use of myself, my family, and attendants, and with a view of sending off
+the greatest part of the latter to the northern countries, with a little
+subsistence in their hands. But what must your surprise be, when you
+learn that even this rice was seized by Lord Macartney, with a military
+force! and thus am I unable to provide for the few people I have about
+me, who are driven to such extremity and misery that it gives me pain to
+behold them. I have desired permission to get a little rice from the
+northern countries for the subsistence of my people, without its being
+liable to seizure by your sepoys: this even has been refused me by Lord
+Macartney. What must your feelings be, on such wanton cruelty exercised
+towards me, when you consider, that, of thousands of villages belonging
+to me, a single one would have sufficed for my subsistence!
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+22d March, 1783. _Translation of a Letter from the Nabob of Arcot to the
+Chairman and Directors of the East India Company_. Received from Mr.
+James Macpherson, 1st January, 1784.
+
+
+I am willing to attribute this continued usurpation to the fear of
+detection in Lord Macartney: he dreads the awful day when the scene of
+his enormities will be laid open, at my restoration to my country, and
+when the tongues of my oppressed subjects will be unloosed, and proclaim
+aloud the cruel tyrannies they have sustained. These sentiments of his
+Lordship's designs are corroborated by his sending, on the 10th instant,
+two gentlemen to me and my son, Amir-ul-Omrah; and these gentlemen from
+Lord Macartney especially set forth to me, and to my son, that all
+dependence on the power of the superior government of Bengal to enforce
+the intentions of the Company to restore my country was vain and
+groundless,--that the Company confided in his Lordship's judgment and
+discretion, and upon his representations, and that if I, and my son,
+Amir-ul-Omrah, would enter into friendship with Lord Macartney, and sign
+a paper declaring all my charges and complaints against him to be false,
+that his Lordship might be induced to write to England that all his
+allegations against me and my son were not well founded, and,
+notwithstanding his declarations to withhold my country, yet, on these
+considerations, it might be still restored to me.
+
+What must be your feelings for your ancient and faithful friend, on his
+receiving such insults to his honor and understanding from your
+principal servant, armed with your authority! From these manoeuvres,
+amongst thousands I have experienced, the truth must evidently appear to
+you, that I have not been loaded with those injuries and oppressions
+from motives of public service, but to answer the private views and
+interests of his Lordship and his secret agents: _some papers to this
+point are inclosed_; others, almost without number, must be submitted to
+your justice, when time and circumstances shall enable me fully to
+investigate those transactions. This opportunity will not permit the
+full representation of my load of injuries and distresses: I beg leave
+to refer you to my minister, Mr. Macpherson, for the papers, according
+to the inclosed list, which accompanied my last dispatches by the
+Rodney, which I fear have failed; and my correspondence with Lord
+Macartney subsequent to that period, such as I have been able to prepare
+for this opportunity, are inclosed.
+
+Notwithstanding all the violent acts and declarations of Lord Macartney,
+yet a consciousness of his own misconduct was the sole incentive to the
+menaces and overtures he has held out in various shapes. He has been
+insultingly lavish in his expressions of high respect for my person;
+has had the insolence to say that all his measures flowed from his
+affectionate regard alone; has presumed to say that all his enmity and
+oppression were levelled at my son, Amir-ul-Omrah, to whom he before
+acknowledged every aid and assistance; and his Lordship being without
+any just cause or foundation for complaint against us, or a veil to
+cover his own violences, he has now had recourse to the meanness and has
+dared to intimate of my son, in order to intimidate me and to strengthen
+his own wicked purposes, to be in league with our enemies the French.
+You must doubtless be astonished, no less at the assurance than at the
+absurdity of such a wicked suggestion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+IN THE NABOB'S OWN HAND.
+
+P.S. In my own handwriting I acquainted Mr. Hastings, as I now do my
+ancient friends the Company, with the insult offered to my honor and
+understanding, in the extraordinary propositions sent to me by Lord
+Macartney, through two gentlemen, on the 10th instant, so artfully
+veiled with menaces, hopes, and promises. But how can Lord Macartney add
+to his enormities, after his wicked and calumniating insinuations, so
+evidently directed against me and my family, through my faithful, my
+dutiful, and beloved son, Amir-ul-Omrah, who, you well know, has been
+ever born and bred amongst the English, whom I have studiously brought
+up in the warmest sentiments of affection and attachment to
+them,--sentiments that in his maturity have been his highest ambition to
+improve, insomuch that he knows no happiness but in the faithful support
+of our alliance and connection with the English nation?
+
+     12th August, and Postscript of the 16th August, 1783. _Translation
+     of a Letter to the Chairman and Directors of the East India
+     Company._ Received from Mr. James Macpherson, 14th January, 1784.
+
+Your astonishment and indignation will be equally raised with mine, when
+you hear that your President _has dared_, contrary to your intention, to
+continue to usurp the privileges and hereditary powers of the Nabob of
+the Carnatic, your old and unshaken friend, and the declared ally of the
+king of Great Britain.
+
+I will not take up your time by enumerating the particular acts of Lord
+Macartney's violence, cruelty, and injustice: _they, indeed, occur too
+frequently, and fall upon me and my devoted subjects and country too
+thick, to be regularly related_. I refer you to my minister, Mr. James
+Macpherson, _for a more circumstantial account of the oppressions and
+enormities by which he has brought both mine_ and the Company's affairs
+to the brink of destruction. I trust that such flagrant violations of
+all justice, honor, and the faith of treaties will receive the severest
+marks of your displeasure, and that Lord Macartney's conduct, in making
+use of your name and authority as a sanction for the continuance of his
+usurpation, will be disclaimed with the utmost indignation, and followed
+with the severest punishment. I conceive that his Lordship's arbitrary
+retention of my country and government can only originate in his
+_insatiable cravings_, in his implacable malevolence against me, and
+through fear of detection, which must follow the surrender of the
+Carnatic into my hands, of those nefarious proceedings which are now
+suppressed by the arm of violence and power.
+
+I did not fail to represent to the supreme government of Bengal the
+deplorable situation to which I was reduced, and the unmerited
+persecutions I have unremittingly sustained from Lord Macartney; and I
+earnestly implored them to stretch forth a saving arm, and interpose
+that controlling power which was vested in them, to check _rapacity and
+presumption_, and preserve the honor and faith of the Company from
+violation. The Governor-General and Council not only felt the cruelty
+and injustice I had suffered, but were greatly alarmed for the fatal
+consequences that might result from the distrust of the country powers
+in the professions of the English, when they saw the Nabob of the
+Carnatic, the friend of the Company, and the ally of Great Britain, thus
+stripped of his rights, his dominions, and his dignity, by the most
+fraudulent means, and under the mask of friendship. The Bengal
+government had already heard both the Mahrattas and the Nizam urge, as
+an objection to an alliance with the English, the faithless behavior of
+Lord Macartney to a prince whose life had been devoted and whose
+treasures had been exhausted in their service and support; and they did
+not hesitate to give positive orders to Lord Macartney for the
+restitution of my government and authority, on such terms as were not
+only strictly honorable, but equally advantageous to my friends the
+Company: for they justly thought that my honor and dignity and
+_sovereign rights_ were the first objects of my wishes and ambition. But
+how can I paint my astonishment at Lord Macartney's presumption in
+continuing his usurpation after their positive and reiterated mandates,
+and, as if nettled by their interference, which he disdained, in
+redoubling the fury of his violence, and sacrificing the public and
+myself to his malice and ungovernable passions?
+
+I am, Gentlemen, at a loss to conceive where his usurpation will stop
+and have an end. Has he not solemnly declared that the assignment was
+only made for the support of war? and if neither your instructions nor
+the orders of his superiors at Bengal were to be considered as
+effectual, has not the treaty of peace virtually determined the period
+of his tyrannical administration? But so far from surrendering the
+Carnatic into my hands, he has, since that event, affixed advertisements
+to the walls and gates of the Black Town for letting to the best bidder
+the various districts for the term of three years,--and has continued
+the Committee of Revenue, which you positively ordered to be abolished,
+to whom he has allowed enormous salaries, from 6000 to 4000 pagodas per
+annum, which each member has received from the time of his appointment,
+though his Lordship well knows that most of them are by your orders
+disqualified by being my principal creditors.
+
+If those acts of violence and outrage had been productive of public
+advantage, I conceive his Lordship might have held them forward in
+extenuation of his conduct; but whilst he cloaks his justification under
+the veil of your records, it is impossible to refute his assertions or
+to expose to you their fallacy; and when he is no longer able to support
+his conduct by argument, he refers to those records, where, I
+understand, he has exercised all his sophistry and malicious
+insinuations to render me and my family obnoxious in the eyes of the
+Company and the British nation. And when the glorious victories of Sir
+Eyre Coote have been rendered abortive by a constant deficiency of
+supplies,--and when, since the departure of that excellent general to
+Bengal, whose loss I must ever regret, a dreadful famine, at the close
+of last year, occasioned by his Lordship's neglect to lay up a
+sufficient stock of grain at a proper season, and from his prohibitory
+orders to private merchants,--and when no exertion has been made, nor
+advantage gained over the enemy,--when Hyder's death and Tippoo's return
+to his own dominions operated in no degree for the benefit of our
+affairs,--in short, when all has been a continued series of
+disappointment and disgrace under Lord Macartney's management, (and in
+him alone has the management been vested,)--I want words to convey those
+ideas of his insufficiency, ignorance, and obstinacy which I am
+convinced you would entertain, had you been spectators of his ruinous
+and destructive conduct.
+
+But against me, and my son, Amir-ul-Omrah, has his Lordship's vengeance
+chiefly been exerted: even the Company's own subordinate zemindars have
+found better treatment, probably because they were more rich; those of
+Nizanagoram have been permitted, contrary to your pointed orders, to
+hold their rich zemindaries at the old disproportionate rate of little
+more than a sixth part of the real revenue; and my zemindar of Tanjore,
+though he should have regarded himself equally concerned with us in the
+event of the war, and from whose fertile country many valuable harvests
+have been gathered in, which have sold at a vast price, has, I
+understand, only contributed, last year, towards the public exigencies,
+the very inconsiderable sum of one lac of pagodas, and a few thousand
+pagodas' worth of grain.
+
+I am much concerned to acquaint you that ever since the peace a dreadful
+famine has swept away many thousands of the followers and sepoys'
+families of the army, from Lord Macartney's neglect to send down grain
+to the camp, though the roads are crowded with vessels: but his Lordship
+has been too intent upon his own disgraceful schemes to attend to the
+wants of the army. The negotiation with Tippoo, which he has set on foot
+through the mediation of Monsieur Bussy, has employed all his thoughts,
+and to the attainment of that object he will sacrifice the dearest
+interests of the Company to gratify his malevolence against me, and for
+his own private advantages. The endeavor to treat with Tippoo, through
+the means of the French, must strike you, Gentlemen, as highly improper
+and impolitic; but it must raise your utmost indignation to hear, that,
+by intercepted letters from Bussy to Tippoo, as well as from their
+respective vakeels, and from various accounts from Cuddalore, we have
+every reason to conclude that his Lordship's secretary, Mr. Staunton,
+when at Cuddalore, as his agent to settle the cessation of arms with the
+French, was informed of all their operations and projects, and
+_consequently that Lord Macartney has secretly connived at Monsieur
+Bussy's recommendation to Tippoo to return into the Carnatic, as the
+means of procuring the most advantageous terms, and furnishing Lord
+Macartney with the plea of necessity for concluding a peace after his
+own manner_: and what further confirms the truth of this fact is, that
+repeated reports, as well as the alarms of the inhabitants to the
+westward, leave us no reason to doubt that Tippoo is approaching
+towards us. His Lordship has issued public orders that the garrison
+store of rice, for which we are indebted to the exertions of the Bengal
+government, should be immediately disposed of, and has strictly forbid
+all private grain to be sold; by which act he effectually prohibits all
+private importation of grain, and may eventually cause as horrid a
+famine as that which we experienced at the close of last year from the
+same shortsighted policy and destructive prohibitions of Lord Macartney.
+
+But as he has the fabrication of the records in his own hands, he trusts
+to those partial representations of his character and conduct, because
+the signatures of those members of government whom he seldom consults
+are affixed, as a public sanction; but you may form a just idea of their
+correctness and propriety, when you are informed that his Lordship,
+_upon my noticing the heavy disbursements made for secret service money,
+ordered the sums to be struck off, and the accounts to be erased from
+the cash-book of the Company_; and I think I cannot give you a better
+proof of his management of my country and revenues than by calling your
+attention to his conduct in the Ongole province, and by referring you to
+his Lordship's administration of your own jaghire, from whence he has
+brought to the public account the sum of twelve hundred pagodas for the
+last year's revenue, yet blazons forth his vast merits and exertions,
+and expects to receive the thanks of his Committee and Council.
+
+I will beg leave to refer you to my minister, James Macpherson, Esq.,
+for a more particular account of my sufferings and miseries, to whom I
+have transmitted copies of all papers that passed with his Lordship.
+
+I cannot conclude without calling your attention to _the situation of my
+different creditors_, whose claims are the claims of justice, and whose
+demands I am bound by honor and every moral obligation to discharge; it
+is not, therefore, without great concern I have heard insinuations
+tending to question the legality of their right to the payment of those
+just debts: they proceeded from advances made by them openly and
+honorably for the support of my own and the public affairs. But I hope
+the tongue of calumny will never drown the voice of truth and justice;
+and while that is heard, the wisdom of the English nation cannot fail to
+accede to an effectual remedy for their distresses, by any arrangement
+in which their claims may be duly considered and equitably provided for:
+and for this purpose, my minister, _Mr. Macpherson, will readily
+subscribe, in my name, to any agreement you may think proper to adopt,
+founded on the same principles_ with either of the engagements I entered
+into with the supreme government of Bengal for our mutual interest and
+advantage.
+
+I always pray for your happiness and prosperity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     6th September, and Postscript of 7th September, 1783. _Translation
+     of a Letter from the Nabob of Arcot to the Chairman and Directors
+     of the East India Company._ Received from Mr. James Macpherson,
+     14th January, 1784.
+
+I refer you, Gentlemen, to my inclosed duplicate, as well as to my
+minister, Mr. Macpherson, for the particulars of my sufferings. There is
+no word or action of mine that is not perverted; and though it was my
+intention to have sent my son, Amir-ul-Omrah, who is well versed in my
+affairs, to Bengal, to impress those gentlemen with a full sense of my
+situation, yet I find myself obliged to lay it aside, from the
+insinuations of the calumniating tongue of Lord Macartney, that takes
+every license to traduce every action of my life and that of my son. I
+am informed that Lord Macartney, at this late moment, intends to write a
+letter: I am ignorant of the subject, but fully perceive, that, by
+delaying to send it till the very eve of the dispatch, he means to
+deprive me of all possibility of communicating my reply, and forwarding
+it for the information of my friends in England. Conscious of the weak
+ground on which he stands, he is obliged to have recourse to these
+artifices to mislead the judgment, and support for a time his
+unjustifiable measures by deceit and imposition. I wish only to meet and
+combat his charges and allegations fairly and openly, and I have
+repeatedly and urgently demanded to be furnished with copies of those
+parts of his _fabricated_ records relative to myself; but as he well
+knows I should refute his sophistry, I cannot be surprised at his
+refusal, though I lament that it prevents you, Gentlemen, from a clear
+investigation of his conduct towards me.
+
+Inclosed you have a translation of an arzee from the Killidar of
+Vellore. _I have thousands of the same kind_; but this, just now
+received, will serve to give you some idea of the miseries brought upon
+this my devoted country, and the wretched inhabitants that remain in it,
+by the oppressive hand of Lord Macartney's management: nor will the
+_embezzlements of collections_ thus obtained, when brought before you in
+_proof_, appear less extraordinary,--which _shall certainly be done in
+due time_.
+
+     _Translation of an Arzee, in the Persian Language, from
+     Uzzim-ul-Doen Cawn, the Killidar of Vellore, to the Nabob_, dated
+     1st September, 1783. Inclosed in the Nabob's Letter to the Court of
+     Directors, September, 1783.
+
+I have repeatedly represented to your Highness the violences and
+oppressions exercised by the present aumildar [collector of revenue], of
+Lord Macartney's appointment, over the few remaining inhabitants of the
+districts of Vellore, Amboor, Saulguda, &c.
+
+The outrages and violences now committed are of that astonishing nature
+as were never known or heard of during the administration of the Circar.
+Hyder Naik, the cruellest of tyrants, used every kind of oppression in
+the Circar countries; but even his measures were not like those now
+pursued. Such of the inhabitants as had escaped the sword and pillage of
+Hyder Naik, by taking refuge in the woods, and within the walls of
+Vellore, &c., on the arrival of Lord Macartney's aumildar to Vellore,
+and in consequence of his cowle of protection and support, most
+cheerfully returned to the villages, set about the cultivation of the
+lands, and with great pains rebuilt their cottages.--But now the
+aumildar has imprisoned the wives and children of the inhabitants,
+seized the few jewels that were on the bodies of the women, and then,
+before the faces of their husbands, flogged them, in order to make them
+produce other jewels and effects, which he said they had buried
+somewhere under ground, and to make the inhabitants bring him money,
+notwithstanding there was yet no cultivation in the country. Terrified
+with the flagellations, some of them produced their jewels and
+wearing-apparel of their women, to the amount of ten or fifteen pagodas,
+which they had hidden; others, who declared they had none, the aumildar
+flogged their women severely, tied cords around their breasts, and tore
+the sucking children from their teats, and exposed them to the scorching
+heat of the sun. Those children died, as did the wife of Ramsoamy, an
+inhabitant of Bringpoor. Even this could not stir up compassion in the
+breast of the aumildar. Some of the children that were somewhat large he
+exposed to sale. In short, the violences of the aumildar are so
+astonishing, that the people, on seeing the present situation, remember
+the loss of Hyder with regret. With whomsoever the aumildar finds a
+single measure of natchinee or rice, he takes it away from him, and
+appropriates it to the expenses of the sibindy that he keeps up. No
+revenues are collected from the countries, but from the effects of the
+poor, wretched inhabitants. Those ryots [yeomen] who intended to return
+to their habitations, hearing of those violences, have fled for refuge,
+with their wives and children, into Hyder's country. Every day is
+ushered in and closed with these violences and disturbances. I have no
+power to do anything; and who will hear what I have to say? My business
+is to inform your Highness, who are my master. The people bring their
+complaints to me, and I tell them I will write to your Highness.[74]
+
+     _Translation of a Tellinga Letter from Veira Permaul, Head Dubash
+     to Lord Macartney, in his own Handwriting, to Rajah Ramchunda, the
+     Renter of Ongole._ Dated 25th of the Hindoo month Mausay, in the
+     year Plavanamal, corresponding to 5th March, 1782.
+
+I present my respects to you, and am very well here, wishing to hear
+frequently of your welfare.
+
+Your peasher Vancatroyloo has brought the Visseel Bakees, and delivered
+them to me, as _also what you sent him for me to deliver to my master,
+which I have done. My master at first refused to take it, because he is
+unacquainted with your disposition_, or what kind of a person you are.
+But after I made encomiums on your goodness and greatness of mind, and
+took my oath to the same, and that _it would not become public_, but be
+held as precious as our lives, _my master accepted it_. You may remain
+satisfied that I will get the Ongole business settled in your name; I
+will cause the jamaubundee to be settled agreeable to your desire. It
+was formerly the Nabob's intention to give this business to you, as the
+Governor knows full well, but did not at that time agree to it, which
+you must be well acquainted with.
+
+Your peasher Vancatroyloo is a very careful, good man; he is well
+experienced in business; _he has bound me by an oath to keep all this
+business secret, and that his own, yours, and my lives are responsible
+for it_. I write this letter to you with the greatest reluctance, and I
+signified the same to your peasher, and declared that I would not write
+to you by any means. To this the peasher urged, that, _if I did not
+write to his master, how could he know to whom he (the peasher)
+delivered the money_, and what must his master think of it? Therefore I
+write you this letter, and send it by my servant Ramanah, accompanied by
+the peasher's servant, and it will come safe to your hands. After
+perusal, you will send it back to me immediately: until I receive it, I
+don't like to eat my victuals or take any sleep. Your peasher took his
+oath, and urged me to write this for your satisfaction, and has engaged
+to me that I shall have this letter returned to me in the space of
+twelve days.
+
+The present Governor is not like the former Governors: he is a very
+great man in Europe; and all the great men of Europe are much obliged,
+to him for his condescension in accepting the government of this place.
+It is his custom, when he makes friendship with any one, to continue it
+always; and if _he is at enmity with any one, he never will desist till
+he has worked his destruction. He is now exceedingly displeased with
+the Nabob, and you will understand by-and-by that the Nabob's business
+cannot be carried on_; he (the Nabob) will have no power to do anything
+in his own affairs: _you have, therefore, no room to fear him_; you may
+remain with a contented mind. I desired the Governor to write you a
+letter for your satisfaction: the Governor said he would do so, when the
+business was settled. This letter you must peruse as soon as possible,
+and send it back with all speed by the bearer, Ramadoo, accompanied by
+three or four of your people, to the end that no accident may happen on
+the road. These people must be ordered to march in the night only, and
+to arrive here with the greatest dispatch. You sent ten mangoes for my
+master and two for me, all of which I have delivered to my master,
+thinking that ten was not sufficient to present him with. I write this
+for your information, and salute you with ten thousand respects.
+
+     I, Muttu Kistnah, of Madras Patnam, dubash, declare that I
+     perfectly understand the Gentoo language, and do most solemnly
+     affirm that the foregoing is a true translation of the annexed
+     paper writing from the Gentoo language.
+
+     (Signed)
+
+     Muttu Kistnah.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[68] In this statement, the Ongole country, though it is included under
+the head of gross revenue, has been let for a certain sum, exclusive of
+charges. If the expenses specified in the Nabob's vassool accounts for
+this district are added, the present gross revenue even would appear to
+exceed the Nabob's; and as the country is only let for one year, there
+may hereafter be an increase of its revenue.
+
+[69] The Trichinopoly countries let for the above sum, exclusive of the
+expenses of sibbendy and saderwared, amounting, by the Nabob's accounts,
+to rupees 1,30,00 per annum, which are to be defrayed by the renter. And
+the jaghires of Amir-ul-Omrah and the Begum are not included in the
+present lease.
+
+[70] For the ground of this "great reliance," see the papers in this
+Appendix, No. 5; as also the Nabob's letters to the Court of Directors
+in this Appendix, No. 10.
+
+[71] For the full proof of this necessity, Lord Macartney's whole
+correspondence on the subject may be referred to. Without the act here
+condemned, not one of the acts commended in the preceding paragraph
+could be performed. By referring to the Nabob's letters in this Appendix
+it will be seen what sort of task a governor has on his hands, who is to
+use, according to the direction of this letter, "acts of address,
+civility, and conciliation," and to pay, upon _all_ occasions, _the
+highest attention_, to persons who at the very time are falsely, and in
+the grossest terms, accusing him of peculation, corruption, treason, and
+every species of malversation in office. The recommendation, under
+menaces of such behavior, and under such circumstances, conveys a lesson
+the tendency of which cannot be misunderstood.
+
+[72] The delicacy here recommended, in the _expressions_ concerning
+conduct "with which the safety of our settlements is essentially
+connected," is a lesson of the same nature with the former. Dangerous
+designs, if truly such, ought to be expressed according to their nature
+and qualities. And as for the _secrecy_ recommended concerning the
+designs here alluded to, nothing can be more absurd; as they appear very
+fully and directly in the papers published by the authority of the Court
+of Directors in 1775, and may be easily discerned from the propositions
+for the Bengal treaty, published in the Reports of the Committee of
+Secrecy, and in the Reports of the Select Committee. The keeping of such
+secrets too long has been one cause of the Carnatic war, and of the ruin
+of our affairs in India.
+
+[73] See Tellinga letter, at the end of this correspondence.
+
+[74] The above-recited practices, or practices similar to them, have
+prevailed in almost every part of the miserable countries on the coast
+of Coromandel for near twenty years past. That they prevailed as
+strongly and generally as they could prevail, under the administration
+of the Nabob, there can be no question, notwithstanding the assertion in
+the beginning of the above petition; nor will it ever be otherwise,
+whilst affairs are conducted upon the principles which influence the
+present system. Whether the particulars here asserted are true or false
+neither the Court of Directors nor their ministry have thought proper to
+inquire. If they are true, in order to bring them to affect Lord
+Macartney, it ought to be proved that the complaint was made _to him,
+and that he had refused redress_. Instead of this fair course, the
+complaint is carried to the Court of Directors.--The above is one of the
+documents transmitted by the Nabob, in proof of his charge of corruption
+against Lord Macartney. If genuine, it is conclusive, at least against
+Lord Macartney's principal agent and manager. If it be a forgery, (as in
+all likelihood it is,) it is conclusive against the Nabob and his evil
+counsellors, and folly demonstrates, if anything further were necessary
+to demonstrate, the necessity of the clause in Mr. Fox's bill
+prohibiting the residence of the native princes in the Company's
+principal settlements,--which clause was, for obvious reasons, not
+admitted into Mr. Pitt's. It shows, too, the absolute necessity of a
+severe and exemplary punishment on certain of his English evil
+counsellors and creditors, by whom such practices are carried on.
+
+
+
+
+SUBSTANCE OF THE SPEECH
+
+IN THE
+
+DEBATE ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES
+
+IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS,
+
+ON TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1790
+
+COMPREHENDING
+
+A DISCUSSION OF THE PRESENT SITUATION OF AFFAIRS IN FRANCE.
+
+
+
+
+SPEECH.
+
+Mr. Burke's speech on the report of the army estimates has not been
+correctly stated in some of the public papers. It is of consequence to
+him not to be misunderstood. The matter which incidentally came into
+discussion is of the most serious importance. It is thought that the
+heads and substance of the speech will answer the purpose sufficiently.
+If, in making the abstract, through defect of memory in the person who
+now gives it, any difference at all should be perceived from the speech
+as it was spoken, it will not, the editor imagines, be found in anything
+which may amount to a retraction of the opinions he then maintained, or
+to any softening in the expressions in which they were conveyed.
+
+Mr. Burke spoke a considerable time in answer to various arguments,
+which had been insisted upon by Mr. Grenville and Mr. Pitt, for keeping
+an increased peace establishment, and against an improper jealousy of
+the ministers, in whom a full confidence, subject to responsibility,
+ought to be placed, on account of their knowledge of the real situation
+of affairs, the exact state of which it frequently happened that they
+could not disclose without violating the constitutional and political
+secrecy necessary to the well-being of their country.
+
+Mr. Burke said in substance, That confidence might become a vice, and
+jealousy a virtue, according to circumstances. That confidence, of all
+public virtues, was the most dangerous, and jealousy in an House of
+Commons, of all public vices, the most tolerable,--- especially where
+the number and the charge of standing armies in time of peace was the
+question.
+
+That in the annual Mutiny Bill the annual army was declared to be for
+the purpose of preserving the balance of power in Europe. The propriety
+of its being larger or smaller depended, therefore, upon the true state
+of that balance. If the increase of peace establishments demanded of
+Parliament agreed with the manifest appearance of the balance,
+confidence in ministers as to the particulars would be very proper. If
+the increase was not at all supported by any such appearance, he thought
+great jealousy might be, and ought to be, entertained on that subject.
+
+That he did not find, on a review of all Europe, that, politically, we
+stood in the smallest degree of danger from any one state or kingdom it
+contained, nor that any other foreign powers than our own allies were
+likely to obtain a considerable preponderance in the scale.
+
+That France had hitherto been our first object in all considerations
+concerning the balance of power. The presence or absence of France
+totally varied every sort of speculation relative to that balance.
+
+That France is at this time, in a political light, to be considered as
+expunged out of the system of Europe. Whether she could ever appear in
+it again, as a leading power, was not easy to determine; but at present
+be considered France as not politically existing; and most assuredly it
+would take up much time to restore her to her former active existence:
+_Gallos quoque in bellis floruisse audivimus_ might possibly be the
+language of the rising generation. He did not mean to deny that it was
+our duty to keep our eye on that nation, and to regulate our preparation
+by the symptoms of her recovery.
+
+That it was to her _strength_, not to her _form of government_, which we
+were to attend; because republics, as well as monarchies, were
+susceptible of ambition, jealousy, and anger, the usual causes of war.
+
+But if, while France continued in this swoon, we should go on increasing
+our expenses, we should certainly make ourselves less a match for her
+when it became our concern to arm.
+
+It was said, that, as she had speedily fallen, she might speedily rise
+again. He doubted this. That the fall from an height was with an
+accelerated velocity; but to lift a weight up to that height again was
+difficult, and opposed by the laws of physical and political
+gravitation.
+
+In a political view, France was low indeed. She had lost everything,
+even to her name.
+
+        Jacet ingens littore truncus,
+    Avolsumque humeris _caput_, et sine _nomine_ corpus.[75]
+
+He was astonished at it; he was alarmed at it; he trembled at the
+uncertainty of all human greatness.
+
+Since the House had been prorogued in the summer much work was done in
+France. The French had shown themselves the ablest architects of ruin
+that had hitherto existed in the world. In that very short space of time
+they had completely pulled down to the ground their monarchy, their
+church, their nobility, their law, their revenue, their army, their
+navy, their commerce, their arts, and their manufactures. They had done
+their business for us as rivals in a way in which twenty Ramillies or
+Blenheims could never have done it. Were we absolute conquerors, and
+France to lie prostrate at our feet, we should be ashamed to send a
+commission to settle their affairs which could impose so hard a law upon
+the French, and so destructive of all their consequence as a nation, as
+that they had imposed upon themselves.
+
+France, by the mere circumstance of its vicinity, had been, and in a
+degree always must be, an object of our vigilance, either with regard to
+her actual power or to her influence and example. As to the former he
+had spoken; as to the latter (her example) he should say a few words:
+for by this example our friendship and our intercourse with that nation
+had once been, and might again become, more dangerous to us than their
+worst hostility.
+
+In the last century, Louis the Fourteenth had established a greater and
+better disciplined military force than ever had been before seen in
+Europe, and with it a perfect despotism. Though that despotism was
+proudly arrayed in manners, gallantry, splendor, magnificence, and even
+covered over with the imposing robes of science, literature, and arts,
+it was, in government, nothing better than a painted and gilded
+tyranny,--in religion, a hard, stern intolerance, the fit companion and
+auxiliary to the despotic tyranny which prevailed in its government. The
+same character of despotism insinuated itself into every court of
+Europe,--the same spirit of disproportioned magnificence,--the same love
+of standing armies, above the ability of the people. In particular, our
+then sovereigns, King Charles and King James, fell in love with the
+government of their neighbor, so flattering to the pride of kings. A
+similarity of sentiments brought on connections equally dangerous to the
+interests and liberties of their country. It were well that the
+infection had gone no farther than the throne. The admiration of a
+government flourishing and successful, unchecked in its operations, and
+seeming, therefore, to compass its objects more speedily and
+effectually, gained something upon all ranks of people. The good
+patriots of that day, however, struggled against it. They sought nothing
+more anxiously than to break off all communication with France, and to
+beget a total alienation from its councils and its example,--which, by
+the animosity prevalent between the abettors of their religious system
+and the assertors of ours, was in some degree effected.
+
+This day the evil is totally changed in France: but there is an evil
+there. The disease is altered; but the vicinity of the two countries
+remains, and must remain; and the natural mental habits of mankind are
+such, that the present distemper of France is far more likely to be
+contagious than the old one: for it is not quite easy to spread a
+passion for servitude among the people; but in all evils of the opposite
+kind our natural inclinations are flattered. In the case of despotism,
+there is the _fœdum crimen servitutis_: in the last, the _falsa SPECIES
+libertatis_; and accordingly, as the historian says, _pronis auribus
+accipitur_.
+
+In the last age we were in danger of being entangled by the example of
+France in the net of a relentless despotism. It is not necessary to say
+anything upon that example. It exists no longer. Our present danger from
+the example of a people whose character knows no medium is, with regard
+to government, a danger from anarchy: a danger of being led, through an
+admiration of successful fraud and violence, to an imitation of the
+excesses of an irrational, unprincipled, proscribing, confiscating,
+plundering, ferocious, bloody, and tyrannical democracy. On the side of
+religion, the danger of their example is no longer from intolerance, but
+from atheism: a foul, unnatural vice, foe to all the dignity and
+consolation of mankind; which seems in France, for a long time, to have
+been embodied into a faction, accredited, and almost avowed.
+
+These are our present dangers from France. But, in his opinion, the very
+worst part of the example set is in the late assumption of citizenship
+by the army, and the whole of the arrangement, or rather disarrangement,
+of their military.
+
+He was sorry that his right honorable friend (Mr. Fox) had dropped even
+a word expressive of exultation on that circumstance, or that he seemed
+of opinion that the objection from standing armies was at all lessened
+by it. He attributed this opinion of Mr. Fox entirely to his known zeal
+for the best of all causes, liberty. That it was with a pain
+inexpressible he was obliged to have even the shadow of a difference
+with his friend, whose authority would always be great with him, and
+with all thinking people,--_Quæ maxima semper censetur nobis, et_ ERIT
+_quæ maxima semper_;--his confidence in Mr. Fox was such, and so ample,
+as to be almost implicit. That he was not ashamed to avow that degree of
+docility. That, when the choice is well made, it strengthens, instead of
+oppressing our intellect. That he who calls in the aid of an equal
+understanding doubles his own. He who profits of a superior
+understanding raises his powers to a level with the height of the
+superior understanding he unites with. He had found the benefit of such
+a junction, and would not lightly depart from it. He wished almost, on
+all occasions, that his sentiments were understood to be conveyed in Mr.
+Fox's words. And that he wished, as amongst the greatest benefits he
+could wish the country, an eminent share of power to that right
+honorable gentleman; because he knew that to his great and masterly
+understanding he had joined the greatest possible degree of that natural
+moderation which is the best corrective of power: that he was of the
+most artless, candid, open, and benevolent disposition; disinterested in
+the extreme; of a temper mild and placable even to a fault; without one
+drop of gall in his whole constitution.
+
+That the House must perceive, from his coming forward to mark an
+expression or two of his best friend, how anxious he was to keep the
+distemper of France from the least countenance in England, where he was
+sure some wicked persons had shown a strong disposition to recommend an
+imitation of the French spirit of reform. He was so strongly opposed to
+any the least tendency towards the _means_ of introducing a democracy
+like theirs, as well as to the _end_ itself, that, much as it would
+afflict him, if such a thing could be attempted, and that any friend of
+his could concur in such measures, (he was far, very far, from believing
+they could,) he would abandon his best friends, and join with his worst
+enemies, to oppose either the means or the end,--and to resist all
+violent exertions of the spirit of innovation, so distant from all
+principles of true and safe reformation: a spirit well calculated to
+overturn states, but perfectly unfit to amend them.
+
+That he was no enemy to reformation. Almost every business in which he
+was much concerned, from the first day he sat in that House to that
+hour, was a business of reformation; and when he had not been employed
+in correcting, he had been employed in resisting abuses. Some traces of
+this spirit in him now stand on their statute-book. In his opinion,
+anything which unnecessarily tore to pieces the contexture of the state
+not only prevented all real reformation, but introduced evils which
+would call, but perhaps call in vain, for new reformation.
+
+That he thought the French nation very unwise. What they valued
+themselves on was a disgrace to them. They had gloried (and some people
+in England had thought fit to take share in that glory) in making a
+Revolution, as if revolutions were good things in themselves. All the
+horrors and all the crimes of the anarchy which led to their Revolution,
+which attend its progress, and which may virtually attend it in its
+establishment, pass for nothing with the lovers of revolutions. The
+French have made their way, through the destruction of their country, to
+a bad constitution, when they were absolutely in possession of a good
+one. They were in possession of it the day the states met in separate
+orders. Their business, had they been either virtuous or wise, or had
+been left to their own judgment, was to secure the stability and
+independence of the states, according to those orders, under the monarch
+on the throne. It was then their duty to redress grievances.
+
+Instead of redressing grievances, and improving the fabric of their
+state, to which they were called by their monarch and sent by their
+country, they were made to take a very different course. They first
+destroyed all the balances and counterpoises which serve to fix the
+state and to give it a steady direction, and which furnish sure
+correctives to any violent spirit which may prevail in any of the
+orders. These balances existed in their oldest constitution, and in the
+constitution of this country, and in the constitution of all the
+countries in Europe. These they rashly destroyed, and then they melted
+down the whole into one incongruous, ill-connected mass.
+
+When they had done this, they instantly, and with the most atrocious
+perfidy and breach of all faith among men, laid the axe to the root of
+all property, and consequently of all national prosperity, by the
+principles they established and the example they set, in confiscating
+all the possessions of the Church. They made and recorded a sort of
+_institute_ and _digest_ of anarchy, called the Rights of Man, in such a
+pedantic abuse of elementary principles as would have disgraced boys at
+school: but this declaration of rights was worse than trifling and
+pedantic in them; as by their name and authority they systematically
+destroyed every hold of authority by opinion, religious or civil, on the
+minds of the people. By this mad declaration they subverted the state,
+and brought on such calamities as no country, without a long war, has
+ever been known to suffer, and which may in the end produce such a war,
+and perhaps many such.
+
+With them the question was not between despotism and liberty. The
+sacrifice they made of the peace and power of their country was not made
+on the altar of freedom. Freedom, and a better security for freedom than
+that they have taken, they might have had without any sacrifice at all.
+They brought themselves into all the calamities they suffer, not that
+through them they might obtain a British constitution; they plunged
+themselves headlong into those calamities to prevent themselves from
+settling into that constitution, or into anything resembling it.
+
+That, if they should perfectly succeed in what they propose, as they are
+likely enough to do, and establish a democracy, or a mob of democracies,
+in a country circumstanced like France, they will establish a very bad
+government,--a very bad species of tyranny.
+
+That the worst effect of all their proceeding was on their military,
+which was rendered an army for every purpose but that of defence. That,
+if the question was, whether soldiers were to forget they were citizens,
+as an abstract proposition, he could have no difference about it;
+though, as it is usual, when abstract principles are to be applied, much
+was to be thought on the manner of uniting the character of citizen and
+soldier. But as applied to the events which had happened in France,
+where the abstract principle was clothed with its circumstances, he
+thought that his friend would agree with him, that what was done there
+furnished no matter of exultation, either in the act or the example.
+These soldiers were not citizens, but base, hireling mutineers, and
+mercenary, sordid deserters, wholly destitute of any honorable
+principle. Their conduct was one of the fruits of that anarchic spirit
+from the evils of which a democracy itself was to be resorted to, by
+those who were the least disposed to that form, as a sort of refuge. It
+was not an army in corps and with discipline, and embodied under the
+respectable patriot citizens of the state in resisting tyranny. Nothing
+like it. It was the case of common soldiers deserting from their
+officers, to join a furious, licentious populace. It was a desertion to
+a cause the real object of which was to level all those institutions,
+and to break all those connections, natural and civil, that regulate and
+hold together the community by a chain of subordination: to raise
+soldiers against their officers, servants against their masters,
+tradesmen against their customers, artificers against their employers,
+tenants against their landlords, curates against their bishops, and
+children against their parents. That this cause of theirs was not an
+enemy to servitude, but to society.
+
+He wished the House to consider how the members would like to have their
+mansions pulled down and pillaged, their persons abused, insulted, and
+destroyed, their title-deeds brought out and burned before their faces,
+and themselves and their families driven to seek refuge in every nation
+throughout Europe, for no other reason than this, that, without any
+fault of theirs, they were born gentlemen and men of property, and were
+suspected of a desire to preserve their consideration and their estates.
+The desertion in France was to aid an abominable sedition, the very
+professed principle of which was an implacable hostility to nobility and
+gentry, and whose savage war-whoop was, _"A l'Aristocrate!"_--by which
+senseless, bloody cry they animated one another to rapine and murder;
+whilst abetted by ambitious men of another class, they were crushing
+everything respectable and virtuous in their nation, and to their power
+disgracing almost every name by which we formerly knew there was such a
+country in the world as France.
+
+He knew too well, and he felt as much as any man, how difficult it was
+to accommodate a standing army to a free constitution, or to any
+constitution. An armed disciplined body is, in its essence, dangerous to
+liberty; undisciplined, it is ruinous to society. Its component parts
+are in the latter case neither good citizens nor good soldiers. What
+have they thought of in France, under such a difficulty as almost puts
+the human faculties to a stand? They have put their army under such a
+variety of principles of duty, that it is more likely to breed
+litigants, pettifoggers, and mutineers than soldiers.[76] They have set
+up, to balance their crown army, another army, deriving under another
+authority, called a municipal army,--a balance of armies, not of orders.
+These latter they have destroyed with every mark of insult and
+oppression. States may, and they will best, exist with a partition of
+civil powers. Armies cannot exist under a divided command. This state of
+things he thought in effect a state of war, or at best but a truce,
+instead of peace, in the country.
+
+What a dreadful thing is a standing army for the conduct of the whole or
+any part of which no man is responsible! In the present state of the
+French crown army, is the crown responsible for the whole of it? Is
+there any general who can be responsible for the obedience of a
+brigade, any colonel for that of a regiment, any captain for that of a
+company? And as to the municipal army, reinforced as it is by the new
+citizen deserters, under whose command are they? Have we not seen them,
+not led by, but dragging, their nominal commander, with a rope about his
+neck, when they, or those whom they accompanied, proceeded to the most
+atrocious acts of treason and murder? Are any of these armies? Are any
+of these citizens?
+
+We have in such a difficulty as that of fitting a standing army to the
+state, he conceived, done much better. We have not distracted our army
+by divided principles of obedience. We have put them under a single
+authority, with a simple (our common) oath of fidelity; and we keep the
+whole under our annual inspection. This was doing all that could be
+safely done.
+
+He felt some concern that this strange thing called a Revolution in
+France should be compared with the glorious event commonly called the
+Revolution in England, and the conduct of the soldiery on that occasion
+compared with the behavior of some of the troops of France in the
+present instance. At that period, the Prince of Orange, a prince of the
+blood-royal in England, was called in by the flower of the English
+aristocracy to defend its ancient Constitution, and not to level all
+distinctions. To this prince, so invited, the aristocratic leaders who
+commanded the troops went over with their several corps, in bodies, to
+the deliverer of their country. Aristocratic leaders brought up the
+corps of citizens who newly enlisted in this cause. Military obedience
+changed its object; but military discipline was not for a moment
+interrupted in its principle. The troops were ready for war, but
+indisposed to mutiny.
+
+But as the conduct of the English armies was different, so was that of
+the whole English nation at that time. In truth, the circumstances of
+our Revolution (as it is called) and that of France are just the reverse
+of each other in almost every particular, and in the whole spirit of the
+transaction. With us it was the case of a legal monarch attempting
+arbitrary power; in France it is the case of an arbitrary monarch
+beginning, from whatever cause, to legalize his authority. The one was
+to be resisted, the other was to be managed and directed; but in neither
+case was the order of the state to be changed, lest government might be
+ruined, which ought only to be corrected and legalized. With us we got
+rid of the man, and preserved the constituent parts of the state. There
+they get rid of the constituent parts of the state, and keep the man.
+What we did was in truth and substance, and in a constitutional light, a
+revolution, not made, but prevented. We took solid securities; we
+settled doubtful questions; we corrected anomalies in our law. In the
+stable, fundamental parts of our Constitution we made no
+revolution,--no, nor any alteration at all. We did not impair the
+monarchy. Perhaps it might be shown that we strengthened it very
+considerably. The nation kept the same ranks, the same orders, the same
+privileges, the same franchises, the same rules for property, the same
+subordinations, the same order in the law, in the revenue, and in the
+magistracy,--the same lords, the same commons, the same corporations,
+the same electors.
+
+The Church was not impaired. Her estates, her majesty, her splendor, her
+orders and gradations, continued the same. She was preserved in her
+full efficiency, and cleared only of a certain intolerance, which was
+her weakness and disgrace. The Church and the State were the same after
+the Revolution that they were before, but better secured in every part.
+
+Was little done because a revolution was not made in the Constitution?
+No! Everything was done; because we commenced with reparation, not with
+ruin. Accordingly, the state flourished. Instead of lying as dead, in a
+sort of trance, or exposed, as some others, in an epileptic fit, to the
+pity or derision of the world, for her wild, ridiculous, convulsive
+movements, impotent to every purpose but that of dashing out her brains
+against the pavement, Great Britain rose above the standard even of her
+former self. An era of a more improved domestic prosperity then
+commenced, and still continues, not only unimpaired, but growing, under
+the wasting hand of time. All the energies of the country were awakened.
+England never preserved a firmer countenance or a more vigorous arm to
+all her enemies and to all her rivals. Europe under her respired and
+revived. Everywhere she appeared as the protector, assertor, or avenger
+of liberty. A war was made and supported against fortune itself. The
+treaty of Ryswick, which first limited the power of France, was soon
+after made; the grand alliance very shortly followed, which shook to the
+foundations the dreadful power which menaced the independence of
+mankind. The states of Europe lay happy under the shade of a great and
+free monarchy, which knew how to be great without endangering its own
+peace at home or the internal or external peace of any of its
+neighbors.
+
+Mr. Burke said he should have felt very unpleasantly, if he had not
+delivered these sentiments. He was near the end of his natural, probably
+still nearer the end of his political career. That he was weak and
+weary, and wished for rest. That he was little disposed to
+controversies, or what is called a detailed opposition. That at his time
+of life, if he could not do something by some sort of weight of opinion,
+natural or acquired, it was useless and indecorous to attempt anything
+by mere struggle. _Turpe senex miles_. That he had for that reason
+little attended the army business, or that of the revenue, or almost any
+other matter of detail, for some years past. That he had, however, his
+task. He was far from condemning such opposition; on the contrary, he
+most highly applauded it, where a just occasion existed for it, and
+gentlemen had vigor and capacity to pursue it. Where a great occasion
+occurred, he was, and, while he continued in Parliament, would be,
+amongst the most active and the most earnest,--as he hoped he had shown
+on a late event. With respect to the Constitution itself, he wished few
+alterations in it,--happy if he left it not the worse for any share he
+had taken in its service.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Fox then rose, and declared, in substance, that, so far as regarded
+the French army, he went no farther than the general principle, by which
+that army showed itself indisposed to be an instrument in the servitude
+of their fellow-citizens, but did not enter into the particulars of
+their conduct. He declared that he did not affect a democracy: that he
+always thought any of the simple, unbalanced governments bad: simple
+monarchy, simple aristocracy, simple democracy,--he held them all
+imperfect or vicious; all were bad by themselves; the composition alone
+was good. That these had been always his principles, in which he had
+agreed with his friend Mr. Burke,--of whom he had said many kind and
+flattering things, which Mr. Burke, I take it for granted, will know
+himself too well to think he merits from anything but Mr. Fox's
+acknowledged good-nature. Mr. Fox thought, however, that, in many cases,
+Mr. Burke was rather carried too far by his hatred to innovation.
+
+Mr. Burke said, he well knew that these had been Mr. Fox's invariable
+opinions; that they were a sure ground for the confidence of his
+country. But he had been fearful that cabals of very different
+intentions would be ready to make use of his great name, against his
+character and sentiments, in order to derive a credit to their
+destructive machinations.
+
+Mr. Sheridan then rose, and made a lively and eloquent speech against
+Mr. Burke; in which, among other things, he said that Mr. Burke had
+libelled the National Assembly of France, and had cast out reflections
+on such characters as those of the Marquis de La Fayette and Mr. Bailly.
+
+Mr. Burke said, that he did not libel the National Assembly of France,
+whom he considered very little in the discussion of these matters. That
+he thought all the substantial power resided in the republic of Paris,
+whose authority guided, or whose example was followed by, all the
+republics of France. The republic of Paris had an army under their
+orders, and not under those of the National Assembly.
+
+N.B. As to the particular gentlemen, I do not remember that Mr. Burke
+mentioned either of them,--certainly not Mr. Bailly. He alluded,
+undoubtedly, to the case of the Marquis de La Fayette; but whether what
+he asserted of him be a libel on him must be left to those who are
+acquainted with the business.
+
+Mr. Pitt concluded the debate with becoming gravity and dignity, and a
+reserve on both sides of the question, as related to France, fit for a
+person in a ministerial situation. He said, that what he had spoken only
+regarded France when she should unite, which he rather thought she soon
+might, with the liberty she had acquired, the blessings of law and
+order. He, too, said several civil things concerning the sentiments of
+Mr. Burke, as applied to this country.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[75] Mr. Burke probably had in his mind the remainder of the passage,
+and was filled with some congenial apprehensions:--
+
+    Hæc finis Priami fatorum; hic exitus illum
+    Sorte tulit, Trojam incensam et prolapsa videntem
+    Pergama, tot quondam populis terrisque superbum
+    Regnatorem Asiæ. Jacet ingens littore truncus,
+    Avolsumque humeris caput, et sine nomine corpus.
+    _At me_ tum primum sævus circumstetit horror.
+    Obstupui: _subiit chari genitoris imago_.
+
+
+
+[76] They are Sworn to obey the king, the nation, and the law.
+
+
+
+
+REFLECTIONS
+
+ON THE
+
+REVOLUTION IN FRANCE,
+
+THE PROCEEDINGS IN CERTAIN SOCIETIES IN
+
+LONDON RELATIVE TO THAT EVENT:
+
+IN A LETTER
+
+INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN SENT TO A GENTLEMAN IN PARIS.
+
+1790.
+
+
+It may not be unnecessary to inform the reader that the following
+Reflections had their origin in a correspondence between the author and
+a very young gentleman at Paris, who did him the honor of desiring his
+opinion upon the important transactions which then, and ever since have,
+so much occupied the attention of all men. An answer was written some
+time in the month of October, 1789; but it was kept back upon prudential
+considerations. That letter is alluded to in the beginning of the
+following sheets. It has been since forwarded to the person to whom it
+was addressed. The reasons for the delay in sending it were assigned in
+a short letter to the same gentleman. This produced on his part a new
+and pressing application for the author's sentiments.
+
+The author began a second and more full discussion on the subject. This
+he had some thoughts of publishing early in the last spring; but the
+matter gaining upon him, he found that what he had undertaken not only
+far exceeded the measure of a letter, but that its importance required
+rather a more detailed consideration than at that time he had any
+leisure to bestow upon it. However, having thrown down his first
+thoughts in the form of a letter, and, indeed, when he sat down to
+write, having intended it for a private letter, he found it difficult to
+change the form of address, when his sentiments had grown into a greater
+extent and had received another direction. A different plan, he is
+sensible, might be more favorable to a commodious division and
+distribution of his matter.
+
+
+
+
+REFLECTIONS
+
+ON
+
+THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE.
+
+
+Dear Sir,--You are pleased to call again, and with some earnestness, for
+my thoughts on the late proceedings in France. I will not give you
+reason to imagine that I think my sentiments of such value as to wish
+myself to be solicited about them. They are of too little consequence to
+be very anxiously either communicated or withheld. It was from attention
+to you, and to you only, that I hesitated at the time when you first
+desired to receive them. In the first letter I had the honor to write to
+you, and which at length I send, I wrote neither for nor from any
+description of men; nor shall I in this. My errors, if any, are my own.
+My reputation alone is to answer for them.
+
+You see, Sir, by the long letter I have transmitted to you, that, though
+I do most heartily wish that France may be animated by a spirit of
+rational liberty, and that I think you bound, in all honest policy, to
+provide a permanent body in which that spirit may reside, and an
+effectual organ by which it may act, it is my misfortune to entertain
+great doubts concerning several material points in your late
+transactions.
+
+You imagined, when you wrote last, that I might possibly be reckoned
+among the approvers of certain proceedings in France, from the solemn
+public seal of sanction they have received from two clubs of gentlemen
+in London, called the Constitutional Society, and the Revolution
+Society.
+
+I certainly have the honor to belong to more clubs than one in which the
+Constitution of this kingdom and the principles of the glorious
+Revolution are held in high reverence; and I reckon myself among the
+most forward in my zeal for maintaining that Constitution and those
+principles in their utmost purity and vigor. It is because I do so that
+I think it necessary for me that there should be no mistake. Those who
+cultivate the memory of our Revolution, and those who are attached to
+the Constitution of this kingdom, will take good care how they are
+involved with persons who, under the pretext of zeal towards the
+Revolution and Constitution, too frequently wander from their true
+principles, and are ready on every occasion to depart from the firm, but
+cautious and deliberate, spirit which produced the one and which
+presides in the other. Before I proceed to answer the more material
+particulars in your letter, I shall beg leave to give you such
+information as I have been able to obtain of the two clubs which have
+thought proper, as bodies, to interfere in the concerns of
+France,--first assuring you that I am not, and that I have never been, a
+member of either of those societies.
+
+The first, calling itself the Constitutional Society, or Society for
+Constitutional Information, or by some such title, is, I believe, of
+seven or eight years' standing. The institution of this society appears
+to be of a charitable, and so far of a laudable nature: it was intended
+for the circulation, at the expense of the members, of many books which
+few others would be at the expense of buying, and which might lie on the
+hands of the booksellers, to the great loss of an useful body of men.
+Whether the books so charitably circulated were ever as charitably read
+is more than I know. Possibly several of them have been exported to
+France, and, like goods not in request here, may with you have found a
+market. I have heard much talk of the lights to be drawn from books that
+are sent from hence. What improvements they have had in their passage
+(as it is said some liquors are meliorated by crossing the sea) I cannot
+tell; but I never heard a man of common judgment or the least degree of
+information speak a word in praise of the greater part of the
+publications circulated by that society; nor have their proceedings been
+accounted, except by some of themselves, as of any serious consequence.
+
+Your National Assembly seems to entertain much the same opinion that I
+do of this poor charitable club. As a nation, you reserved the whole
+stock of your eloquent acknowledgments for the Revolution Society, when
+their fellows in the Constitutional were in equity entitled to some
+share. Since you have selected the Revolution Society as the great
+object of your national thanks and praises, you will think me excusable
+in making its late conduct the subject of my observations. The National
+Assembly of France has given importance to these gentlemen by adopting
+them; and they return the favor by acting as a committee in England for
+extending the principles of the National Assembly. Henceforward we must
+consider them as a kind of privileged persons, as no inconsiderable
+members in the diplomatic body. This is one among the revolutions which
+have given splendor to obscurity and distinction to undiscerned merit.
+Until very lately I do not recollect to have heard of this club. I am
+quite sure that it never occupied a moment of my thoughts,--nor, I
+believe, those of any person out of their own set. I find, upon inquiry,
+that, on the anniversary of the Revolution in 1688, a club of
+Dissenters, but of what denomination I know not, have long had the
+custom of hearing a sermon in one of their churches, and that afterwards
+they spent the day cheerfully, as other clubs do, at the tavern. But I
+never heard that any public measure or political system, much less that
+the merits of the constitution of any foreign nation, had been the
+subject of a formal proceeding at their festivals, until, to my
+inexpressible surprise, I found them in a sort of public capacity, by a
+congratulatory address, giving an authoritative sanction to the
+proceedings of the National Assembly in France.
+
+In the ancient principles and conduct of the club, so far at least as
+they were declared, I see nothing to which I could take exception. I
+think it very probable, that, for some purpose, new members may have
+entered among them,--and that some truly Christian politicians, who love
+to dispense benefits, but are careful to conceal the hand which
+distributes the dole, may have made them the instruments of their pious
+designs. Whatever I may have reason to suspect concerning private
+management, I shall speak of nothing as of a certainty but what is
+public.
+
+For one, I should be sorry to be thought directly or indirectly
+concerned in their proceedings. I certainly take my full share, along
+with the rest of the world, in my individual and private capacity, in
+speculating on what has been done, or is doing, on the public stage, in
+any place, ancient or modern,--in the republic of Rome, or the republic
+of Paris; but having no general apostolical mission, being a citizen of
+a particular state, and being bound up, in a considerable degree, by its
+public will, I should think it at least improper and irregular for me to
+open a formal public correspondence with the actual government of a
+foreign nation, without the express authority of the government under
+which I live.
+
+I should be still more unwilling to enter into that correspondence under
+anything like an equivocal description, which to many, unacquainted with
+our usages, might make the address in which I joined appear as the act
+of persons in some sort of corporate capacity, acknowledged by the laws
+of this kingdom, and authorized to speak the sense of some part of it.
+On account of the ambiguity and uncertainty of unauthorized general
+descriptions, and of the deceit which may be practised under them, and
+not from mere formality, the House of Commons would reject the most
+sneaking petition for the most trifling object, under that mode of
+signature to which you have thrown open the folding-doors of your
+presence-chamber, and have ushered into your National Assembly with as
+much ceremony and parade, and with as great a bustle of applause, as if
+you had been visited by the whole representative majesty of the whole
+English nation. If what this society has thought proper to send forth
+had been a piece of argument, it would have signified little whose
+argument it was. It would be neither the more nor the less convincing on
+account of the party it came from. But this is only a vote and
+resolution. It stands solely on authority; and in this case it is the
+mere authority of individuals, few of whom appear. Their signatures
+ought, in my opinion, to have been annexed to their instrument. The
+world would then have the means of knowing how many they are, who they
+are, and of what value their opinions may be, from their personal
+abilities, from their knowledge, their experience, or their lead and
+authority in this state. To me, who am but a plain man, the proceeding
+looks a little too refined and too ingenious; it has too much the air of
+a political stratagem, adopted for the sake of giving, under a
+high-sounding name, an importance to the public declarations of this
+club, which, when the matter came to be closely inspected, they did not
+altogether so well deserve. It is a policy that has very much the
+complexion of a fraud.
+
+I flatter myself that I love a manly, moral, regulated liberty as well
+as any gentleman of that society, be he who he will; and perhaps I have
+given as good proofs of my attachment to that cause, in the whole course
+of my public conduct. I think I envy liberty as little as they do to any
+other nation. But I cannot stand forward, and give praise or blame to
+anything which relates to human actions and human concerns on a simple
+view of the object, as it stands stripped of every relation, in all the
+nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction. Circumstances (which
+with some gentlemen pass for nothing) give in reality to every political
+principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The
+circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme
+beneficial or noxious to mankind. Abstractedly speaking, government, as
+well as liberty, is good; yet could I, in common sense, ten years ago,
+have felicitated France on her enjoyment of a government, (for she then
+had a government,) without inquiry what the nature of that government
+was, or how it was administered? Can I now congratulate the same nation
+upon its freedom? Is it because liberty in the abstract may be classed
+amongst the blessings of mankind, that I am seriously to felicitate a
+madman who has escaped from the protecting restraint and wholesome
+darkness of his cell on his restoration to the enjoyment of light and
+liberty? Am I to congratulate a highwayman and murderer who has broke
+prison upon the recovery of his natural rights? This would be to act
+over again the scene of the criminals condemned to the galleys, and
+their heroic deliverer, the metaphysic Knight of the Sorrowful
+Countenance.
+
+When I see the spirit of liberty in action, I see a strong principle at
+work; and this, for a while, is all I can possibly know of it. The wild
+gas, the fixed air, is plainly broke loose: but we ought to suspend our
+judgment until the first effervescence is a little subsided, till the
+liquor is cleared, and until we see something deeper than the agitation
+of a troubled and frothy surface. I must be tolerably sure, before I
+venture publicly to congratulate men upon a blessing, that they have
+really received one. Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver;
+and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings. I
+should therefore suspend my congratulations on the new liberty of
+France, until I was informed how it had been combined with government,
+with public force, with the discipline and obedience of armies, with the
+collection of an effective and well-distributed revenue, with morality
+and religion, with solidity and property, with peace and order, with
+civil and social manners. All these (in their way) are good things, too;
+and without them, liberty is not a benefit whilst it lasts, and is not
+likely to continue long. The effect of liberty to individuals is, that
+they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them
+to do, before we risk congratulations, which may be soon turned into
+complaints. Prudence would dictate this in the case of separate,
+insulated, private men. But liberty, when men act in bodies, is _power_.
+Considerate people, before they declare themselves, will observe the use
+which is made of _power_,--and particularly of so trying a thing as
+_new_ power in _new_ persons, of whose principles, tempers, and
+dispositions they have little or no experience, and in situations where
+those who appear the most stirring in the scene may possibly not be the
+real movers.
+
+All these considerations, however, were below the transcendental dignity
+of the Revolution Society. Whilst I continued in the country, from
+whence I had the honor of writing to you, I had but an imperfect idea of
+their transactions. On my coming to town, I sent for an account of their
+proceedings, which had been published by their authority, containing a
+sermon of Dr. Price, with the Duke de Rochefoucault's and the Archbishop
+of Aix's letter and several other documents annexed. The whole of that
+publication, with the manifest design of connecting the affairs of
+France with those of England, by drawing us into an imitation of the
+conduct of the National Assembly, gave me a considerable degree of
+uneasiness. The effect of that conduct upon the power, credit,
+prosperity, and tranquillity of France became every day more evident.
+The form of constitution to be settled, for its future polity, became
+more clear. We are now in a condition to discern with tolerable
+exactness the true nature of the object held up to our imitation. If the
+prudence of reserve and decorum dictates silence in some circumstances,
+in others prudence of a higher order may justify us in speaking our
+thoughts. The beginnings of confusion with us in England are at present
+feeble enough; but with you we have seen an infancy still more feeble
+growing by moments into a strength to heap mountains upon mountains, and
+to wage war with Heaven itself. Whenever our neighbor's house is on
+fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.
+Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions than ruined by too
+confident a security.
+
+Solicitous chiefly for the peace of my own country, but by no means
+unconcerned for yours, I wish to communicate more largely what was at
+first intended only for your private satisfaction. I shall still keep
+your affairs in my eye, and continue to address myself to you. Indulging
+myself in the freedom of epistolary intercourse, I beg leave to throw
+out my thoughts and express my feelings just as they arise in my mind,
+with very little attention to formal method. I set out with the
+proceedings of the Revolution Society; but I shall not confine myself to
+them. Is it possible I should? It looks to me as if I were in a great
+crisis, not of the affairs of France alone, but of all Europe, perhaps
+of more than Europe. All circumstances taken together, the French
+Revolution is the most astonishing that has hitherto happened in the
+world. The most wonderful things are brought about in many instances by
+means the most absurd and ridiculous, in the most ridiculous modes, and
+apparently by the most contemptible instruments. Everything seems out of
+nature in this strange chaos of levity and ferocity, and of all sorts of
+crimes jumbled together with all sorts of follies. In viewing this
+monstrous tragi-comic scene, the most opposite passions necessarily
+succeed and sometimes mix with each other in the mind: alternate
+contempt and indignation, alternate laughter and tears, alternate scorn
+and horror.
+
+It cannot, however, be denied that to some this strange scene appeared
+in quite another point of view. Into them it inspired no other
+sentiments than those of exultation and rapture. They saw nothing in
+what has been done in France but a firm and temperate exertion of
+freedom,--so consistent, on the whole, with morals and with piety as to
+make it deserving not only of the secular applause of dashing
+Machiavelian politicians, but to render it a fit theme for all the
+devout effusions of sacred eloquence.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the forenoon of the fourth of November last, Doctor Richard Price, a
+Non-Conforming minister of eminence, preached at the Dissenting
+meeting-house of the Old Jewry, to his club or society, a very
+extraordinary miscellaneous sermon, in which there are some good moral
+and religious sentiments, and not ill expressed, mixed up with a sort of
+porridge of various political opinions and reflections: but the
+Revolution in France is the grand ingredient in the caldron. I consider
+the address transmitted by the Revolution Society to the National
+Assembly, through Earl Stanhope, as originating in the principles of
+the sermon, and as a corollary from them. It was moved by the preacher
+of that discourse. It was passed by those who came reeking from the
+effect of the sermon, without any censure or qualification, expressed or
+implied. If, however, any of the gentlemen concerned shall wish to
+separate the sermon from the resolution, they know how to acknowledge
+the one and to disavow the other. They may do it: I cannot.
+
+For my part, I looked on that sermon as the public declaration of a man
+much connected with literary caballers and intriguing philosophers, with
+political theologians and theological politicians, both at home and
+abroad. I know they set him up as a sort of oracle; because, with the
+best intentions in the world, he naturally _philippizes_, and chants his
+prophetic song in exact unison with their designs.
+
+That sermon is in a strain which I believe has not been heard in this
+kingdom, in any of the pulpits which are tolerated or encouraged in it,
+since the year 1648,--when a predecessor of Dr. Price, the Reverend Hugh
+Peters, made the vault of the king's own chapel at St. James's ring with
+the honor and privilege of the saints, who, with the "high praises of
+God in their mouths, and a _two_-edged sword in their hands, were to
+execute judgment on the heathen, and punishments upon the _people_; to
+bind their _kings_ with chains, and their _nobles_ with fetters of
+iron."[77] Few harangues from the pulpit, except in the days of your
+League in France, or in the days of our Solemn League and Covenant in
+England, have ever breathed less of the spirit of moderation than this
+lecture in the Old Jewry. Supposing, however, that something like
+moderation were visible in this political sermon, yet politics and the
+pulpit are terms that have little agreement. No sound ought to be heard
+in the church but the healing voice of Christian charity. The cause of
+civil liberty and civil government gains as little as that of religion
+by this confusion of duties. Those who quit their proper character to
+assume what does not belong to them are, for the greater part, ignorant
+both of the character they leave and of the character they assume.
+Wholly unacquainted with the world, in which they are so fond of
+meddling, and inexperienced in all its affairs, on which they pronounce
+with so much confidence, they have nothing of politics but the passions
+they excite. Surely the church is a place where one day's truce ought to
+be allowed to the dissensions and animosities of mankind.
+
+This pulpit style, revived after so long a discontinuance, had to me the
+air of novelty, and of a novelty not wholly without danger. I do not
+charge this danger equally to every part of the discourse. The hint
+given to a noble and reverend lay-divine, who is supposed high in office
+in one of our universities,[78] and other lay-divines "of _rank_ and
+literature," may be proper and seasonable, though somewhat new. If the
+noble _Seekers_ should find nothing to satisfy their pious fancies in
+the old staple of the national Church, or in all the rich variety to be
+found in the well-assorted warehouses of the Dissenting congregations,
+Dr. Price advises them to improve upon Non-Conformity, and to set up,
+each of them, a separate meeting-house upon his own particular
+principles.[79] It is somewhat remarkable that this reverend divine
+should be so earnest for setting up new churches, and so perfectly
+indifferent concerning the doctrine which may be taught in them. His
+zeal is of a curious character. It is not for the propagation of his own
+opinions, but of any opinions. It is not for the diffusion of truth, but
+for the spreading of contradiction. Let the noble teachers but dissent,
+it is no matter from whom or from what. This great point once secured,
+it is taken for granted their religion will be rational and manly. I
+doubt whether religion would reap all the benefits which the calculating
+divine computes from this "great company of great preachers." It would
+certainly be a valuable addition of nondescripts to the ample collection
+of known classes, genera, and species, which at present beautify the
+_hortus siccus_ of Dissent. A sermon from a noble duke, or a noble
+marquis, or a noble earl, or baron bold, would certainly increase and
+diversify the amusements of this town, which begins to grow satiated
+with the uniform round of its vapid dissipations. I should only
+stipulate that these new _Mess-Johns_ in robes and coronets should keep
+some sort of bounds in the democratic and levelling principles which are
+expected from their titled pulpits. The new evangelists will, I dare
+say, disappoint the hopes that are conceived of them. They will not
+become, literally as well as figuratively, polemic divines,--nor be
+disposed so to drill their congregations, that they may, as in former
+blessed times, preach their doctrines to regiments of dragoons and corps
+of infantry and artillery. Such arrangements, however favorable to the
+cause of compulsory freedom, civil and religious, may not be equally
+conducive to the national tranquillity. These few restrictions I hope
+are no great stretches of intolerance, no very violent exertions of
+despotism.
+
+But I may say of our preacher, "_Utinam nugis tota illa dedisset et
+tempora sævitiæ_." All things in this his fulminating bull are not of so
+innoxious a tendency. His doctrines affect our Constitution in its vital
+parts. He tells the Revolution Society, in this political sermon, that
+his Majesty "is almost the _only_ lawful king in the world, because the
+_only_ one who owes his crown to _the choice of his people_." As to the
+kings of _the world_, all of whom (except one) this arch-pontiff of the
+_rights of men_, with all the plenitude and with more than the boldness
+of the Papal deposing power in its meridian fervor of the twelfth
+century, puts into one sweeping clause of ban and anathema, and
+proclaims usurpers by circles of longitude and latitude over the whole
+globe, it behooves them to consider how they admit into their
+territories these apostolic missionaries, who are to tell their subjects
+they are not lawful kings. That is their concern. It is ours, as a
+domestic interest of some moment, seriously to consider the solidity of
+the _only_ principle upon which these gentlemen acknowledge a king of
+Great Britain to be entitled to their allegiance.
+
+This doctrine, as applied to the prince now on the British throne,
+either is nonsense, and therefore neither true nor false, or it affirms
+a most unfounded, dangerous, illegal, and unconstitutional position.
+According to this spiritual doctor of politics, if his Majesty does not
+owe his crown to the choice of his people, he is no _lawful_ king. Now
+nothing can be more untrue than that the crown of this kingdom is so
+held by his Majesty. Therefore, if you follow their rule, the king of
+Great Britain, who most certainly does not owe his high office to any
+form of popular election, is in no respect better than the rest of the
+gang of usurpers, who reign, or rather rob, all over the face of this
+our miserable world, without any sort of right or title to the
+allegiance of their people. The policy of this general doctrine, so
+qualified, is evident enough. The propagators of this political gospel
+are in hopes their abstract principle (their principle that a popular
+choice is necessary to the legal existence of the sovereign magistracy)
+would be overlooked, whilst the king of Great Britain was not affected
+by it. In the mean time the ears of their congregations would be
+gradually habituated to it, as if it were a first principle admitted
+without dispute. For the present it would only operate as a theory,
+pickled in the preserving juices of pulpit eloquence, and laid by for
+future use. _Condo et compono quæ mox depromere passim_. By this policy,
+whilst our government is soothed with a reservation in its favor, to
+which it has no claim, the security which it has in common with all
+governments, so far as opinion is security, is taken away.
+
+Thus these politicians proceed, whilst little notice is taken of their
+doctrines; but when they come to be examined upon the plain meaning of
+their words and the direct tendency of their doctrines, then
+equivocations and slippery constructions come into play. When they say
+the king owes his crown to the choice of his people, and is therefore
+the only lawful sovereign in the world, they will perhaps tell us they
+mean to say no more than that some of the king's predecessors have been
+called to the throne by some sort of choice, and therefore he owes his
+crown to the choice of his people. Thus, by a miserable subterfuge, they
+hope to render their proposition safe by rendering it nugatory. They are
+welcome to the asylum they seek for their offence, since they take
+refuge in their folly. For, if you admit this interpretation, how does
+their idea of election differ from our idea of inheritance? And how does
+the settlement of the crown in the Brunswick line, derived from James
+the First, come to legalize our monarchy rather than that of any of the
+neighboring countries? At some time or other, to be sure, all the
+beginners of dynasties were chosen by those who called them to govern.
+There is ground enough for the opinion that all the kingdoms of Europe
+were at a remote period elective, with more or fewer limitations in the
+objects of choice. But whatever kings might have been here or elsewhere
+a thousand years ago, or in whatever manner the ruling dynasties of
+England or France may have begun, the king of Great Britain is at this
+day king by a fixed rule of succession, according to the laws of his
+country; and whilst the legal conditions of the compact of sovereignty
+are performed by him, (as they are performed,) he holds his crown in
+contempt of the choice of the Revolution Society, who have not a single
+vote for a king amongst them, either individually or collectively:
+though I make no doubt they would soon erect themselves into an
+electoral college, if things were ripe to give effect to their claim.
+His Majesty's heirs and successors, each in his time and order, will
+come to the crown with the same contempt of their choice with which his
+Majesty has succeeded to that he wears.
+
+Whatever may be the success of evasion in explaining away the gross
+error _fact_, which supposes that his Majesty (though he holds it in
+concurrence with the wishes) owes his crown to the choice of his people,
+yet nothing can evade their full, explicit declaration concerning the
+principle of a right in the people to choose,--which right is directly
+maintained, and tenaciously adhered to. All the oblique insinuations
+concerning election bottom in this proposition, and are referable to it.
+Lest the foundation of the king's exclusive legal title should pass for
+a mere rant of adulatory freedom, the political divine proceeds
+dogmatically to assert,[80] that, by the principles of the Revolution,
+the people of England have acquired three fundamental rights, all of
+which, with him, compose one system, and lie together in one short
+sentence: namely, that we have acquired a right
+
+1. "To choose our own governors."
+
+2. "To cashier them for misconduct."
+
+3. "To frame a government for ourselves."
+
+This new, and hitherto unheard-of bill of rights, though made in the
+name of the whole people, belongs to those gentlemen and their faction
+only. The body of the people of England have no share in it. They
+utterly disclaim it. They will resist the practical assertion of it with
+their lives and fortunes. They are bound to do so by the laws of their
+country, made at the time of that very Revolution which is appealed to
+in favor of the fictitious rights claimed by the society which abuses
+its name.
+
+These gentlemen of the Old Jewry, in all their reasonings on the
+Revolution of 1688, have a revolution which happened in England about
+forty years before, and the late French Revolution, so much before their
+eyes and in their hearts, that they are constantly confounding all the
+three together. It is necessary that we should separate what they
+confound. We must recall their erring fancies to the _acts_ of the
+Revolution which we revere, for the discovery of its true _principles_.
+If the _principles_ of the Revolution of 1688 are anywhere to be found,
+it is in the statute called the _Declaration of Right_. In that most
+wise, sober, and considerate declaration, drawn up by great lawyers and
+great statesmen, and not by warm and inexperienced enthusiasts, not one
+word is said, nor one suggestion made, of a general right "to choose our
+own _governors_, to cashier them for misconduct, and to _form_ a
+government for _ourselves_."
+
+This Declaration of Right (the act of the 1st of William and Mary, sess.
+2, ch. 2) is the corner-stone of our Constitution, as reinforced,
+explained, improved, and in its fundamental principles forever settled.
+It is called "An act for declaring the rights and liberties of the
+subject, and for _settling_ the _succession_ of the crown." You will
+observe that these rights and this succession are declared in one body,
+and bound indissolubly together.
+
+A few years after this period, a second opportunity offered for
+asserting a right of election to the crown. On the prospect of a total
+failure of issue from King William, and from the princess, afterwards
+Queen Anne, the consideration of the settlement of the Crown, and of a
+further security for the liberties of the people, again came before the
+legislature. Did they this second time make any provision for legalizing
+the crown on the spurious Revolution principles of the Old Jewry? No.
+They followed the principles which prevailed in the Declaration of
+Right; indicating with more precision the persons who were to inherit in
+the Protestant line. This act also incorporated, by the same policy, our
+liberties and an hereditary succession in the same act. Instead of a
+right to choose our own governors, they declared that the _succession_
+in that line (the Protestant line drawn from James the First) was
+absolutely necessary "for the peace, quiet, and security of the realm,"
+and that it was equally urgent on them "to maintain a _certainty in the
+succession_ thereof, to which the subjects may safely have recourse for
+their protection." Both these acts, in which are heard the unerring,
+unambiguous oracles of Revolution policy, instead of countenancing the
+delusive gypsy predictions of a "right to choose our governors," prove
+to a demonstration how totally adverse the wisdom of the nation was from
+turning a case of necessity into a rule of law.
+
+Unquestionably there was at the Revolution, in the person of King
+William, a small and a temporary deviation from the strict order of a
+regular hereditary succession; but it is against all genuine principles
+of jurisprudence to draw a principle from a law made in a special case
+and regarding an individual person. _Privilegium non transit in
+exemplum_. If ever there was a time favorable for establishing the
+principle that a king of popular choice was the only legal king, without
+all doubt it was at the Revolution. Its not being done at that time is
+a proof that the nation was of opinion it ought not to be done at any
+time. There is no person so completely ignorant of our history as not to
+know that the majority in Parliament, of both parties, were so little
+disposed to anything resembling that principle, that at first they were
+determined to place the vacant crown, not on the head of the Prince of
+Orange, but on that of his wife, Mary, daughter of King James, the
+eldest born of the issue of that king, which they acknowledged as
+undoubtedly his. It would be to repeat a very trite story, to recall to
+your memory all those circumstances which demonstrated that their
+accepting King William was not properly a _choice_; but to all those who
+did not wish in effect to recall King James, or to deluge their country
+in blood, and again to bring their religion, laws, and liberties into
+the peril they had just escaped, it was an act of _necessity_, in the
+strictest moral sense in which necessity can be taken.
+
+In the very act in which, for a time, and in a single case, Parliament
+departed from the strict order of inheritance, in favor of a prince who,
+though not next, was, however, very near in the line of succession, it
+is curious to observe how Lord Somers, who drew the bill called the
+Declaration of Right, has comported himself on that delicate occasion.
+It is curious to observe with what address this temporary solution of
+continuity is kept from the eye; whilst all that could be found in this
+act of necessity to countenance the idea of an hereditary succession is
+brought forward, and fostered, and made the most of, by this great man,
+and by the legislature who followed him. Quitting the dry, imperative
+style of an act of Parliament, he makes the Lords and Commons fall to a
+pious legislative ejaculation, and declare that they consider it "as a
+marvellous providence, and merciful goodness of God to this nation, to
+preserve their said Majesties' _royal_ persons most happily to reign
+over us _on the throne of their ancestors_, for which, from the bottom
+of their hearts, they return their humblest thanks and praises." The
+legislature plainly had in view the Act of Recognition of the first of
+Queen Elizabeth, chap. 3rd, and of that of James the First, chap. 1st,
+both acts strongly declaratory of the inheritable nature of the crown;
+and in many parts they follow, with a nearly literal precision, the
+words, and even the form of thanksgiving which is found in these old
+declaratory statutes.
+
+The two Houses, in the act of King William, did not thank God that they
+had found a fair opportunity to assert a right to choose their own
+governors, much less to make an election the _only lawful_ title to the
+crown. Their having been in a condition to avoid the very appearance of
+it, as much as possible, was by them considered as a providential
+escape. They threw a politic, well-wrought veil over every circumstance
+tending to weaken the rights which in the meliorated order of succession
+they meant to perpetuate, or which might furnish a precedent for any
+future departure from what they had then settled forever. Accordingly,
+that they might not relax the nerves of their monarchy, and that they
+might preserve a close conformity to the practice of their ancestors, as
+it appeared in the declaratory statutes of Queen Mary[81] and Queen
+Elizabeth, in the next clause they vest, by recognition, in their
+Majesties _all_ the legal prerogatives of the crown, declaring "that in
+them they are most _fully_, rightfully, and _entirely_ invested,
+incorporated, united, and annexed." In the clause which follows, for
+preventing questions, by reason of any pretended titles to the crown,
+they declare (observing also in this the traditionary language, along
+with the traditionary policy of the nation, and repeating as from a
+rubric the language of the preceding acts of Elizabeth and James) that
+on the preserving "a _certainty_ in the SUCCESSION thereof the unity,
+peace, and tranquillity of this nation doth, under God, wholly depend."
+
+They knew that a doubtful title of succession would but too much
+resemble an election, and that an election would be utterly destructive
+of the "unity, peace, and tranquillity of this nation," which they
+thought to be considerations of some moment. To provide for these
+objects, and therefore to exclude forever the Old Jewry doctrine of "a
+right to choose our own governors," they follow with a clause containing
+a most solemn pledge, taken from the preceding act of Queen
+Elizabeth,--as solemn a pledge as ever was or can be given in favor of
+an hereditary succession, and as solemn a renunciation as could be made
+of the principles by this society imputed to them:--"The Lords Spiritual
+and Temporal, and Commons, do, in the name of all the people aforesaid,
+most humbly and faithfully submit _themselves, their heirs, and
+posterities forever_; and do faithfully promise that they will stand to,
+maintain, and defend their said Majesties, and also the _limitation of
+the crown_, herein specified and contained, to the utmost of their
+powers," &c., &c.
+
+So far is it from being true that we acquired a right by the Revolution
+to elect our kings, that, if we had possessed it before, the English
+nation did at that time most solemnly renounce and abdicate it, for
+themselves, and for all their posterity forever. These gentlemen may
+value themselves as much as they please on their Whig principles; but I
+never desire to be thought a better Whig than Lord Somers, or to
+understand the principles of the Revolution better than those by whom it
+was brought about, or to read in the Declaration of Right any mysteries
+unknown to those whose penetrating style has engraved in our ordinances,
+and in our hearts, the words and spirit of that immortal law.
+
+It is true, that, aided with the powers derived from force and
+opportunity, the nation was at that time, in some sense, free to take
+what course it pleased for filling the throne,--but only free to do so
+upon the same grounds on which they might have wholly abolished their
+monarchy, and every other part of their Constitution. However, they did
+not think such bold changes within their commission. It is, indeed,
+difficult, perhaps impossible, to give limits to the mere _abstract_
+competence of the supreme power, such as was exercised by Parliament at
+that time; but the limits of a _moral_ competence, subjecting, even in
+powers more indisputably sovereign, occasional will to permanent reason,
+and to the steady maxims of faith, justice, and fixed fundamental
+policy, are perfectly intelligible, and perfectly binding upon those who
+exercise any authority, under any name, or under any title, in the
+state. The House of Lords, for instance, is not morally competent to
+dissolve the House of Commons,--no, nor even to dissolve itself, nor to
+abdicate, if it would, its portion in the legislature of the kingdom.
+Though a king may abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for
+the monarchy. By as strong, or by a stronger reason, the House of
+Commons cannot renounce its share of authority. The engagement and pact
+of society, which generally goes by the name of the Constitution,
+forbids such invasion and such surrender. The constituent parts of a
+state are obliged to hold their public faith with each other, and with
+all those who derive any serious interest under their engagements, as
+much as the whole state is bound to keep its faith with separate
+communities: otherwise, competence and power would soon be confounded,
+and no law be left but the will of a prevailing force. On this
+principle, the succession of the crown has always been what it now is,
+an hereditary succession by law: in the old line it was a succession by
+the Common Law; in the new by the statute law, operating on the
+principles of the Common Law, not changing the substance, but regulating
+the mode and describing the persons. Both these descriptions of law are
+of the same force, and are derived from an equal authority, emanating
+from the common agreement and original compact of the state, _communi
+sponsione reipublicæ_, and as such are equally binding on king, and
+people too, as long as the terms are observed, and they continue the
+same body politic.
+
+It is far from impossible to reconcile, if we do not suffer ourselves to
+be entangled in the mazes of metaphysic sophistry, the use both of a
+fixed rule and an occasional deviation,--the sacredness of an hereditary
+principle of succession in our government with a power of change in its
+application in cases of extreme emergency. Even in that extremity, (if
+we take the measure of our rights by our exercise of them at the
+Revolution,) the change is to be confined to the peccant part only,--to
+the part which produced the necessary deviation; and even then it is to
+be effected without a decomposition of the whole civil and political
+mass, for the purpose of originating a new civil order out of the first
+elements of society.
+
+A state without the means of some change is without the means of its
+conservation. Without such means it might even risk the loss of that
+part of the Constitution which it wished the most religiously to
+preserve. The two principles of conservation and correction operated
+strongly at the two critical periods of the Restoration and Revolution,
+when England found itself without a king. At both those periods the
+nation had lost the bond of union in their ancient edifice: they did
+not, however, dissolve the whole fabric. On the contrary, in both cases
+they regenerated the deficient part of the old Constitution through the
+parts which were not impaired. They kept these old parts exactly as they
+were, that the part recovered might be suited to them. They acted by the
+ancient organized states in the shape of their old organization, and not
+by the organic _moleculæ_ of a disbanded people. At no time, perhaps,
+did the sovereign legislature manifest a more tender regard to that
+fundamental principle of British constitutional policy than at the time
+of the Revolution, when it deviated from the direct line of hereditary
+succession. The crown was carried somewhat out of the line in which it
+had before moved; but the new line was derived from the same stock. It
+was still a line of hereditary descent; still an hereditary descent in
+the same blood, though an hereditary descent qualified with
+Protestantism. When the legislature altered the direction, but kept the
+principle, they showed that they held it inviolable.
+
+On this principle, the law of inheritance had admitted some amendment in
+the old time, and long before the era of the Revolution. Some time after
+the Conquest great questions arose upon the legal principles of
+hereditary descent. It became a matter of doubt whether the heir _per
+capita_ or the heir _per stirpes_ was to succeed; but whether the heir
+_per capita_ gave way when the heirdom _per stirpes_ took place, or the
+Catholic heir when the Protestant was preferred, the inheritable
+principle survived with a sort of immortality through all
+transmigrations,--
+
+                            Multosque per annos
+    Stat fortuna domûs, et avi numerantur avorum.
+
+This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course,
+but in all its revolutions. Whoever came in, or however he came in,
+whether he obtained the crown by law or by force, the hereditary
+succession was either continued or adopted.
+
+The gentlemen of the Society for Revolutions see nothing in that of 1688
+but the deviation from the Constitution; and they take the deviation
+from the principle for the principle. They have little regard to the
+obvious consequences of their doctrine, though they may see that it
+leaves positive authority in very few of the positive institutions of
+this country. When such an unwarrantable maxim is once established, that
+no throne is lawful but the elective, no one act of the princes who
+preceded this era of fictitious election can be valid. Do these
+theorists mean to imitate some of their predecessors, who dragged the
+bodies of our ancient sovereigns out of the quiet of their tombs? Do
+they mean to attaint and disable backwards all the kings that have
+reigned before the Revolution, and consequently to stain the throne of
+England with the blot of a continual usurpation? Do they mean to
+invalidate, annul, or to call into question, together with the titles of
+the whole line of our kings, that great body of our statute law which
+passed under those whom they treat as usurpers? to annul laws of
+inestimable value to our liberties,--of as great value at least as any
+which have passed at or since the period of the Revolution? If kings who
+did not owe their crown to the choice of their people had no title to
+make laws, what will become of the statute _De tallagio non concedendo?_
+of the _Petition of Right?_ of the act of _Habeas Corpus?_ Do these new
+doctors of the rights of men presume to assert that King James the
+Second, who came to the crown as next of blood, according to the rules
+of a then unqualified succession, was not to all intents and purposes a
+lawful king of England, before he had done any of those acts which were
+justly construed into an abdication of his crown? If he was not, much
+trouble in Parliament might have been saved at the period these
+gentlemen commemorate. But King James was a bad king with a good title,
+and not an usurper. The princes who succeeded according to the act of
+Parliament which settled the crown on the Electress Sophia and on her
+descendants, being Protestants, came in as much by a title of
+inheritance as King James did. He came in according to the law, as it
+stood at his accession to the crown; and the princes of the House of
+Brunswick came to the inheritance of the crown, not by election, but by
+the law, as it stood at their several accessions, of Protestant descent
+and inheritance, as I hope I have shown sufficiently.
+
+The law by which this royal family is specifically destined to the
+succession is the act of the 12th and 13th of King William. The terms of
+this act bind "us, and our _heirs_, and our _posterity_, to them, their
+_heirs_, and their _posterity_," being Protestants, to the end of time,
+in the same words as the Declaration of Right had bound us to the heirs
+of King William and Queen Mary. It therefore secures both an hereditary
+crown and an hereditary allegiance. On what ground, except the
+constitutional policy of forming an establishment to secure that kind of
+succession which is to preclude a choice of the people forever, could
+the legislature have fastidiously rejected the fair and abundant choice
+which our own country presented to them, and searched in strange lands
+for a foreign princess, from whose womb the line of our future rulers
+were to derive their title to govern millions of men through a series of
+ages?
+
+The Princess Sophia was named in the act of settlement of the 12th and
+13th of King William, for a _stock_ and root of _inheritance_ to our
+kings, and not for her merits as a temporary administratrix of a power
+which she might not, and in fact did not, herself ever exercise. She was
+adopted for one reason, and for one only,--because, says the act, "the
+most excellent Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess Dowager of
+Hanover, is _daughter_ of the most excellent Princess Elizabeth, late
+Queen of Bohemia, _daughter_ of our late _sovereign lord_ King James the
+First, of happy memory, and is hereby declared to be the next in
+_succession_ in the Protestant line," &c., &c.; "and the crown shall
+continue to the _heirs_ of her body, being Protestants." This limitation
+was made by Parliament, that through the Princess Sophia an inheritable
+line not only was to be continued in future, but (what they thought very
+material) that through her it was to be connected with the old stock of
+inheritance in King James the First; in order that the monarchy might
+preserve an unbroken unity through all ages, and might be preserved
+(with safety to our religion) in the old approved mode by descent, in
+which, if our liberties had been once endangered, they had often,
+through all storms and struggles of prerogative and privilege, been
+preserved. They did well. No experience has taught us that in any other
+course or method than that of an _hereditary crown_ our liberties can be
+regularly perpetuated and preserved sacred as our _hereditary right_. An
+irregular, convulsive movement may be necessary to throw off an
+irregular, convulsive disease. But the course of succession is the
+healthy habit of the British Constitution. Was it that the legislature
+wanted, at the act for the limitation of the crown in the Hanoverian
+line, drawn through the female descendants of James the First, a due
+sense of the inconveniences of having two or three, or possibly more,
+foreigners in succession to the British throne? No!--they had a due
+sense of the evils which might happen from such foreign rule, and more
+than a due sense of them. But a more decisive proof cannot be given of
+the full conviction of the British nation that the principles of the
+Revolution did not authorize them to elect kings at their pleasure, and
+without any attention to the ancient fundamental principles of our
+government, than their continuing to adopt a plan of hereditary
+Protestant succession in the old line, with all the dangers and all the
+inconveniences of its being a foreign line full before their eyes, and
+operating with the utmost force upon their minds.
+
+A few years ago I should be ashamed to overload a matter so capable of
+supporting itself by the then unnecessary support of any argument; but
+this seditious, unconstitutional doctrine is now publicly taught,
+avowed, and printed. The dislike I feel to revolutions, the signals for
+which have so often been given from pulpits,--the spirit of change that
+is gone abroad,--the total contempt which prevails with you, and may
+come to prevail with us, of all ancient institutions, when set in
+opposition to a present sense of convenience, or to the bent of a
+present inclination,--all these considerations make it not unadvisable,
+in my opinion, to call back our attention to the true principles of our
+own domestic laws, that you, my French friend, should begin to know, and
+that we should continue to cherish them. We ought not, on either side of
+the water, to suffer ourselves to be imposed upon by the counterfeit
+wares which some persons, by a double fraud, export to you in illicit
+bottoms, as raw commodities of British growth, though wholly alien to
+our soil, in order afterwards to smuggle them back again into this
+country, manufactured after the newest Paris fashion of an improved
+liberty.
+
+The people of England will not ape the fashions they have never tried,
+nor go back to those which they have found mischievous on trial. They
+look upon the legal hereditary succession of their crown as among their
+rights, not as among their wrongs,--as a benefit, not as a
+grievance,--as a security for their liberty, not as a badge of
+servitude. They look on the frame of their commonwealth, _such as it
+stands_, to be of inestimable value; and they conceive the undisturbed
+succession of the crown to be a pledge of the stability and perpetuity
+of all the other members of our Constitution.
+
+I shall beg leave, before I go any further, to take notice of some
+paltry artifices which the abettors of election as the only lawful title
+to the crown are ready to employ, in order to render the support of the
+just principles of our Constitution a task somewhat invidious. These
+sophisters substitute a fictitious cause, and feigned personages, in
+whose favor they suppose you engaged, whenever you defend the
+inheritable nature of the crown. It is common with them to dispute as if
+they were in a conflict with some of those exploded fanatics of slavery
+who formerly maintained, what I believe no creature now maintains, "that
+the crown is held by divine, hereditary, and indefeasible right." These
+old fanatics of single arbitrary power dogmatized as if hereditary
+royalty was the only lawful government in the world,--just as our new
+fanatics of popular arbitrary power maintain that a popular election is
+the sole lawful source of authority. The old prerogative enthusiasts, it
+is true, did speculate foolishly, and perhaps impiously too, as if
+monarchy had more of a divine sanction than any other mode of
+government,--and as if a right to govern by inheritance were in
+strictness _indefeasible_ in every person who should be found in the
+succession to a throne, and under every circumstance, which no civil or
+political right can be. But an absurd opinion concerning the king's
+hereditary right to the crown does not prejudice one that is rational,
+and bottomed upon solid principles of law and policy. If all the absurd
+theories of lawyers and divines were to vitiate the objects in which
+they are conversant, we should have no law and no religion left in the
+world. But an absurd theory on one side of a question forms no
+justification for alleging a false fact or promulgating mischievous
+maxims on the other.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The second claim of the Revolution Society is "a right of cashiering
+their governors for _misconduct_." Perhaps the apprehensions our
+ancestors entertained of forming such a precedent as that "of cashiering
+for misconduct" was the cause that the declaration of the act which
+implied the abdication of King James was, if it had any fault, rather
+too guarded and too circumstantial.[82] But all this guard, and all this
+accumulation of circumstances, serves to show the spirit of caution
+which predominated in the national councils, in a situation in which men
+irritated by oppression, and elevated by a triumph over it, are apt to
+abandon themselves to violent and extreme courses; it shows the anxiety
+of the great men who influenced the conduct of affairs at that great
+event to make the Revolution a parent of settlement, and not a nursery
+of future revolutions.
+
+No government could stand a moment, if it could be blown down with
+anything so loose and indefinite as an opinion of "_misconduct_." They
+who led at the Revolution grounded their virtual abdication of King
+James upon no such light and uncertain principle. They charged him with
+nothing less than a design, confirmed by a multitude of illegal overt
+acts, to _subvert the Protestant Church and State_, and their
+_fundamental_, unquestionable laws and liberties: they charged him with
+having broken the _original contrast_ between king and people. This was
+more than _misconduct_. A grave and overruling necessity obliged them to
+take the step they took, and took with infinite reluctance, as under
+that most rigorous of all laws. Their trust for the future preservation
+of the Constitution was not in future revolutions. The grand policy of
+all their regulations was to render it almost impracticable for any
+future sovereign to compel the states of the kingdom to have again
+recourse to those violent remedies. They left the crown, what in the eye
+and estimation of law it had ever been, perfectly irresponsible. In
+order to lighten the crown still further, they aggravated responsibility
+on ministers of state. By the statute of the first of King William,
+sess. 2d, called "_the act for declaring the rights and liberties of the
+subject, and for settling the succession of the crown_," they enacted
+that the ministers should serve the crown on the terms of that
+declaration. They secured soon after the _frequent meetings of
+Parliament_, by which the whole government would be under the constant
+inspection and active control of the popular representative and of the
+magnates of the kingdom. In the next great constitutional act, that of
+the 12th and 13th of King William, for the further limitation of the
+crown, and _better_ securing the rights and liberties of the subject,
+they provided "that no pardon under the great seal of England should be
+pleadable to an impeachment by the Commons in Parliament." The rule laid
+down for government in the Declaration of Right, the constant inspection
+of Parliament, the practical claim of impeachment, they thought
+infinitely a better security not only for their constitutional liberty,
+but against the vices of administration, than the reservation of a right
+so difficult in the practice, so uncertain in the issue, and often so
+mischievous in the consequences, as that "cashiering their governors."
+
+Dr. Price, in this sermon,[83] condemns, very properly, the practice of
+gross adulatory addresses to kings. Instead of this fulsome style, he
+proposes that his Majesty should be told, on occasions of
+congratulation, that "he is to consider himself as more properly the
+servant than the sovereign of his people." For a compliment, this new
+form of address does not seem to be very soothing. Those who are
+servants in name, as well as in effect, do not like to be told of their
+situation, their duty, and their obligations. The slave in the old play
+tells his master, "_Hæc commemeratio est quasi exprobratio_." It is not
+pleasant as compliment; it is not wholesome as instruction. After all,
+if the king were to bring himself to echo this new kind of address, to
+adopt it in terms, and even to take the appellation of Servant of the
+People as his royal style, how either he or we should be much mended by
+it I cannot imagine. I have seen very assuming letters signed, "Your
+most obedient, humble servant." The proudest domination that ever was
+endured on earth took a title of still greater humility than that which
+is now proposed for sovereigns by the Apostle of Liberty. Kings and
+nations were trampled upon by the foot of one calling himself "The
+Servant of Servants"; and mandates for deposing sovereigns were sealed
+with the signet of "The Fisherman."
+
+I should have considered all this as no more than a sort of flippant,
+vain discourse, in which, as in an unsavory fume, several persons suffer
+the spirit of liberty to evaporate, if it were not plainly in support of
+the idea, and a part of the scheme, of "cashiering kings for
+misconduct." In that light it is worth some observation.
+
+Kings, in one sense, are undoubtedly the servants of the people, because
+their power has no other rational end than that of the general
+advantage; but it is not true that they are, in the ordinary sense, (by
+our Constitution, at least,) anything like servants,--the essence of
+whose situation is to obey the commands of some other, and to be
+removable at pleasure. But the king of Great Britain obeys no other
+person; all other persons are individually, and collectively too, under
+him, and owe to him a legal obedience. The law, which knows neither to
+flatter nor to insult, calls this high-magistrate, not our servant, as
+this humble divine calls him, but "_our sovereign lord the king_"; and
+we, on our parts, have learned to speak only the primitive language of
+the law, and not the confused jargon of their Babylonian pulpits.
+
+As he is not to obey us, but we are to obey the law in him, our
+Constitution has made no sort of provision towards rendering him, as a
+servant, in any degree responsible. Our Constitution knows nothing of a
+magistrate like the _Justicia_ of Aragon,--nor of any court legally
+appointed, nor of any process legally settled, for submitting the king
+to the responsibility belonging to all servants. In this he is not
+distinguished from the commons and the lords, who, in their several
+public capacities, can never be called to an account for their conduct;
+although the Revolution Society chooses to assert, in direct opposition
+to one of the wisest and most beautiful parts of our Constitution, that
+"a king is no more than the first servant of the public, created by it,
+_and responsible to it_."
+
+Ill would our ancestors at the Revolution have deserved their fame for
+wisdom, if they had found no security for their freedom, but in
+rendering their government feeble in its operations and precarious in
+its tenure,--if they had been able to contrive no better remedy against
+arbitrary power than civil confusion. Let these gentlemen state who that
+_representative_ public is to whom they will affirm the king, as a
+servant, to be responsible. It will be then time enough for me to
+produce to them the positive statute law which affirms that he is not.
+
+The ceremony of cashiering kings, of which these gentlemen talk so much
+at their ease, can rarely, if ever, be performed without force. It then
+becomes a case of war, and not of constitution. Laws are commanded to
+hold their tongues amongst arms; and tribunals fall to the ground with
+the peace they are no longer able to uphold. The Revolution of 1688 was
+obtained by a just war, in the only case in which any war, and much more
+a civil war, can be just. "_Justa bella quibus_ NECESSARIA." The
+question of dethroning, or, if these gentlemen, like the phrase better,
+"cashiering kings," will always be, as it has always been, an
+extraordinary question of state, and wholly out of the law: a question
+(like all other questions of state) of dispositions, and of means, and
+of probable consequences, rather than of positive rights. As it was not
+made for common abuses, so it is not to be agitated by common minds. The
+speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end and
+resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable. It
+is not a single act or a single event which determines it. Governments
+must be abused and deranged indeed, before it can be thought of; and the
+prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the past.
+When things are in that lamentable condition, the nature of the disease
+is to indicate the remedy to those whom Nature has qualified to
+administer in extremities this critical, ambiguous, bitter potion to a
+distempered state. Times and occasions and provocations will teach their
+own lessons. The wise will determine from the gravity of the case; the
+irritable, from sensibility to oppression; the high-minded, from disdain
+and indignation at abusive power in unworthy hands; the brave and bold,
+from the love of honorable danger in a generous cause: but, with or
+without right, a revolution will be the very last resource of the
+thinking and the good.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The third head of right asserted by the pulpit of the Old Jewry, namely,
+the "right to form a government for ourselves," has, at least, as little
+countenance from anything done at the Revolution, either in precedent or
+principle, as the two first of their claims. The Revolution was made to
+preserve our _ancient_ indisputable laws and liberties, and that
+_ancient_ constitution of government which is our only security for law
+and liberty. If you are desirous of knowing the spirit of our
+Constitution, and the policy which predominated in that great period
+which has secured it to this hour, pray look for both in our histories,
+in our records, in our acts of Parliament and journals of Parliament,
+and not in the sermons of the Old Jewry, and the after-dinner toasts of
+the Revolution Society. In the former you will find other ideas and
+another language. Such a claim is as ill-suited to our temper and wishes
+as it is unsupported by any appearance of authority. The very idea of
+the fabrication of a new government is enough to fill us with disgust
+and horror. We wished at the period of the Revolution, and do now wish,
+to derive all we possess as _an inheritance from our forefathers_. Upon
+that body and stock of inheritance we have taken care not to inoculate
+any scion alien to the nature of the original plant. All the
+reformations we have hitherto made have proceeded upon the principle of
+reference to antiquity; and I hope, nay, I am persuaded, that all those
+which possibly may be made hereafter will be carefully formed upon
+analogical precedent, authority, and example.
+
+Our oldest reformation is that of Magna Charta. You will see that Sir
+Edward Coke, that great oracle of our law, and indeed all the great men
+who follow him, to Blackstone,[84] are industrious to prove the pedigree
+of our liberties. They endeavor to prove that the ancient charter, the
+Magna Charta of King John, was connected with another positive charter
+from Henry the First, and that both the one and the other were nothing
+more than a reaffirmance of the still more ancient standing law of the
+kingdom. In the matter of fact, for the greater part, these authors
+appear to be in the right; perhaps not always: but if the lawyers
+mistake in some particulars, it proves my position still the more
+strongly; because it demonstrates the powerful prepossession towards
+antiquity with which the minds of all our lawyers and legislators, and
+of all the people whom they wish to influence, have been always filled,
+and the stationary policy of this kingdom in considering their most
+sacred rights and franchises as an _inheritance_.
+
+In the famous law of the 3rd of Charles the First, called the _Petition
+of Right,_ the Parliament says to the king, "Your subjects have
+_inherited_ this freedom": claiming their franchises, not on abstract
+principles, "as the rights of men," but as the rights of Englishmen, and
+as a patrimony derived from their forefathers. Selden, and the other
+profoundly learned men who drew this Petition of Right, were as well
+acquainted, at least, with all the general theories concerning the
+"rights of men" as any of the discoursers in our pulpits or on your
+tribune: full as well as Dr. Price, or as the Abbé Sièyes. But, for
+reasons worthy of that practical wisdom which superseded their theoretic
+science, they preferred this positive, recorded, _hereditary_ title to
+all which can be dear to the man and the citizen to that vague,
+speculative right which exposed their sure inheritance to be scrambled
+for and torn to pieces by every wild, litigious spirit.
+
+The same policy pervades all the laws which have since been made for the
+preservation of our liberties. In the 1st of William and Mary, in the
+famous statute called the Declaration of Right, the two Houses utter not
+a syllable of "a right to frame a government for themselves." You will
+see that their whole care was to secure the religion, laws, and
+liberties that had been long possessed, and had been lately endangered.
+"Taking[85] into their most serious consideration the _best_ means for
+making such an establishment that their religion, laws, and liberties
+might not be in danger of being again subverted," they auspicate all
+their proceedings by stating as some of those _best_ means, "in the
+_first place_," to do "as their _ancestors in like cases have usually_
+done for vindicating their _ancient_ rights and liberties, to
+_declare_";--and then they pray the king and queen "that it may be
+_declared_ and enacted that _all and singular_ the rights and liberties
+_asserted and declared_ are the true _ancient_ and indubitable rights
+and liberties of the people of this kingdom."
+
+You will observe, that, from Magna Charta to the Declaration of Right,
+it has been the uniform policy of our Constitution to claim and assert
+our liberties as an _entailed inheritance_ derived to us from our
+forefathers, and to be transmitted to our posterity,--as an estate
+specially belonging to the people of this kingdom, without any reference
+whatever to any other more general or prior right. By this means our
+Constitution preserves an unity in so great a diversity of its parts. We
+have an inheritable crown, an inheritable peerage, and a House of
+Commons and a people inheriting privileges, franchises, and liberties
+from a long line of ancestors.
+
+This policy appears to me to be the result of profound reflection,--or
+rather the happy effect of following Nature, which is wisdom without
+reflection, and above it. A spirit of innovation is generally the result
+of a selfish temper and confined views. People will not look forward to
+posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors. Besides, the
+people of England well know that the idea of inheritance furnishes a
+sure principle of conservation, and a sure principle of transmission,
+without at all excluding a principle of improvement. It leaves
+acquisition free; but it secures what it acquires. Whatever advantages
+are obtained by a state proceeding on these maxims are locked fast as in
+a sort of family settlement, grasped as in a kind of mortmain forever.
+By a constitutional policy working after the pattern of Nature, we
+receive, we hold, we transmit our government and our privileges, in the
+same manner in which we enjoy and transmit our property and our lives.
+The institutions of policy, the goods of fortune, the gifts of
+Providence, are handed down to us, and from us, in the same course and
+order. Our political system is placed in a just correspondence and
+symmetry with the order of the world, and with the mode of existence
+decreed to a permanent body composed of transitory parts,--wherein, by
+the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great
+mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is
+never old or middle-aged or young, but, in a condition of unchangeable
+constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall,
+renovation, and progression. Thus, by preserving the method of Nature in
+the conduct of the state, in what we improve we are never wholly new, in
+what we retain we are never wholly obsolete. By adhering in this manner
+and on those principles to our forefathers, we are guided, not by the
+superstition of antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy.
+In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the
+image of a relation in blood: binding up the Constitution of our country
+with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the
+bosom of our family affections; keeping inseparable, and cherishing with
+the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities, our
+state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars.
+
+Through the same plan of a conformity to Nature in our artificial
+institutions, and by calling in the aid of her unerring and powerful
+instincts to fortify the fallible and feeble contrivances of our reason,
+we have derived several other, and those no small benefits, from
+considering our liberties in the light of an inheritance. Always acting
+as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom,
+leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful
+gravity. This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of
+habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost
+inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers
+of any distinction. By this means our liberty becomes a noble freedom.
+It carries an imposing and majestic aspect. It has a pedigree and
+illustrating ancestors. It has its bearings and its ensigns armorial. It
+has its gallery of portraits, its monumental inscriptions, its records,
+evidences, and titles. We procure reverence to our civil institutions on
+the principle upon which Nature teaches us to revere individual men: on
+account of their age, and on account of those from whom they are
+descended. All your sophisters cannot produce anything better adapted to
+preserve a rational and manly freedom than the course that we have
+pursued, who have chosen our nature rather than our speculations, our
+breasts rather than our inventions, for the great conservatories and
+magazines of our rights and privileges.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+You might, if you pleased, have profited of our example, and have given
+to your recovered freedom a correspondent dignity. Your privileges,
+though discontinued, were not lost to memory. Your Constitution, it is
+true, whilst you were out of possession, suffered waste and
+dilapidation; but you possessed in some parts the walls, and in all the
+foundations, of a noble and venerable castle. You might have repaired
+those walls; you might have built on those old foundations. Your
+Constitution was suspended before it was perfected; but you had the
+elements of a Constitution very nearly as good as could be wished. In
+your old states you possessed that variety of parts corresponding with
+the various descriptions of which your community was happily composed;
+you had all that combination and all that opposition of interests, you
+had that action and counteraction, which, in the natural and in the
+political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers draws
+out the harmony of the universe. These opposed and conflicting
+interests, which you considered as so great a blemish in your old and in
+our present Constitution, interpose a salutary check to all precipitate
+resolutions. They render deliberation a matter, not of choice, but of
+necessity; they make all change a subject of _compromise_, which
+naturally begets moderation; they produce _temperaments_, preventing the
+sore evil of harsh, crude, unqualified reformations, and rendering all
+the headlong exertions of arbitrary power, in the few or in the many,
+forever impracticable. Through that diversity of members and interests,
+general liberty had as many securities as there were separate views in
+the several orders; whilst by pressing down the whole by the weight of a
+real monarchy, the separate parts would have been prevented from warping
+and starting from their allotted places.
+
+You had all these advantages in your ancient states; but you chose to
+act as if you had never been moulded into civil society, and had
+everything to begin anew. You began ill, because you began by despising
+everything that belonged to you. You set up your trade without a
+capital. If the last generations of your country appeared without much
+lustre in your eyes, you might have passed them by, and derived your
+claims from a more early race of ancestors. Under a pious predilection
+for those ancestors, your imaginations would have realized in them a
+standard of virtue and wisdom beyond the vulgar practice of the hour;
+and you would have risen with the example to whose imitation you
+aspired. Respecting your forefathers, you would have been taught to
+respect yourselves. You would not have chosen to consider the French as
+a people of yesterday, as a nation of low-born, servile wretches until
+the emancipating year of 1789. In order to furnish, at the expense of
+your honor, an excuse to your apologists here for several enormities of
+yours, you would not have been content to be represented as a gang of
+Maroon slaves, suddenly broke loose from the house of bondage, and
+therefore to be pardoned for your abuse of the liberty to which you were
+not accustomed, and were ill fitted. Would it not, my worthy friend,
+have been wiser to have you thought, what I for one always thought you,
+a generous and gallant nation, long misled to your disadvantage by your
+high and romantic sentiments of fidelity, honor, and loyalty; that
+events had been unfavorable to you, but that you were not enslaved
+through any illiberal or servile disposition; that, in your most devoted
+submission, you were actuated by a principle of public spirit; and that
+it was your country you worshipped, in the person of your king? Had you
+made it to be understood, that, in the delusion of this amiable error,
+you had gone further than your wise ancestors,--that you were resolved
+to resume your ancient privileges, whilst you preserved the spirit of
+your ancient and your recent loyalty and honor; or if, diffident of
+yourselves, and not clearly discerning the almost obliterated
+Constitution of your ancestors, you had looked to your neighbors in this
+land, who had kept alive the ancient principles and models of the old
+common law of Europe, meliorated and adapted to its present state,--by
+following wise examples you would have given new examples of wisdom to
+the world. You would have rendered the cause of liberty venerable in the
+eyes of every worthy mind in every nation. You would have shamed
+despotism from the earth, by showing that freedom was not only
+reconcilable, but, as, when well disciplined, it is, auxiliary to law.
+You would have had an unoppressive, but a productive revenue. You would
+have had a flourishing commerce to feed it. You would have had a free
+Constitution, a potent monarchy, a disciplined army, a reformed and
+venerated clergy,--a mitigated, but spirited nobility, to lead your
+virtue, not to overlay it; you would have had a liberal order of
+commons, to emulate and to recruit that nobility; you would have had a
+protected, satisfied, laborious, and obedient people, taught to seek and
+to recognize the happiness that is to be found by virtue in all
+conditions,--in which consists the true moral equality of mankind, and
+not in that monstrous fiction which, by inspiring false ideas and vain
+expectations into men destined to travel in the obscure walk of
+laborious life, serves only to aggravate and embitter that real
+inequality which it never can remove, and which the order of civil life
+establishes as much for the benefit of those whom it must leave in an
+humble state as those whom it is able to exalt to a condition more
+splendid, but not more happy. You had a smooth and easy career of
+felicity and glory laid open to you, beyond anything recorded in the
+history of the world; but you have shown that difficulty is good for
+man.
+
+Compute your gains; see what is got by those extravagant and
+presumptuous speculations which have taught your leaders to despise all
+their predecessors, and all their contemporaries, and even to despise
+themselves, until the moment in which they became truly despicable. By
+following those false lights, France has bought undisguised calamities
+at a higher price than any nation has purchased the most unequivocal
+blessings. France has bought poverty by crime. France has not sacrificed
+her virtue to her interest; but she has abandoned her interest, that she
+might prostitute her virtue. All other nations have begun the fabric of
+a new government, or the reformation of an old, by establishing
+originally, or by enforcing with greater exactness, some rites or other
+of religion. All other people have laid the foundations of civil freedom
+in severer manners, and a system of a more austere and masculine
+morality. France, when she let loose the reins of regal authority,
+doubled the license of a ferocious dissoluteness in manners, and of an
+insolent irreligion in opinions and practices,--and has extended through
+all ranks of life, as if she were communicating some privilege, or
+laying open some secluded benefit, all the unhappy corruptions that
+usually were the disease of wealth and power. This is one of the new
+principles of equality in France.
+
+France, by the perfidy of her leaders, has utterly disgraced the tone of
+lenient council in the cabinets of princes, and disarmed it of its most
+potent topics. She has sanctified the dark, suspicious maxims of
+tyrannous distrust, and taught kings to tremble at (what will hereafter
+be called) the delusive plausibilities of moral politicians. Sovereigns
+will consider those who advise them to place an unlimited confidence in
+their people as subverters of their thrones,--as traitors who aim at
+their destruction, by leading their easy good-nature, under specious
+pretences, to admit combinations of bold and faithless men into a
+participation of their power. This alone (if there were nothing else) is
+an irreparable calamity to you and to mankind. Remember that your
+Parliament of Paris told your king, that, in calling the states
+together, he had nothing to fear but the prodigal excess of their zeal
+in providing for the support of the throne. It is right that these men
+should hide their heads. It is right that they should bear their part in
+the ruin which their counsel has brought on their sovereign and their
+country. Such sanguine declarations tend to lull authority asleep,--to
+encourage it rashly to engage in perilous adventures of untried
+policy,--to neglect those provisions, preparations, and precautions
+which distinguish benevolence from imbecility, and without which no man
+can answer for the salutary effect of any abstract plan of government or
+of freedom. For want of these, they have seen the medicine of the state
+corrupted into its poison. They have seen the French rebel against a
+mild and lawful monarch, with more fury, outrage, and insult than ever
+any people has been known to rise against the most illegal usurper or
+the most sanguinary tyrant. Their resistance was made to concession;
+their revolt was from protection; their blow was aimed at a hand holding
+out graces, favors, and immunities.
+
+This was unnatural. The rest is in order. They have found their
+punishment in their success. Laws overturned; tribunals subverted;
+industry without vigor; commerce expiring; the revenue unpaid, yet the
+people impoverished; a church pillaged, and a state not relieved; civil
+and military anarchy made the constitution of the kingdom; everything
+human and divine sacrificed to the idol of public credit, and national
+bankruptcy the consequence; and, to crown all, the paper securities of
+new, precarious, tottering power, the discredited paper securities of
+impoverished fraud and beggared rapine, held out as a currency for the
+support of an empire, in lieu of the two great recognized species that
+represent the lasting, conventional credit of mankind, which disappeared
+and hid themselves in the earth from whence they came, when the
+principle of property, whose creatures and representatives they are, was
+systematically subverted.
+
+Were all these dreadful things necessary? Were they the inevitable
+results of the desperate struggle of determined patriots, compelled to
+wade through blood and tumult to the quiet shore of a tranquil and
+prosperous liberty? No! nothing like it. The fresh ruins of France,
+which shock our feelings wherever we can turn our eyes, are not the
+devastation of civil war: they are the sad, but instructive monuments of
+rash and ignorant counsel in time of profound peace. They are the
+display of inconsiderate and presumptuous, because unresisted and
+irresistible authority. The persons who have thus squandered away the
+precious treasure of their crimes, the persons who have made this
+prodigal and wild waste of public evils, (the last stake reserved for
+the ultimate ransom of the state,) have met in their progress with
+little, or rather with no opposition at all. Their whole march was more
+like a triumphal procession than the progress of a war. Their pioneers
+have gone before them, and demolished and laid everything level at their
+feet. Not one drop of _their_ blood have they shed in the cause of the
+country they have ruined. They have made no sacrifices to their projects
+of greater consequence than their shoe-buckles, whilst they were
+imprisoning their king, murdering their fellow-citizens, and bathing in
+tears and plunging in poverty and distress thousands of worthy men and
+worthy families. Their cruelty has not even been the base result of
+fear. It has been the effect of their sense of perfect safety, in
+authorizing treasons, robberies, rapes, assassinations, slaughters, and
+burnings, throughout their harassed land. But the cause of all was plain
+from the beginning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This unforced choice, this fond election of evil, would appear perfectly
+unaccountable, if we did not consider the composition of the National
+Assembly: I do not mean its formal constitution, which, as it now
+stands, is exceptionable enough, but the materials of which in a great
+measure it is composed, which is of ten thousand times greater
+consequence than all the formalities in the world. If we were to know
+nothing of this assembly but by its title and function, no colors could
+paint to the imagination anything more venerable. In that light, the
+mind of an inquirer, subdued by such an awful image as that of the
+virtue and wisdom of a whole people collected into one focus, would
+pause and hesitate in condemning things even of the very worst aspect.
+Instead of blamable, they would appear only mysterious. But no name, no
+power, no function, no artificial institution whatsoever, can make the
+men, of whom any system of authority is composed, any other than God,
+and Nature, and education, and their habits of life have made them.
+Capacities beyond these the people have not to give. Virtue and wisdom
+may be the objects of their choice; but their choice confers neither the
+one nor the other on those upon whom they lay their ordaining hands.
+They have not the engagement of Nature, they have not the promise of
+Revelation for any such powers.
+
+After I had read over the list of the persons and descriptions elected
+into the _Tiers État_, nothing which they afterwards did could appear
+astonishing. Among them, indeed, I saw some of known rank, some of
+shining talents; but of any practical experience in the state not one
+man was to be found. The best were only men of theory. But whatever the
+distinguished few may have been, it is the substance and mass of the
+body which constitutes its character, and must finally determine its
+direction. In all bodies, those who will lead must also, in a
+considerable degree, follow. They must conform their propositions to the
+taste, talent, and disposition of those whom they wish to conduct:
+therefore, if an assembly is viciously or feebly composed in a very
+great part of it, nothing but such a supreme degree of virtue as very
+rarely appears in the world, and for that reason cannot enter into
+calculation, will prevent the men of talents disseminated through it
+from becoming only the expert instruments of absurd projects. If, what
+is the more likely event, instead of that unusual degree of virtue, they
+should be actuated by sinister ambition and a lust of meretricious
+glory, then the feeble part of the assembly, to whom at first they
+conform, becomes, in its turn, the dupe and instrument of their designs.
+In this political traffic, the leaders will be obliged to bow to the
+ignorance of their followers, and the followers to become subservient to
+the worst designs of their leaders.
+
+To secure any degree of sobriety in the propositions made by the leaders
+in any public assembly, they ought to respect, in some degree perhaps to
+fear, those whom they conduct. To be led any otherwise than blindly, the
+followers must be qualified, if not for actors, at least for judges;
+they must also be judges of natural weight and authority. Nothing can
+secure a steady and moderate conduct in such assemblies, but that the
+body of them should be respectably composed, in point of condition in
+life, of permanent property, of education, and of such habits as enlarge
+and liberalize the understanding.
+
+In the calling of the States-General of France, the first thing that
+struck me was a great departure from the ancient course. I found the
+representation for the third estate composed of six hundred persons.
+They were equal in number to the representatives of both the other
+orders. If the orders were to act separately, the number would not,
+beyond the consideration of the expense, be of much moment. But when it
+became apparent that the three orders were to be melted down into one,
+the policy and necessary effect of this numerous representation became
+obvious. A very small desertion from either of the other two orders
+must throw the power of both into the hands of the third. In fact, the
+whole power of the state was soon resolved into that body. Its due
+composition became, therefore, of infinitely the greater importance.
+
+Judge, Sir, of my surprise, when I found that a very great proportion of
+the Assembly (a majority, I believe, of the members who attended) was
+composed of practitioners in the law. It was composed, not of
+distinguished magistrates, who had given pledges to their country of
+their science, prudence, and integrity,--not of leading advocates, the
+glory of the bar,--not of renowned professors in universities,--but for
+the far greater part, as it must in such a number, of the inferior,
+unlearned, mechanical, merely instrumental members of the profession.
+There were distinguished exceptions; but the general composition was of
+obscure provincial advocates, of stewards of petty local jurisdictions,
+country attorneys, notaries, and the whole train of the ministers of
+municipal litigation, the fomenters and conductors of the petty war of
+village vexation. From the moment I read the list, I saw distinctly, and
+very nearly as it has happened, all that was to follow.
+
+The degree of estimation in which any profession is held becomes the
+standard of the estimation in which the professors hold themselves.
+Whatever the personal merits of many individual lawyers might have been,
+(and in many it was undoubtedly very considerable,) in that military
+kingdom no part of the profession had been much regarded, except the
+highest of all, who often united to their professional offices great
+family splendor, and were invested with great power and authority. These
+certainly were highly respected, and even with no small degree of awe.
+The next rank was not much esteemed; the mechanical part was in a very
+low degree of repute.
+
+Whenever the supreme authority is vested in a body so composed, it must
+evidently produce the consequences of supreme authority placed in the
+hands of men not taught habitually to respect themselves,--who had no
+previous fortune in character at stake,--who could not be expected to
+bear with moderation or to conduct with discretion a power which they
+themselves, more than any others, must be surprised to find in their
+hands. Who could flatter himself that these men, suddenly, and as it
+were by enchantment, snatched from the humblest rank of subordination,
+would not be intoxicated with their unprepared greatness? Who could
+conceive that men who are habitually meddling, daring, subtle, active,
+of litigious dispositions and unquiet minds, would easily fall back into
+their old condition of obscure contention, and laborious, low, and
+unprofitable chicane? Who could doubt but that, at any expense to the
+state, of which they understood nothing, they must pursue their private
+interests, which they understood but too well? It was not an event
+depending on chance or contingency. It was inevitable; it was necessary;
+it was planted in the nature of things. They must _join_ (if their
+capacity did not permit them to _lead_) in any project which could
+procure to them a _litigious constitution_,--which could lay open to
+them those innumerable lucrative jobs which follow in the train of all
+great convulsions and revolutions in the state, and particularly in all
+great and violent permutations of property. Was it to be expected that
+they would attend to the stability of property, whose existence had
+always depended upon whatever rendered property questionable, ambiguous,
+and insecure? Their objects would be enlarged with their elevation; but
+their disposition, and habits, and mode of accomplishing their designs
+must remain the same.
+
+Well! but these men were to be tempered and restrained by other
+descriptions, of more sober minds and more enlarged understandings. Were
+they, then, to be awed by the supereminent authority and awful dignity
+of a handful of country clowns, who have seats in that assembly, some of
+whom are said not to be able to read and write,--and by not a greater
+number of traders, who, though somewhat more instructed, and more
+conspicuous in the order of society, had never known anything beyond
+their counting-house? No! both these descriptions were more formed to be
+overborne and swayed by the intrigues and artifices of lawyers than to
+become their counterpoise. With such a dangerous disproportion, the
+whole must needs be governed by them.
+
+To the faculty of law was joined a pretty considerable proportion of the
+faculty of medicine. This faculty had not, any more than that of the
+law, possessed in France its just estimation. Its professors, therefore,
+must have the qualities of men not habituated to sentiments of dignity.
+But supposing they had ranked as they ought to do, and as with us they
+do actually, the sides of sick-beds are not the academies for forming
+statesmen and legislators. Then came the dealers in stocks and funds,
+who must be eager, at any expense, to change their ideal paper wealth
+for the more solid substance of land. To these were joined men of other
+descriptions, from whom as little knowledge of or attention to the
+interests of a great state was to be expected, and as little regard to
+the stability of any institution,--men formed to be instruments, not
+controls.--Such, in general, was the composition of the _Tiers État_ in
+the National Assembly; in which was scarcely to be perceived the
+slightest traces of what we call the natural landed interest of the
+country.
+
+We know that the British House of Commons, without shutting its doors to
+any merit in any class, is, by the sure operation of adequate causes,
+filled with everything illustrious in rank, in descent, in hereditary
+and in acquired opulence, in cultivated talents, in military, civil,
+naval, and politic distinction, that the country can afford. But
+supposing, what hardly can be supposed as a case, that the House of
+Commons should be composed in the same manner with the _Tiers État_ in
+France,--would this dominion of chicane be borne with patience, or even
+conceived without horror? God forbid I should insinuate anything
+derogatory to that profession which is another priesthood, administering
+the rights of sacred justice! But whilst I revere men in the functions
+which belong to them, and would do as much as one man can do to prevent
+their exclusion from any, I cannot, to flatter them, give the lie to
+Nature. They are good and useful in the composition; they must be
+mischievous, if they preponderate so as virtually to become the whole.
+Their very excellence in their peculiar functions may be far from a
+qualification for others. It cannot escape observation, that, when men
+are too much confined to professional and faculty habits, and, as it
+were, inveterate in the recurrent employment of that narrow circle, they
+are rather disabled than qualified for whatever depends on the
+knowledge of mankind, on experience in mixed affairs, on a
+comprehensive, connected view of the various, complicated, external, and
+internal interests which go to the formation of that multifarious thing
+called a State.
+
+After all, if the House of Commons were to have an wholly professional
+and faculty composition, what is the power of the House of Commons,
+circumscribed and shut in by the immovable barriers of laws, usages,
+positive rules of doctrine and practice, counterpoised by the House of
+Lords, and every moment of its existence at the discretion of the crown
+to continue, prorogue, or dissolve us? The power of the House of
+Commons, direct or indirect, is, indeed, great: and long may it be able
+to preserve its greatness, and the spirit belonging to true greatness,
+at the full!--and it will do so, as long as it can keep the breakers of
+law in India from becoming the makers of law for England. The power,
+however, of the House of Commons, when least diminished, is as a drop of
+water in the ocean, compared to that residing in a settled majority of
+your National Assembly. That assembly, since the destruction of the
+orders, has no fundamental law, no strict convention, no respected usage
+to restrain it. Instead of finding themselves obliged to conform to a
+fixed constitution, they have a power to make a constitution which shall
+conform to their designs. Nothing in heaven or upon earth can serve as a
+control on them. What ought to be the heads, the hearts, the
+dispositions, that are qualified, or that dare, not only to make laws
+under a fixed constitution, but at one heat to strike out a totally new
+constitution for a great kingdom, and in every part of it, from the
+monarch on the throne to the vestry of a parish? But
+
+    "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
+
+In such a state of unbounded power, for undefined and undefinable
+purposes, the evil of a moral and almost physical inaptitude of the man
+to the function must be the greatest we can conceive to happen in the
+management of human affairs.
+
+Having considered the composition of the third estate, as it stood in
+its original frame, I took a view of the representatives of the clergy.
+There, too, it appeared that full as little regard was had to the
+general security of property, or to the aptitude of the deputies for
+their public purposes, in the principles of their election. That
+election was so contrived as to send a very large proportion of mere
+country curates to the great and arduous work of new-modelling a state:
+men who never had seen the state so much as in a picture; men who knew
+nothing of the world beyond the bounds of an obscure village; who,
+immersed in hopeless poverty, could regard all property, whether secular
+or ecclesiastical, with no other eye than that of envy; among whom must
+be many who, for the smallest hope of the meanest dividend in plunder,
+would readily join in any attempts upon a body of wealth in which they
+could hardly look to have any share, except in a general scramble.
+Instead of balancing the power of the active chicaners in the other
+assembly, these curates must necessarily become the active coadjutors,
+or at best the passive instruments, of those by whom they had been
+habitually guided in their petty village concerns. They, too, could
+hardly be the most conscientious of their kind, who, presuming upon
+their incompetent understanding, could intrigue for a trust which led
+them from their natural relation to their flocks, and their natural
+spheres of action, to undertake the regeneration of kingdoms. This
+preponderating weight, being added to the force of the body of chicane
+in the _Tiers État_, completed that momentum of ignorance, rashness,
+presumption, and lust of plunder, which nothing has been able to resist.
+
+To observing men it must have appeared from the beginning, that the
+majority of the third estate, in conjunction with such a deputation from
+the clergy as I have described, whilst it pursued the destruction of the
+nobility, would inevitably become subservient to the worst designs of
+individuals in that class. In the spoil and humiliation of their own
+order these individuals would possess a sure fund for the pay of their
+new followers. To squander away the objects which made the happiness of
+their fellows would be to them no sacrifice at all. Turbulent,
+discontented men of quality, in proportion as they are puffed up with
+personal pride and arrogance, generally despise their own order. One of
+the first symptoms they discover of a selfish and mischievous ambition
+is a profligate disregard of a dignity which they partake with others.
+To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong
+to in society, is the first principle (the germ, as it were) of public
+affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed
+towards a love to our country and to mankind. The interest of that
+portion of social arrangement is a trust in the hands of all those who
+compose it; and as none but bad men would justify it in abuse, none but
+traitors would barter it away for their own personal advantage.
+
+There were, in the time of our civil troubles in England, (I do not know
+whether you have any such in your Assembly in France,) several persons,
+like the then Earl of Holland, who by themselves or their families had
+brought an odium on the throne by the prodigal dispensation of its
+bounties towards them, who afterwards joined in the rebellions arising
+from the discontents of which they were themselves the cause: men who
+helped to subvert that throne to which they owed, some of them, their
+existence, others all that power which they employed to ruin their
+benefactor. If any bounds are set to the rapacious demands of that sort
+of people, or that others are permitted to partake in the objects they
+would engross, revenge and envy soon fill up the craving void that is
+left in their avarice. Confounded by the complication of distempered
+passions, their reason is disturbed; their views become vast and
+perplexed,--to others inexplicable, to themselves uncertain. They find,
+on all sides, bounds to their unprincipled ambition in any fixed order
+of things; but in the fog and haze of confusion all is enlarged, and
+appears without any limit.
+
+When men of rank sacrifice all ideas of dignity to an ambition without a
+distinct object, and work with low instruments and for low ends, the
+whole composition becomes low and base. Does not something like this now
+appear in France? Does it not produce something ignoble and inglorious:
+a kind of meanness in all the prevalent policy; a tendency in all that
+is done to lower along with individuals all the dignity and importance
+of the state? Other revolutions have been conducted by persons who,
+whilst they attempted or affected changes in the commonwealth,
+sanctified their ambition by advancing the dignity of the people whose
+peace they troubled. They had long views. They aimed at the rule, not at
+the destruction of their country. They were men of great civil and great
+military talents, and if the terror, the ornament of their age. They
+were not like Jew brokers contending with each other who could best
+remedy with fraudulent circulation and depreciated paper the
+wretchedness and ruin brought on their country by their degenerate
+councils. The compliment made to one of the great bad men of the old
+stamp (Cromwell) by his kinsman, a favorite poet of that time, shows
+what it was he proposed, and what indeed to a great degree he
+accomplished in the success of his ambition:--
+
+    "Still as _you_ rise, the _state_, exalted too,
+    Finds no distemper whilst 't is changed by _you_;
+    Changed like the world's great scene, when without noise
+    The rising sun night's _vulgar_ lights destroys."
+
+These disturbers were not so much like men usurping power as asserting
+their natural place in society. Their rising was to illuminate and
+beautify the world. Their conquest over their competitors was by
+outshining them. The hand, that, like a destroying angel, smote the
+country, communicated to it the force and energy under which it
+suffered. I do not say, (God forbid!) I do not say that the virtues of
+such men were to be taken as a balance to their crimes; but they were
+some corrective to their effects. Such was, as I said, our Cromwell.
+Such were your whole race of Guises, Condés, and Colignys. Such the
+Richelieus, who in more quiet times acted in the spirit of a civil war.
+Such, as better men, and in a less dubious cause, were your Henry the
+Fourth, and your Sully, though nursed in civil confusions, and not
+wholly without some of their taint. It is a thing to be wondered at, to
+see how very soon France, when she had a moment to respire, recovered
+and emerged from the longest and most dreadful civil war that ever was
+known in any nation. Why? Because, among all their massacres, they had
+not slain the _mind_ in their country. A conscious dignity, a noble
+pride, a generous sense of glory and emulation, was not extinguished. On
+the contrary, it was kindled and inflamed. The organs also of the state,
+however shattered, existed. All the prizes of honor and virtue, all the
+rewards, all the distinctions, remained. But your present confusion,
+like a palsy, has attacked the fountain of life itself. Every person in
+your country, in a situation to be actuated by a principle of honor, is
+disgraced and degraded, and can entertain no sensation of life, except
+in a mortified and humiliated indignation. But this generation will
+quickly pass away. The next generation of the nobility will resemble the
+artificers and clowns, and money-jobbers, usurers, and Jews, who will be
+always their fellows, sometimes their masters. Believe me, Sir, those
+who attempt to level never equalize. In all societies consisting of
+various descriptions of citizens, some description must be uppermost.
+The levellers, therefore, only change and pervert the natural order of
+things: they load the edifice of society by setting up in the air what
+the solidity of the structure requires to be on the ground. The
+associations of tailors and carpenters, of which the republic (of Paris,
+for instance) is composed, cannot be equal to the situation into which,
+by the worst of usurpations, an usurpation on the prerogatives of
+Nature, you attempt to force them.
+
+The Chancellor of France, at the opening of the States, said, in a tone
+of oratorial flourish, that all occupations were honorable. If he meant
+only that no honest employment was disgraceful, he would not have gone
+beyond the truth. But in asserting that anything is honorable, we imply
+some distinction in its favor. The occupation of a hair-dresser, or of a
+working tallow-chandler, cannot be a matter of honor to any person,--to
+say nothing of a number of other more servile employments. Such
+descriptions of men ought not to suffer oppression from the state; but
+the state suffers oppression, if such as they, either individually or
+collectively, are permitted to rule. In this you think you are combating
+prejudice, but you are at war with Nature.[86]
+
+I do not, my dear Sir, conceive you to be of that sophistical, captious
+spirit, or of that uncandid dullness, as to require, for every general
+observation or sentiment, an explicit detail of the correctives and
+exceptions which reason will presume to be included in all the general
+propositions which come from reasonable men. You do not imagine that I
+wish to confine power, authority, and distinction to blood and names and
+titles. No, Sir. There is no qualification for government but virtue and
+wisdom, actual or presumptive. Wherever they are actually found, they
+have, in whatever state, condition, profession, or trade, the passport
+of Heaven to human place and honor. Woe to the country which would madly
+and impiously reject the service of the talents and virtues, civil,
+military, or religious, that are given to grace and to serve it; and
+would condemn to obscurity everything formed to diffuse lustre and glory
+around a state! Woe to that country, too, that, passing into the
+opposite extreme, considers a low education, a mean, contracted view of
+things, a sordid, mercenary occupation, as a preferable title to
+command! Everything ought to be open,--but not indifferently to every
+man. No rotation, no appointment by lot, no mode of election operating
+in the spirit of sortition or rotation, can be generally good in a
+government conversant in extensive objects; because they have no
+tendency, direct or indirect, to select the man with a view to the duty,
+or to accommodate the one to the other. I do not hesitate to say that
+the road to eminence and power, from obscure condition, ought not to be
+made too easy, nor a thing too much of course. If rare merit be the
+rarest of all rare things, it ought to pass through some sort of
+probation. The temple of honor ought to be seated on an eminence. If it
+be opened through virtue, let it be remembered, too, that virtue is
+never tried but by some difficulty and some struggle.
+
+Nothing is a due and adequate representation of a state, that does not
+represent its ability, as well as its property. But as ability is a
+vigorous and active principle, and as property is sluggish, inert, and
+timid, it never can be safe from the invasions of ability, unless it be,
+out of all proportion, predominant in the representation. It must be
+represented, too, in great masses of accumulation, or it is not rightly
+protected. The characteristic essence of property, formed out of the
+combined principles of its acquisition and conservation, is to be
+_unequal_. The great masses, therefore, which excite envy, and tempt
+rapacity, must be put out of the possibility of danger. Then they form a
+natural rampart about the lesser properties in all their gradations. The
+same quantity of property which is by the natural course of things
+divided among many has not the same operation. Its defensive power is
+weakened as it is diffused. In this diffusion each man's portion is less
+than what, in the eagerness of his desires, he may flatter himself to
+obtain by dissipating the accumulations of others. The plunder of the
+few would, indeed, give but a share inconceivably small in the
+distribution to the many. But the many are not capable of making this
+calculation; and those who lead them to rapine never intend this
+distribution.
+
+The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the
+most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that
+which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself. It makes our
+weakness subservient to our virtue; it grafts benevolence even upon
+avarice. The possessors of family wealth, and of the distinction which
+attends hereditary possession, (as most concerned in it,) are the
+natural securities for this transmission. With us the House of Peers is
+formed upon this principle. It is wholly composed of hereditary
+property and hereditary distinction, and made, therefore, the third of
+the legislature, and, in the last event, the sole judge of all property
+in all its subdivisions. The House of Commons, too, though not
+necessarily, yet in fact, is always so composed, in the far greater
+part. Let those large proprietors be what they will, (and they have
+their chance of being amongst the best,) they are, at the very worst,
+the ballast in the vessel of the commonwealth. For though hereditary
+wealth, and the rank which goes with it, are too much idolized by
+creeping sycophants, and the blind, abject admirers of power, they are
+too rashly slighted in shallow speculations of the petulant, assuming,
+short-sighted coxcombs of philosophy. Some decent, regulated
+preëminence, some preference (not exclusive appropriation) given to
+birth, is neither unnatural, nor unjust, nor impolitic.
+
+It is said that twenty-four millions ought to prevail over two hundred
+thousand. True; if the constitution of a kingdom be a problem of
+arithmetic. This sort of discourse does well enough with the lamp-post
+for its second: to men who _may_ reason calmly it is ridiculous The will
+of the many, and their interest, must very often differ; and great will
+be the difference when they make an evil choice. A government of five
+hundred country attorneys and obscure curates is not good for
+twenty-four millions of men, though it were chosen by eight-and-forty
+millions; nor is it the better for being guided by a dozen of persons of
+quality who have betrayed their trust in order to obtain that power. At
+present, you seem in everything to have strayed out of the high road of
+Nature. The property of France does not govern it. Of course property
+is destroyed, and rational liberty has no existence. All you have got
+for the present is a paper circulation, and a stock-jobbing
+constitution: and as to the future, do you seriously think that the
+territory of France, upon the republican system of eighty-three
+independent municipalities, (to say nothing of the parts that compose
+them,) can ever be governed as one body, or can ever be set in motion by
+the impulse of one mind? When the National Assembly has completed its
+work, it will have accomplished its ruin. These commonwealths will not
+long bear a state of subjection to the republic of Paris. They will not
+bear that this one body should monopolize the captivity of the king, and
+the dominion over the assembly calling itself national. Each will keep
+its own portion of the spoil of the Church to itself; and it will not
+suffer either that spoil, or the more just fruits of their industry, or
+the natural produce of their soil, to be sent to swell the insolence or
+pamper the luxury of the mechanics of Paris. In this they will see none
+of the equality, under the pretence of which they have been tempted to
+throw off their allegiance to their sovereign, as well as the ancient
+constitution of their country. There can be no capital city in such a
+constitution as they have lately made. They have forgot, that, when they
+framed democratic governments, they had virtually dismembered their
+country. The person whom they persevere in calling king has not power
+left to him by the hundredth part sufficient to hold together this
+collection of republics. The republic of Paris will endeavor, indeed, to
+complete the debauchery of the army, and illegally to perpetuate the
+Assembly, without resort to its constituents, as the means of
+continuing its despotism. It will make efforts, by becoming the heart
+of a boundless paper circulation, to draw everything to itself: but in
+vain. All this policy in the end will appear as feeble as it is now
+violent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+If this be your actual situation, compared to the situation to which you
+were called, as it were by the voice of God and man, I cannot find it in
+my heart to congratulate you on the choice you have made, or the success
+which has attended your endeavors. I can as little recommend to any
+other nation a conduct grounded on such principles and productive of
+such effects. That I must leave to those who can see further into your
+affairs than I am able to do, and who best know how far your actions are
+favorable to their designs. The gentlemen of the Revolution Society, who
+were so early in their congratulations, appear to be strongly of opinion
+that there is some scheme of politics relative to this country, in which
+your proceedings may in some way be useful. For your Dr. Price, who
+seems to have speculated himself into no small degree of fervor upon
+this subject, addresses his auditors in the following very remarkable
+words:--"I cannot conclude without recalling _particularly_ to your
+recollection a consideration which I have _more than once alluded to_,
+and which probably your thoughts have _been all along anticipating_; a
+consideration with which _my mind is impressed more than can express_: I
+mean the consideration of the _favorableness of the present times to all
+exertions in the cause of liberty_."
+
+It is plain that the mind of this _political_ preacher was at the time
+big with some extraordinary design; and it is very probable that the
+thoughts of his audience, who understood him better than I do, did all
+along run before him in his reflection, and in the whole train of
+consequences to which it led.
+
+Before I read that sermon, I really thought I had lived in a free
+country; and it was an error I cherished, because it gave me a greater
+liking to the country I lived in. I was, indeed, aware that a jealous,
+ever-waking vigilance, to guard the treasure of our liberty, not only
+from invasion, but from decay and corruption, was our best wisdom and
+our first duty. However, I considered that treasure rather as a
+possession to be secured than as a prize to be contended for. I did not
+discern how the present time came to be so very favorable to all
+_exertions_ in the cause of freedom. The present time differs from any
+other only by the circumstance of what is doing in France. If the
+example of that nation is to have an influence on this, I can easily
+conceive why some of their proceedings which have an unpleasant aspect,
+and are not quite reconcilable to humanity, generosity, good faith, and
+justice, are palliated with so much milky good-nature towards the
+actors, and borne with so much heroic fortitude towards the sufferers.
+It is certainly not prudent to discredit the authority of an example we
+mean to follow. But allowing this, we are led to a very natural
+question:--What is that cause of liberty, and what are those exertions
+in its favor, to which the example of France is so singularly
+auspicious? Is our monarchy to be annihilated, with all the laws, all
+the tribunals, and all the ancient corporations of the kingdom? Is every
+landmark of the country to be done away in favor of a geometrical and
+arithmetical constitution? Is the House of Lords to be voted useless?
+Is Episcopacy to be abolished? Are the Church lands to be sold to Jews
+and jobbers, or given to bribe new-invented municipal republics into a
+participation in sacrilege? Are all the taxes to be voted grievances,
+and the revenue reduced to a patriotic contribution or patriotic
+presents? Are silver shoe-buckles to be substituted in the place of the
+land-tax and the malt-tax, for the support of the naval strength of this
+kingdom? Are all orders, ranks, and distinctions to be confounded, that
+out of universal anarchy, joined to national bankruptcy, three or four
+thousand democracies should be formed into eighty-three, and that they
+may all, by some sort of unknown attractive power, be organized into
+one? For this great end is the army to be seduced from its discipline
+and its fidelity, first by every kind of debauchery, and then by the
+terrible precedent of a donative in the increase of pay? Are the curates
+to be seduced from their bishops by holding out to them the delusive
+hope of a dole out of the spoils of their own order? Are the citizens of
+London to be drawn from their allegiance by feeding them at the expense
+of their fellow-subjects? Is a compulsory paper currency to be
+substituted in the place of the legal coin of this kingdom? Is what
+remains of the plundered stock of public revenue to be employed in the
+wild project of maintaining two armies to watch over and to fight with
+each other? If these are the ends and means of the Revolution Society, I
+admit they are well assorted; and France may furnish them for both with
+precedents in point.
+
+I see that your example is held out to shame us. I know that we are
+supposed a dull, sluggish race, rendered passive by finding our
+situation tolerable, and prevented by a mediocrity of freedom from ever
+attaining to its full perfection. Your leaders in France began by
+affecting to admire, almost to adore, the British Constitution; but as
+they advanced, they came to look upon it with a sovereign contempt. The
+friends of your National Assembly amongst us have full as mean an
+opinion of what was formerly thought the glory of their country. The
+Revolution Society has discovered that the English nation is not free.
+They are convinced that the inequality in our representation is a
+"defect in our Constitution _so gross and palpable_ as to make it
+excellent chiefly in _form_ and _theory_";[87]--that a representation in
+the legislature of a kingdom is not only the basis of all constitutional
+liberty in it, but of "_all legitimate government_; that without it a
+_government_ is nothing but an _usurpation_";--that, "when the
+representation is _partial_, the kingdom possesses liberty only
+_partially_; and if extremely partial, it gives only a _semblance_; and
+if not only extremely partial, but corruptly chosen, it becomes a
+_nuisance_." Dr. Price considers this inadequacy of representation as
+our _fundamental grievance_; and though, as to the corruption of this
+semblance of representation, he hopes it is not yet arrived to its full
+perfection of depravity, he fears that "nothing will be done towards
+gaining for us this _essential blessing_, until some _great abuse of
+power_ again provokes our resentment, or some _great calamity_ again
+alarms our fears, or perhaps till the acquisition of a _pure and equal
+representation by other countries,_ whilst we are _mocked_ with the
+_shadow_, kindles our shame." To this he subjoins a note in these
+words:--"A representation chosen chiefly by the Treasury, and a _few_
+thousands of the _dregs_ of the people, who are generally paid for their
+votes."
+
+You will smile here at the consistency of those democratists who, when
+they are not on their guard, treat the humbler part of the community
+with the greatest contempt, whilst, at the same time, they pretend to
+make them the depositories of all power. It would require a long
+discourse to point out to you the many fallacies that lurk in the
+generality and equivocal nature of the terms "inadequate
+representation." I shall only say here, in justice to that old-fashioned
+Constitution under which we have long prospered, that our representation
+has been found perfectly adequate to all the purposes for which a
+representation of the people can be desired or devised. I defy the
+enemies of our Constitution to show the contrary. To detail the
+particulars in which it is found so well to promote its ends would
+demand a treatise on our practical Constitution. I state here the
+doctrine of the revolutionists, only that you and others may see what an
+opinion these gentlemen entertain of the Constitution of their country,
+and why they seem to think that some great abuse of power, or some great
+calamity, as giving a chance for the blessing of a Constitution
+according to their ideas, would be much palliated to their feelings; you
+see _why they_ are so much enamored of your fair and equal
+representation, which being once obtained, the same effects might
+follow. You see they consider our House of Commons as only "a
+semblance," "a form," "a theory," "a shadow," "a mockery," perhaps "a
+nuisance."
+
+These gentlemen value themselves on being systematic, and not without
+reason. They must therefore look on this gross and palpable defect of
+representation, this fundamental grievance, (so they call it,) as a
+thing not only vicious in itself, but as rendering our whole government
+absolutely _illegitimate_, and not at all better than a downright
+_usurpation_. Another revolution, to get rid of this illegitimate and
+usurped government, would of course be perfectly justifiable, if not
+absolutely necessary. Indeed, their principle, if you observe it with
+any attention, goes much further than to an alteration in the election
+of the House of Commons; for, if popular representation, or choice, is
+necessary to the _legitimacy_ of all government, the House of Lords is,
+at one stroke, bastardized and corrupted in blood. That House is no
+representative of the people at all, even in "semblance" or "in form."
+The case of the crown is altogether as bad. In vain the crown may
+endeavor to screen itself against these gentlemen by the authority of
+the establishment made on the Revolution. The Revolution, which is
+resorted to for a title, on their system, wants a title itself. The
+Revolution is built, according to their theory, upon a basis not more
+solid than our present formalities, as it was made by a House of Lords
+not representing any one but themselves, and by a House of Commons
+exactly such as the present, that is, as they term it, by a mere "shadow
+and mockery" of representation.
+
+Something they must destroy, or they seem to themselves to exist for no
+purpose. One set is for destroying the civil power through the
+ecclesiastical; another for demolishing the ecclesiastic through the
+civil. They are aware that the worst consequences might happen to the
+public in accomplishing this double ruin of Church and State; but they
+are so heated with their theories, that they give more than hints that
+this ruin, with all the mischiefs that must lead to it and attend it,
+and which to themselves appear quite certain, would not be unacceptable
+to them, or very remote from their wishes. A man amongst them of great
+authority, and certainly of great talents, speaking of a supposed
+alliance between Church and State, says, "Perhaps _we must wait for the
+fall of the civil powers_, before this most unnatural alliance be
+broken. Calamitous, no doubt, will that time be. But what convulsion in
+the political world ought to be a subject of lamentation, if it be
+attended with so desirable an effect?" You see with what a steady eye
+these gentlemen are prepared to view the greatest calamities which can
+befall their country!
+
+It is no wonder, therefore, that, with these ideas of everything in
+their Constitution and government at home, either in Church or State, as
+illegitimate and usurped, or at best as a vain mockery, they look abroad
+with an eager and passionate enthusiasm. Whilst they are possessed by
+these notions, it is vain to talk to them of the practice of their
+ancestors, the fundamental laws of their country, the fixed form of a
+Constitution whose merits are confirmed by the solid test of long
+experience and an increasing public strength and national prosperity.
+They despise experience as the wisdom of unlettered men; and as for the
+rest, they have wrought under ground a mine that will blow up, at one
+grand explosion, all examples of antiquity, all precedents, charters,
+and acts of Parliament. They have "the rights of men." Against these
+there can be no prescription; against these no argument is binding:
+these admit no temperament and no compromise: anything withheld from
+their full demand is so much of fraud and injustice. Against these their
+rights of men let no government look for security in the length of its
+continuance, or in the justice and lenity of its administration. The
+objections of these speculatists, if its forms do not quadrate with
+their theories, are as valid against such an old and beneficent
+government as against the most violent tyranny or the greenest
+usurpation. They are always at issue with governments, not on a question
+of abuse, but a question of competency and a question of title. I have
+nothing to say to the clumsy subtilty of their political metaphysics.
+Let them be their amusement in the schools.
+
+        _Illa_ se jactet in aula
+    Æolus, et clauso ventorum carcere regnet.
+
+But let them not break prison to burst like a Levanter, to sweep the
+earth with their hurricane, and to break up the fountains of the great
+deep to overwhelm us!
+
+Far am I from denying in theory, full as far is my heart from
+withholding in practice, (if I were of power to give or to withhold,)
+the _real_ rights of men. In denying their false claims of right, I do
+not mean to injure those which are real, and are such as their pretended
+rights would totally destroy. If civil society be made for the advantage
+of man, all the advantages for which it is made become his right. It is
+an institution of beneficence; and law itself is only beneficence acting
+by a rule. Men have a right to live by that rule; they have a right to
+justice, as between their fellows, whether their fellows are in politic
+function or in ordinary occupation. They have a right to the fruits of
+their industry, and to the means of making their industry fruitful.
+They have a right to the acquisitions of their parents, to the
+nourishment and improvement of their offspring, to instruction in life
+and to consolation in death. Whatever each man can separately do,
+without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself; and
+he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with all its
+combinations of skill and force, can do in his favor. In this
+partnership all men have equal rights; but not to equal things. He that
+has but five shillings in the partnership has as good a right to it as
+he that has five hundred pounds has to his larger proportion; but he has
+not a right to an equal dividend in the product of the joint stock. And
+as to the share of power, authority, and direction which each individual
+ought to have in the management of the state, that I must deny to be
+amongst the direct original rights of man in civil society; for I have
+in my contemplation the civil social man, and no other. It is a thing to
+be settled by convention.
+
+If civil society be the offspring of convention, that convention must be
+its law. That convention must limit and modify all the descriptions of
+constitution which are formed under it. Every sort of legislative,
+judicial, or executory power are its creatures. They can have no being
+in any other state of things; and how can any man claim, under the
+conventions of civil society, rights which do not so much as suppose its
+existence,--rights which are absolutely repugnant to it? One of the
+first motives to civil society, and which becomes one of its fundamental
+rules, is, _that no man should be judge in his own cause_. By this each
+person has at once divested himself of the first fundamental right of
+uncovenanted man, that is, to judge for himself, and to assert his own
+cause. He abdicates all right to be his own governor. He inclusively, in
+a great measure, abandons the right of self-defence, the first law of
+Nature. Men cannot enjoy the rights of an uncivil and of a civil state
+together. That he may obtain justice, he gives up his right of
+determining what it is in points the most essential to him. That he may
+secure some liberty, he makes a surrender in trust of the whole of it.
+
+Government is not made in virtue of natural rights, which may and do
+exist in total independence of it,--and exist in much greater clearness,
+and in a much greater degree of abstract perfection: but their abstract
+perfection is their practical defect. By having a right to everything
+they want everything. Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to
+provide for human _wants_. Men have a right that these wants should be
+provided for by this wisdom. Among these wants is to be reckoned the
+want, out of civil society, of a sufficient restraint upon their
+passions. Society requires not only that the passions of individuals
+should be subjected, but that even in the mass and body, as well as in
+the individuals, the inclinations of men should frequently be thwarted,
+their will controlled, and their passions brought into subjection. This
+can only be done _by a power out of themselves_, and not, in the
+exercise of its function, subject to that will and to those passions
+which it is its office to bridle and subdue. In this sense the
+restraints on men, as well as their liberties, are to be reckoned among
+their rights. But as the liberties and the restrictions vary with times
+and circumstances, and admit of infinite modifications, they cannot be
+settled upon any abstract rule; and nothing is so foolish as to discuss
+them upon that principle.
+
+The moment you abate anything from the full rights of men each to govern
+himself, and suffer any artificial, positive limitation upon those
+rights, from that moment the whole organization of government becomes a
+consideration of convenience. This it is which makes the constitution of
+a state, and the due distribution of its powers, a matter of the most
+delicate and complicated skill. It requires a deep knowledge of human
+nature and human necessities, and of the things which facilitate or
+obstruct the various ends which are to be pursued by the mechanism of
+civil institutions. The state is to have recruits to its strength and
+remedies to its distempers. What is the use of discussing a man's
+abstract right to food or medicine? The question is upon the method of
+procuring and administering them. In that deliberation I shall always
+advise to call in the aid of the farmer and the physician, rather than
+the professor of metaphysics.
+
+The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or
+reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be
+taught _a priori_. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in
+that practical science; because the real effects of moral causes are not
+always immediate, but that which in the first instance is prejudicial
+may be excellent in its remoter operation, and its excellence may arise
+even from the ill effects it produces in the beginning. The reverse also
+happens; and very plausible schemes, with very pleasing commencements,
+have often shameful and lamentable conclusions. In states there are
+often some obscure and almost latent causes, things which appear at
+first view of little moment, on which a very great part of its
+prosperity or adversity may most essentially depend. The science of
+government being, therefore, so practical in itself, and intended for
+such practical purposes, a matter which requires experience, and even
+more experience than any person can gain in his whole life, however
+sagacious and observing he may be, it is with infinite caution that any
+man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice which has answered in
+any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society, or on
+building it up again without having models and patterns of approved
+utility before his eyes.
+
+These metaphysic rights entering into common life, like rays of light
+which pierce into a dense medium, are, by the laws of Nature, refracted
+from their straight line. Indeed, in the gross and complicated mass of
+human passions and concerns, the primitive rights of men undergo such a
+variety of refractions and reflections that it becomes absurd to talk of
+them as if they continued in the simplicity of their original direction.
+The nature of man is intricate; the objects of society are of the
+greatest possible complexity: and therefore no simple disposition or
+direction of power can be suitable either to man's nature or to the
+quality of his affairs. When I hear the simplicity of contrivance aimed
+at and boasted of in any new political constitutions, I am at no loss to
+decide that the artificers are grossly ignorant of their trade or
+totally negligent of their duty. The simple governments are
+fundamentally defective, to say no worse of them. If you were to
+contemplate society in but one point of view, all these simple modes of
+polity are infinitely captivating. In effect each would answer its
+single end much more perfectly than the more complex is able to attain
+all its complex purposes. But it is better that the whole, should be
+imperfectly and anomalously answered than that while some parts are
+provided for with great exactness, others might be totally neglected, or
+perhaps materially injured, by the over-care of a favorite member.
+
+The pretended rights of these theorists are all extremes; and in
+proportion as they are metaphysically true, they are morally and
+politically false. The rights of men are in a sort of _middle_,
+incapable of definition, but not impossible to be discerned. The rights
+of men in governments are their advantages; and these are often in
+balances between differences of good,--in compromises sometimes between
+good and evil, and sometimes between evil and evil. Political reason is
+a computing principle: adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing,
+morally, and not metaphysically or mathematically, true moral
+denominations.
+
+By these theorists the right of the people is almost always
+sophistically confounded with their power. The body of the community,
+whenever it can come to act, can meet with no effectual resistance; but
+till power and right are the same, the whole body of them has no right
+inconsistent with virtue, and the first of all virtues, prudence. Men
+have no right to what is not reasonable, and to what is not for their
+benefit; for though a pleasant writer said, "_Liceat perire poetis_,"
+when one of them, in cold blood, is said to have leaped into the flames
+of a volcanic revolution, "_ardentem frigidus Ætnam insiluit_," I
+consider such a frolic rather as an unjustifiable poetic license than
+as one of the franchises of Parnassus; and whether he were poet, or
+divine, or politician, that chose to exercise this kind of right, I
+think that more wise, because more charitable, thoughts would urge me
+rather to save the man than to preserve his brazen slippers as the
+monuments of his folly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The kind of anniversary sermons to which a great part of what I write
+refers, if men are not shamed out of their present course, in
+commemorating the fact, will cheat many out of the principles and
+deprive them of the benefits of the Revolution they commemorate. I
+confess to you, Sir, I never liked this continual talk of resistance and
+revolution, or the practice of making the extreme medicine of the
+Constitution its daily bread. It renders the habit of society
+dangerously valetudinary; it is taking periodical doses of mercury
+sublimate, and swallowing down repeated provocatives of cantharides to
+our love of liberty.
+
+This distemper of remedy, grown habitual, relaxes and wears out, by a
+vulgar and prostituted use, the spring of that spirit which is to be
+exerted on great occasions. It was in the most patient period of Roman
+servitude that themes of tyrannicide made the ordinary exercise of boys
+at school,--_cum perimit sævos classis numerosa tyrannos_. In the
+ordinary state of things, it produces in a country like ours the worst
+effects, even on the cause of that liberty which it abuses with the
+dissoluteness of an extravagant speculation. Almost all the high-bred
+republicans of my time have, after a short space, become the most
+decided, thorough-paced courtiers; they soon left the business of a
+tedious, moderate, but practical resistance, to those of us whom, in
+the pride and intoxication of their theories, they have slighted as not
+much better than Tories. Hypocrisy, of course, delights in the most
+sublime speculations; for, never intending to go beyond speculation, it
+costs nothing to have it magnificent. But even in cases where rather
+levity than fraud was to be suspected in these ranting speculations, the
+issue has been much the same. These professors, finding their extreme
+principles not applicable to cases which call only for a qualified, or,
+as I may say, civil and legal resistance, in such cases employ no
+resistance at all. It is with them a war or a revolution, or it is
+nothing. Finding their schemes of politics not adapted to the state of
+the world in which they live, they often come to think lightly of all
+public principle, and are ready, on their part, to abandon for a very
+trivial interest what they find of very trivial value. Some, indeed, are
+of more steady and persevering natures; but these are eager politicians
+out of Parliament, who have little to tempt them to abandon their
+favorite projects. They have some change in the Church or State, or
+both, constantly in their view. When that is the case, they are always
+bad citizens, and perfectly unsure connections. For, considering their
+speculative designs as of infinite value, and the actual arrangement of
+the state as of no estimation, they are, at best, indifferent about it.
+They see no merit in the good, and no fault in the vicious management of
+public affairs; they rather rejoice in the latter, as more propitious to
+revolution. They see no merit or demerit in any man, or any action, or
+any political principle, any further than as they may forward or retard
+their design of change; they therefore take up, one day, the most
+violent and stretched prerogative, and another time the wildest
+democratic ideas of freedom, and pass from the one to the other without
+any sort of regard to cause, to person, or to party.
+
+In France you are now in the crisis of a revolution, and in the transit
+from one form of government to another: you cannot see that character of
+men exactly in the same situation in which we see it in this country.
+With us it is militant, with you it is triumphant; and you know how it
+can act, when its power is commensurate to its will. I would not be
+supposed to confine those observations to any description of men, or to
+comprehend all men of any description within them,--no, far from it! I
+am as incapable of that injustice as I am of keeping terms with those
+who profess principles of extremes, and who, under the name of religion,
+teach little else than wild and dangerous politics. The worst of these
+politics of revolution is this: they temper and harden the breast, in
+order to prepare it for the desperate strokes which are sometimes used
+in extreme occasions. But as these occasions may never arrive, the mind
+receives a gratuitous taint; and the moral sentiments suffer not a
+little, when no political purpose is served by the depravation. This
+sort of people are so taken up with their theories about the rights of
+man, that they have totally forgot his nature. Without opening one new
+avenue to the understanding, they have succeeded in stopping up those
+that lead to the heart. They have perverted in themselves, and in those
+that attend to them, all the well-placed sympathies of the human breast.
+
+This famous sermon of the Old Jewry breathes nothing but this spirit
+through all the political part. Plots, massacres, assassinations, seem
+to some people a trivial price for obtaining a revolution. A cheap,
+bloodless reformation, a guiltless liberty, appear flat and vapid to
+their taste. There must be a great change of scene; there must be a
+magnificent stage effect; there must be a grand spectacle to rouse the
+imagination, grown torpid with the lazy enjoyment of sixty years'
+security, and the still unanimating repose of public prosperity. The
+preacher found them all in the French Revolution. This inspires a
+juvenile warmth through his whole frame. His enthusiasm kindles as he
+advances; and when he arrives at his peroration, it is in a full blaze.
+Then viewing, from the Pisgah of his pulpit, the free, moral, happy,
+flourishing, and glorious state of France, as in a bird-eye landscape of
+a promised land, he breaks out into the following rapture:--
+
+"What an eventful period is this! I am _thankful_ that I have lived to
+it; I could almost say, _Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in
+peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation_.--I have lived to see a
+_diffusion_ of knowledge which has undermined superstition and error.--I
+have lived to see _the rights of men_ better understood than ever, and
+nations panting for liberty which seemed to have lost the idea of it.--I
+have lived to see _thirty millions of people_, indignant and resolute,
+spurning at slavery, and demanding liberty with an irresistible voice;
+_their king led in triumph, and an arbitrary monarch surrendering
+himself to his subjects_."[88]
+
+Before I proceed further, I have to remark that Dr. Price seems rather
+to overvalue the great acquisitions of light which he has obtained and
+diffused in this age. The last century appears to me to have been quite
+as much enlightened. It had, though in a different place, a triumph as
+memorable as that of Dr. Price; and some of the great preachers of that
+period partook of it as eagerly as he has done in the triumph of France.
+On the trial of the Reverend Hugh Peters for high treason, it was
+deposed, that, when King Charles was brought to London for his trial,
+the Apostle of Liberty in that day conducted the _triumph_. "I saw,"
+says the witness, "his Majesty in the coach with six horses, and Peters
+riding before the king _triumphing_." Dr. Price, when he talks as if he
+had made a discovery, only follows a precedent; for, after the
+commencement of the king's trial, this precursor, the same Dr. Peters,
+concluding a long prayer at the royal chapel at Whitehall, (he had very
+triumphantly chosen his place,) said, "I have prayed and preached these
+twenty years; and now I may say with old Simeon, _Lord, now lettest thou
+thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy
+salvation_."[89] Peters had not the fruits of his prayer; for he neither
+departed so soon as he wished, nor in peace. He became (what I heartily
+hope none of his followers may be in this country) himself a sacrifice
+to the triumph which he led as pontiff. They dealt at the Restoration,
+perhaps, too hardly with this poor good man. But we owe it to his memory
+and his sufferings, that he had as much illumination and as much zeal,
+and had as effectually undermined all _the superstition and error_ which
+might impede the great business he was engaged in, as any who follow and
+repeat after him in this age, which would assume to itself an exclusive
+title to the knowledge of the rights of men, and all the glorious
+consequences of that knowledge.
+
+After this sally of the preacher of the Old Jewry, which differs only in
+place and time, but agrees perfectly with the spirit and letter of the
+rapture of 1648, the Revolution Society, the fabricators of governments,
+the heroic band of _cashierers_ of _monarchs_, electors of sovereigns,
+and leaders of kings in triumph, strutting with a proud consciousness of
+the diffusion of knowledge, of which every member had obtained so large
+a share in the donative, were in haste to make a generous diffusion of
+the knowledge they had thus gratuitously received. To make this
+bountiful communication, they adjourned from the church in the Old Jewry
+to the London Tavern, where the same Dr. Price, in whom the fumes of his
+oracular tripod were not entirely evaporated, moved and carried the
+resolution, or address of congratulation, transmitted by Lord Stanhope
+to the National Assembly of France.
+
+I find a preacher of the Gospel profaning the beautiful and prophetic
+ejaculation, commonly called "_Nunc dimittis_," made on the first
+presentation of our Saviour in the temple, and applying it, with an
+inhuman and unnatural rapture, to the most horrid, atrocious, and
+afflicting spectacle that perhaps ever was exhibited to the pity and
+indignation of mankind. This "_leading in triumph_," a thing in its best
+form unmanly and irreligious, which fills our preacher with such
+unhallowed transports, must shock, I believe, the moral taste of every
+well-born mind. Several English were the stupefied and indignant
+spectators of that triumph. It was (unless we have been strangely
+deceived) a spectacle more resembling a procession of American savages
+entering into Onondaga after some of their murders called victories, and
+leading into hovels hung round with scalps their captives overpowered
+with the scoffs and buffets of women as ferocious as themselves, much
+more than it resembled the triumphal pomp of a civilized martial
+nation;--if a civilized nation, or any men who had a sense of
+generosity, were capable of a personal triumph over the fallen and
+afflicted.
+
+This, my dear Sir, was not the triumph of France. I must believe, that,
+as a nation, it overwhelmed you with shame and horror. I must believe
+that the National Assembly find themselves in a state of the greatest
+humiliation in not being able to punish the authors of this triumph or
+the actors in it, and that they are in a situation in which any inquiry
+they may make upon the subject must be destitute even of the appearance
+of liberty or impartiality. The apology of that assembly is found in
+their situation; but when we approve what they _must_ bear, it is in us
+the degenerate choice of a vitiated mind.
+
+With a compelled appearance of deliberation, they vote under the
+dominion of a stern necessity. They sit in the heart, as it were, of a
+foreign republic: they have their residence in a city whose constitution
+has emanated neither from the charter of their king nor from their
+legislative power. There they are surrounded by an army not raised
+either by the authority of their crown or by their command, and which,
+if they should order to dissolve itself, would instantly dissolve them.
+There they sit, after a gang of assassins had driven away some hundreds
+of the members; whilst those who held the same moderate principles, with
+more patience or better hope, continued every day exposed to outrageous
+insults and murderous threats. There a majority, sometimes real,
+sometimes pretended, captive itself, compels a captive king to issue as
+royal edicts, at third hand, the polluted nonsense of their most
+licentious and giddy coffee-houses. It is notorious that all their
+measures are decided before they are debated. It is beyond doubt, that,
+under the terror of the bayonet, and the lamp-post, and the torch to
+their houses, they are obliged to adopt all the crude and desperate
+measures suggested by clubs composed of a monstrous medley of all
+conditions, tongues, and nations. Among these are found persons in
+comparison of whom Catiline would be thought scrupulous, and Cethegus a
+man of sobriety and moderation. Nor is it in these clubs alone that the
+public measures are deformed into monsters. They undergo a previous
+distortion in academies, intended as so many seminaries for these clubs,
+which are set up in all the places of public resort. In these meetings
+of all sorts, every counsel, in proportion as it is daring and violent
+and perfidious, is taken for the mark of superior genius. Humanity and
+compassion are ridiculed as the fruits of superstition and ignorance.
+Tenderness to individuals is considered as treason to the public.
+Liberty is always to be estimated perfect as property is rendered
+insecure. Amidst assassination, massacre, and confiscation, perpetrated
+or meditated, they are forming plans for the good order of future
+society. Embracing in their arms the carcasses of base criminals, and
+promoting their relations on the title of their offences, they drive
+hundreds of virtuous persons to the same end, by forcing them to subsist
+by beggary or by crime.
+
+The Assembly, their organ, acts before them the farce of deliberation
+with as little decency as liberty. They act like the comedians of a
+fair, before a riotous audience; they act amidst the tumultuous cries of
+a mixed mob of ferocious men, and of women lost to shame, who, according
+to their insolent fancies, direct, control, applaud, explode them, and
+sometimes mix and take their seats amongst them,--domineering over them
+with a strange mixture of servile petulance and proud, presumptuous
+authority. As they have inverted order in all things, the gallery is in
+the place of the house. This assembly, which overthrows kings and
+kingdoms, has not even the physiognomy and aspect of a grave legislative
+body,--_nec color imperii, nec frons erat ulla senatûs_. They have a
+power given to them, like that of the Evil Principle, to subvert and
+destroy,--but none to construct, except such machines as may be fitted
+for further subversion and further destruction.
+
+Who is it that admires, and from the heart is attached to national
+representative assemblies, but must turn with horror and disgust from
+such a profane burlesque and abominable perversion of that sacred
+institute? Lovers of monarchy, lovers of republics, must alike abhor it.
+The members of your Assembly must themselves groan under the tyranny of
+which they have all the shame, none of the direction, and little of the
+profit. I am sure many of the members who compose even the majority of
+that body must feel as I do, notwithstanding the applauses of the
+Revolution Society. Miserable king! miserable assembly! How must that
+assembly be silently scandalized with those of their members who could
+call a day which seemed to blot the sun out of heaven "_un beau
+jour_"![90] How must they be inwardly indignant at hearing others who
+thought fit to declare to them, "that the vessel of the state would fly
+forward in her course towards regeneration with more speed than ever,"
+from the stiff gale of treason and murder which preceded our preacher's
+triumph! What must they have felt, whilst, with outward patience and
+inward indignation, they heard of the slaughter of innocent gentlemen in
+their houses, that "the blood spilled was not the most pure"! What must
+they have felt, when they were besieged by complaints of disorders which
+shook their country to its foundations, at being compelled coolly to
+tell the complainants that they were under the protection of the law,
+and that they would address the king (the captive king) to cause the
+laws to be enforced for their protection, when the enslaved ministers of
+that captive king had formally notified to them that there were neither
+law nor authority nor power left to protect! What must they have felt at
+being obliged, as a felicitation on the present new year, to request
+their captive king to forget the stormy period of the last, on account
+of the great good which _he_ was likely to produce to his people,--to
+the complete attainment of which good they adjourned the practical
+demonstrations of their loyalty, assuring him of their obedience when he
+should no longer possess any authority to command!
+
+This address was made with much good-nature and affection, to be sure.
+But among the revolutions in France must be reckoned a considerable
+revolution in their ideas of politeness. In England we are said to learn
+manners at second-hand from your side of the water, and that we dress
+our behavior in the frippery of France. If so, we are still in the old
+cut, and have not so far conformed to the new Parisian mode of good
+breeding as to think it quite in the most refined strain of delicate
+compliment (whether in condolence or congratulation) to say, to the most
+humiliated creature that crawls upon the earth, that great public
+benefits are derived from the murder of his servants, the attempted
+assassination of himself and of his wife, and the mortification,
+disgrace, and degradation that he has personally suffered. It is a topic
+of consolation which our ordinary of Newgate would be too humane to use
+to a criminal at the foot of the gallows. I should have thought that the
+hangman of Paris, now that he is liberalized by the vote of the National
+Assembly, and is allowed his rank and arms in the Herald's College of
+the rights of men, would be too generous, too gallant a man, too full of
+the sense of his new dignity, to employ that cutting consolation to any
+of the persons whom the _lèze-nation_ might bring under the
+administration of his _executive powers_.
+
+A man is fallen indeed, when he is thus flattered. The anodyne draught
+of oblivion, thus drugged, is well calculated to preserve a galling
+wakefulness, and to feed the living ulcer of a corroding memory. Thus to
+administer the opiate potion of amnesty, powdered with all the
+ingredients of scorn and contempt, is to hold to his lips, instead of
+"the balm of hurt minds," the cup of human misery full to the brim, and
+to force him to drink it to the dregs.
+
+Yielding to reasons at least as forcible as those which were so
+delicately urged in the compliment on the new year, the king of France
+will probably endeavor to forget these events and that compliment. But
+History, who keeps a durable record of all our acts, and exercises her
+awful censure over the proceedings of all sorts of sovereigns, will not
+forget either those events, or the era of this liberal refinement in the
+intercourse of mankind. History will record, that, on the morning of the
+sixth of October, 1789, the king and queen of France, after a day of
+confusion, alarm, dismay, and slaughter, lay down, under the pledged
+security of public faith, to indulge nature in a few hours of respite,
+and troubled, melancholy repose. From this sleep the queen was first
+startled by the voice of the sentinel at her door, who cried out to her
+to save herself by flight,--that this was the last proof of fidelity he
+could give,--that they were upon him, and he was dead. Instantly he was
+cut down. A band of cruel ruffians and assassins, reeking with his
+blood, rushed into the chamber of the queen, and pierced with a hundred
+strokes of bayonets and poniards the bed, from whence this persecuted
+woman had but just time to fly almost naked, and, through ways unknown
+to the murderers, had escaped to seek refuge at the feet of a king and
+husband not secure of his own life for a moment.
+
+This king, to say no more of him, and this queen, and their infant
+children, (who once would have been the pride and hope of a great and
+generous people,) were then forced to abandon the sanctuary of the most
+splendid palace in the world, which they left swimming in blood,
+polluted by massacre, and strewed with scattered limbs and mutilated
+carcasses. Thence they were conducted into the capital of their kingdom.
+Two had been selected from the unprovoked, unresisted, promiscuous
+slaughter which was made of the gentlemen of birth and family who
+composed the king's body-guard. These two gentlemen, with all the parade
+of an execution of justice, were cruelly and publicly dragged to the
+block, and beheaded in the great court of the palace. Their heads were
+stuck upon spears, and led the procession; whilst the royal captives who
+followed in the train were slowly moved along, amidst the horrid yells,
+and shrilling screams, and frantic dances, and infamous contumelies, and
+all the unutterable abominations of the furies of hell, in the abused
+shape of the vilest of women. After they had been made to taste, drop by
+drop, more than the bitterness of death, in the slow torture of a
+journey of twelve miles, protracted to six hours, they were, under a
+guard composed of those very soldiers who had thus conducted them
+through this famous triumph, lodged in one of the old palaces of Paris,
+now converted into a Bastile for kings.
+
+Is this a triumph to be consecrated at altars, to be commemorated with
+grateful thanksgiving, to be offered to the Divine Humanity with fervent
+prayer and enthusiastic ejaculation?--These Theban and Thracian orgies,
+acted in France, and applauded only in the Old Jewry, I assure you,
+kindle prophetic enthusiasm in the minds but of very few people in this
+kingdom: although a saint and apostle, who may have revelations of his
+own, and who has so completely vanquished all the mean superstitions of
+the heart, may incline to think it pious and decorous to compare it
+with the entrance into the world of the Prince of Peace, proclaimed in
+an holy temple by a venerable sage, and not long before not worse
+announced by the voice of angels to the quiet innocence of shepherds.
+
+At first I was at a loss to account for this fit of unguarded transport.
+I knew, indeed, that the sufferings of monarchs make a delicious repast
+to some sort of palates. There were reflections which might serve to
+keep this appetite within some bounds of temperance. But when I took one
+circumstance into my consideration, I was obliged to confess that much
+allowance ought to be made for the society, and that the temptation was
+too strong for common discretion: I mean, the circumstance of the Io
+Pæan of the triumph, the animating cry which called for "_all_ the
+BISHOPS to be hanged on the lamp-posts,"[91] might well have brought
+forth a burst of enthusiasm on the foreseen consequences of this happy
+day. I allow to so much enthusiasm some little deviation from prudence.
+I allow this prophet to break forth into hymns of joy and thanksgiving
+on an event which appears like the precursor of the Millennium, and the
+projected Fifth Monarchy, in the destruction of all Church
+establishments. There was, however, (as in all human affairs there is,)
+in the midst of this joy, something to exercise the patience of these
+worthy gentlemen, and to try the long-suffering of their faith. The
+actual murder of the king and queen, and their child, was wanting to the
+other auspicious circumstances of this "_beautiful day_". The actual
+murder of the bishops, though called for by so many holy ejaculations,
+was also wanting. A group of regicide and sacrilegious slaughter was,
+indeed, boldly sketched, but it was only sketched. It unhappily was left
+unfinished, in this great history-piece of the massacre of innocents.
+What hardy pencil of a great master, from the school of the rights of
+men, will finish it, is to be seen hereafter. The age has not yet the
+complete benefit of that diffusion of knowledge that has undermined
+superstition and error; and the king of France wants another object or
+two to consign to oblivion, in consideration of all the good which is to
+arise from his own sufferings, and the patriotic crimes of an
+enlightened age.[92]
+
+
+
+Although this work of our new light and knowledge did not go to the
+length that in all probability it was intended it should be carried, yet
+I must think that such treatment of any human creatures must be shocking
+to any but those who are made for accomplishing revolutions. But I
+cannot stop here. Influenced by the inborn feelings of my nature, and
+not being illuminated by a single ray of this new-sprung modern light,
+I confess to you, Sir, that the exalted rank of the persons suffering,
+and particularly the sex, the beauty, and the amiable qualities of the
+descendant of so many kings and emperors, with the tender age of royal
+infants, insensible only through infancy and innocence of the cruel
+outrages to which their parents were exposed, instead of being a subject
+of exultation, adds not a little to my sensibility on that most
+melancholy occasion.
+
+I hear that the august person who was the principal object of our
+preacher's triumph, though he supported himself, felt much on that
+shameful occasion. As a man, it became him to feel for his wife and his
+children, and the faithful guards of his person that were massacred in
+cold blood about him; as a prince, it became him to feel for the strange
+and frightful transformation of his civilized subjects, and to be more
+grieved for them than solicitous for himself. It derogates little from
+his fortitude, while it adds infinitely to the honor of his humanity. I
+am very sorry to say it, very sorry indeed, that such personages are in
+a situation in which it is not unbecoming in us to praise the virtues of
+the great.
+
+I hear, and I rejoice to hear, that the great lady, the other object of
+the triumph, has borne that day, (one is interested that beings made for
+suffering should suffer well,) and that she bears all the succeeding
+days, that she bears the imprisonment of her husband, and her own
+captivity, and the exile of her friends, and the insulting adulation of
+addresses, and the whole weight of her accumulated wrongs, with a serene
+patience, in a manner suited to her rank and race, and becoming the
+offspring of a sovereign distinguished for her piety and her courage;
+that, like her, she has lofty sentiments; that she feels with the
+dignity of a Roman matron; that in the last extremity she will save
+herself from the last disgrace; and that, if she must fall, she will
+fall by no ignoble hand.
+
+It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France,
+then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this
+orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw
+her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere
+she just began to move in,--glittering like the morning-star, full of
+life and splendor and joy. Oh! what a revolution! and what an heart must
+I have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall!
+Little did I dream, when she added titles of veneration to those of
+enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged
+to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom!
+little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen
+upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor, and of
+cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their
+scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the
+age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators
+has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never,
+never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that
+proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the
+heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an
+exalted freedom! The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of
+nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone!
+It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor, which
+felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated
+ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice
+itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness!
+
+This mixed system of opinion and sentiment had its origin in the ancient
+chivalry; and the principle, though varied in its appearance by the
+varying state of human affairs, subsisted and influenced through a long
+succession of generations, even to the time we live in. If it should
+ever be totally extinguished, the loss, I fear, will be great. It is
+this which has given its character to modern Europe. It is this which
+has distinguished it under all its forms of government, and
+distinguished it to its advantage, from the states of Asia, and possibly
+from those states which flourished in the most brilliant periods of the
+antique world. It was this, which, without confounding ranks, had
+produced a noble equality, and handed it down through all the gradations
+of social life. It was this opinion which mitigated kings into
+companions, and raised private men to be fellows with kings. Without
+force or opposition, it subdued the fierceness of pride and power; it
+obliged sovereigns to submit to the soft collar of social esteem,
+compelled stern authority to submit to elegance, and gave a domination,
+vanquisher of laws, to be subdued by manners.
+
+But now all is to be changed. All the pleasing illusions which made
+power gentle and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different
+shades of life, and which by a bland assimilation incorporated into
+politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are
+to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason. All
+the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. All the superadded
+ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the
+heart owns and the understanding ratifies, as necessary to cover the
+defects of our naked, shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in
+our own estimation, are to be exploded, as a ridiculous, absurd, and
+antiquated fashion.
+
+On this scheme of things, a king is but a man, a queen is but a woman, a
+woman is but an animal,--and an animal not of the highest order. All
+homage paid to the sex in general as such, and without distinct views,
+is to be regarded as romance and folly. Regicide, and parricide, and
+sacrilege, are but fictions of superstition, corrupting jurisprudence by
+destroying its simplicity. The murder of a king, or a queen, or a
+bishop, or a father, are only common homicide,--and if the people are by
+any chance or in any way gainers by it, a sort of homicide much the most
+pardonable, and into which we ought not to make too severe a scrutiny.
+
+On the scheme of this barbarous philosophy, which is the offspring of
+cold hearts and muddy understandings and which is as void of solid
+wisdom as it is destitute of all taste and elegance, laws are to be
+supported only by their own terrors, and by the concern which each
+individual may find in them from his own private speculations, or can
+spare to them from his own private interests. In the groves of _their_
+academy, at the end of every visto, you see nothing but the gallows.
+Nothing is left which engages the affections on the part of the
+commonwealth. On the principles of this mechanic philosophy, our
+institutions can never be embodied, if I may use the expression, in
+persons,--so as to create in us love, veneration, admiration, or
+attachment. But that sort of reason which banishes the affections is
+incapable of filling their place. These public affections, combined with
+manners, are required sometimes as supplements, sometimes as
+correctives, always as aids to law. The precept given by a wise man, as
+well as a great critic, for the construction of poems, is equally true
+as to states:--"_Non satis est pulchra esse poemata, dulcia sunto_."
+There ought to be a system of manners in every nation which a
+well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our
+country, our country ought to be lovely.
+
+But power, of some kind or other, will survive the shock in which
+manners and opinions perish; and it will find other and worse means for
+its support. The usurpation, which, in order to subvert ancient
+institutions, has destroyed ancient principles, will hold power by arts
+similar to those by which it has acquired it. When the old feudal and
+chivalrous spirit of _fealty_, which, by freeing kings from fear, freed
+both kings and subjects from the precautions of tyranny, shall be
+extinct in the minds of men, plots and assassinations will be
+anticipated by preventive murder and preventive confiscation, and that
+long roll of grim and bloody maxims which form the political code of all
+power not standing on its own honor and the honor of those who are to
+obey it. Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels
+from principle.
+
+When ancient opinions and rules of life are taken away, the loss cannot
+possibly be estimated. From that moment we have no compass to govern us,
+nor can we know distinctly to what port we steer. Europe, undoubtedly,
+taken in a mass, was in a flourishing condition the day on which your
+Revolution was completed. How much of that prosperous state was owing to
+the spirit of our old manners and opinions is not easy to say; but as
+such causes cannot be indifferent in their operation, we must presume,
+that, on the whole, their operation was beneficial.
+
+We are but too apt to consider things in the state in which we find
+them, without sufficiently adverting to the causes by which they have
+been produced, and possibly may be upheld. Nothing is more certain than
+that our manners, our civilization, and all the good things which are
+connected with manners and with, civilization, have, in this European
+world of ours, depended for ages upon two principles, and were, indeed,
+the result of both combined: I mean the spirit of a gentleman, and the
+spirit of religion. The nobility and the clergy, the one by profession,
+and the other by patronage, kept learning in existence, even in the
+midst of arms and confusions, and whilst governments were rather in
+their causes than formed. Learning paid back what it received to
+nobility and to priesthood, and paid it with usury, by enlarging their
+ideas, and by furnishing their minds. Happy, if they had all continued
+to know their indissoluble union, and their proper place! Happy, if
+learning, not debauched by ambition, had been satisfied to continue the
+instructor, and not aspired to be the master! Along with its natural
+protectors and guardians, learning will be cast into the mire and
+trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude.[93]
+
+If, as I suspect, modern letters owe more than they are always willing
+to own to ancient manners, so do other interests which we value full as
+much as they are worth. Even commerce, and trade, and manufacture, the
+gods of our economical politicians, are themselves perhaps but
+creatures, are themselves but effects, which, as first causes, we choose
+to worship. They certainly grew under the same shade in which learning
+flourished. They, too, may decay with their natural protecting
+principles. With you, for the present at least, they all threaten to
+disappear together. Where trade and manufactures are wanting to a
+people, and the spirit of nobility and religion remains, sentiment
+supplies, and not always ill supplies, their place; but if commerce and
+the arts should be lost in an experiment to try how well a state may
+stand without these old fundamental principles, what sort of a thing
+must be a nation of gross, stupid, ferocious, and at the same time poor
+and sordid barbarians, destitute of religion, honor, or manly pride,
+possessing nothing at present, and hoping for nothing hereafter?
+
+I wish you may not be going fast, and by the shortest cut, to that
+horrible and disgustful situation. Already there appears a poverty of
+conception, a coarseness and vulgarity, in all the proceedings of the
+Assembly and of all their instructors. Their liberty is not liberal.
+Their science is presumptuous ignorance. Their humanity is savage and
+brutal.
+
+It is not clear whether in England we learned those grand and decorous
+principles and manners, of which considerable traces yet remain, from
+you, or whether you took them from us. But to you, I think, we trace
+them best. You seem to me to be _gentis incunabula nostræ_. France has
+always more or less influenced manners in England; and when your
+fountain is choked up and polluted, the stream will not run long or not
+run clear with us, or perhaps with any nation. This gives all Europe, in
+my opinion, but too close and connected a concern in what is done in
+France. Excuse me, therefore, if I have dwelt too long on the atrocious
+spectacle of the sixth of October, 1789, or have given too much scope to
+the reflections which have arisen in my mind on occasion of the most
+important of all revolutions, which may be dated from that day: I mean a
+revolution in sentiments, manners, and moral opinions. As things now
+stand, with everything respectable destroyed without us, and an attempt
+to destroy within us every principle of respect, one is almost forced to
+apologize for harboring the common feelings of men.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Why do I feel so differently from the Reverend Dr. Price, and those of
+his lay flock who will choose to adopt the sentiments of his
+discourse?--For this plain reason: Because it is _natural_ I should;
+because we are so made as to be affected at such spectacles with
+melancholy sentiments upon the unstable condition of mortal prosperity,
+and the tremendous uncertainty of human greatness; because in those
+natural feelings we learn great lessons; because in events like these
+our passions instruct our reason; because, when kings are hurled from
+their thrones by the Supreme Director of this great drama, and become
+the objects of insult to the base and of pity to the good, we behold
+such disasters in the moral as we should behold a miracle in the
+physical order of things. We are alarmed into reflection; our minds (as
+it has long since been observed) are purified by terror and pity; our
+weak, unthinking pride is humbled under the dispensations of a
+mysterious wisdom. Some tears might be drawn from me, if such a
+spectacle were exhibited on the stage. I should be truly ashamed of
+finding in myself that superficial, theatric sense of painted distress,
+whilst I could exult over it in real life. With such a perverted mind, I
+could never venture to show my face at a tragedy. People would think the
+tears that Garrick formerly, or that Siddons not long since, have
+extorted from me, were the tears of hypocrisy; I should know them to be
+the tears of folly.
+
+Indeed, the theatre is a better school of moral sentiments than churches
+where the feelings of humanity are thus outraged. Poets who have to deal
+with an audience not yet graduated in the school of the rights of men,
+and who must apply themselves to the moral constitution of the heart,
+would not dare to produce such a triumph as a matter of exultation.
+There, where men follow their natural impulses, they would not bear the
+odious maxims of a Machiavelian policy, whether applied to the
+attainment of monarchical or democratic tyranny. They would reject them
+on the modern, as they once did on the ancient stage, where they could
+not bear even the hypothetical proposition of such wickedness in the
+mouth of a personated tyrant, though suitable to the character he
+sustained. No theatric audience in Athens would bear what has been borne
+in the midst of the real tragedy of this triumphal day: a principal
+actor weighing, as it were in scales hung in a shop of horrors, so much
+actual crime against so much contingent advantage,--and after putting in
+and out weights, declaring that the balance was on the side of the
+advantages. They would not bear to see the crimes of new democracy
+posted as in a ledger against the crimes of old despotism, and the
+book-keepers of politics finding democracy still in debt, but by no
+means unable or unwilling to pay the balance. In the theatre, the first
+intuitive glance, without any elaborate process of reasoning, would show
+that this method of political computation would justify every extent of
+crime. They would see, that, on these principles, even where the very
+worst acts were not perpetrated, it was owing rather to the fortune of
+the conspirators than to their parsimony in the expenditure of treachery
+and blood. They would soon see that criminal means, once tolerated, are
+soon preferred. They present a shorter cut to the object than through
+the highway of the moral virtues. Justifying perfidy and murder for
+public benefit, public benefit would soon become the pretext, and
+perfidy and murder the end,--until rapacity, malice, revenge, and fear
+more dreadful than revenge, could satiate their insatiable appetites.
+Such must be the consequences of losing, in the splendor of these
+triumphs of the rights of men, all natural sense of wrong and right.
+
+But the reverend pastor exults in this "leading in triumph," because,
+truly, Louis the Sixteenth was "an arbitrary monarch": that is, in other
+words, neither more nor less than because he was Louis the Sixteenth,
+and because he had the misfortune to be born king of France, with the
+prerogatives of which a long line of ancestors, and a long acquiescence
+of the people, without any act of his, had put him in possession. A
+misfortune it has indeed turned out to him, that he was born king of
+France. But misfortune is not crime, nor is indiscretion always the
+greatest guilt. I shall never think that a prince, the acts of whose
+whole reign were a series of concessions to his subjects, who was
+willing to relax his authority, to remit his prerogatives, to call his
+people to a share of freedom not known, perhaps not desired, by their
+ancestors,--such a prince, though he should be subject to the common
+frailties attached to men and to princes, though he should have once
+thought it necessary to provide force against the desperate designs
+manifestly carrying on against his person and the remnants of his
+authority,--though all this should be taken into consideration, I shall
+be led with great difficulty to think he deserves the cruel and
+insulting triumph of Paris, and of Dr. Price. I tremble for the cause of
+liberty, from such an example to kings. I tremble for the cause of
+humanity, in the unpunished outrages of the most wicked of mankind. But
+there are some people of that low and degenerate fashion of mind that
+they look up with a sort of complacent awe and admiration to kings who
+know to keep firm in their seat, to hold a strict hand over their
+subjects, to assert their prerogative, and, by the awakened vigilance of
+a severe despotism, to guard against the very first approaches of
+freedom. Against such as these they never elevate their voice. Deserters
+from principle, listed with fortune, they never see any good in
+suffering virtue, nor any crime in prosperous usurpation.
+
+If it could have been made clear to me that the king and queen of France
+(those, I mean, who were such before the triumph) were inexorable and
+cruel tyrants, that they had formed a deliberate scheme for massacring
+the National Assembly, (I think I have seen something like the latter
+insinuated in certain publications,) I should think their captivity
+just. If this be true, much more ought to have been done, but done, in
+my opinion, in another manner. The punishment of real tyrants is a noble
+and awful act of justice; and it has with truth been said to be
+consolatory to the human mind. But if I were to punish a wicked king, I
+should regard the dignity in avenging the crime. Justice is grave and
+decorous, and in its punishments rather seems to submit to a necessity
+than to make a choice. Had Nero, or Agrippina, or Louis the Eleventh, or
+Charles the Ninth been the subject,--if Charles the Twelfth of Sweden,
+after the murder of Patkul, or his predecessor, Christina, after the
+murder of Monaldeschi, had fallen into your hands, Sir, or into mine, I
+am sure our conduct would have been different.
+
+If the French king, or king of the French, (or by whatever name he is
+known in the new vocabulary of your Constitution,) has in his own person
+and that of his queen really deserved these unavowed, but unavenged,
+murderous attempts, and those frequent indignities more cruel than
+murder, such a person would ill deserve even that subordinate executory
+trust which I understand is to be placed in him; nor is he fit to be
+called chief in a nation which he has outraged and oppressed. A worse
+choice for such an office in a new commonwealth than that of a deposed
+tyrant could not possibly be made. But to degrade and insult a man as
+the worst of criminals, and afterwards to trust him in your highest
+concerns, as a faithful, honest, and zealous servant, is not consistent
+in reasoning, nor prudent in policy, nor safe in practice. Those who
+could make such an appointment must be guilty of a more flagrant breach
+of trust than any they have yet committed against the people. As this is
+the only crime in which your leading politicians could have acted
+inconsistently, I conclude that there is no sort of ground for these
+horrid insinuations. I think no better of all the other calumnies.
+
+In England, we give no credit to them. We are generous enemies; we are
+faithful allies. We spurn from us with disgust and indignation the
+slanders of those who bring us their anecdotes with the attestation of
+the flower-de-luce on their shoulder. We have Lord George Gordon fast in
+Newgate; and neither his being a public proselyte to Judaism, nor his
+having, in his zeal against Catholic priests and all sorts of
+ecclesiastics, raised a mob (excuse the term, it is still in use here)
+which pulled down all our prisons, have preserved to him a liberty of
+which he did not render himself worthy by a virtuous use of it. We have
+rebuilt Newgate, and tenanted the mansion. We have prisons almost as
+strong as the Bastile, for those who dare to libel the queens of France.
+In this spiritual retreat let the noble libeller remain. Let him there
+meditate on his Talmud, until he learns a conduct more becoming his
+birth and parts, and not so disgraceful to the ancient religion to which
+he has become a proselyte,--or until some persons from your side of the
+water, to please your new Hebrew brethren, shall ransom him. He may then
+be enabled to purchase, with the old hoards of the synagogue, and a very
+small poundage on the long compound interest of the thirty pieces of
+silver, (Dr. Price has shown us what miracles compound interest will
+perform in 1790 years,) the lands which are lately discovered to have
+been usurped by the Gallican Church. Send us your Popish Archbishop of
+Paris, and we will send you our Protestant Rabbin. We shall treat the
+person you send us in exchange like a gentleman and an honest man, as he
+is: but pray let him bring with him the fund of his hospitality, bounty,
+and charity; and, depend upon it, we shall never confiscate a shilling
+of that honorable and pious fund, nor think of enriching the Treasury
+with the spoils of the poor-box.
+
+To tell you the truth, my dear Sir, I think the honor of our nation to
+be somewhat concerned in the disclaimer of the proceedings of this
+society of the Old Jewry and the London Tavern. I have no man's proxy. I
+speak only from myself, when I disclaim, as I do with all possible
+earnestness, all communion with the actors in that triumph, or with the
+admirers of it. When I assert anything else, as concerning the people of
+England, I speak from observation, not from authority; but I speak from
+the experience I have had in a pretty extensive and mixed communication
+with the inhabitants of this kingdom, of all descriptions and ranks, and
+after a course of attentive observation, begun in early life, and
+continued for near forty years. I have often been astonished,
+considering that we are divided from you but by a slender dike of about
+twenty-four miles, and that the mutual intercourse between the two
+countries has lately been very great, to find how little you seem to
+know of us. I suspect that this is owing to your forming a judgment of
+this nation from certain publications, which do, very erroneously, if
+they do at all, represent the opinions and dispositions generally
+prevalent in England. The vanity, restlessness, petulance, and spirit
+of intrigue of several petty cabals, who attempt to hide their total
+want of consequence in bustle and noise, and puffing and mutual
+quotation of each other, makes you imagine that our contemptuous neglect
+of their abilities is a general mark of acquiescence in their opinions.
+No such thing, I assure you. Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a
+fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands
+of great cattle reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak chew the
+cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise
+are the only inhabitants of the field,--that, of course, they are many
+in number,--or that, after all, they are other than the little,
+shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the
+hour.
+
+I almost venture to affirm that not one in a hundred amongst us
+participates in the "triumph" of the Revolution Society. If the king and
+queen of France and their children were to fall into our hands by the
+chance of war, in the most acrimonious of all hostilities, (I deprecate
+such an event, I deprecate such hostility,) they would be treated with
+another sort of triumphal entry into London. We formerly have had a king
+of France in that situation: you have read how he was treated by the
+victor in the field, and in what manner he was afterwards received in
+England. Four hundred years have gone over us; but I believe we are not
+materially changed since that period. Thanks to our sullen resistance to
+innovation, thanks to the cold sluggishness of our national character,
+we still bear the stamp of our forefathers. We have not (as I conceive)
+lost the generosity and dignity of thinking of the fourteenth century;
+nor as yet have we subtilized ourselves into savages. We are not the
+converts of Rousseau; we are not the disciples of Voltaire; Helvetius
+has made no progress amongst us. Atheists are not our preachers; madmen
+are not our lawgivers. We know that _we_ have made no discoveries, and
+we think that no discoveries are to be made, in morality,--nor many in
+the great principles of government, nor in the ideas of liberty, which
+were understood long before we were born altogether as well as they will
+be after the grave has heaped its mould upon our presumption, and the
+silent tomb shall have imposed its law on our pert loquacity. In England
+we have not yet been completely embowelled of our natural entrails: we
+still feel within us, and we cherish and cultivate, those inbred
+sentiments which are the faithful guardians, the active monitors of our
+duty, the true supporters of all liberal and manly morals. We have not
+been drawn and trussed, in order that we may be filled, like stuffed
+birds in a museum, with chaff and rags, and paltry, blurred shreds of
+paper about the rights of man. We preserve the whole of our feelings
+still native and entire, unsophisticated by pedantry and infidelity. We
+have real hearts of flesh and blood beating in our bosoms. We fear God;
+we look up with awe to kings, with affection to Parliaments, with duty
+to magistrates, with reverence to priests, and with respect to
+nobility.[94] Why? Because, when such ideas are brought before our
+minds, it is _natural_ to be so affected; because all other feelings are
+false and spurious, and tend to corrupt our minds, to vitiate our
+primary morals, to render us unfit for rational liberty, and, by
+teaching us a servile, licentious, and abandoned insolence, to be our
+low sport for a few holidays, to make us perfectly fit for and justly
+deserving of slavery through the whole course of our lives.
+
+You see, Sir, that in this enlightened age I am bold enough to confess
+that we are generally men of untaught feelings: that, instead of casting
+away all our old prejudices, we cherish them to a very considerable
+degree; and, to take more shame to ourselves, we cherish them because
+they are prejudices; and the longer they have lasted, and the more
+generally they have prevailed, the more we cherish them. We are afraid
+to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason;
+because we suspect that the stock in each man is small, and that the
+individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and
+capital of nations and of ages. Many of our men of speculation, instead
+of exploding general prejudices, employ their sagacity to discover the
+latent wisdom which prevails in them. If they find what they seek, (and
+they seldom fail,) they think it more wise to continue the prejudice,
+with the reason involved, than to cast away the coat of prejudice, and
+to leave nothing but the naked reason; because prejudice, with its
+reason, has a motive to give action to that reason, and an affection
+which will give it permanence. Prejudice is of ready application in the
+emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom
+and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of
+decision, skeptical, puzzled, and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man's
+virtue his habit, and not a series of unconnected acts. Through just
+prejudice, his duty becomes a part of his nature.
+
+Your literary men, and your politicians, and so do the whole clan of the
+enlightened among us, essentially differ in these points. They have no
+respect for the wisdom of others; but they pay it off by a very full
+measure of confidence in their own. With them it is a sufficient motive
+to destroy an old scheme of things, because it is an old one. As to the
+new, they are in no sort of fear with regard to the duration of a
+building run up in haste; because duration is no object to those who
+think little or nothing has been done before their time, and who place
+all their hopes in discovery. They conceive, very systematically, that
+all things which give perpetuity are mischievous, and therefore they are
+at inexpiable war with all establishments. They think that government
+may vary like modes of dress, and with as little ill effect; that there
+needs no principle of attachment, except a sense of present conveniency,
+to any constitution of the state. They always speak as if they were of
+opinion that there is a singular species of compact between them and
+their magistrates, which binds the magistrate, but which has nothing
+reciprocal in it, but that the majesty of the people has a right to
+dissolve it without any reason but its will. Their attachment to their
+country itself is only so far as it agrees with some of their fleeting
+projects: it begins and ends with that scheme of polity which falls in
+with their momentary opinion.
+
+These doctrines, or rather sentiments, seem prevalent with your new
+statesmen. But they are wholly different from those on which we have
+always acted in this country.
+
+I hear it is sometimes given out in France, that what is doing among you
+is after the example of England. I beg leave to affirm that scarcely
+anything done with you has originated from the practice or the prevalent
+opinions of this people, either in the act or in the spirit of the
+proceeding. Let me add, that we are as unwilling to learn these lessons
+from France as we are sure that we never taught them to that nation. The
+cabals here who take a sort of share in your transactions as yet consist
+of but a handful of people. If, unfortunately, by their intrigues, their
+sermons, their publications, and by a confidence derived from an
+expected union with the counsels and forces of the French nation, they
+should draw considerable numbers into their faction, and in consequence
+should seriously attempt anything here in imitation of what has been
+done with you, the event, I dare venture to prophesy, will be, that,
+with some trouble to their country, they will soon accomplish their own
+destruction. This people refused to change their law in remote ages from
+respect to the infallibility of Popes, and they will not now alter it
+from a pious implicit faith in the dogmatism of philosophers,--though
+the former was armed with the anathema and crusade, and though the
+latter should act with the libel and the lamp-iron.
+
+Formerly your affairs were your own concern only. We felt for them as
+men; but we kept aloof from them, because we were not citizens of
+France. But when we see the model held up to ourselves, we must feel as
+Englishmen, and, feeling, we must provide as Englishmen. Your affairs,
+in spite of us, are made a part of our interest,--so far at least as to
+keep at a distance your panacea or your plague. If it be a panacea, we
+do not want it: we know the consequences of unnecessary physic. If it be
+a plague, it is such a plague that the precautions of the most severe
+quarantine ought to be established against it.
+
+I hear on all hands, that a cabal, calling itself philosophic, receives
+the glory of many of the late proceedings, and that their opinions and
+systems are the true actuating spirit of the whole of them. I have heard
+of no party in England, literary or political, at any time, known by
+such a description. It is not with you composed of those men, is it?
+whom the vulgar, in their blunt, homely style, commonly call Atheists
+and Infidels? If it be, I admit that we, too, have had writers of that
+description, who made some noise in their day. At present they repose in
+lasting oblivion. Who, born within the last forty years, has read one
+word of Collins, and Toland, and Tindal, and Chubb, and Morgan, and that
+whole race who called themselves Freethinkers? Who now reads
+Bolingbroke? Who ever read him through? Ask the booksellers of London
+what is become of all these lights of the world. In as few years their
+few successors will go to the family vault of "all the Capulets." But
+whatever they were, or are, with us they were and are wholly unconnected
+individuals. With us they kept the common nature of their kind, and were
+not gregarious. They never acted in corps, nor were known as a faction
+in the state, nor presumed to influence in that name or character, or
+for the purposes of such a faction, on any of our public concerns.
+Whether they ought so to exist, and so be permitted to act, is another
+question. As such cabals have not existed in England, so neither has the
+spirit of them had any influence in establishing the original frame of
+our Constitution, or in any one of the several reparations and
+improvements it has undergone. The whole has been done under the
+auspices, and is confirmed by the sanctions, of religion and piety. The
+whole has emanated from the simplicity of our national character, and
+from a sort of native plainness and directness of understanding, which
+for a long time characterized those men who have successively obtained
+authority among us. This disposition still remains,--at least in the
+great body of the people.
+
+We know, and, what is better, we feel inwardly, that religion is the
+basis of civil society, and the source of all good, and of all
+comfort.[95] In England we are so convinced of this, that there is no
+rust of superstition, with which the accumulated absurdity of the human
+mind might have crusted it over in the course of ages, that ninety-nine
+in a hundred of the people of England would not prefer to impiety. We
+shall never be such fools as to call in an enemy to the substance of any
+system to remove its corruptions, to supply its defects, or to perfect
+its construction. If our religious tenets should ever want a further
+elucidation, we shall not call on Atheism to explain them. We shall not
+light up our temple from that unhallowed fire. It will be illuminated
+with other lights. It will be perfumed with other incense than the
+infectious stuff which is imported by the smugglers of adulterated
+metaphysics. If our ecclesiastical establishment should want a revision,
+it is not avarice or rapacity, public or private, that we shall employ
+for the audit or receipt or application of its consecrated revenue.
+Violently condemning neither the Greek nor the Armenian, nor, since
+heats are subsided, the Roman system of religion, we prefer the
+Protestant: not because we think it has less of the Christian religion
+in it, but because, in our judgment, it has more. We are Protestants,
+not from indifference, but from zeal.
+
+We know, and it is our pride to know, that man is by his constitution a
+religious animal; that atheism is against, not only our reason, but our
+instincts; and that it cannot prevail long. But if, in the moment of
+riot, and in a drunken delirium from the hot spirit drawn out of the
+alembic of hell, which in France is now so furiously boiling, we should
+uncover our nakedness, by throwing off that Christian religion which has
+hitherto been our boast and comfort, and one great source of
+civilization amongst us, and among many other nations, we are
+apprehensive (being well aware that the mind will not endure a void)
+that some uncouth, pernicious, and degrading superstition might take
+place of it.
+
+For that reason, before we take from our establishment the natural,
+human means of estimation, and give it up to contempt, as you have done,
+and in doing it have incurred the penalties you well deserve to suffer,
+we desire that some other may be presented to us in the place of it. We
+shall then form our judgment.
+
+On these ideas, instead of quarrelling with establishments, as some do,
+who have made a philosophy and a religion of their hostility to such
+institutions, we cleave closely to them. We are resolved to keep an
+established church, an established monarchy, an established aristocracy,
+and an established democracy, each in the degree it exists, and in no
+greater. I shall show you presently how much of each of these we
+possess.
+
+It has been the misfortune (not, as these gentlemen think it, the glory)
+of this age, that everything is to be discussed, as if the Constitution
+of our country were to be always a subject rather of altercation than
+enjoyment. For this reason, as well as for the satisfaction of those
+among you (if any such you have among you) who may wish to profit of
+examples, I venture to trouble you with a few thoughts upon each of
+these establishments. I do not think they were unwise in ancient Rome,
+who, when they wished to new-model their laws, sent commissioners to
+examine the best-constituted republics within their reach.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+First I beg leave to speak of our Church Establishment, which is the
+first of our prejudices,--not a prejudice destitute of reason, but
+involving in it profound and extensive wisdom. I speak of it first. It
+is first, and last, and midst in our minds. For, taking ground on that
+religious system of which we are now in possession, we continue to act
+on the early received and uniformly continued sense of mankind. That
+sense not only, like a wise architect, hath built up the august fabric
+of states, but, like a provident proprietor, to preserve the structure
+from profanation and ruin, as a sacred temple, purged from all the
+impurities of fraud and violence and injustice and tyranny, hath
+solemnly and forever consecrated the commonwealth, and all that
+officiate in it. This consecration is made, that all who administer in
+the government of men, in which they stand in the person of God Himself,
+should have high and worthy notions of their function and destination;
+that their hope should be full of immortality; that they should not look
+to the paltry pelf of the moment, nor to the temporary and transient
+praise of the vulgar, but to a solid, permanent existence, in the
+permanent part of their nature, and to a permanent fame and glory, in
+the example they leave as a rich inheritance to the world.
+
+Such sublime principles ought to be infused into persons of exalted
+situations, and religious establishments provided that may continually
+revive and enforce them. Every sort of moral, every sort of civil, every
+sort of politic institution, aiding the rational and natural ties that
+connect the human understanding and affections to the divine, are not
+more than necessary, in order to build up that wonderful structure,
+Man,--whose prerogative it is, to be in a great degree a creature of his
+own making, and who, when made as he ought to be made, is destined to
+hold no trivial place in the creation. But whenever man is put over men,
+as the better nature ought ever to preside, in that case more
+particularly he should as nearly as possible be approximated to his
+perfection.
+
+The consecration of the state by a state religious establishment is
+necessary also to operate with a wholesome awe upon free citizens;
+because, in order to secure their freedom, they must enjoy some
+determinate portion of power. To them, therefore, a religion connected
+with the state, and with their duty towards it, becomes even more
+necessary than in such societies where the people, by the terms of their
+subjection, are confined to private sentiments, and the management of
+their own family concerns. All persons possessing any portion of power
+ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in
+trust, and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to
+the one great Master, Author, and Founder of society.
+
+This principle ought even to be more strongly impressed upon the minds
+of those who compose the collective sovereignty than upon those of
+single princes. Without instruments, these princes can do nothing.
+Whoever uses instruments, in finding helps, finds also impediments.
+Their power is therefore by no means complete; nor are they safe in
+extreme abuse. Such persons, however elevated by flattery, arrogance,
+and self-opinion, must be sensible, that, whether covered or not by
+positive law, in some way or other they are accountable even here for
+the abuse of their trust. If they are not cut off by a rebellion of
+their people, they may be strangled by the very janissaries kept for
+their security against all other rebellion. Thus we have seen the king
+of France sold by his soldiers for an increase of pay. But where popular
+authority is absolute and unrestrained, the people have an infinitely
+greater, because a far better founded, confidence in their own power.
+They are themselves in a great measure their own instruments. They are
+nearer to their objects. Besides, they are less under responsibility to
+one of the greatest controlling powers on earth, the sense of fame and
+estimation. The share of infamy that is likely to fall to the lot of
+each individual in public acts is small indeed: the operation of opinion
+being in the inverse ratio to the number of those who abuse power. Their
+own approbation of their own acts has to them the appearance of a public
+judgment in their favor. A perfect democracy is therefore the most
+shameless thing in the world. As it is the most shameless, it is also
+the most fearless. No man apprehends in his person that he can be made
+subject to punishment. Certainly the people at large never ought: for,
+as all punishments are for example towards the conservation of the
+people at large, the people at large can never become the subject of
+punishment by any human hand.[96] It is therefore of infinite importance
+that they should not be suffered to imagine that their will, any more
+than that of kings, is the standard of right and wrong. They ought to be
+persuaded that they are full as little entitled, and far less qualified,
+with safety to themselves, to use any arbitrary power whatsoever; that
+therefore they are not, under a false show of liberty, but in truth to
+exercise an unnatural, inverted domination, tyrannically to exact from
+those who officiate in the state, not an entire devotion to their
+interest, which is their right, but an abject submission to their
+occasional will: extinguishing thereby, in all those who serve them, all
+moral principle, all sense of dignity, all use of judgment, and all
+consistency of character; whilst by the very same process they give
+themselves up a proper, a suitable, but a most contemptible prey to the
+servile ambition of popular sycophants or courtly flatterers.
+
+When the people have emptied themselves of all the lust of selfish will,
+which without religion it is utterly impossible they ever should,--when
+they are conscious that they exercise, and exercise perhaps in a higher
+link of the order of delegation, the power which to be legitimate must
+be according to that eternal, immutable law in which will and reason are
+the same,--they will be more careful how they place power in base and
+incapable hands. In their nomination to office, they will not appoint to
+the exercise of authority as to a pitiful job, but as to a holy
+function; not according to their sordid, selfish interest, nor to their
+wanton caprice, nor to their arbitrary will; but they will confer that
+power (which any man may well tremble to give or to receive) on those
+only in whom they may discern that predominant proportion of active
+virtue and wisdom, taken together and fitted to the charge, such as in
+the great and inevitable mixed mass of human imperfections and
+infirmities is to be found.
+
+When they are habitually convinced that no evil can be acceptable,
+either in the act or the permission, to Him whose essence is good, they
+will be better able to extirpate out of the minds of all magistrates,
+civil, ecclesiastical, or military, anything that bears the least
+resemblance to a proud and lawless domination.
+
+But one of the first and most leading principles on which the
+commonwealth and the laws are consecrated is lest the temporary
+possessors and life-renters in it, unmindful of what they have received
+from their ancestors, or of what is due to their posterity, should act
+as if they were the entire masters; that they should not think it
+amongst their rights to cut off the entail or commit waste on the
+inheritance, by destroying at their pleasure the whole original fabric
+of their society: hazarding to leave to those who come after them a ruin
+instead of an habitation,--and teaching these successors as little to
+respect their contrivances as they had themselves respected the
+institutions of their forefathers. By this unprincipled facility of
+changing the state as often and as much and in as many ways as there are
+floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of the
+commonwealth would be broken; no one generation could link with the
+other; men would become little better than the flies of a summer.
+
+And first of all, the science of jurisprudence, the pride of the human
+intellect, which, with all its defects, redundancies, and errors, is the
+collected reason of ages, combining the principles of original justice
+with the infinite variety of human concerns, as a heap of old exploded
+errors, would be no longer studied. Personal self-sufficiency and
+arrogance (the certain attendants upon all those who have never
+experienced a wisdom greater than their own) would usurp the tribunal.
+Of course no certain laws, establishing invariable grounds of hope and
+fear, would keep the actions of men in a certain course, or direct them
+to a certain end. Nothing stable in the modes of holding property or
+exercising function could form a solid ground on which any parent could
+speculate in the education of his offspring, or in a choice for their
+future establishment in the world. No principles would be early worked
+into the habits. As soon as the most able instructor had completed his
+laborious course of institution, instead of sending forth his pupil
+accomplished in a virtuous discipline fitted to procure him attention
+and respect in his place in society, he would find everything altered,
+and that he had turned out a poor creature to the contempt and derision
+of the world, ignorant of the true grounds of estimation. Who would
+insure a tender and delicate sense of honor to beat almost with the
+first pulses of the heart, when no man could know what would be the test
+of honor in a nation continually varying the standard of its coin? No
+part of life would retain its acquisitions. Barbarism with regard to
+science and literature, unskilfulness with regard to arts and
+manufactures, would infallibly succeed to the want of a steady education
+and settled principle; and thus the commonwealth itself would in a few
+generations crumble away, be disconnected into the dust and powder of
+individuality, and at length dispersed to all the winds of heaven.
+
+To avoid, therefore, the evils of inconstancy and versatility, ten
+thousand times worse than those of obstinacy and the blindest prejudice,
+we have consecrated the state, that no man should approach to look into
+its defects or corruptions but with due caution; that he should never
+dream of beginning its reformation by its subversion; that he should
+approach to the faults of the state as to the wounds of a father, with
+pious awe and trembling solicitude. By this wise prejudice we are taught
+to look with horror on those children of their country who are prompt
+rashly to hack that aged parent in pieces and put him into the kettle of
+magicians, in hopes that by their poisonous weeds and wild incantations
+they may regenerate the paternal constitution and renovate their
+father's life.
+
+Society is, indeed, a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of
+mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure; but the state
+ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership
+agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some
+other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest,
+and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on
+with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in things
+subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and
+perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science, a partnership in
+all art, a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the
+ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it
+becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between
+those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.
+Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great
+primeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher
+natures, connecting the visible and invisible world, according to a
+fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical
+and all moral natures each in their appointed place. This law is not
+subject to the will of those who, by an obligation above them, and
+infinitely superior, are bound to submit their will to that law. The
+municipal corporations of that universal kingdom are not morally at
+liberty, at their pleasure, and on their speculations of a contingent
+improvement, wholly to separate and tear asunder the bands of their
+subordinate community, and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil,
+unconnected chaos of elementary principles. It is the first and supreme
+necessity only, a necessity that is not chosen, but chooses, a necessity
+paramount to deliberation, that admits no discussion and demands no
+evidence, which alone can justify a resort to anarchy. This necessity is
+no exception to the rule; because this necessity itself is a part, too,
+of that moral and physical disposition of things to which man must be
+obedient by consent or force: but if that which is only submission to
+necessity should be made the object of choice, the law is broken, Nature
+is disobeyed, and the rebellious are outlawed, cast forth, and exiled,
+from this world of reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and
+fruitful penitence, into the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice,
+confusion, and unavailing sorrow.
+
+These, my dear Sir, are, were, and, I think, long will be, the
+sentiments of not the least learned and reflecting part of this kingdom.
+They who are included in this description form their opinions on such
+grounds as such persons ought to form them. The less inquiring receive
+them from an authority which those whom Providence dooms to live on
+trust need not be ashamed to rely on. These two sorts of men move in the
+same direction, though in a different place. They both move with the
+order of the universe. They all know or feel this great ancient
+truth:--"_Quod illi principi et præpotenti Deo qui omnem hunc mundum
+regit nihil eorum quæ quidem fiant in terris acceptius quam concilia et
+coetus hominum jure sociati quæ civitates appellantur_." They take this
+tenet of the head and heart, not from the great name which it
+immediately bears, nor from the greater from whence it is derived, but
+from that which alone can give true weight and sanction to any learned
+opinion, the common nature and common relation of men. Persuaded that
+all things ought to be done with reference, and referring all to the
+point of reference to which all should be directed, they think
+themselves bound, not only as individuals in the sanctuary of the heart,
+or as congregated in that personal capacity, to renew the memory of
+their high origin and cast, but also in their corporate character to
+perform their national homage to the Institutor and Author and Protector
+of civil society, without which civil society man could not by any
+possibility arrive at the perfection of which his nature is capable, nor
+even make a remote and faint approach to it. They conceive that He who
+gave our nature to be perfected by our virtue willed also the necessary
+means of its perfection: He willed, therefore, the state: He willed its
+connection with the source and original archetype of all perfection.
+They who are convinced of this His will, which is the law of laws and
+the sovereign of sovereigns, cannot think it reprehensible that this our
+corporate fealty and homage, that this our recognition of a signiory
+paramount, I had almost said this oblation of the state itself, as a
+worthy offering on the high altar of universal praise, should be
+performed, as all public, solemn acts are performed, in buildings, in
+music, in decoration, in speech, in the dignity of persons, according to
+the customs of mankind, taught by their nature,--that is, with modest
+splendor, with unassuming state, with mild majesty and sober pomp. For
+those purposes they think some part of the wealth of the country is as
+usefully employed as it can be in fomenting the luxury of individuals.
+It is the public ornament. It is the public consolation. It nourishes
+the public hope. The poorest man finds his own importance and dignity in
+it, whilst the wealth and pride of individuals at every moment makes the
+man of humble rank and fortune sensible of his inferiority, and degrades
+and vilifies his condition. It is for the man in humble life, and to
+raise his nature, and to put him in mind of a state in which the
+privileges of opulence will cease, when he will be equal by nature, and
+may be more than equal by virtue, that this portion of the general
+wealth of his country is employed and sanctified.
+
+I assure you I do not aim at singularity. I give you opinions which have
+been accepted amongst us, from very early times to this moment, with a
+continued and general approbation, and which, indeed, are so worked into
+my mind that I am unable to distinguish what I have learned from others
+from the results of my own meditation.
+
+It is on some such principles that the majority of the people of
+England, far from thinking a religious national establishment unlawful,
+hardly think it lawful to be without one. In France you are wholly
+mistaken, if you do not believe us above all other things attached to
+it, and beyond all other nations; and when this people has acted
+unwisely and unjustifiably in its favor, (as in some instances they have
+done, most certainly,) in their very errors you will at least discover
+their zeal.
+
+This principle runs through the whole system of their polity. They do
+not consider their Church establishment as convenient, but as essential
+to their state: not as a thing heterogeneous and separable,--something
+added for accommodation,--what they may either keep up or lay aside,
+according to their temporary ideas of convenience. They consider it as
+the foundation of their whole Constitution, with which, and with every
+part of which, it holds an indissoluble union. Church and State are
+ideas inseparable in their minds, and scarcely is the one ever mentioned
+without mentioning the other.
+
+Our education is so formed as to confirm and fix this impression. Our
+education is in a manner wholly in the hands of ecclesiastics, and in
+all stages from infancy to manhood. Even when our youth, leaving schools
+and universities, enter that most important period of life which begins
+to link experience and study together, and when with that view they
+visit other countries, instead of old domestics whom we have seen as
+governors to principal men from other parts, three fourths of those who
+go abroad with our young nobility and gentlemen are ecclesiastics: not
+as austere masters, nor as mere followers; but as friends and companions
+of a graver character, and not seldom persons as well born as
+themselves. With them, as relations, they most commonly keep up a close
+connection through life. By this connection we conceive that we attach
+our gentlemen to the Church; and we liberalize the Church by an
+intercourse with the leading characters of the country.
+
+So tenacious are we of the old ecclesiastical modes and fashions of
+institution, that very little alteration has been made in them since the
+fourteenth or fifteenth century: adhering in this particular, as in all
+things else, to our old settled maxim, never entirely nor at once to
+depart from antiquity. We found these old institutions, on the whole,
+favorable to morality and discipline; and we thought they were
+susceptible of amendment, without altering the ground. We thought that
+they were capable of receiving and meliorating, and above all of
+preserving, the accessions of science and literature, as the order of
+Providence should successively produce them. And after all, with this
+Gothic and monkish education, (for such it is in the groundwork,) we may
+put in our claim to as ample and as early a share in all the
+improvements in science, in arts, and in literature, which have
+illuminated and adorned the modern world, as any other nation in Europe:
+we think one main cause of this improvement was our not despising the
+patrimony of knowledge which was left us by our forefathers.
+
+It is from our attachment to a Church establishment, that the English
+nation did not think it wise to intrust that great fundamental interest
+of the whole to what they trust no part of their civil or military
+public service,--that is, to the unsteady and precarious contribution of
+individuals. They go further. They certainly never have suffered, and
+never will suffer, the fixed estate of the Church to be converted into a
+pension, to depend on the Treasury, and to be delayed, withheld, or
+perhaps to be extinguished by fiscal difficulties: which difficulties
+may sometimes be pretended for political purposes, and are in fact often
+brought on by the extravagance, negligence, and rapacity of politicians.
+The people of England think that they have constitutional motives, as
+well as religious, against any project of turning their independent
+clergy into ecclesiastical pensioners of state. They tremble for their
+liberty, from the influence of a clergy dependent on the crown; they
+tremble for the public tranquillity, from the disorders of a factious
+clergy, if it were made to depend upon any other than the crown. They
+therefore made their Church, like their king and their nobility,
+independent.
+
+From the united considerations of religion and constitutional policy,
+from their opinion of a duty to make a sure provision for the
+consolation of the feeble and the instruction of the ignorant, they have
+incorporated and identified the estate of the Church with the mass of
+_private property_, of which the state is not the proprietor, either for
+use or dominion, but the guardian only and the regulator. They have
+ordained that the provision of this establishment might be as stable as
+the earth on which it stands, and should not fluctuate with the Euripus
+of funds and actions.
+
+The men of England, the men, I mean, of light and leading in England,
+whose wisdom (if they have any) is open and direct, would be ashamed, as
+of a silly, deceitful trick, to profess any religion in name, which by
+their proceedings they appear to contemn. If by their conduct (the only
+language that rarely lies) they seemed to regard the great ruling
+principle of the moral and the natural world as a mere invention to keep
+the vulgar in obedience, they apprehend that by such a conduct they
+would defeat the politic purpose they have in view. They would find it
+difficult to make others believe in a system to which they manifestly
+gave no credit themselves. The Christian statesmen of this land would,
+indeed, first provide for the _multitude_, because it is the
+_multitude_, and is therefore, as such, the first object in the
+ecclesiastical institution, and in all institutions. They have been
+taught that the circumstance of the Gospel's being preached to the poor
+was one of the great tests of its true mission. They think, therefore,
+that those do not believe it who do not take care it should be preached
+to the poor. But as they know that charity is not confined to any one
+description, but ought to apply itself to all men who have wants, they
+are not deprived of a due and anxious sensation of pity to the
+distresses of the miserable great. They are not repelled, through a
+fastidious delicacy, at the stench of their arrogance and presumption,
+from a medicinal attention to their mental blotches and running sores.
+They are sensible that religious instruction is of more consequence to
+them than to any others: from the greatness of the temptation to which
+they are exposed; from the important consequences that attend their
+faults; from the contagion of their ill example; from the necessity of
+bowing down the stubborn neck of their pride and ambition to the yoke of
+moderation and virtue; from a consideration of the fat stupidity and
+gross ignorance concerning what imports men most to know, which prevails
+at courts, and at the head of armies, and in senates, as much as at the
+loom and in the field.
+
+The English people are satisfied, that to the great the consolations of
+religion are as necessary as its instructions. They, too, are among the
+unhappy. They feel personal pain and domestic sorrow. In these they have
+no privilege, but are subject to pay their full contingent to the
+contributions levied on mortality. They want this sovereign balm under
+their gnawing cares and anxieties, which, being less conversant about
+the limited wants of animal life, range without limit, and are
+diversified by infinite combinations in the wild and unbounded regions
+of imagination. Some charitable dole is wanting to these, our often
+very unhappy brethren, to fill the gloomy void that reigns in minds
+which have nothing on earth to hope or fear; something to relieve in the
+killing languor and over-labored lassitude of those who have nothing to
+do; something to excite an appetite to existence in the palled satiety
+which attends on all pleasures which may be bought, where Nature is not
+left to her own process, where even desire is anticipated, and therefore
+fruition defeated by meditated schemes and contrivances of delight, and
+no interval, no obstacle, is interposed between the wish and the
+accomplishment.
+
+The people of England know how little influence the teachers of religion
+are likely to have with the wealthy and powerful of long standing, and
+how much less with the newly fortunate, if they appear in a manner no
+way assorted to those with whom they must associate, and over whom they
+must even exercise, in some cases, something like an authority. What
+must they think of that body of teachers, if they see it in no part
+above the establishment of their domestic servants? If the poverty were
+voluntary, there might be some difference. Strong instances of
+self-denial operate powerfully on our minds; and a man who has no wants
+has obtained great freedom and firmness, and even dignity. But as the
+mass of any description of men are but men, and their poverty cannot be
+voluntary, that disrespect which attends upon all lay poverty will not
+depart from the ecclesiastical. Our provident Constitution has therefore
+taken care that those who are to instruct presumptuous ignorance, those
+who are to be censors over insolent vice, should neither incur their
+contempt nor live upon their alms; nor will it tempt the rich to a
+neglect of the true medicine of their minds. For these reasons, whilst
+we provide first for the poor, and with a parental solicitude, we have
+not relegated religion (like something we were ashamed to show) to
+obscure municipalities or rustic villages. No! we will have her to exalt
+her mitred front in courts and parliaments. We will have her mixed
+throughout the whole mass of life, and blended with all the classes of
+society. The people of England will show to the haughty potentates of
+the world, and to their talking sophisters, that a free, a generous, an
+informed nation honors the high magistrates of its Church; that it will
+not suffer the insolence of wealth and titles, or any other species of
+proud pretension, to look down with scorn upon what they look up to with
+reverence, nor presume to trample on that acquired personal nobility
+which they intend always to be, and which often is, the fruit, not the
+reward, (for what can be the reward?) of learning, piety, and virtue.
+They can see, without pain or grudging, an archbishop precede a duke.
+They can see a bishop of Durham or a bishop of Winchester in possession
+of ten thousand pounds a year, and cannot conceive why it is in worse
+hands than estates to the like amount in the hands of this earl or that
+squire; although it may be true that so many dogs and horses are not
+kept by the former, and fed with the victuals which ought to nourish the
+children of the people. It is true, the whole Church revenue is not
+always employed, and to every shilling, in charity; nor perhaps ought
+it; but something is generally so employed. It is better to cherish
+virtue and humanity, by leaving much to free will, even with some loss
+to the object, than to attempt to make men mere machines and instruments
+of a political benevolence. The world on the whole will gain by a
+liberty without which virtue cannot exist.
+
+When once the commonwealth has established the estates of the Church as
+property, it can consistently hear nothing of the more or the less. Too
+much and too little are treason against property. What evil can arise
+from the quantity in any hand, whilst the supreme authority has the
+full, sovereign superintendence over this, as over any property, to
+prevent every species of abuse,--and whenever it notably deviates, to
+give to it a direction agreeable to the purposes of its institution?
+
+In England most of us conceive that it is envy and malignity towards
+those who are often the beginners of their own fortune, and not a love
+of the self-denial and mortification of the ancient Church, that makes
+some look askance at the distinctions and honors and revenues which,
+taken from no person, are set apart for virtue. The ears of the people
+of England are distinguishing. They hear these men speak broad. Their
+tongue betrays them. Their language is in the _patois_ of fraud, in the
+cant and gibberish of hypocrisy. The people of England must think so,
+when these praters affect to carry back the clergy to that primitive
+evangelic poverty which in the spirit ought always to exist in them,
+(and in us, too, however we may like it,) but in the thing must be
+varied, when the relation of that body to the state is altered,--when
+manners, when modes of life, when indeed the whole order of human
+affairs, has undergone a total revolution. We shall believe those
+reformers to be then honest enthusiasts, not, as now we think them,
+cheats and deceivers, when we see them throwing their own goods into
+common, and submitting their own persons to the austere discipline of
+the early Church.
+
+With these ideas rooted in their minds, the Commons of Great Britain, in
+the national emergencies, will never seek their resource from the
+confiscation of the estates of the Church and poor. Sacrilege and
+proscription are not among the ways and means of our Committee of
+Supply. The Jews in Change Alley have not yet dared to hint their hopes
+of a mortgage on the revenues belonging to the see of Canterbury. I am
+not afraid that I shall be disavowed, when I assure you that there is
+not _one_ public man in this kingdom, whom you wish to quote,--no, not
+one, of any party or description,--who does not reprobate the dishonest,
+perfidious, and cruel confiscation which the National Assembly has been
+compelled to make of that property which it was their first duty to
+protect.
+
+It is with the exultation of a little national pride I tell you that
+those amongst us who have wished to pledge the societies of Paris in the
+cup of their abominations have been disappointed. The robbery of your
+Church has proved a security to the possessions of ours. It has roused
+the people. They see with horror and alarm that enormous and shameless
+act of proscription. It has opened, and will more and more open, their
+eyes upon the selfish enlargement of mind and the narrow liberality of
+sentiment of insidious men, which, commencing in close hypocrisy and
+fraud, have ended in open violence and rapine. At home we behold similar
+beginnings. We are on our guard against similar conclusions.
+
+I hope we shall never be so totally lost to all sense of the duties
+imposed upon us by the law of social union, as, upon any pretest of
+public service, to confiscate the goods of a single unoffending citizen.
+Who but a tyrant (a name expressive of everything which can vitiate and
+degrade human nature) could think of seizing on the property of men,
+unaccused, unheard, untried, by whole descriptions, by hundreds and
+thousands together? Who that had not lost every trace of humanity could
+think of casting down men of exalted rank and sacred function, some of
+them of an age to call at once for reverence and compassion,--of casting
+them down from the highest situation in the commonwealth, wherein they
+were maintained by their own landed property, to a state of indigence,
+depression, and contempt?
+
+The confiscators truly have made some allowance to their victims from
+the scraps and fragments of their own tables, from which they have been
+so harshly driven, and which have been so bountifully spread for a feast
+to the harpies of usury. But to drive men from independence to live on
+alms is itself great cruelty. That which might be a tolerable condition
+to men in one state of life, and not habituated to other things, may,
+when all these circumstances are altered, be a dreadful revolution, and
+one to which a virtuous mind would feel pain in condemning any guilt,
+except that which would demand the life of the offender. But to many
+minds this punishment of _degradation_ and _infamy_ is worse than death.
+Undoubtedly it is an infinite aggravation of this cruel suffering, that
+the persons who were taught a double prejudice in favor of religion, by
+education, and by the place they held in the administration of its
+functions, are to receive the remnants of their property as alms from
+the profane and impious hands of those who had plundered them of all the
+rest,--to receive (if they are at all to receive) not from the
+charitable contributions of the faithful, but from the insolent
+tenderness of known and avowed atheism, the maintenance of religion,
+measured out to them on the standard of the contempt in which it is
+held, and for the purpose of rendering those who receive the allowance
+vile and of no estimation in the eyes of mankind.
+
+But this act of seizure of property, it seems, is a judgment in law, and
+not a confiscation. They have, it seems, found out in the academies of
+the Palais Royal and the Jacobins, that certain men had no right to the
+possessions which they held under law, usage, the decisions of courts,
+and the accumulated prescription of a thousand years. They say that
+ecclesiastics are fictitious persons, creatures of the state, whom at
+pleasure they may destroy, and of course limit and modify in every
+particular; that the goods they possess are not properly theirs, but
+belong to the state which created the fiction; and we are therefore not
+to trouble ourselves with what they may suffer in their natural feelings
+and natural persons on account of what is done towards them in this
+their constructive character. Of what import is it, under what names you
+injure men, and deprive them of the just emoluments of a profession in
+which they were not only permitted, but encouraged by the state to
+engage, and upon the supposed certainty of which emoluments they had
+formed the plan of their lives, contracted debts, and led multitudes to
+an entire dependence upon them?
+
+You do not imagine, Sir, that I am going to compliment this miserable
+distinction of persons with any long discussion. The arguments of
+tyranny are as contemptible as its force is dreadful. Had not your
+confiscators by their early crimes obtained a power which secures
+indemnity to all the crimes of which they have since been guilty, or
+that they can commit, it is not the syllogism of the logician, but the
+lash of the executioner, that would have refuted a sophistry which
+becomes an accomplice of theft and murder. The sophistic tyrants of
+Paris are loud in their declamations against the departed regal tyrants
+who in former ages have vexed the world. They are thus bold, because
+they are safe from the dungeons and iron cages of their old masters.
+Shall we be more tender of the tyrants of our own time, when we see them
+acting worse tragedies under our eyes? Shall we not use the same liberty
+that they do, when we can use it with the same safety, when to speak
+honest truth only requires a contempt of the opinions of those whose
+actions we abhor?
+
+This outrage on all the rights of property was at first covered with
+what, on the system of their conduct, was the most astonishing of all
+pretexts,--a regard to national faith. The enemies to property at first
+pretended a most tender, delicate, and scrupulous anxiety for keeping
+the king's engagements with the public creditor. These professors of the
+rights of men are so busy in teaching others, that they have not leisure
+to learn anything themselves; otherwise they would have known that it is
+to the property of the citizen, and not to the demands of the creditor
+of the state, that the first and original faith of civil society is
+pledged. The claim of the citizen is prior in time, paramount in title,
+superior in equity. The fortunes of individuals, whether possessed by
+acquisition, or by descent, or in virtue of a participation in the goods
+of some community, were no part of the creditor's security, expressed or
+implied. They never so much as entered into his head, when he made his
+bargain. He well knew that the public, whether represented by a monarch
+or by a senate, can pledge nothing but the public estate; and it can
+have no public estate, except in what it derives from a just and
+proportioned imposition upon the citizens at large. This was engaged,
+and nothing else could be engaged, to the public creditor. No man can
+mortgage his injustice as a pawn for his fidelity.
+
+It is impossible to avoid some observation on the contradictions, caused
+by the extreme rigor and the extreme laxity of this new public faith,
+which influenced in this transaction, and which influenced not according
+to the nature of the obligation, but to the description of the persons
+to whom it was engaged. No acts of the old government of the kings of
+France are held valid in the National Assembly, except its pecuniary
+engagements: acts of all others of the most ambiguous legality. The rest
+of the acts of that royal government are considered in so odious a light
+that to have a claim under its authority is looked on as a sort of
+crime. A pension, given as a reward for service to the state, is surely
+as good a ground of property as any security for money advanced to the
+state. It is a better; for money is paid, and well paid, to obtain that
+service. We have, however, seen multitudes of people under this
+description in France, who never had been deprived of their allowances
+by the most arbitrary ministers in the most arbitrary times, by this
+assembly of the rights of men robbed without mercy. They were told, in
+answer to their claim to the bread earned with their blood, that their
+services had not been rendered to the country that now exists.
+
+This laxity of public faith is not confined to those unfortunate
+persons. The Assembly, with perfect consistency, it must be owned, is
+engaged in a respectable deliberation how far it is bound by the
+treaties made with other nations under the former government; and their
+committee is to report which of them they ought to ratify, and which
+not. By this means they have put the external fidelity of this virgin
+state on a par with its internal.
+
+It is not easy to conceive upon what rational principle the royal
+government should not, of the two, rather have possessed the power of
+rewarding service and making treaties, in virtue of its prerogative,
+than that of pledging to creditors the revenue of the state, actual and
+possible. The treasure of the nation, of all things, has been the least
+allowed to the prerogative of the king of France, or to the prerogative
+of any king in Europe. To mortgage the public revenue implies the
+sovereign dominion, in the fullest sense, over the public purse. It goes
+far beyond the trust even of a temporary and occasional taxation. The
+acts, however, of that dangerous power (the distinctive mark of a
+boundless despotism) have been alone held sacred. Whence arose this
+preference given by a democratic assembly to a body of property deriving
+its title from the most critical and obnoxious of all the exertions of
+monarchical authority? Reason can furnish nothing to reconcile
+inconsistency; nor can partial favor be accounted for upon equitable
+principles. But the contradiction and partiality which admit no
+justification are not the less without an adequate cause; and that cause
+I do not think it difficult to discover.
+
+By the vast debt of France a great moneyed interest has insensibly grown
+up, and with it a great power. By the ancient usages which prevailed in
+that kingdom, the general circulation of property, and in particular the
+mutual convertibility of land into money and of money into land, had
+always been a matter of difficulty. Family settlements, rather more
+general and more strict than they are in England, the _jus retractûs_,
+the great mass of landed property held by the crown, and, by a maxim of
+the French law, held unalienably, the vast estates of the ecclesiastic
+corporations,--all these had kept the landed and moneyed interests more
+separated in France, less miscible, and the owners of the two distinct
+species of property not so well disposed to each other as they are in
+this country.
+
+The moneyed property was long looked on with rather an evil eye by the
+people. They saw it connected with their distresses, and aggravating
+them. It was no less envied by the old landed interests,--partly for the
+same reasons that rendered it obnoxious to the people, but much more so
+as it eclipsed, by the splendor of an ostentatious luxury, the unendowed
+pedigrees and naked titles of several among the nobility. Even when the
+nobility, which represented the more permanent landed interest, united
+themselves by marriage (which sometimes was the case) with the other
+description, the wealth which saved the family from ruin was supposed to
+contaminate and degrade it. Thus the enmities and heart burnings of
+these parties were increased even by the usual means by which discord is
+made to cease and quarrels are turned into friendship. In the mean time,
+the pride of the wealthy men, not noble, or newly noble, increased with
+its cause. They felt with resentment an inferiority the grounds of which
+they did not acknowledge. There was no measure to which they were not
+willing to lend themselves, in order to be revenged of the outrages of
+this rival pride, and to exalt their wealth to what they considered as
+its natural rank and estimation. They struck at the nobility through the
+crown and the Church. They attacked them particularly on the side on
+which they thought them the most vulnerable,--that is, the possessions
+of the Church, which, through the patronage of the crown, generally
+devolved upon the nobility. The bishoprics and the great commendatory
+abbeys were, with few exceptions, held by that order.
+
+In this state of real, though not always perceived, warfare between the
+noble ancient landed interest and the new moneyed interest, the
+greatest, because the most applicable, strength was in the hands of the
+latter. The moneyed interest is in its nature more ready for any
+adventure, and its possessors more disposed to new enterprises of any
+kind. Being of a recent acquisition, it falls in more naturally with any
+novelties. It is therefore the kind of wealth which will be resorted to
+by all who wish for change.
+
+Along with the moneyed interest, a new description of men had grown up,
+with whom that interest soon formed a close and marked union: I mean the
+political men of letters. Men of letters, fond of distinguishing
+themselves, are rarely averse to innovation. Since the decline of the
+life and greatness of Louis the Fourteenth, they were not so much
+cultivated either by him, or by the Regent, or the successors to the
+crown; nor were they engaged to the court by favors and emoluments so
+systematically as during the splendid period of that ostentatious and
+not impolitic reign. What they lost in the old court protection they
+endeavored to make up by joining in a sort of incorporation of their
+own; to which the two academies of France, and afterwards the vast
+undertaking of the Encyclopædia, carried on by a society of these
+gentlemen, did not a little contribute.
+
+The literary cabal had some years ago formed something like a regular
+plan for the destruction of the Christian religion. This object they
+pursued with a degree of zeal which hitherto had been discovered only in
+the propagators of some system of piety. They were possessed with a
+spirit of proselytism in the most fanatical degree,--and from thence, by
+an easy progress, with the spirit of persecution according to their
+means.[97] What was not to be done towards their great end by any direct
+or immediate act might be wrought by a longer process through the medium
+of opinion. To command that opinion, the first step is to establish a
+dominion over those who direct it. They contrived to possess themselves,
+with great method and perseverance, of all the avenues to literary fame.
+Many of them, indeed, stood high in the ranks of literature and science.
+The world had done them justice, and in favor of general talents forgave
+the evil tendency of their peculiar principles. This was true
+liberality; which they returned by endeavoring to confine the reputation
+of sense, learning, and taste to themselves or their followers. I will
+venture to say that this narrow, exclusive spirit has not been less
+prejudicial to literature and to taste than to morals and true
+philosophy. These atheistical fathers have a bigotry of their own; and
+they have learnt to talk against monks with the spirit of a monk. But in
+some things they are men of the world. The resources of intrigue are
+called in to supply the defects of argument and wit. To this system of
+literary monopoly was joined an unremitting industry to blacken and
+discredit in every way, and by every means, all those who did not hold
+to their faction. To those who have observed the spirit of their conduct
+it has long been clear that nothing was wanted but the power of carrying
+the intolerance of the tongue and of the pen into a persecution which
+would strike at property, liberty, and life.
+
+The desultory and faint persecution carried on against them, more from
+compliance with form and decency than with serious resentment, neither
+weakened their strength nor relaxed their efforts. The issue of the
+whole was, that, what with opposition, and what with success, a violent
+and malignant zeal, of a kind hitherto unknown in the world, had taken
+an entire possession of their minds, and rendered their whole
+conversation, which otherwise would have been pleasing and instructive,
+perfectly disgusting. A spirit of cabal, intrigue, and proselytism
+pervaded all their thoughts, words, and actions. And as controversial
+zeal soon turns its thoughts on force, they began to insinuate
+themselves into a correspondence with foreign princes,--in hopes,
+through their authority, which at first they flattered, they might
+bring about the changes they had in view. To them it was indifferent
+whether these changes were to be accomplished by the thunderbolt of
+despotism or by the earthquake of popular commotion. The correspondence
+between this cabal and the late king of Prussia will throw no small
+light upon the spirit of all their proceedings.[98] For the same purpose
+for which they intrigued with princes, they cultivated, in a
+distinguished manner, the moneyed interest of France; and partly through
+the means furnished by those whose peculiar offices gave them the most
+extensive and certain means of communication, they carefully occupied
+all the avenues to opinion.
+
+Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one direction, have
+great influence on the public mind; the alliance, therefore, of these
+writers with the moneyed interest[99] had no small effect in removing
+the popular odium and envy which attended that species of wealth. These
+writers, like the propagators of all novelties, pretended to a great
+zeal for the poor and the lower orders, whilst in their satires they
+rendered hateful, by every exaggeration, the faults of courts, of
+nobility, and of priesthood. They became a sort of demagogues. They
+served as a link to unite, in favor of one object, obnoxious wealth to
+restless and desperate poverty.
+
+As these two kinds of men appear principal leaders in all the late
+transactions, their junction and politics will serve to account, not
+upon any principles of law or of policy, but as a _cause_, for the
+general fury with which all the landed property of ecclesiastical
+corporations has been attacked, and the great care which, contrary to
+their pretended principles, has been taken of a moneyed interest
+originating from the authority of the crown. All the envy against wealth
+and power was artificially directed against other descriptions of
+riches. On what other principle than that which I have stated can we
+account for an appearance so extraordinary and unnatural as that of the
+ecclesiastical possessions, which had stood so many successions of ages
+and shocks of civil violences, and were guarded at once by justice and
+by prejudice, being applied to the payment of debts comparatively
+recent, invidious, and contracted by a decried and subverted government?
+
+Was the public estate a sufficient stake for the public debts? Assume
+that it was not, and that a loss _must_ be incurred somewhere. When the
+only estate lawfully possessed, and which the contracting parties had in
+contemplation at the time in which their bargain was made, happens to
+fail, who, according to the principles of natural and legal equity,
+ought to be the sufferer? Certainly it ought to be either the party who
+trusted, or the party who persuaded him to trust, or both; and not third
+parties who had no concern with the transaction. Upon any insolvency,
+they ought to suffer who were weak enough to lend upon bad security, or
+they who fraudulently held out a security that was not valid. Laws are
+acquainted with no other rules of decision. But by the new institute of
+the rights of men, the only persons who in equity ought to suffer are
+the only persons who are to be saved harmless: those are to answer the
+debt who neither were lenders nor borrowers, mortgagers nor mortgagees.
+
+What had the clergy to do with these transactions? What had they to do
+with any public engagement further than the extent of their own debt? To
+that, to be sure, their estates were bound to the last acre. Nothing can
+lead more to the true spirit of the Assembly, which sits for public
+confiscation with its new equity and its new morality, than an attention
+to their proceeding with regard to this debt of the clergy. The body of
+confiscators, true to that moneyed interest for which they were false to
+every other, have found the clergy competent to incur a legal debt. Of
+course they declared them legally entitled to the property which their
+power of incurring the debt and mortgaging the estate implied:
+recognizing the rights of those persecuted citizens in the very act in
+which they were thus grossly violated.
+
+If, as I said, any persons are to mate good deficiencies to the public
+creditor, besides the public at large, they must be those who managed
+the agreement. Why, therefore, are not the estates of all the
+comptrollers-general confiscated?[100] Why not those of the long
+succession of ministers, financiers, and bankers who have been enriched
+whilst the nation was impoverished by their dealings and their counsels?
+Why is not the estate of M. Laborde declared forfeited rather than of
+the Archbishop of Paris, who has had nothing to do in the creation or in
+the jobbing of the public funds? Or, if you must confiscate old landed
+estates in favor of the money-jobbers, why is the penalty confined to
+one description? I do not know whether the expenses of the Duke de
+Choiseul have left anything of the infinite sums which he had derived
+from the bounty of his master, during the transactions of a reign which
+contributed largely, by every species of prodigality in war and peace,
+to the present debt of France. If any such remains, why is not this
+confiscated? I remember to have been in Paris during the time of the old
+government. I was there just after the Duke d'Aiguillon had been
+snatched (as it was generally thought) from the block by the hand of a
+protecting despotism. He was a minister, and had some concern in the
+affairs of that prodigal period. Why do I not see his estate delivered
+up to the municipalities in which it is situated? The noble family of
+Noailles have long been servants (meritorious servants I admit) to the
+crown of France, and have had of course some share in its bounties. Why
+do I hear nothing of the application of their estates to the public
+debt? Why is the estate of the Duke de Rochefoucault more sacred than
+that of the Cardinal de Rochefoucault? The former is, I doubt not, a
+worthy person; and (if it were not a sort of profaneness to talk of the
+use, as affecting the title to property) he makes a good use of his
+revenues; but it is no disrespect to him to say, what authentic
+information well warrants me in saying, that the use made of a property
+equally valid, by his brother,[101] the Cardinal Archbishop of Rouen,
+was far more laudable and far more public-spirited. Can one hear of the
+proscription of such persons, and the confiscation of their effects,
+without indignation, and horror? He is not a man who does not feel such
+emotions on such occasions. He does not deserve the name of a free man
+who will not express them.
+
+Few barbarous conquerors have ever made so terrible a revolution in
+property. None of the heads of the Roman factions, when they established
+_crudelem illam hastam_ in all their auctions of rapine, have ever set
+up to sale the goods of the conquered citizen to such an enormous
+amount. It must be allowed in favor of those tyrants of antiquity, that
+what was done by them could hardly be said to be done in cold blood.
+Their passions were inflamed, their tempers soured, their understandings
+confused with the spirit of revenge, with the innumerable reciprocated
+and recent inflictions and retaliations of blood and rapine. They were
+driven beyond all bounds of moderation by the apprehension of the return
+of power with the return of property to the families of those they had
+injured beyond all hope of forgiveness.
+
+These Roman confiscators, who were yet only in the elements of tyranny,
+and were not instructed in the rights of men to exercise all sorts of
+cruelties on each other without provocation, thought it necessary to
+spread a sort of color over their injustice. They considered the
+vanquished party as composed of traitors, who had borne arms, or
+otherwise had acted with hostility, against the commonwealth. They
+regarded them as persons who had forfeited their property by their
+crimes. With you, in your improved state of the human mind, there was no
+such formality. You seized upon five millions sterling of annual rent,
+and turned forty or fifty thousand human creatures out of their houses,
+because "such was your pleasure." The tyrant Harry the Eighth of
+England, as he was not better enlightened than the Roman Mariuses and
+Syllas, and had not studied in your new schools, did not know what an
+effectual instrument of despotism was to be found in that grand
+magazine of offensive weapons, the rights of men. When he resolved to
+rob the abbeys, as the club of the Jacobins have robbed all the
+ecclesiastics, he began by setting on foot a commission to examine into
+the crimes and abuses which prevailed in those communities. As it might
+be expected, his commission reported truths, exaggerations, and
+falsehoods. But truly or falsely, it reported abuses and offences.
+However, as abuses might be corrected, as every crime of persons does
+not infer a forfeiture with regard to communities, and as property, in
+that dark age, was not discovered to be a creature of prejudice, all
+those abuses (and there were enough of them) were hardly thought
+sufficient ground for such a confiscation as it was for his purposes to
+make. He therefore procured the formal surrender of these estates. All
+these operose proceedings were adopted by one of the most decided
+tyrants in the rolls of history, as necessary preliminaries, before he
+could venture, by bribing the members of his two servile Houses with a
+share of the spoil, and holding out to them an eternal immunity from
+taxation, to demand a confirmation of his iniquitous proceedings by an
+act of Parliament. Had fate reserved him to our times, four technical
+terms would have done his business, and saved him all this trouble; he
+needed nothing more than one short form of incantation:--"_Philosophy,
+Light, Liberality, the Rights of Men_."
+
+I can say nothing in praise of those acts of tyranny, which no voice has
+hitherto ever commended under any of their false colors; yet in these
+false colors an homage was paid by despotism to justice. The power which
+was above all fear and all remorse was not set above all shame. Whilst
+shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart,
+nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.
+
+I believe every honest man sympathizes in his reflections with our
+political poet on that occasion, and will pray to avert the omen,
+whenever these acts of rapacious despotism present themselves to his
+view or his imagination:--
+
+                      "May no such storm
+    Fall on our times, where rain must reform!
+    Tell me, my Muse, what monstrous, dire offence,
+    What crime could any Christian king incense
+    To such a rage? Was't luxury, or lust
+    Was _he_ so temperate, so chaste, so just?
+    Were these their crimes? They were his own much more:
+    But wealth is crime enough to him that's poor."[102]
+
+This same wealth, which is at all times treason and _lèze-nation_ to
+indigent and rapacious despotism, under all modes of polity, was your
+temptation to violate property, law, and religion, united in one
+object. But was the state of France so wretched and undone, that no
+other resource but rapine remained to preserve its existence? On this
+point I wish to receive some information. When the States met, was the
+condition of the finances of France such, that, after economizing, on
+principles of justice and mercy, through all departments, no fair
+repartition of burdens upon all the orders could possibly restore them?
+If such an equal imposition would have been sufficient, you well know it
+might easily have been made. M. Necker, in the budget which he laid
+before the orders assembled at Versailles, made a detailed exposition of
+the state of the French nation.[103]
+
+If we give credit to him, it was not necessary to have recourse to any
+new impositions whatsoever, to put the receipts of France on a balance
+with its expenses. He stated the permanent charges of all descriptions,
+including the interest of a new loan of four hundred millions, at
+531,444,000 livres; the fixed revenue at 475,294,000: making the
+deficiency 56,150,000, or short of 2,200,000 _l._ sterling. But to
+balance it, he brought forward savings and improvements of revenue
+(considered as entirely certain) to rather more than the amount of that
+deficiency; and he concludes with these emphatical words (p. 39):--"Quel
+pays, Messieurs, que celui, où, _sans impôts_ et avec de simples objets
+_inaperçus_, on peut faire disparoître un déficit qui a fait tant de
+bruit en Europe!" As to the reimbursement, the sinking of debt, and the
+other great objects of public credit and political arrangement indicated
+in Monsieur Necker's speech, no doubt could be entertained but that a
+very moderate and proportioned assessment on the citizens without
+distinction would have provided for all of them to the fullest extent of
+their demand.
+
+If this representation of M. Necker was false, then the Assembly are in
+the highest degree culpable for having forced the king to accept as his
+minister, and, since the king's deposition, for having employed as
+_their_ minister, a man who had been capable of abusing so notoriously
+the confidence of his master and their own: in a matter, too, of the
+highest moment, and directly appertaining to his particular office. But
+if the representation was exact, (as, having always, along with you,
+conceived a high degree of respect for M. Necker, I make no doubt it
+was,) then what can be said in favor of those who, instead of moderate,
+reasonable, and general contribution, have in cold blood, and impelled
+by no necessity, had recourse to a partial and cruel confiscation?
+
+Was that contribution refused on a pretext of privilege, either on the
+part of the clergy, or on that of the nobility? No, certainly. As to the
+clergy, they even ran before the wishes of the third order. Previous to
+the meeting of the States, they had in all their instructions expressly
+directed their deputies to renounce every immunity which put them upon a
+footing distinct from the condition of their fellow-subjects. In this
+renunciation the clergy were even more explicit than the nobility.
+
+But let us suppose that the deficiency had remained at the fifty-six
+millions, (or 2,200,000 _l._ sterling,) as at first stated by M. Necker.
+Let us allow that all the resources he opposed to that deficiency were
+impudent and groundless fictions, and that the Assembly (or their lords
+of articles[104] at the Jacobins) were from thence justified in laying
+the whole burden of that deficiency on the clergy,--yet allowing all
+this, a necessity of 2,200,000 _l._ sterling will not support a
+confiscation to the amount of five millions. The imposition of 2,200,000
+_l._ on the clergy, as partial, would have been oppressive and unjust,
+but it would not have been altogether ruinous to those on whom it was
+imposed; and therefore it would not have answered the real purpose of
+the managers.
+
+Perhaps persons unacquainted with the state of France, on hearing the
+clergy and the noblesse were privileged in point of taxation, may be led
+to imagine, that, previous to the Revolution, these bodies had
+contributed nothing to the state. This is a great mistake. They
+certainly did not contribute equally with each other, nor either of them
+equally with the commons. They both, however, contributed largely.
+Neither nobility nor clergy enjoyed any exemption from the excise on
+consumable commodities, from duties of custom, or from any of the other
+numerous _indirect_ impositions, which in France, as well as here, make
+so very large a proportion of all payments to the public. The noblesse
+paid the capitation. They paid also a land-tax, called the twentieth
+penny, to the height sometimes of three, sometimes of four shillings in
+the pound: both of them _direct_ impositions, of no light nature, and no
+trivial produce. The clergy of the provinces annexed by conquest to
+France (which in extent make about an eighth part of the whole, but in
+wealth a much larger proportion) paid likewise to the capitation and the
+twentieth penny, at the rate paid by the nobility. The clergy in the old
+provinces did not pay the capitation; but they had redeemed themselves
+at the expense of about twenty-four millions, or a little more than a
+million sterling. They were exempted from the twentieths: but then they
+made free gifts; they contracted debts for the state; and they were
+subject to some other charges, the whole computed at about a thirteenth
+part of their clear income. They ought to have paid annually about forty
+thousand pounds more, to put them on a par with the contribution of the
+nobility.
+
+When the terrors of this tremendous proscription hung over the clergy,
+they made an offer of a contribution, through the Archbishop of Aix,
+which, for its extravagance, ought not to have been accepted. But it was
+evidently and obviously more advantageous to the public creditor than
+anything which could rationally be promised by the confiscation. Why was
+it not accepted? The reason is plain:--There was no desire that the
+Church should be brought to serve the State. The service of the State
+was made a pretext to destroy the Church. In their way to the
+destruction of the Church they would not scruple to destroy their
+country: and they have destroyed it. One great end in the project would
+have been defeated, if the plan of extortion had been adopted in lieu of
+the scheme of confiscation. The new landed interest connected with the
+new republic, and connected with it for its very being, could not have
+been created. This was among the reasons why that extravagant ransom was
+not accepted.
+
+The madness of the project of confiscation, on the plan that was first
+pretended, soon became apparent. To bring this unwieldy mass of landed
+property, enlarged by the confiscation of all the vast landed domain of
+the crown, at once into market was obviously to defeat the profits
+proposed by the confiscation, by depreciating the value of those lands,
+and indeed of all the landed estates throughout France. Such a sudden
+diversion of all its circulating money from trade to land must be an
+additional mischief. What step was taken? Did the Assembly, on becoming
+sensible of the inevitable ill effects of their projected sale, revert
+to the offers of the clergy? No distress could oblige them to travel in
+a course which was disgraced by any appearance of justice. Giving over
+all hopes from a general immediate sale, another project seems to have
+succeeded. They proposed to take stock in exchange for the Church lands.
+In that project great difficulties arose in equalizing the objects to be
+exchanged. Other obstacles also presented themselves, which threw them
+back again upon some project of sale. The municipalities had taken an
+alarm. They would not hear of transferring the whole plunder of the
+kingdom to the stockholders in Paris. Many of those municipalities had
+been (upon system) reduced to the most deplorable indigence. Money was
+nowhere to be seen. They were therefore led to the point that was so
+ardently desired. They panted for a currency of any kind which might
+revive their perishing industry. The municipalities were, then, to be
+admitted to a share in the spoil, which evidently rendered the first
+scheme (if ever it had been seriously entertained) altogether
+impracticable. Public exigencies pressed upon all sides. The Minister of
+Finance reiterated his call for supply with, a most urgent, anxious, and
+boding voice. Thus pressed on all sides, instead of the first plan of
+converting their bankers into bishops and abbots, instead of paying the
+old debt, they contracted a new debt, at three per cent, creating a new
+paper currency, founded on an eventual sale of the Church lands. They
+issued this paper currency to satisfy in the first instance chiefly the
+demands made upon them by the _bank of discount_, the great machine or
+paper-mill of their fictitious wealth.
+
+The spoil of the Church was now become the only resource of all their
+operations in finance, the vital principle of all their politics, the
+sole security for the existence of their power. It was necessary, by
+all, even the most violent means, to put every individual on the same
+bottom, and to bind the nation in one guilty interest to uphold this
+act, and the authority of those by whom it was done. In order to force
+the most reluctant into a participation of their pillage, they rendered
+their paper circulation compulsory in all payments. Those who consider
+the general tendency of their schemes to this one object as a centre,
+and a centre from which afterwards all their measures radiate, will not
+think that I dwell too long upon this part of the proceedings of the
+National Assembly.
+
+To cut off all appearance of connection between the crown and public
+justice, and to bring the whole under implicit obedience to the
+dictators in Paris, the old independent judicature of the Parliaments,
+with all its merits and all its faults, was wholly abolished. Whilst the
+Parliaments existed, it was evident that the people might some time or
+other come to resort to them, and rally under the standard of their
+ancient laws. It became, however, a matter of consideration, that the
+magistrates and officers in the courts now abolished _had purchased
+their places_ at a very high rate, for which, as well as for the duty
+they performed, they received but a very low return of interest. Simple
+confiscation is a boon only for the clergy: to the lawyers some
+appearances of equity are to be observed; and they are to receive
+compensation to an immense amount. Their compensation becomes part of
+the national debt, for the liquidation of which there is the one
+exhaustless fund. The lawyers are to obtain their compensation in the
+new Church paper, which is to march with the new principles of
+judicature and legislature. The dismissed magistrates are to take their
+share of martyrdom with the ecclesiastics, or to receive their own
+property from such a fund and in such a manner as all those who have
+been seasoned with the ancient principles of jurisprudence, and had been
+the sworn guardians of property, must look upon with horror. Even the
+clergy are to receive their miserable allowance out of the depreciated
+paper, which is stamped with the indelible character of sacrilege, and
+with the symbols of their own ruin, or they must starve. So violent an
+outrage upon credit, property, and liberty, as this compulsory paper
+currency, has seldom been exhibited by the alliance of bankruptcy and
+tyranny, at any time, or in any nation.
+
+In the course of all these operations, at length comes out the grand
+_arcanum_,--that in reality, and in a fair sense, the lands of the
+Church (so far as anything certain can be gathered from their
+proceedings) are not to be sold at all. By the late resolutions of the
+National Assembly, they are, indeed, to be delivered to the highest
+bidder. But it is to be observed, that _a certain portion only of the
+purchase-money is to be laid down_. A period of twelve years is to be
+given for the payment of the rest. The philosophic purchasers are
+therefore, on payment of a sort of fine, to be put instantly into
+possession of the estate. It becomes in some respects a sort of gift to
+them,--to be held on the feudal tenure of zeal to the new establishment.
+This project is evidently to let in a body of purchasers without money.
+The consequence will be, that these purchasers, or rather grantees, will
+pay, not only from the rents as they accrue, which might as well be
+received by the state, but from the spoil of the materials of buildings,
+from waste in woods, and from whatever money, by hands habituated to the
+gripings of usury, they can wring from the miserable peasant. He is to
+be delivered over to the mercenary and arbitrary discretion of men who
+will be stimulated to every species of extortion by the growing demands
+on the growing profits of an estate held under the precarious
+settlement of a new political system.
+
+When all the frauds, impostures, violences, rapines, burnings, murders,
+confiscations, compulsory paper currencies, and every description of
+tyranny and cruelty employed to bring about and to uphold this
+Revolution have their natural effect, that is, to shock the moral
+sentiments of all virtuous and sober minds, the abettors of this
+philosophic system immediately strain their throats in a declamation
+against the old monarchical government of France. When they have
+rendered that deposed power sufficiently black, they then proceed in
+argument, as if all those who disapprove of their new abuses must of
+course be partisans of the old,--that those who reprobate their crude
+and violent schemes of liberty ought to be treated as advocates for
+servitude. I admit that their necessities do compel them to this base
+and contemptible fraud. Nothing can reconcile men to their proceedings
+and projects but the supposition that there is no third option between
+them and some tyranny as odious as can be furnished by the records of
+history or by the invention of poets. This prattling of theirs hardly
+deserves the name of sophistry. It is nothing but plain impudence. Have
+these gentlemen never heard, in the whole circle of the worlds of theory
+and practice, of anything between the despotism of the monarch and the
+despotism of the multitude? Have they never heard of a monarchy directed
+by laws, controlled and balanced by the great hereditary wealth and
+hereditary dignity of a nation, and both again controlled by a judicious
+check from the reason and feeling of the people at large, acting by a
+suitable and permanent organ? Is it, then, impossible that a man may be
+found who, without criminal ill intention or pitiable absurdity, shall
+prefer such a mixed and tempered government to either of the
+extremes,--and who may repute that nation to be destitute of all wisdom
+and of all virtue, which, having in its choice to obtain such a
+government with ease, _or rather to confirm it when actually possessed_,
+thought proper to commit a thousand crimes, and to subject their country
+to a thousand evils, in order to avoid it? Is it, then, a truth so
+universally acknowledged, that a pure democracy is the only tolerable
+form into which human society can be thrown, that a man is not permitted
+to hesitate about its merits, without the suspicion of being a friend to
+tyranny, that is, of being a foe to mankind?
+
+I do not know under what description to class the present ruling
+authority in France. It affects to be a pure democracy, though I think
+it in a direct train of becoming shortly a mischievous and ignoble
+oligarchy. But for the present I admit it to be a contrivance of the
+nature and effect of what it pretends to. I reprobate no form of
+government merely upon abstract principles. There may be situations in
+which the purely democratic form will become necessary. There may be
+some (very few, and very particularly circumstanced) where it would be
+clearly desirable. This I do not take to be the case of France, or of
+any other great country. Until now, we have seen no examples of
+considerable democracies. The ancients were better acquainted with them.
+Not being wholly unread in the authors who had seen the most of those
+constitutions, and who best understood them, I cannot help concurring
+with their opinion, that an absolute democracy no more than absolute
+monarchy is to be reckoned among the legitimate forms of government.
+They think it rather the corruption and degeneracy than the sound
+constitution of a republic. If I recollect rightly, Aristotle observes,
+that a democracy has many striking points of resemblance with a
+tyranny.[105] Of this I am certain, that in a democracy the majority of
+the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon
+the minority, whenever strong divisions prevail in that kind of polity,
+as they often must,--and that oppression of the minority will extend to
+far greater numbers, and will be carried on with much greater fury, than
+can almost ever be apprehended from the dominion of a single sceptre. In
+such a popular persecution, individual sufferers are in a much more
+deplorable condition than in any other. Under a cruel prince they have
+the balmy compassion of mankind to assuage the smart of their wounds,
+they have the plaudits of the people to animate their generous constancy
+under their sufferings: but those who are subjected to wrong under
+multitudes are deprived of all external consolation; they seem deserted
+by mankind, overpowered by a conspiracy of their whole species.
+
+But admitting democracy not to have that inevitable tendency to party
+tyranny which I suppose it to have, and admitting it to possess as much
+good in it when unmixed as I am sure it possesses when compounded with
+other forms; does monarchy, on its part, contain nothing at all to
+recommend it? I do not often quote Bolingbroke, nor have his works in
+general left any permanent impression on my mind. He is a presumptuous
+and a superficial writer. But he has one observation which in my opinion
+is not without depth and solidity. He says that he prefers a monarchy to
+other governments, because you can better ingraft any description of
+republic on a monarchy than anything of monarchy upon the republican
+forms. I think him perfectly in the right. The fact is so historically,
+and it agrees well with the speculation.
+
+I know how easy a topic it is to dwell on the faults of departed
+greatness. By a revolution in the state, the fawning sycophant of
+yesterday is converted into the austere critic of the present hour. But
+steady, independent minds, when they have an object of so serious a
+concern to mankind as government under their contemplation, will disdain
+to assume the part of satirists and declaimers. They will judge of human
+institutions as they do of human characters. They will sort out the good
+from the evil, which is mixed in mortal institutions as it is in mortal
+men.
+
+Your government in France, though usually, and I think justly, reputed
+the best of the unqualified or ill-qualified monarchies, was still full
+of abuses. These abuses accumulated in a length of time, as they must
+accumulate in every monarchy not under the constant inspection of a
+popular representative. I am no stranger to the faults and defects of
+the subverted government of France; and I think I am not inclined by
+nature or policy to make a panegyric upon anything which is a just and
+natural object of censure. But the question is not now of the vices of
+that monarchy, but of its existence. Is it, then, true, that the French
+government was such as to be incapable or undeserving of reform, so that
+it was of absolute necessity the whole fabric should be at once pulled
+down, and the area cleared for the erection of a theoretic, experimental
+edifice in its place? All France was of a different opinion in the
+beginning of the year 1789. The instructions to the representatives to
+the States-General, from every district in that kingdom, were filled
+with projects for the reformation of that government, without the
+remotest suggestion of a design to destroy it. Had such a design been
+then even insinuated, I believe there would have been but one voice, and
+that voice for rejecting it with scorn and horror. Men have been
+sometimes led by degrees, sometimes hurried, into things of which, if
+they could have seen the whole together, they never would have permitted
+the most remote approach. When those instructions were given, there was
+no question but that abuses existed, and that they demanded a reform:
+nor is there now. In the interval between the instructions and the
+Revolution things changed their shape; and in consequence of that
+change, the true question at present is, whether those who would have
+reformed or those who have destroyed are in the right.
+
+To hear some men speak of the late monarchy of France, you would imagine
+that they were talking of Persia bleeding under the ferocious sword of
+Thamas Kouli Khân,--or at least describing the barbarous anarchic
+despotism of Turkey, where the finest countries in the most genial
+climates in the world are wasted by peace more than any countries have
+been worried by war, where arts are unknown, where manufactures
+languish, where science is extinguished, where agriculture decays, where
+the human race itself melts away and perishes under the eye of the
+observer. Was this the case of France? I have no way of determining the
+question but by a reference to facts. Facts do not support this
+resemblance. Along with much evil, there is some good in monarchy
+itself; and some corrective to its evil from religion, from laws, from
+manners, from opinions, the French monarchy must have received, which
+rendered it (though by no means a free, and therefore by no means a good
+constitution) a despotism rather in appearance than in reality.
+
+Among the standards upon which the effects of government on any country
+are to be estimated, I must consider the state of its population as not
+the least certain. No country in which population flourishes, and is in
+progressive improvement, can be under a _very_ mischievous government.
+About sixty years ago, the Intendants of the Generalities of France
+made, with other matters, a report of the population of their several
+districts. I have not the books, which are very voluminous, by me, nor
+do I know where to procure them, (I am obliged to speak by memory, and
+therefore the less positively,) but I think the population of France was
+by them, even at that period, estimated at twenty-two millions of
+souls. At the end of the last century it had been generally calculated
+at eighteen. On either of these estimations, France was not ill-peopled.
+M. Necker, who is an authority for his own time at least equal to the
+Intendants for theirs, reckons, and upon apparently sure principles, the
+people of France, in the year 1780, at twenty-four millions six hundred
+and seventy thousand. But was this the probable ultimate term under the
+old establishment? Dr. Price is of opinion that the growth of population
+in France was by no means at its acme in that year. I certainly defer to
+Dr. Price's authority a good deal more in these speculations than I do
+in his general politics. This gentleman, taking ground on M. Necker's
+data, is very confident that since the period of that minister's
+calculation the French population has increased rapidly,--so rapidly,
+that in the year 1789 he will not consent to rate the people of that
+kingdom at a lower number than thirty millions. After abating much (and
+much I think ought to be abated) from the sanguine calculation of Dr.
+Price, I have no doubt that the population of France did increase
+considerably during this latter period: but supposing that it increased
+to nothing more than will be sufficient to complete the twenty-four
+millions six hundred and seventy thousand to twenty-five millions, still
+a population of twenty-five millions, and that in an increasing
+progress, on a space of about twenty-seven thousand square leagues, is
+immense. It is, for instance, a good deal more than the proportionable
+population of this island, or even than that of England, the best
+peopled part of the United Kingdom.
+
+It is not universally true that France is a fertile country.
+Considerable tracts of it are barren, and labor under other natural
+disadvantages. In the portions of that territory where things are more
+favorable, as far as I am able to discover, the numbers of the people
+correspond to the indulgence of Nature.[106] The Generality of Lisle,
+(this I admit is the strongest example,) upon an extent of four hundred
+and four leagues and a half, about ten years ago contained seven hundred
+and thirty-four thousand six hundred souls, which is one thousand seven
+hundred and seventy-two inhabitants to each square league. The middle
+term for the rest of France is about nine hundred inhabitants to the
+same admeasurement.
+
+I do not attribute this population to the deposed government; because I
+do not like to compliment the contrivances of men with what is due in a
+great degree to the bounty of Providence. But that decried government
+could not have obstructed, most probably it favored, the operation of
+those causes, (whatever they were,) whether of Nature in the soil, or
+habits of industry among the people, which has produced so large a
+number of the species throughout that whole kingdom, and exhibited in
+some particular places such prodigies of population. I never will
+suppose that fabric of a state to be the worst of all political
+institutions which by experience is found to contain a principle
+favorable (however latent it may be) to the increase of mankind.
+
+The wealth of a country is another, and no contemptible standard, by
+which we may judge whether, on the whole, a government be protecting or
+destructive. France far exceeds England in the multitude of her people;
+but I apprehend that her comparative wealth is much inferior to
+ours,--that it is not so equal in the distribution, nor so ready in the
+circulation. I believe the difference in the form of the two governments
+to be amongst the causes of this advantage on the side of England: I
+speak of England, not of the whole British dominions,--which, if
+compared with those of France, will in some degree weaken the
+comparative rate of wealth upon our side. But that wealth, which will
+not endure a comparison with the riches of England, may constitute a
+very respectable degree of opulence. M. Necker's book, published in
+1785,[107] contains an accurate and interesting collection of facts
+relative to public economy and to political arithmetic; and his
+speculations on the subject are in general wise and liberal. In that
+work he gives an idea of the state of France, very remote from the
+portrait of a country whose government was a perfect grievance, an
+absolute evil, admitting no cure but through the violent and uncertain
+remedy of a total revolution. He affirms, that from the year 1726 to the
+year 1784 there was coined at the mint of France, in the species of gold
+and silver, to the amount of about one hundred millions of pounds
+sterling.[108]
+
+It is impossible that M. Necker should be mistaken in the amount of the
+bullion which has been coined in the mint. It is a matter of official
+record. The reasonings of this able financier concerning the quantity of
+gold and silver which remained for circulation, when he wrote in 1785,
+that is, about four years before the deposition and imprisonment of the
+French king, are not of equal certainty; but they are laid on grounds so
+apparently solid, that it is not easy to refuse a considerable degree of
+assent to his calculation. He calculates the _numéraire_, or what we
+call _specie_, then actually existing in France, at about eighty-eight
+millions of the same English money. A great accumulation of wealth for
+one country, large as that country is! M. Necker was so far from
+considering this influx of wealth as likely to cease, when he wrote in
+1785, that he presumes upon a future annual increase of two per cent
+upon the money brought into France during the periods from which he
+computed.
+
+Some adequate cause must have originally introduced all the money coined
+at its mint into that kingdom; and some cause as operative must have
+kept at home, or returned into its bosom, such a vast flood of treasure
+as M. Necker calculates to remain for domestic circulation. Suppose any
+reasonable deductions from M. Necker's computation, the remainder must
+still amount to an immense sum. Causes thus powerful to acquire and to
+retain cannot be found in discouraged industry, insecure property, and a
+positively destructive government. Indeed, when I consider the face of
+the kingdom of France, the multitude and opulence of her cities, the
+useful magnificence of her spacious high-roads and bridges, the
+opportunity of her artificial canals and navigations opening the
+conveniences of maritime communication through a solid continent of so
+immense an extent,--when I turn my eyes to the stupendous works of her
+ports and harbors, and to her whole naval apparatus, whether for war or
+trade,--when I bring before my view the number of her fortifications,
+constructed with so bold and masterly a skill, and made and maintained
+at so prodigious a charge, presenting an armed front and impenetrable
+barrier to her enemies upon every side,--when I recollect how very small
+a part of that extensive region is without cultivation, and to what
+complete perfection the culture of many of the best productions of the
+earth have been brought in France,--when I reflect on the excellence of
+her manufactures and fabrics, second to none but ours, and in some
+particulars not second,--when I contemplate the grand foundations of
+charity, public and private,--when I survey the state of all the arts
+that beautify and polish life,--when I reckon the men she has bled for
+extending her fame in war, her able statesmen, the multitude of her
+profound lawyers and theologians, her philosophers, her critics, her
+historians and antiquaries, her poets and her orators, sacred and
+profane,--I behold in all this something which awes and commands the
+imagination, which checks the mind on the brink of precipitate and
+indiscriminate censure, and which demands that we should very seriously
+examine what and how great are the latent vices that could authorize us
+at once to level so spacious a fabric with the ground. I do not
+recognize in this view of things the despotism of Turkey. Nor do I
+discern the character of a government that has been on the whole so
+oppressive, or so corrupt, or so negligent, as to be utterly unfit _for
+all reformation_. I must think such a government well deserved to have
+its excellences heightened, its faults corrected, and its capacities
+improved into a British Constitution.
+
+Whoever has examined into the proceedings of that deposed government
+for several years back cannot fail to have observed, amidst the
+inconstancy and fluctuation natural to courts, an earnest endeavor
+towards the prosperity and improvement of the country; he must admit
+that it had long been employed, in some instances wholly to remove, in
+many considerably to correct, the abusive practices and usages that had
+prevailed in the state,--and that even the unlimited power of the
+sovereign over the persons of his subjects, inconsistent, as undoubtedly
+it was, with law and liberty, had yet been every day growing more
+mitigated in the exercise. So far from refusing itself to reformation,
+that government was open, with a censurable degree of facility, to all
+sorts of projects and projectors on the subject. Rather too much
+countenance was given to the spirit of innovation, which soon was turned
+against those who fostered it, and ended in their ruin. It is but cold,
+and no very flattering justice to that fallen monarchy, to say, that,
+for many years, it trespassed more by levity and want of judgment in
+several of its schemes than from any defect in diligence or in public
+spirit. To compare the government of France for the last fifteen or
+sixteen years with wise and well-constituted establishments during that,
+or during any period, is not to act with fairness. But if in point of
+prodigality in the expenditure of money, or in point of rigor in the
+exercise of power, it be compared with any of the former reigns, I
+believe candid judges will give little credit to the good intentions of
+those who dwell perpetually on the donations to favorites, or on the
+expenses of the court, or on the horrors of the Bastile, in the reign of
+Louis the Sixteenth.[109]
+
+Whether the system, if it deserves such a name, now built on the ruins
+of that ancient monarchy, will be able to give a better account of the
+population and wealth of the country which it has taken under its care,
+is a matter very doubtful. Instead of improving by the change, I
+apprehend that a long series of years must be told, before it can
+recover in any degree the effects of this philosophic Revolution, and
+before the nation can be replaced on its former footing. If Dr. Price
+should think fit, a few years hence, to favor us with an estimate of the
+population of France, he will hardly be able to make up his tale of
+thirty millions of souls, as computed in 1789, or the Assembly's
+computation of twenty-six millions of that year, or even M. Necker's
+twenty-five millions in 1780. I hear that there are considerable
+emigrations from France,--and that many, quitting that voluptuous
+climate, and that seductive Circean liberty, have taken refuge in the
+frozen regions and under the British despotism of Canada.
+
+In the present disappearance of coin, no person could think it the same
+country in which the present minister of the finances has been able to
+discover fourscore millions sterling in specie. From its general aspect
+one would conclude that it had been for some time past under the special
+direction of the learned academicians of Laputa and Balnibarbi.[110]
+Already the population of Paris has so declined, that M. Necker stated
+to the National Assembly the provision to be made for its subsistence
+at a fifth less than what had formerly been found requisite.[111] It is
+said (and I have never heard it contradicted) that a hundred thousand
+people are out of employment in that city, though it is become the seat
+of the imprisoned court and National Assembly. Nothing, I am credibly
+informed, can exceed the shocking and disgusting spectacle of mendicancy
+displayed in that capital. Indeed, the votes of the National Assembly
+leave no doubt of the fact. They have lately appointed a standing
+committee of mendicancy. They are contriving at once a vigorous police
+on this subject, and, for the first time, the imposition of a tax to
+maintain the poor, for whoso present relief great sums appear on the
+face of the public accounts of the year.[112] In the mean time the
+leaders of the legislative clubs and coffee-houses are intoxicated with
+admiration at their own wisdom and ability. They speak with the most
+sovereign contempt of the rest of the world. They toll the people, to
+comfort them in the rags with which they have clothed them, that they
+are a nation of philosophers; and sometimes, by all the arts of
+quackish parade, by show, tumult, and bustle, sometimes by the alarms
+of plots and invasions, they attempt to drown the cries of indigence,
+and to divert the eyes of the observer from the ruin and wretchedness of
+the state. A brave people will certainly prefer liberty accompanied with
+a virtuous poverty to a depraved and wealthy servitude. But before the
+price of comfort and opulence is paid, one ought to be pretty sure it is
+real liberty which is purchased, and that she is to be purchased at no
+other price. I shall always, however, consider that liberty as very
+equivocal in her appearance, which has not wisdom and justice for her
+companions, and does not lead prosperity and plenty in her train.
+
+The advocates for this Revolution, not satisfied with exaggerating the
+vices of their ancient government, strike at the fame of their country
+itself, by painting almost all that could have attracted the attention
+of strangers, I mean their nobility and their clergy, as objects of
+horror. If this were only a libel, there had not been much in it. But it
+has practical consequences. Had your nobility and gentry, who formed
+the great body of your landed men and the whole of your military
+officers, resembled those of Germany, at the period when the Hanse towns
+were necessitated to confederate against the nobles in defence of their
+property,--had they been like the Orsini and Vitelli in Italy, who used
+to sally from their fortified dens to rob the trader and traveller,--had
+they been such as the Mamelukes in Egypt, or the Nayres on the coast of
+Malabar,--I do admit that too critical an inquiry might not be advisable
+into the means of freeing the world from such a nuisance. The statues of
+Equity and Mercy might be veiled for a moment. The tenderest minds,
+confounded with the dreadful exigence in which morality submits to the
+suspension of its own rules in favor of its own principles, might turn
+aside whilst fraud and violence were accomplishing the destruction of a
+pretended nobility, which disgraced, whilst it persecuted, human nature.
+The persons most abhorrent from blood and treason and arbitrary
+confiscation might remain silent spectators of this civil war between
+the vices.
+
+But did the privileged nobility who met under the king's precept at
+Versailles in 1789, or their constituents, deserve to be looked on as
+the Nayres or Mamelukes of this age, or as the Orsini and Vitelli of
+ancient times? If I had then asked the question, I should have passed
+for a madman. What have they since done, that they were to be driven
+into exile, that their persons should be hunted about, mangled, and
+tortured, their families dispersed, their houses laid in ashes, and that
+their order should be abolished, and the memory of it, if possible,
+extinguished, by ordaining them to change the very names by which they
+were usually known? Read their instructions to their representatives.
+They breathe the spirit of liberty as warmly, and they recommend
+reformation as strongly, as any other order. Their privileges relative
+to contribution were voluntarily surrendered; as the king, from the
+beginning, surrendered all pretence to a right of taxation. Upon a free
+constitution there was but one opinion in France. The absolute monarchy
+was at an end. It breathed its last without a groan, without struggle,
+without convulsion. All the struggle, all the dissension, arose
+afterwards, upon the preference of a despotic democracy to a government
+of reciprocal control. The triumph of the victorious party was over the
+principles of a British Constitution.
+
+I have observed the affectation which for many years past has prevailed
+in Paris, even to a degree perfectly childish, of idolizing the memory
+of your Henry the Fourth. If anything could put any one out of humor
+with that ornament to the kingly character, it would be this overdone
+style of insidious panegyric. The persons who have worked this engine
+the most busily are those who have ended their panegyrics in dethroning
+his successor and descendant: a man as good-natured, at the least, as
+Henry the Fourth; altogether as fond of his people; and who has done
+infinitely more to correct the ancient vices of the state than that
+great monarch did, or we are sure he ever meant to do. Well it is for
+his panegyrists that they have not him to deal with! For Henry of
+Navarre was a resolute, active, and politic prince. He possessed,
+indeed, great humanity and mildness, but an humanity and mildness that
+never stood in the way of his interests. He never sought to be loved
+without putting himself first in a condition to be feared. He used soft
+language with determined conduct. He asserted and maintained his
+authority in the gross, and distributed his acts of concession only in
+the detail. Ho spent the income of his prerogative nobly, but he took
+care not to break in upon the capital,--never abandoning for a moment
+any of the claims which he made under the fundamental laws, nor sparing
+to shed the blood of those who opposed him, often in the field,
+sometimes upon the scaffold. Because he knew how to make his virtues
+respected by the ungrateful, he has merited the praises of those whom,
+if they had lived in his time, he would have shut up in the Bastile, and
+brought to punishment along with the regicides whom he hanged after he
+had famished Paris into a surrender.
+
+If these panegyrists are in earnest in their admiration of Henry the
+Fourth, they must remember that they cannot think more highly of him
+than he did of the noblesse of France,--whose virtue, honor, courage,
+patriotism, and loyalty were his constant theme.
+
+But the nobility of France are degenerated since the days of Henry the
+Fourth.--This is possible; but it is more than I can believe to be true
+in any great degree. I do not pretend to know France as correctly as
+some others; but I have endeavored through my whole life to make myself
+acquainted with human nature,--otherwise I should be unfit to take even
+my humble part in the service of mankind. In that study I could not pass
+by a vast portion of our nature as it appeared modified in a country but
+twenty-four miles from the shore of this island. On my best observation,
+compared with my best inquiries, I found your nobility for the greater
+part composed of men of a high spirit, and of a delicate sense of
+honor, both with regard to themselves individually, and with regard to
+their whole corps, over whom they kept, beyond what is common in other
+countries, a censorial eye. They were tolerably well bred; very
+officious, humane, and hospitable; in their conversation frank and open;
+with a good military tone; and reasonably tinctured with literature,
+particularly of the authors in their own language. Many had pretensions
+far above this description. I speak of those who were generally met
+with.
+
+As to their behavior to the inferior classes, they appeared to me to
+comport themselves towards them with good-nature, and with something
+more nearly approaching to familiarity than is generally practised with
+us in the intercourse between the higher and lower ranks of life. To
+strike any person, even in the most abject condition, was a thing in a
+manner unknown, and would be highly disgraceful. Instances of other
+ill-treatment of the humble part of the community were rare; and as to
+attacks made upon the property or the personal liberty of the commons, I
+never heard of any whatsoever from _them_,--nor, whilst the laws were in
+vigor under the ancient government, would such tyranny in subjects have
+been permitted. As men of landed estates, I had no fault to find with
+their conduct, though much to reprehend, and much to wish changed, in
+many of the old tenures. Where the letting of their land was by rent, I
+could not discover that their agreements with their farmers were
+oppressive; nor when they were in partnership with the farmer, as often
+was the case, have I heard that they had taken the lion's share. The
+proportions seemed not inequitable. There might be exceptions; but
+certainly they were exceptions only. I have no reason to believe that in
+these respects the landed noblesse of France were worse than the landed
+gentry of this country,--certainly in no respect more vexatious than the
+landholders, not noble, of their own nation. In cities the nobility had
+no manner of power; in the country very little. You know, Sir, that much
+of the civil government, and the police in the most essential parts, was
+not in the hands of that nobility which presents itself first to our
+consideration. The revenue, the system and collection of which were the
+most grievous parts of the French government, was not administered by
+the men of the sword; nor were they answerable for the vices of its
+principle, or the vexations, where any such existed, in its management.
+
+Denying, as I am well warranted to do, that the nobility had any
+considerable share in the oppression of the people, in cases in which
+real oppression existed, I am ready to admit that they were not without
+considerable faults and errors. A foolish imitation of the worst part of
+the manners of England, which impaired their natural character, without
+substituting in its place what perhaps they meant to copy, has certainly
+rendered them worse than formerly they were. Habitual dissoluteness of
+manners, continued beyond the pardonable period of life, was more common
+amongst them than it is with us; and it reigned with the less hope of
+remedy, though possibly with something of less mischief, by being
+covered with more exterior decorum. They countenanced too much that
+licentious philosophy which has helped to bring on their ruin. There was
+another error amongst them more fatal. Those of the commons who
+approached to or exceeded many of the nobility in point of wealth were
+not fully admitted to the rank and estimation which wealth, in reason
+and good policy, ought to bestow in every country,--though I think not
+equally with that of other nobility. The two kinds of aristocracy were
+too punctiliously kept asunder: less so, however, than in Germany and
+some other nations.
+
+This separation, as I have already taken the liberty of suggesting to
+you, I conceive to be one principal cause of the destruction of the old
+nobility. The military, particularly, was too exclusively reserved for
+men of family. But, after all, this was an error of opinion, which a
+conflicting opinion would have rectified. A permanent Assembly, in which
+the commons had their share of power, would soon abolish whatever was
+too invidious and insulting in these distinctions; and even the faults
+in the morals of the nobility would have been probably corrected, by the
+greater varieties of occupation and pursuit to which a constitution by
+orders would have given rise.
+
+All this violent cry against the nobility I take to be a mere work of
+art. To be honored and even privileged by the laws, opinions, and
+inveterate usages of our country, growing out of the prejudice of ages,
+has nothing to provoke horror and indignation in any man. Even to be too
+tenacious of those privileges is not absolutely a crime. The strong
+struggle in every individual to preserve possession of what he has found
+to belong to him, and to distinguish him, is one of the securities
+against injustice and despotism implanted in our nature. It operates as
+an instinct to secure property, and to preserve communities in a settled
+state. What is there to shock in this? Nobility is a graceful ornament
+to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.
+"_Omnes boni nobilitati semper favemus_," was the saying of a wise and
+good man. It is, indeed, one sign of a liberal and benevolent mind to
+incline to it with some sort of partial propensity. He feels no
+ennobling principle in his own heart, who wishes to level all the
+artificial institutions which have been adopted for giving a body to
+opinion and permanence to fugitive esteem. It is a sour, malignant,
+envious disposition, without taste for the reality, or for any image or
+representation of virtue, that sees with joy the unmerited fall of what
+had long nourished in splendor and in honor. I do not like to see
+anything destroyed, any void produced in society, any ruin on the face
+of the land. It was therefore with no disappointment or dissatisfaction
+that my inquiries and observations did not present to me any
+incorrigible vices in the noblesse of France, or any abuse which could
+not be removed by a reform very short of abolition. Your noblesse did
+not deserve punishment; but to degrade is to punish.
+
+It was with the same satisfaction I found that the result of my inquiry
+concerning your clergy was not dissimilar. It is no soothing news to my
+ears, that great bodies of men are incurably corrupt. It is not with
+much credulity I listen to any, when they speak evil of those whom they
+are going to plunder. I rather suspect that vices are feigned or
+exaggerated, when profit is looked for in their punishment. An enemy is
+a bad witness; a robber is a worse. Vices and abuses there were
+undoubtedly in that order, and must be. It was an old establishment, and
+not frequently revised. But I saw no crimes in the individuals that
+merited confiscation of their substance, nor those cruel insults and
+degradations, and that unnatural persecution, which have been
+substituted in the place of meliorating regulation.
+
+If there had been any just cause for this new religions persecution, the
+atheistic libellers, who act as trumpeters to animate the populace to
+plunder, do not love anybody so much as not to dwell with complacence on
+the vices of the existing clergy. This they have not done. They find
+themselves obliged to rake into the histories of former ages (which they
+have ransacked with a malignant and profligate industry) for every
+instance of oppression and persecution which has been made by that body
+or in its favor, in order to justify, upon very iniquitous because very
+illogical principles of retaliation, their own persecutions and their
+own cruelties. After destroying all other genealogies and family
+distinctions, they invent a sort of pedigree of crimes. It is not very
+just to chastise men for the offences of their natural ancestors; but to
+take the fiction of ancestry in a corporate succession, as a ground for
+punishing men who have no relation to guilty acts, except in names and
+general descriptions, is a sort of refinement in injustice belonging to
+the philosophy of this enlightened age. The Assembly punishes men, many,
+if not most, of whom abhor the violent conduct of ecclesiastics in
+former times as much as their present persecutors can do, and who would
+be as loud and as strong in the expression of that sense, if they were
+not well aware of the purposes for which all this declamation is
+employed.
+
+Corporate bodies are immortal for the good of the members, but not for
+their punishment. Nations themselves are such corporations. As well
+might we in England think of waging inexpiable war upon all Frenchmen
+for the evils which they have brought upon us in the several periods of
+our mutual hostilities. You might, on your part, think yourselves
+justified in falling upon all Englishmen on account of the unparalleled
+calamities brought upon the people of France by the unjust invasions of
+our Henrys and our Edwards. Indeed, we should be mutually justified in
+this exterminatory war upon each other, full as much as you are in the
+unprovoked persecution of your present countrymen, on account of the
+conduct of men of the same name in other times.
+
+We do not draw the moral lessons we might from history. On the contrary,
+without care it may be used to vitiate our minds and to destroy our
+happiness. In history a great volume is unrolled for our instruction,
+drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and
+infirmities of mankind. It may, in the perversion, serve for a magazine,
+furnishing offensive and defensive weapons for parties in Church and
+State, and supplying the means of keeping alive or reviving dissensions
+and animosities, and adding fuel to civil fury. History consists, for
+the greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride,
+ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal,
+and all the train of disorderly appetites, which shake the public with
+the same
+
+            "troublous storms that toss
+    The private state, and render life unsweet."
+
+These vices are the _causes_ of those storms. Religion, morals, laws,
+prerogatives, privileges, liberties, rights of men, are the _pretexts_.
+The pretexts are always found in some specious appearance of a real
+good. You would not secure men from tyranny and sedition by rooting out
+of the mind the principles to which these fraudulent pretexts apply? If
+you did, you would root out everything that is valuable in the human
+breast. As these are the pretexts, so the ordinary actors and
+instruments in great public evils are kings, priests, magistrates,
+senates, parliaments, national assemblies, judges, and captains. You
+would not cure the evil by resolving that there should be no more
+monarchs, nor ministers of state, nor of the Gospel,--no interpreters of
+law, no general officers, no public councils. You might change the
+names: the things in some shape must remain. A certain _quantum_ of
+power must always exist in the community, in some hands, and under some
+appellation. Wise men will apply their remedies to vices, not to
+names,--to the causes of evil, which are permanent, not to the
+occasional organs by which they act, and the transitory modes in which
+they appear. Otherwise you will be wise historically, a fool in
+practice. Seldom have two ages the same fashion in their pretexts, and
+the same modes of mischief. Wickedness is a little more inventive.
+Whilst you are discussing fashion, the fashion is gone by. The very same
+vice assumes a new body. The spirit transmigrates; and, far from losing
+its principle of life by the change of its appearance, it is renovated
+in its new organs with the fresh vigor of a juvenile activity. It walks
+abroad, it continues its ravages, whilst you are gibbeting the carcass
+or demolishing the tomb. You are terrifying yourselves with ghosts and
+apparitions, whilst your house is the haunt of robbers. It is thus with
+all those who, attending only to the shell and husk of history, think
+they are waging war with intolerance, pride, and cruelty, whilst, under
+color of abhorring the ill principles of antiquated parties, they are
+authorizing and feeding the same odious vices in different factions, and
+perhaps in worse.
+
+Your citizens of Paris formerly had lent themselves as the ready
+instruments to slaughter the followers of Calvin, at the infamous
+massacre of St. Bartholomew. What should we say to those who could think
+of retaliating on the Parisians of this day the abominations and horrors
+of that time? They are, indeed, brought to abhor _that_ massacre.
+Ferocious as they are, it is not difficult to make them dislike it,
+because the politicians and fashionable teachers have no interest in
+giving their passions exactly the same direction. Still, however, they
+find it their interest to keep the same savage dispositions alive. It
+was but the other day that they caused this very massacre to be acted on
+the stage for the diversion of the descendants of those who committed
+it. In this tragic farce they produced the Cardinal of Lorraine in his
+robes of function, ordering general slaughter. Was this spectacle
+intended to make the Parisians abhor persecution and loathe the effusion
+of blood? No: it was to teach them to persecute their own pastors; it
+was to excite them, by raising a disgust and horror of their clergy, to
+an alacrity in hunting down to destruction an order which, if it ought
+to exist at all, ought to exist not only in safety, but in reverence. It
+was to stimulate their cannibal appetites (which one would think had
+been gorged sufficiently) by variety and seasoning,--and to quicken them
+to an alertness in new murders and massacres, if it should suit the
+purpose of the Guises of the day. An Assembly in which sat a multitude
+of priests and prelates was obliged to suffer this indignity at its
+door. The author was not sent to the galleys, nor the players to the
+house of correction. Not long after this exhibition, those players came
+forward to the Assembly to claim the rites of that very religion which
+they had dared to expose, and to show their prostituted faces in the
+senate, whilst the Archbishop of Paris, whose function was known to his
+people only by his prayers and benedictions, and his wealth only by
+alms, is forced to abandon his house, and to fly from his flock, (as
+from ravenous wolves,) because, truly, in the sixteenth century, the
+Cardinal of Lorraine was a rebel and a murderer.[113]
+
+Such is the effect of the perversion of history by those who, for the
+same nefarious purposes, have perverted every other part of learning.
+But those who will stand upon that elevation of reason which places
+centuries under our eye and brings things to the true point of
+comparison, which obscures little names and effaces the colors of little
+parties, and to which nothing can ascend but the spirit and moral
+quality of human actions, will say to the teachers of the Palais
+Royal,--The Cardinal of Lorraine was the murderer of the sixteenth
+century; you have the glory of being the murderers in the eighteenth;
+and this is the only difference between you. But history in the
+nineteenth century, better understood and better employed, will, I
+trust, teach a civilized posterity to abhor the misdeeds of both these
+barbarous ages. It will teach future priests and magistrates not to
+retaliate upon the speculative and inactive atheists of future times
+the enormities committed by the present practical zealots and furious
+fanatics of that wretched error, which, in its quiescent state, is more
+than punished, whenever it is embraced. It will teach posterity not to
+make war upon either religion or philosophy for the abuse which the
+hypocrites of both have made of the two most valuable blessings
+conferred upon us by the bounty of the universal Patron, who in all
+things eminently favors and protects the race of man.
+
+If your clergy, or any clergy, should show themselves vicious beyond the
+fair bounds allowed to human infirmity, and to those professional faults
+which can hardly be separated from professional virtues, though their
+vices never can countenance the exercise of oppression, I do admit that
+they would naturally have the effect of abating very much of our
+indignation against the tyrants who exceed measure and justice in their
+punishment. I can allow in clergymen, through all their divisions, some
+tenaciousness of their own opinion, some overflowings of zeal for its
+propagation, some predilection to their own state and office, some
+attachment to the interest of their own corps, some preference to those
+who Us ten with docility to their doctrines beyond those who scorn and
+deride them. I allow all this, because I am a man who have to deal with
+men, and who would not, through a violence of toleration, run into the
+greatest of all intolerance. I must bear with infirmities, until they
+fester into crimes.
+
+Undoubtedly, the natural progress of the passions, from frailty to vice,
+ought to be prevented by a watchful eye and a firm hand. But is it true
+that the body of your clergy had passed those limits of a just
+allowance? Prom the general style of your late publications of all
+sorts, one would be led to believe that your clergy in France were a
+sort of monsters: an horrible composition of superstition, ignorance,
+sloth, fraud, avarice, and tyranny. But is this true? Is it true that
+the lapse of time, the cessation of conflicting interests, the woful
+experience of the evils resulting from party rage, have had no sort of
+influence gradually to meliorate their minds? Is it true that they were
+daily renewing invasions on the civil power, troubling the domestic
+quiet of their country, and rendering the operations of its government
+feeble and precarious? Is it true that the clergy of our times have
+pressed down the laity with an iron hand, and were in all places
+lighting up the fires of a savage persecution? Did they by every fraud
+endeavor to increase their estates? Did they use to exceed the due
+demands on estates that were their own? Or, rigidly screwing up right
+into wrong, did they convert a legal claim into a vexatious extortion?
+When not possessed of power, were they filled with the vices of those
+who envy it? Were they inflamed with a violent, litigious spirit of
+controversy? Goaded on with the ambition of intellectual sovereignty,
+were they ready to fly in the face of all magistracy, to fire churches,
+to massacre the priests of other descriptions, to pull down altars, and
+to make their way over the ruins of subverted governments to an empire
+of doctrine, sometimes flattering, sometimes forcing, the consciences of
+men from the jurisdiction of public institutions into a submission to
+their personal authority, beginning with a claim of liberty and ending
+with an abuse of power?
+
+These, or some of these, were the vices objected, and not wholly
+without foundation, to several of the churchmen of former times, who
+belonged to the two great parties which then divided and distracted
+Europe.
+
+If there was in France, as in other countries there visibly is, a great
+abatement, rather than any increase of these vices, instead of loading
+the present clergy with the crimes of other men and the odious character
+of other times, in common equity they ought to be praised, encouraged,
+and supported, in their departure from a spirit which disgraced their
+predecessors, and for having assumed a temper of mind and manners more
+suitable to their sacred function.
+
+When my occasions took me into France, towards the close of the late
+reign, the clergy, under all their forms, engaged a considerable part of
+my curiosity. So far from finding (except from one set of men, not then
+very numerous, though very active) the complaints and discontents
+against that body which some publications had given me reason to expect,
+I perceived little or no public or private uneasiness on their account.
+On further examination, I found the clergy, in general, persons of
+moderate minds and decorous manners: I include the seculars, and the
+regulars of both sexes. I had not the good fortune to know a great many
+of the parochial clergy: but in general I received a perfectly good
+account of their morals, and of their attention to their duties. With
+some of the higher clergy I had a personal acquaintance, and of the rest
+in that class a very good means of information. They were almost all of
+them persons of noble birth. They resembled others of their own rank;
+and where there was any difference, it was in their favor. They were
+more fully educated than the military noblesse,--so as by no means to
+disgrace their profession by ignorance, or by want of fitness for the
+exercise of their authority. They seemed to me, beyond the clerical
+character, liberal and open, with the hearts of gentlemen and men of
+honor, neither insolent nor servile in their manners and conduct. They
+seemed to me rather a superior class,--a set of men amongst whom you
+would not be surprised to find a Fénelon. I saw among the clergy in
+Paris (many of the description are not to be met with anywhere) men of
+great learning and candor; and I had reason to believe that this
+description was not confined to Paris. What I found in other places I
+know was accidental, and therefore to be presumed a fair sample. I spent
+a few days in a provincial town, where, in the absence of the bishop, I
+passed my evenings with three clergymen, his vicars-general, persons who
+would have done honor to any church. They were all well-informed; two of
+them of deep, general, and extensive erudition, ancient and modern,
+Oriental and Western,--particularly in their own profession. They had a
+more extensive knowledge of our English divines than I expected; and
+they entered into the genius of those writers with a critical accuracy.
+One of these gentlemen is since dead: the Abbé Morangis. I pay this
+tribute without reluctance to the memory of that noble, reverend,
+learned, and excellent person; and I should do the same with equal
+cheerfulness to the merits of the others, who I believe are still
+living, if I did not fear to hurt those whom I am unable to serve.
+
+Some of these ecclesiastics of rank are, by all titles, persons
+deserving of general respect. They are deserving of gratitude from me,
+and from many English. If this letter should ever come into their hands,
+I hope they will believe there are those of our nation who feel for
+their unmerited fall, and for the cruel confiscation of their fortunes,
+with no common sensibility. What I say of them is a testimony, as far as
+one feeble voice can go, which I owe to truth. Whenever the question of
+this unnatural persecution is concerned, I will pay it. No one shall
+prevent me from being just and grateful. The time is fitted for the
+duty; and it is particularly becoming to show our justice and gratitude,
+when those who have deserved well of us and of mankind are laboring
+under popular obloquy and the persecutions of oppressive power.
+
+You had before your Revolution about a hundred and twenty bishops. A few
+of them were men of eminent sanctity, and charity without limit. When we
+talk of the heroic, of course we talk of rare virtue. I believe the
+instances of eminent depravity may be as rare amongst them as those of
+transcendent goodness. Examples of avarice and of licentiousness may be
+picked out, I do not question it, by those who delight in the
+investigation which leads to such discoveries. A man as old as I am will
+not be astonished that several, in every description, do not lead that
+perfect life of self-denial, with regard to wealth or to pleasure, which
+is wished for by all, by some expected, but by none exacted with more
+rigor than by those who are the most attentive to their own interests or
+the most indulgent to their own passions. When I was in France, I am
+certain that the number of vicious prelates was not great. Certain
+individuals among them, not distinguishable for the regularity of their
+lives, made some amends for their want of the severe virtues in their
+possession of the liberal, and wore endowed with qualities which made
+them useful in the Church and State. I am told, that, with few
+exceptions, Louis the Sixteenth had been more attentive to character, in
+his promotions to that rank, than his immediate predecessor; and I
+believe (as some spirit of reform has prevailed through the whole reign)
+that it may be true. But the present ruling power has shown a
+disposition only to plunder the Church. It has punished _all_ prelates:
+which is to favor the vicious, at least in point of reputation. It has
+made a degrading pensionary establishment, to which no man of liberal
+ideas or liberal condition will destine his children. It must settle
+into the lowest classes of the people. As with you the inferior clergy
+are not numerous enough for their duties, as these duties are beyond
+measure minute and toilsome, as you have left no middle classes of
+clergy at their ease, in future nothing of science or erudition can
+exist in the Gallican Church. To complete the project, without the least
+attention to the rights of patrons, the Assembly has provided in future
+an elective clergy: an arrangement which will drive out of the clerical
+profession all men of sobriety, all who can pretend to independence in
+their function or their conduct,--and which will throw the whole
+direction of the public mind into the hands of a set of licentious,
+bold, crafty, factious, flattering wretches, of such condition and such
+habits of life as will make their contemptible pensions (in comparison
+of which the stipend of an exciseman is lucrative and honorable) an
+object of low and illiberal intrigue. Those officers whom they still
+call bishops are to be elected to a provision comparatively mean,
+through the same arts, (that is, electioneering arts,) by men of all
+religious tenets that are known or can be invented. The new lawgivers
+have not ascertained anything whatsoever concerning their
+qualifications, relative either to doctrine or to morals, no more than
+they have done with regard to the subordinate clergy; nor does it appear
+but that both the higher and the lower may, at their discretion,
+practise or preach any mode of religion or irreligion that they please.
+I do not yet see what the jurisdiction of bishops over their
+subordinates is to be, or whether they are to have any jurisdiction at
+all.
+
+In short, Sir, it seems to me that this new ecclesiastical establishment
+is intended only to be temporary, and preparatory to the utter
+abolition, under any of its forms, of the Christian religion, whenever
+the minds of men are prepared for this last stroke against it by the
+accomplishment of the plan for bringing its ministers into universal
+contempt. They who will not believe that the philosophical fanatics who
+guide in these matters have long entertained such a design are utterly
+ignorant of their character and proceedings. These enthusiasts do not
+scruple to avow their opinion, that a state can subsist without any
+religion better than with one, and that they are able to supply the
+place of any good which may be in it by a project of their own,--namely,
+by a sort of education they have imagined, founded in a knowledge of the
+physical wants of men, progressively carried to an enlightened
+self-interest, which, when well understood, they tell us, will identify
+with an interest more enlarged and public. The scheme of this education
+has been long known. Of late they distinguish it (as they have got an
+entirely new nomenclature of technical terms) by the name of a _Civic
+Education_.
+
+I hope their partisans in England (to whom I rather attribute very
+inconsiderate conduct than the ultimate object in this detestable
+design) will succeed neither in the pillage of the ecclesiastics nor in
+the introduction of a principle of popular election to our bishoprics
+and parochial cures. This, in the present condition of the world, would
+be the last corruption of the Church, the utter ruin of the clerical
+character, the most dangerous shock that the state ever received through
+a misunderstood arrangement of religion. I know well enough that the
+bishoprics and cures, under kingly and seigniorial patronage, as now
+they are in England, and as they have been lately in France, are
+sometimes acquired by unworthy methods; but the other mode of
+ecclesiastical canvass subjects them infinitely more surely and more
+generally to all the evil arts of low ambition, which, operating on and
+through greater numbers, will produce mischief in proportion.
+
+Those of you who have robbed the clergy think that they shall easily
+reconcile their conduct to all Protestant nations, because the clergy
+whom they have thus plundered, degraded, and given over to mockery and
+scorn, are of the Roman Catholic, that is, of _their own_ pretended
+persuasion. I have no doubt that some miserable bigots will be found
+here as well as elsewhere, who hate sects and parties different from
+their own more than they love the substance of religion, and who are
+more angry with those who differ from them in their particular plans and
+systems than displeased with those who attack the foundation of our
+common hope. These men will write and speak on the subject in the manner
+that is to be expected from their temper and character. Burnet says,
+that, when he was in France, in the year 1683, "the method which carried
+over the men of the finest parts to Popery was this: they brought
+themselves to doubt of the whole Christian religion: when that was once
+done, it seemed a more indifferent thing of what side or form they
+continued outwardly." If this was then the ecclesiastic policy of
+France, it is what they have since but too much reason to repent of.
+They preferred atheism to a form of religion not agreeable to their
+ideas. They succeeded in destroying that form; and atheism has succeeded
+in destroying them. I can readily give credit to Burnet's story; because
+I have observed too much of a similar spirit (for a little of it is
+"much too much") amongst ourselves. The humor, however, is not general.
+
+The teachers who reformed our religion in England bore no sort of
+resemblance to your present reforming doctors in Paris. Perhaps they
+were (like those whom they opposed) rather more than could be wished
+under the influence of a party spirit; but they were most sincere
+believers; men of the most fervent and exalted piety; ready to die (as
+some of them did die) like true heroes in defence of their particular
+ideas of Christianity,--as they would with equal fortitude, and more
+cheerfully, for that stock of general truth for the branches of which
+they contended with their blood. These men would have disavowed with
+horror those wretches who claimed a fellowship with them upon no other
+titles than those of their having pillaged the persons with whom they
+maintained controversies, and their having despised the common religion,
+for the purity of which they exerted themselves with a zeal which
+unequivocally bespoke their highest reverence for the substance of that
+system which they wished to reform. Many of their descendants have
+retained the same zeal, but (as less engaged in conflict) with more
+moderation. They do not forget that justice and mercy are substantial
+parts of religion. Impious men do not recommend themselves to their
+communion by iniquity and cruelty towards any description of their
+fellow-creatures.
+
+We hear these new teachers continually boasting of their spirit of
+toleration. That those persons should tolerate all opinions, who think
+none to be of estimation, is a matter of small merit. Equal neglect is
+not impartial kindness. The species of benevolence which arises from
+contempt is no true charity. There are in England abundance of men who
+tolerate in the true spirit of toleration. They think the dogmas of
+religion, though in different degrees, are all of moment, and that
+amongst them there is, as amongst all things of value, a just ground of
+preference. They favor, therefore, and they tolerate. They tolerate, not
+because they despise opinions, but because they respect justice. They
+would reverently and affectionately protect all religions, because they
+love and venerate the great principle upon which they all agree, and the
+great object to which they are all directed. They begin more and more
+plainly to discern that we have all a common cause, as against a common
+enemy. They will not be so misled by the spirit of faction as not to
+distinguish what is done in favor of their subdivision from those acts
+of hostility which, through some particular description, are aimed at
+the whole corps in which they themselves, under another denomination,
+are included. It is impossible for me to say what may be the character
+of every description of men amongst us. But I speak for the greater
+part; and for them, I must tell you, that sacrilege is no part of their
+doctrine of good works; that, so far from calling you into their
+fellowship on such title, if your professors are admitted to their
+communion, they must carefully conceal their doctrine of the lawfulness
+of the proscription of innocent men, and that they must make restitution
+of all stolen goods whatsoever. Till then they are none of ours.
+
+You may suppose that we do not approve your confiscation of the revenues
+of bishops, and deans, and chapters, and parochial clergy possessing
+independent estates arising from land, because we have the same sort of
+establishment in England. That objection, you will say, cannot hold as
+to the confiscation of the goods of monks and nuns, and the abolition of
+their order. It is true that this particular part of your general
+confiscation does not affect England, as a precedent in point; but the
+reason applies, and it goes a great way. The Long Parliament confiscated
+the lands of deans and chapters in England on the same ideas upon which
+your Assembly set to sale the lands of the monastic orders. But it is in
+the principle of injustice that the danger lies, and not in the
+description of persons on whom it is first exercised. I see, in a
+country very near us, a course of policy pursued, which sets justice,
+the common concern of mankind, at defiance. With the National Assembly
+of France possession is nothing, law and usage are nothing. I see the
+National Assembly openly reprobate the doctrine of prescription, which
+one of the greatest of their own lawyers[114] tells us, with great
+truth, is a part of the law of Nature. He tells us that the positive
+ascertainment of its limits, and its security from invasion, were among
+the causes for which civil society itself has been instituted. If
+prescription be once shaken, no species of property is secure, when it
+once becomes an object large enough to tempt the cupidity of indigent
+power. I see a practice perfectly correspondent to their contempt of
+this great fundamental part of natural law. I see the confiscators begin
+with bishops, and chapters, and monasteries; but I do not see them end
+there. I see the princes of the blood, who, by the oldest usages of that
+kingdom, held large landed estates, (hardly with the compliment of a
+debate,) deprived of their possessions, and, in lieu of their stable,
+independent property, reduced to the hope of some precarious charitable
+pension at the pleasure of an Assembly, which of course will pay little
+regard to the rights of pensioners at pleasure, when it despises those
+of legal proprietors. Flushed with the insolence of their first
+inglorious victories, and pressed by the distresses caused by their lust
+of unhallowed lucre, disappointed, but not discouraged, they have at
+length ventured completely to subvert all property of all descriptions
+throughout the extent of a great kingdom. They have compelled all men,
+in all transactions of commerce, in the disposal of lands, in civil
+dealing, and through the whole communion of life, to accept, as perfect
+payment and good and lawful tender, the symbols of their speculations on
+a projected sale of their plunder. What vestiges of liberty or property
+have they left? The tenant-right of a cabbage-garden, a year's interest
+in a hovel, the good-will of an ale-house or a baker's shop, the very
+shadow of a constructive property, are more ceremoniously treated in our
+Parliament than with you the oldest and most valuable landed
+possessions, in the hands of the most respectable personages, or than
+the whole body of the moneyed and commercial interest of your country.
+We entertain a high opinion of the legislative authority; but we have
+never dreamt that Parliaments had any right whatever to violate
+property, to overrule prescription, or to force a currency of their own
+fiction in the place of that which is real, and recognized by the law of
+nations. But you, who began with refusing to submit to the most moderate
+restraints, have ended by establishing an unheard-of despotism. I find
+the ground upon which your confiscators go is this: that, indeed, their
+proceedings could not be supported in a court of justice, but that the
+rules of prescription cannot bind a legislative assembly.[115] So that
+this legislative assembly of a free nation sits, not for the security,
+but for the destruction of property,--and not of property only, but of
+every rule and maxim which can give it stability, and of those
+instruments which can alone give it circulation.
+
+When the Anabaptists of Munster, in the sixteenth century, had filled
+Germany with confusion, by their system of levelling, and their wild
+opinions concerning property, to what country in Europe did not the
+progress of their fury furnish just cause of alarm? Of all things,
+wisdom is the most terrified with epidemical fanaticism, because of all
+enemies it is that against which she is the least able to furnish any
+kind of resource. We cannot be ignorant of the spirit of atheistical
+fanaticism, that is inspired by a multitude of writings dispersed with
+incredible assiduity and expense, and by sermons delivered in all the
+streets and places of public resort in Paris. These writings and sermons
+have filled the populace with a black and savage atrocity of mind, which
+supersedes in them the common feelings of Nature, as well as all
+sentiments of morality and religion; insomuch that these wretches are
+induced to bear with a sullen patience the intolerable distresses
+brought upon them by the violent convulsions and permutations that have
+been made in property.[116] The spirit of proselytism attends this
+spirit of fanaticism. They have societies to cabal and correspond at
+home and abroad for the propagation of their tenets. The republic of
+Berne, one of the happiest, the most prosperous, and the best-governed
+countries upon earth, is one of the great objects at the destruction of
+which they aim. I am told they have in some measure succeeded in sowing
+there the seeds of discontent. They are busy throughout Germany. Spain
+and Italy have not been untried. England is not left out of the
+comprehensive scheme of their malignant charity: and in England we find
+those who stretch out their arms to them, who recommend their example
+from more than one pulpit, and who choose, in more than one periodical
+meeting, publicly to correspond with them, to applaud them, and to hold
+them up as objects for imitation; who receive from them tokens of
+confraternity, and standards consecrated amidst their rites and
+mysteries;[117] who suggest to them leagues of perpetual amity, at the
+very time when the power to which our Constitution has exclusively
+delegated the federative capacity of this kingdom may find it expedient
+to make war upon them.
+
+It is not the confiscation of our Church property from this example in
+France that I dread, though I think this would be no trifling evil. The
+great source of my solicitude is, lest it should ever be considered in
+England as the policy of a state to seek a resource in confiscations of
+any kind, or that any one description of citizens should be brought to
+regard any of the others as their proper prey.[118] Nations are wading
+deeper and deeper into an ocean of boundless debt. Public debts, which
+at first were a security to governments, by interesting many in the
+public tranquillity, are likely in their excess to become the means of
+their subversion. If governments provide for these debts by heavy
+impositions, they perish by becoming odious to the people. If they do
+not provide for them, they will be undone by the efforts of the most
+dangerous of all parties: I mean an extensive, discontented moneyed
+interest, injured and not destroyed. The men who compose this interest
+look for their security, in the first instance, to the fidelity of
+government; in the second, to its power. If they find the old
+governments effete, worn out, and with their springs relaxed, so as not
+to be of sufficient vigor for their purposes, they may seek new ones
+that shall be possessed of more energy; and this energy will be
+derived, not from an acquisition of resources, but from a contempt of
+justice. Revolutions are favorable to confiscation; and it is impossible
+to know under what obnoxious names the next confiscations will be
+authorized. I am sure that the principles predominant in France extend
+to very many persons, and descriptions of persons, in all countries, who
+think their innoxious indolence their security. This kind of innocence
+in proprietors may be argued into inutility; and inutility into an
+unfitness for their estates. Many parts of Europe are in open disorder.
+In many others there is a hollow murmuring under ground; a confused
+movement is felt, that threatens a general earthquake in the political
+world. Already confederacies and correspondences of the most
+extraordinary nature are forming in several countries.[119] In such a
+state of things we ought to hold ourselves upon our guard. In all
+mutations (if mutations must be) the circumstance which will serve most
+to blunt the edge of their mischief, and to promote what good may be in
+them, is, that they should find us with our minds tenacious of justice
+and tender of property.
+
+But it will be argued, that this confiscation in France ought not to
+alarm other nations. They say it is not made from wanton rapacity; that
+it is a great measure of national policy, adopted to remove an
+extensive, inveterate, superstitious mischief.--It is with the greatest
+difficulty that I am able to separate policy from justice. Justice is
+itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent
+departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of
+being no policy at all.
+
+When men are encouraged to go into a certain mode of life by the
+existing laws, and protected in that mode as in a lawful
+occupation,--when they have accommodated all their ideas and all their
+habits to it,--when the law had long made their adherence to its rules a
+ground of reputation, and their departure from them a ground of disgrace
+and even of penalty,--I am sure it is unjust in legislature, by an
+arbitrary act, to offer a sudden violence to their minds and their
+feelings, forcibly to degrade them from their state and condition, and
+to stigmatize with shame and infamy that character and those customs
+which before had been made the measure of their happiness and honor. If
+to this be added an expulsion from their habitations and a confiscation
+of all their goods, I am not sagacious enough to discover how this
+despotic sport made of the feelings, consciences, prejudices, and
+properties of men can be discriminated from the rankest tyranny.
+
+If the injustice of the course pursued in France be clear, the policy of
+the measure, that is, the public benefit to be expected from it, ought
+to be at least as evident, and at least as important. To a man who acts
+under the influence of no passion, who has nothing in view in his
+projects but the public good, a great difference will immediately strike
+him, between what policy would dictate on the original introduction of
+such institutions, and on a question of their total abolition, where
+they have cast their roots wide and deep, and where, by long habit,
+things more valuable than themselves are so adapted to them, and in a
+manner interwoven with them, that the one cannot be destroyed without
+notably impairing the other. He might be embarrassed, if the case were
+really such as sophisters represent it in their paltry style of
+debating. But in this, as in most questions of state, there is a middle.
+There is something else than the mere alternative of absolute
+destruction or unreformed existence. _Spartam nactus es; hanc exorna_.
+This is, in my opinion, a rule of profound sense, and ought never to
+depart from the mind of an honest reformer. I cannot conceive how any
+man can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption, to consider
+his country as nothing but _carte blanche_, upon which he may scribble
+whatever he pleases. A man full of warm, speculative benevolence may
+wish his society otherwise constituted than he finds it; but a good
+patriot, and a true politician, always considers how he shall make the
+most of the existing materials of his country. A disposition to
+preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my
+standard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the conception,
+perilous in the execution.
+
+There are moments in the fortune of states, when particular men are
+called to make improvements by great mental exertion. In those moments,
+even when they seem to enjoy the confidence of their prince and country,
+and to be invested with full authority, they have not always apt
+instruments. A politician, to do great things, looks for a _power_, what
+our workmen call a _purchase_; and if he finds that power, in politics
+as in mechanics, he cannot be at a loss to apply it. In the monastic
+institutions, in my opinion, was found a great _power_ for the mechanism
+of politic benevolence. There were revenues with a public direction;
+there were men wholly set apart and dedicated to public purposes,
+without any other than public ties and public principles,--men without
+the possibility of converting the estate of the community into a private
+fortune,--men denied to self-interests, whose avarice is for some
+community,--men to whom personal poverty is honor, and implicit
+obedience stands in the place of freedom. In vain shall a man look to
+the possibility of making such things when he wants them. The winds blow
+as they list. These institutions are the products of enthusiasm; they
+are the instruments of wisdom. Wisdom cannot create materials; they are
+the gifts of Nature or of chance; her pride is in the use. The perennial
+existence of bodies corporate and their fortunes are things particularly
+suited to a man who has long views,--who meditates designs that require
+time in fashioning, and which propose duration when they are
+accomplished. He is not deserving to rank high, or even to be mentioned
+in the order of great statesmen, who, having obtained the command and
+direction of such a power as existed in the wealth, the discipline, and
+the habits of such corporations as those which you have rashly
+destroyed, cannot find any way of converting it to the great and lasting
+benefit of his country. On the view of this subject, a thousand uses
+suggest themselves to a contriving mind. To destroy any power growing
+wild from the rank productive force of the human mind is almost
+tantamount, in the moral world, to the destruction of the apparently
+active properties of bodies in the material. It would be like the
+attempt to destroy (if it were in our competence to destroy) the
+expansive force of fixed air in nitre, or the power of steam, or of
+electricity, or of magnetism. These energies always existed in Nature,
+and they were always discernible. They seemed, some of them
+unserviceable, some noxious, some no better than a sport to
+children,--until contemplative ability, combining with practic skill,
+tamed their wild nature, subdued them to use, and rendered them at once
+the most powerful and the most tractable agents, in subservience to the
+great views and designs of men. Did fifty thousand persons, whose mental
+and whose bodily labor you might direct, and so many hundred thousand a
+year of a revenue, which was neither lazy nor superstitious, appear too
+big for your abilities to wield? Had you no way of using the men, but by
+converting monks into pensioners? Had you no way of turning the revenue
+to account, but through the improvident resource of a spendthrift sale?
+If you were thus destitute of mental funds, the proceeding is in its
+natural course. Your politicians do not understand their trade; and
+therefore they sell their tools.
+
+But the institutions savor of superstition in their very principle; and
+they nourish it by a permanent and standing influence.--This I do not
+mean to dispute; but this ought not to hinder you from deriving from
+superstition itself any resources which may thence be furnished for the
+public advantage. You derive benefits from many dispositions and many
+passions of the human mind which are of as doubtful a color, in the
+moral eye, as superstition itself. It was your business to correct and
+mitigate everything which was noxious in this passion, as in all the
+passions. But is superstition the greatest of all possible vices? In its
+possible excess I think it becomes a very great evil. It is, however, a
+moral subject, and of course admits of all degrees and all
+modifications. Superstition is the religion of feeble minds; and they
+must be tolerated in an intermixture of it, in some trifling or some
+enthusiastic shape or other, else you will deprive weak minds of a
+resource found necessary to the strongest. The body of all true religion
+consists, to be sure, in obedience to the will of the Sovereign of the
+world, in a confidence in His declarations, and in imitation of His
+perfections. The rest is our own. It may be prejudicial to the great
+end,--it may be auxiliary. Wise men, who, as such, are not _admirers_,
+(not admirers at least of the _munera terræ_,) are not violently
+attached to these things, nor do they violently hate them. Wisdom is not
+the most severe corrector of folly. They are the rival follies which
+mutually wage so unrelenting a war, and which make so cruel a use of
+their advantages, as they can happen to engage the immoderate vulgar, on
+the one side or the other, in their quarrels. Prudence would be neuter;
+but if, in the contention between fond attachment and fierce antipathy
+concerning things in their nature not made to produce such heats, a
+prudent man were obliged to make a choice of what errors and excesses of
+enthusiasm he would condemn or bear, perhaps he would think the
+superstition which builds to be more tolerable than that which
+demolishes,--that which adorns a country, than that which deforms
+it,--that which endows, than that which plunders,--that which disposes
+to mistaken beneficence, than that which stimulates to real
+injustice,--that which leads a man to refuse to himself lawful
+pleasures, than that which snatches from others the scanty subsistence
+of their self-denial. Such, I think, is very nearly the state of the
+question between the ancient founders of monkish superstition and the
+superstition of the pretended philosophers of the hour.
+
+For the present I postpone all consideration of the supposed public
+profit of the sale, which, however, I conceive to be perfectly delusive.
+I shall here only consider it as a transfer of property. On the policy
+of that transfer I shall trouble you with a few thoughts.
+
+In every prosperous community something more is produced than goes to
+the immediate support of the producer. This surplus forms the income of
+the landed capitalist. It will be spent by a proprietor who does not
+labor. But this idleness is itself the spring of labor, this repose the
+spur to industry. The only concern for the state is, that the capital
+taken in rent from the land should be returned again to the industry
+from whence it came, and that its expenditure should be with the least
+possible detriment to the morals of those who expend it and to those of
+the people to whom it is returned.
+
+In all the views of receipt, expenditure, and personal employment, a
+sober legislator would carefully compare the possessor whom he was
+recommended to expel with the stranger who was proposed to fill his
+place. Before the inconveniences are incurred which _must_ attend all
+violent revolutions in property through extensive confiscation, we ought
+to have some rational assurance that the purchasers of the confiscated
+property will be in a considerable degree more laborious, more virtuous,
+more sober, less disposed to extort an unreasonable proportion of the
+gains of the laborer, or to consume on themselves a larger share than is
+fit for the measure of an individual,--or that they should be qualified
+to dispense the surplus in a more steady and equal mode, so as to
+answer the purposes of a politic expenditure, than the old possessors,
+call those possessors bishops, or canons, or commendatory abbots, or
+monks, or what you please. The monks are lazy. Be it so. Suppose them no
+otherwise employed than by singing in the choir. They are as usefully
+employed as those who neither sing nor say,--as usefully even as those
+who sing upon the stage. They are as usefully employed as if they worked
+from dawn to dark in the innumerable servile, degrading, unseemly,
+unmanly, and often most unwholesome and pestiferous occupations to which
+by the social economy so many wretches are inevitably doomed. If it were
+not generally pernicious to disturb the natural course of things, and to
+impede in any degree the great wheel of circulation which is turned by
+the strangely directed labor of these unhappy people, I should be
+infinitely more inclined forcibly to rescue them from their miserable
+industry than violently to disturb the tranquil repose of monastic
+quietude. Humanity, and perhaps policy, might better justify me in the
+one than in the other. It is a subject on which I have often reflected,
+and never reflected without feeling from it. I am sure that no
+consideration, except the necessity of submitting to the yoke of luxury
+and the despotism of fancy, who in their own imperious way will
+distribute the surplus product of the soil, can justify the toleration
+of such trades and employments in a well-regulated state. But for this
+purpose of distribution, it seems to me that the idle expenses of monks
+are quite as well directed as the idle expenses of us lay loiterers.
+
+When the advantages of the possession and of the project are on a par,
+there is no motive for a change. But in the present case, perhaps, they
+are not upon a par, and the difference is in favor of the possession. It
+does not appear to me that the expenses of those whom you are going to
+expel do in fact take a course so directly and so generally leading to
+vitiate and degrade and render miserable those through whom they pass as
+the expenses of those favorites whom you are intruding into their
+houses. Why should the expenditure of a great landed property, which is
+a dispersion of the surplus product of the soil, appear intolerable to
+you or to me, when it takes its course through the accumulation of vast
+libraries, which are the history of the force and weakness of the human
+mind,--through great collections of ancient records, medals, and coins,
+which attest and explain laws and customs,--through paintings and
+statues, that, by imitating Nature, seem to extend the limits of
+creation,--through grand monuments of the dead, which continue the
+regards and connections of life beyond the grave,--through collections
+of the specimens of Nature, which become a representative assembly of
+all the classes and families of the world, that by disposition
+facilitate, and by exciting curiosity open, the avenues to science? If
+by great permanent establishments all these objects of expense are
+better secured from the inconstant sport of personal caprice and
+personal extravagance, are they worse than if the same tastes prevailed
+in scattered individuals? Does not the sweat of the mason and carpenter,
+who toil in order to partake the sweat of the peasant, flow as
+pleasantly and as salubriously in the construction and repair of the
+majestic edifices of religion as in the painted booths and sordid sties
+of vice and luxury? as honorably and as profitably in repairing those
+sacred works which grow hoary with innumerable years as on the momentary
+receptacles of transient voluptuousness,--in opera-houses, and brothels,
+and gaming-houses, and club-houses, and obelisks in the Champ de Mars?
+Is the surplus product of the olive and the vine worse employed in the
+frugal sustenance of persons whom the fictions of a pious imagination
+raise to dignity by construing in the service of God than in pampering
+the innumerable multitude of those who are degraded by being made
+useless domestics, subservient to the pride of man? Are the decorations
+of temples an expenditure less worthy a wise man than ribbons, and
+laces, and national cockades, and petit maisons, and petit soupers, and
+all the innumerable fopperies and follies in which opulence sports away
+the burden of its superfluity?
+
+We tolerate even these,--not from love of them, but for fear of worse.
+We tolerate them, because property and liberty, to a degree, require
+that toleration. But why proscribe the other, and surely, in every point
+of view, the more laudable use of estates? Why, through the violation of
+all property, through an outrage upon every principle of liberty,
+forcibly carry them from the better to the worse?
+
+This comparison between the new individuals and the old corps is made
+upon a supposition that no reform could be made in the latter. But, in a
+question of reformation, I always consider corporate bodies, whether
+sole or consisting of many, to be much more susceptible of a public
+direction, by the power of the state, in the use of their property, and
+in the regulation of modes and habits of life in their members, than
+private citizens ever can be, or perhaps ought to be; and this seems to
+me a very material consideration for those who undertake anything which
+merits the name of a politic enterprise.--So far as to the estates of
+monasteries.
+
+With regard to the estates possessed by bishops and canons and
+commendatory abbots, I cannot find out for what reason some landed
+estates may not be held otherwise than by inheritance. Can any
+philosophic spoiler undertake to demonstrate the positive or the
+comparative evil of having a certain, and that, too, a large, portion of
+landed property passing in succession through persons whose title to it
+is, always in theory and often in fact, an eminent degree of piety,
+morals, and learning; a property which by its destination, in their
+turn, and on the score of merit, gives to the noblest families
+renovation and support, to the lowest the means of dignity and
+elevation; a property, the tenure of which is the performance of some
+duty, (whatever value you may choose to set upon that duty,) and the
+character of whose proprietors demands at least an exterior decorum and
+gravity of manners,--who are to exercise a generous, but temperate
+hospitality,--part of whose income they are to consider as a trust for
+charity,--and who, even when they fail in their trust, when they slide
+from their character, and degenerate into a mere common secular nobleman
+or gentleman, are in no respect worse than those who may succeed them in
+their forfeited possessions? Is it better that estates should be held by
+those who have no duty than by those who have one? by those whose
+character and destination point to virtues than by those who have no
+rule and direction in the expenditure of their estates but their own
+will and appetite? Nor are these estates held altogether in the
+character or with the evils supposed inherent in mortmain. They pass
+from hand to hand with a more rapid circulation than any other. No
+excess is good, and therefore too great a proportion of landed property
+may be held officially for life; but it does not seem to me of material
+injury to any common wealth that there should exist some estates that
+have a chance of being acquired by other means than the previous
+acquisition of money.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This letter is grown to a great length, though it is, indeed, short with
+regard to the infinite extent of the subject. Various avocations have
+from time to time called my mind from the subject. I was not sorry to
+give myself leisure to observe whether in the proceedings of the
+National Assembly I might not find reasons to change or to qualify some
+of my first sentiments. Everything has confirmed me more strongly in my
+first opinions. It was my original purpose to take a view of the
+principles of the National Assembly with regard to the great and
+fundamental establishments, and to compare the whole of what you have
+substituted in the place of what you have destroyed with the several
+members of our British Constitution. But this plan is of greater extent
+than at first I computed, and I find that you have little desire to take
+the advantage of any examples. At present I must content myself with
+some remarks upon your establishments, reserving for another time what I
+proposed to say concerning the spirit of our British monarchy,
+aristocracy, and democracy, as practically they exist.
+
+I have taken a view of what has been done by the governing power in
+France. I have certainly spoke of it with freedom. Those whose principle
+it is to despise the ancient, permanent sense of mankind, and to set up
+a scheme of society on new principles, must naturally expect that such
+of us who think better of the judgment of the human race than, of theirs
+should consider both them and their devices as men and schemes upon
+their trial. They must take it for granted that we attend much to their
+reason, but not at all to their authority. They have not one of the
+great influencing prejudices of mankind in their favor. They avow their
+hostility to opinion. Of course they must expect no support from that
+influence, which, with every other authority, they have deposed from the
+seat of its jurisdiction.
+
+I can never consider this Assembly as anything else than a voluntary
+association of men who have availed themselves of circumstances to seize
+upon the power of the state. They have not the sanction and authority of
+the character under which they first met. They have assumed another of a
+very different nature, and have completely altered and inverted all the
+relations in which they originally stood. They do not hold the authority
+they exercise under any constitutional law of the state. They have
+departed from the instructions of the people by whom they were sent;
+which instructions, as the Assembly did not act in virtue of any ancient
+usage or settled law, were the sole source of their authority. The most
+considerable of their acts have not been done by great majorities; and
+in this sort of near divisions, which carry only the constructive
+authority of the whole, strangers will consider reasons as well as
+resolutions.
+
+If they had set up this new, experimental government as a necessary
+substitute for an expelled tyranny, mankind would anticipate the time of
+prescription, which through long usage mellows into legality governments
+that were violent in their commencement. All those who have affections
+which lead them to the conservation of civil order would recognize, even
+in its cradle, the child as legitimate, which has been produced from
+those principles of cogent expediency to which all just governments owe
+their birth, and on which they justify their continuance. But they will
+be late and reluctant in giving any sort of countenance to the
+operations of a power which has derived its birth from no law and no
+necessity, but which, on the contrary, has had its origin in those vices
+and sinister practices by which the social union is often disturbed and
+sometimes destroyed. This Assembly has hardly a year's prescription. We
+have their own word for it that they have made a revolution. To make a
+revolution is a measure which, _primâ fronte_, requires an apology. To
+make a revolution is to subvert the ancient state of our country; and no
+common reasons are called for to justify so violent a proceeding. The
+sense of mankind authorizes us to examine into the mode of acquiring new
+power, and to criticize on the use that is made of it, with less awe and
+reverence than that which is usually conceded to a settled and
+recognized authority.
+
+In obtaining and securing their power, the Assembly proceeds upon
+principles the most opposite from those which appear to direct them in
+the use of it. An observation on this difference will let us into the
+true spirit of their conduct. Everything which they have done, or
+continue to do, in order to obtain and keep their power, is by the most
+common arts. They proceed exactly as their ancestors of ambition have
+done before them. Trace them through all their artifices, frauds, and
+violences, you can find nothing at all that is new. They follow
+precedents and examples with the punctilious exactness of a pleader.
+They never depart an iota from the authentic formulas of tyranny and
+usurpation. But in all the regulations relative to the public good the
+spirit has been the very reverse of this. There they commit the whole to
+the mercy of untried speculations; they abandon the dearest interests of
+the public to those loose theories to which none of them would choose to
+trust the slightest of his private concerns. They make this difference,
+because in their desire of obtaining and securing power they are
+thoroughly in earnest; there they travel in the beaten road. The public
+interests, because about them they have no real solicitude, they abandon
+wholly to chance: I say to chance, because their schemes have nothing in
+experience to prove their tendency beneficial.
+
+We must always see with a pity not unmixed with respect the errors of
+those who are timid and doubtful of themselves with regard to points
+wherein the happiness of mankind is concerned. But in these gentlemen
+there is nothing of the tender parental solicitude which fears to cut up
+the infant for the sake of an experiment. In the vastness of their
+promises and the confidence of their predictions they far outdo all the
+boasting of empirics. The arrogance of their pretensions in a manner
+provokes and challenges us to an inquiry into their foundation.
+
+I am convinced that there are men of considerable parts among the
+popular leaders in the National Assembly. Some of them display eloquence
+in their speeches and their writings. This cannot be without powerful
+and cultivated talents. But eloquence may exist without a proportionable
+degree of wisdom. When I speak of ability, I am obliged to distinguish.
+What they have done towards the support of their system bespeaks no
+ordinary men. In the system itself, taken as the scheme of a republic
+constructed for procuring the prosperity and security of the citizen,
+and for promoting the strength and grandeur of the state, I confess
+myself unable to find out anything which displays, in a single instance,
+the work of a comprehensive and disposing mind, or even the provisions
+of a vulgar prudence. Their purpose everywhere seems to have been to
+evade and slip aside from _difficulty_. This it has been the glory of
+the great masters in all the arts to confront, and to overcome,--and
+when they had overcome the first difficulty, to turn it into an
+instrument for new conquests over new difficulties: thus to enable them
+to extend the empire of their science, and even to push forward, beyond
+the reach of their original thoughts, the landmarks of the human
+understanding itself. Difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us by
+the supreme ordinance of a parental Guardian and Legislator, who knows
+us better than we know ourselves, as He loves us better too. _Pater ipse
+colendi haud facilem esse viam voluit_. He that wrestles with us
+strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our
+helper. This amicable conflict with difficulty obliges us to an intimate
+acquaintance with our object, and compels us to consider it in all its
+relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial. It is the want of
+nerves of understanding for such a task, it is the degenerate fondness
+for tricking short-outs and little fallacious facilities, that has in so
+many parts of the world created governments with arbitrary powers. They
+have created the late arbitrary monarchy of France. They have created
+the arbitrary republic of Paris. With them defects in wisdom are to be
+supplied by the plenitude of force. They get nothing by it. Commencing
+their labors on a principle of sloth, they have the common fortune of
+slothful men. The difficulties, which they rather had eluded than
+escaped, meet them again in their course; they multiply and thicken on
+them; they are involved, through a labyrinth of confused detail, in an
+industry without limit and without direction; and in conclusion, the
+whole of their work becomes feeble, vicious, and insecure.
+
+It is this inability to wrestle with difficulty which has obliged the
+arbitrary Assembly of France to commence their schemes of reform with
+abolition and total destruction.[120] But is it in destroying and
+pulling down that skill is displayed? Your mob can do this as well at
+least as your assemblies. The shallowest understanding, the rudest hand,
+is more than equal to that task. Rage and frenzy will pull down more in
+half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in
+a hundred years. The errors and defects of old establishments are
+visible and palpable. It calls for little ability to point them out; and
+where absolute power is given, it requires but a word wholly to abolish
+the vice and the establishment together. The same lazy, but restless
+disposition, which loves sloth and hates quiet, directs these
+politicians, when they come to work for supplying the place of what they
+have destroyed. To make everything the reverse of what they have seen is
+quite as easy as to destroy. No difficulties occur in what has never
+been tried. Criticism is almost baffled in discovering the defects of
+what has not existed; and eager enthusiasm and cheating hope have all
+the wide field of imagination, in which they may expatiate with little
+or no opposition.
+
+At once to preserve and to reform is quite another thing. When the
+useful parts of an old establishment are kept, and what is superadded is
+to be fitted to what is retained, a vigorous mind, steady, persevering
+attention, various powers of comparison and combination, and the
+resources of an understanding fruitful in expedients are to be
+exercised; they are to be exercised in a continued conflict with the
+combined force of opposite vices, with the obstinacy that rejects all
+improvement, and the levity that is fatigued and disgusted with
+everything of which it is in possession. But you may object,--"A process
+of this kind is slow. It is not fit for an Assembly which glories in
+performing in a few months the work of ages. Such a mode of reforming,
+possibly, might take up many years." Without question it might; and it
+ought. It is one of the excellences of a method in which time is amongst
+the assistants, that its operation is slow, and in some cases almost
+imperceptible. If circumspection and caution are a part of wisdom, when
+we work only upon inanimate matter, surely they become a part of duty
+too, when the subject of our demolition and construction is not brick
+and timber, but sentient beings, by the sudden alteration of whose
+state, condition, and habits, multitudes may be rendered miserable. But
+it seems as if it were the prevalent opinion in Paris, that an unfeeling
+heart and an undoubting confidence are the sole qualifications for a
+perfect legislator. Far different are my ideas of that high office. The
+true lawgiver ought to have a heart full of sensibility. He ought to
+love and respect his kind, and to fear himself. It may be allowed to his
+temperament to catch his ultimate object with an intuitive glance; but
+his movements towards it ought to be deliberate. Political arrangement,
+as it is a work for social ends, is to be only wrought by social means.
+There mind must conspire with mind. Time is required to produce that
+union of minds which alone can produce all the good we aim at. Our
+patience will achieve more than our force. If I might venture to appeal
+to what is so much out of fashion in Paris,--I mean to experience,--I
+should tell you, that in my course I have known, and, according to my
+measure, have coöperated with great men; and I have never yet seen any
+plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were
+much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the
+business. By a slow, but well-sustained progress, the effect of each
+step is watched; the good or ill success of the first gives light to us
+in the second; and so, from light to light, we are conducted with safety
+through the whole series. We see that the parts of the system do not
+clash. The evils latent in the most promising contrivances are provided
+for as they arise. One advantage is as little as possible sacrificed to
+another. We compensate, we reconcile, we balance. We are enabled to
+unite into a consistent whole the various anomalies and contending
+principles that are found in the minds and affairs of men. From hence
+arises, not an excellence in simplicity, but one far superior, an
+excellence in composition. Where the great interests of mankind are
+concerned through a long succession of generations, that succession
+ought to be admitted into some share in the councils which are so deeply
+to affect them. If justice requires this, the work itself requires the
+aid of more minds than one age can furnish. It is from this view of
+things that the best legislators have been often satisfied with the
+establishment of some sure, solid, and ruling principle in
+government,--a power like that which some of the philosophers have
+called a plastic Nature; and having fixed the principle, they have left
+it afterwards to its own operation.
+
+To proceed in this manner, that is, to proceed with a presiding
+principle and a prolific energy, is with me the criterion of profound
+wisdom. What your politicians think the marks of a bold, hardy genius
+are only proofs of a deplorable want of ability. By their violent haste,
+and their defiance of the process of Nature, they are delivered over
+blindly to every projector and adventurer, to every alchemist and
+empiric. They despair of turning to account anything that is common.
+Diet is nothing in their system of remedy. The worst of it is, that this
+their despair of curing common distempers by regular methods arises not
+only from defect of comprehension, but, I fear, from some malignity of
+disposition. Your legislators seem to have taken their opinions of all
+professions, ranks, and offices from the declamations and buffooneries
+of satirists,--who would themselves be astonished, if they were held to
+the letter of their own descriptions. By listening only to these, your
+leaders regard all things only on the side of their vices and faults,
+and view those vices and faults under every color of exaggeration. It is
+undoubtedly true, though it may seem paradoxical,--but, in general,
+those who are habitually employed in finding and displaying faults are
+unqualified for the work of reformation; because their minds are not
+only unfurnished with patterns of the fair and good, but by habit they
+come to take no delight in the contemplation of those things. By hating
+vices too much, they come to love men too little. It is therefore not
+wonderful that they should be indisposed and unable to serve them. From
+hence arises the complexional disposition of some of your guides to pull
+everything in pieces. At this malicious game they display the whole of
+their _quadrimanous_ activity. As to the rest, the paradoxes of eloquent
+writers, brought forth purely as a sport of fancy, to try their talents,
+to rouse attention, and excite surprise, are taken up by these
+gentlemen, not in the spirit of the original authors, as means of
+cultivating their taste and improving their style: these paradoxes
+become with them serious grounds of action, upon which they proceed in
+regulating the most important concerns of the state. Cicero ludicrously
+describes Cato as endeavoring to act in the commonwealth upon the school
+paradoxes which exercised the wits of the junior students in the Stoic
+philosophy. If this was true of Cato, these gentlemen copy after him in
+the manner of some persons who lived about his time,--_pede nudo
+Catonem_. Mr. Hume told me that he had from Rousseau himself the secret
+of his principles of composition. That acute, though eccentric observer,
+had perceived, that, to strike and interest the public, the marvellous
+must be produced; that the marvellous of the heathen mythology had long
+since lost its effects; that giants, magicians, fairies, and heroes of
+romance, which succeeded, had exhausted the portion of credulity which
+belonged to their age; that now nothing was left to a writer but that
+species of the marvellous, which might still be produced, and with as
+great an effect as ever, though in another way,--that is, the marvellous
+in life, in manners, in characters, and in extraordinary situations,
+giving rise to new and unlooked-for strokes in politics and morals. I
+believe, that, were Rousseau alive, and in one of his lucid intervals,
+he would be shocked at the practical frenzy of his scholars, who in
+their paradoxes are servile imitators, and even in their incredulity
+discover an implicit faith.
+
+Men who undertake considerable things, even in a regular way, ought to
+give us ground to presume ability. But the physician of the state, who,
+not satisfied with the cure of distempers, undertakes to regenerate
+constitutions, ought to show uncommon powers. Some very unusual
+appearances of wisdom ought to display themselves on the face of the
+designs of those who appeal to no practice and who copy after no model.
+Has any such been manifested? I shall take a view (it shall for the
+subject be a very short one) of what the Assembly has done, with regard,
+first, to the constitution of the legislature; in the next place, to
+that of the executive power; then to that of the judicature; afterwards
+to the model of the army; and conclude with the system of finance: to
+see whether we can discover in any part of their schemes the portentous
+ability which may justify these bold undertakers in the superiority
+which they assume over mankind.
+
+It is in the model of the sovereign and presiding part of this new
+republic that we should expect their grand display. Here they were to
+prove their title to their proud demands. For the plan itself at large,
+and for the reasons on which it is grounded, I refer to the journals of
+the Assembly of the 29th of September, 1789, and to the subsequent
+proceedings which have made any alterations in the plan. So far as in a
+matter somewhat confused I can see light, the system remains
+substantially as it has been originally framed. My few remarks will be
+such as regard its spirit, its tendency, and its fitness for framing a
+popular commonwealth, which they profess theirs to be, suited to the
+ends for which any commonwealth, and particularly such a commonwealth,
+is made. At the same time I mean to consider its consistency with itself
+and its own principles.
+
+Old establishments are tried by their effects. If the people are happy,
+united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to
+be good from whence good is derived. In old establishments various
+correctives have been found for their aberrations from theory. Indeed,
+they are the results of various necessities and expediences. They are
+not often constructed after any theory: theories are rather drawn from
+them. In them we often see the end best obtained, where the means seem
+not perfectly reconcilable to what we may fancy was the original scheme.
+The means taught by experience may be better suited to political ends
+than those contrived in the original project. They again react upon the
+primitive constitution, and sometimes improve the design itself, from
+which they seem to have departed. I think all this might be curiously
+exemplified in the British Constitution. At worst, the errors and
+deviations of every kind in reckoning are found and computed, and the
+ship proceeds in her course. This is the case of old establishments; but
+in a new and merely theoretic system, it is expected that every
+contrivance shall appear, on the face of it, to answer its ends,
+especially where the projectors are no way embarrassed with an endeavor
+to accommodate the new building to an old one, either in the walls or on
+the foundations.
+
+The French builders, clearing away as mere rubbish whatever they found,
+and, like their ornamental gardeners, forming everything into an exact
+level, propose to rest the whole local and general legislature on three
+bases of three different kinds,--one geometrical, one arithmetical, and
+the third financial; the first of which they call _the basis of
+territory_; the second, _the basis of population_; and the third, _the
+basis of contribution_. For the accomplishment of the first of these
+purposes, they divide the area of their country into eighty-three
+pieces, regularly square, of eighteen leagues by eighteen. These large
+divisions are called _Departments_. These they portion, proceeding by
+square measurement, into seventeen hundred and twenty districts, called
+_Communes_. These again they subdivide, still proceeding by square
+measurement, into smaller districts, called _Cantons_, making in all
+6,400.
+
+At first view this geometrical basis of theirs presents not much to
+admire or to blame. It calls for no great legislative talents. Nothing
+more than an accurate land-surveyor, with his chain, sight, and
+theodolite, is requisite for such a plan as this. In the old divisions
+of the country, various accidents at times, and the ebb and flow of
+various properties and jurisdictions, settled their bounds. These bounds
+were not made upon any fixed system, undoubtedly. They were subject to
+some inconveniences; but they were inconveniences for which use had
+found remedies, and habit had supplied accommodation and patience. In
+this new pavement of square within square, and this organization and
+semi-organization, made on the system of Empedocles and Buffon, and not
+upon any politic principle, it is impossible that innumerable local
+inconveniences, to which men are not habituated, must not arise. But
+these I pass over, because it requires an accurate knowledge of the
+country, which I do not possess, to specify them.
+
+When these state surveyors came to take a view of their work of
+measurement, they soon found that in politics the most fallacious of all
+things was geometrical demonstration. They had then recourse to another
+basis (or rather buttress) to support the building, which tottered on
+that false foundation. It was evident that the goodness of the soil, the
+number of the people, their wealth, and the largeness of their
+contribution, made such infinite variations between square and square
+as to render mensuration a ridiculous standard of power in the
+commonwealth, and equality in geometry the most unequal of all measures
+in the distribution of men. However, they could not give it up,--but,
+dividing their political and civil representation into three parts, they
+allotted one of those parts to the square measurement, without a single
+fact or calculation to ascertain whether this territorial proportion of
+representation was fairly assigned, and ought upon any principle really
+to be a third. Having, however, given to geometry this portion, (of a
+third for her dower,) out of compliment, I suppose, to that sublime
+science, they left the other two to be scuffled for between the other
+parts, population and contribution.
+
+When they came to provide for population, they were not able to proceed
+quite so smoothly as they had done in the field of their geometry. Here
+their arithmetic came to bear upon their juridical metaphysics. Had they
+stuck to their metaphysic principles, the arithmetical process would be
+simple indeed. Men, with them, are strictly equal, and are entitled to
+equal rights in their own government. Each head, on this system, would
+have its vote, and every man would vote directly for the person who was
+to represent him in the legislature. "But soft,--by regular degrees, not
+yet." This metaphysic principle, to which law, custom, usage, policy,
+reason, were to yield, is to yield itself to their pleasure. There must
+be many degrees, and some stages, before the representative can come in
+contact with his constituent. Indeed, as we shall soon see, these two
+persons are to have no sort of communion with each other. First, the
+voters in the _Canton_, who compose what they call _primary
+assemblies_, are to have a _qualification_. What! a qualification on the
+indefeasible rights of men? Yes; but it shall be a very small
+qualification. Our injustice shall be very little oppressive: only the
+local valuation of three days' labor paid to the public. Why, this is
+not much, I readily admit, for anything but the utter subversion of your
+equalizing principle. As a qualification it might as well be let alone;
+for it answers no one purpose for which qualifications are established;
+and, on your ideas, it excludes from a vote the man of all others whose
+natural equality stands the most in need of protection and defence: I
+mean the man who has nothing else but his natural equality to guard him.
+You order him to buy the right which you before told him Nature had
+given to him gratuitously at his birth, and of which no authority on
+earth could lawfully deprive him. With regard to the person who cannot
+come up to your market, a tyrannous aristocracy, as against him, is
+established at the very outset, by you who pretend to be its sworn foe.
+
+The gradation proceeds. These primary assemblies of the _Canton_ elect
+deputies to the _Commune_,--one for every two hundred qualified
+inhabitants. Here is the first medium put between the primary elector
+and the representative legislator; and here a new turnpike is fixed for
+taxing the rights of men with a second qualification: for none can be
+elected into the _Commune_ who does not pay the amount of ten days'
+labor. Nor have we yet done. There is still to be another
+gradation.[121] These _Communes_, chosen by the _Canton_, choose to the
+_Department_; and the deputies of the _Department_ choose their deputies
+to the _National Assembly_. Here is a third barrier of a senseless
+qualification. Every deputy to the National Assembly must pay, in direct
+contribution, to the value of a _mark of silver_. Of all these
+qualifying barriers we must think alike: that they are impotent to
+secure independence, strong only to destroy the rights of men.
+
+In all this process, which in its fundamental elements affects to
+consider only _population_, upon a principle of natural right, there is
+a manifest attention to _property_,--which, however just and reasonable
+on other schemes, is on theirs perfectly unsupportable.
+
+When they come to their third basis, that of _Contribution_, we find
+that they have more completely lost sight of the rights of men. This
+last basis rests _entirely_ on property. A principle totally different
+from the equality of men, and utterly irreconcilable to it, is thereby
+admitted: but no sooner is this principle admitted than (as usual) it is
+subverted; and it is not subverted (as we shall presently see) to
+approximate the inequality of riches to the level of Nature. The
+additional share in the third portion of representation (a portion
+reserved exclusively for the higher contribution) is made to regard the
+_district_ only, and not the individuals in it who pay. It is easy to
+perceive, by the course of their reasonings, how much they were
+embarrassed by their contradictory ideas of the rights of men and the
+privileges of riches. The Committee of Constitution do as good as admit
+that they are wholly irreconcilable. "The relation with regard to the
+contributions is without doubt _null_, (say they,) when the question is
+on the balance of the political rights as between individual and
+individual; without which _personal equality would be destroyed_, and
+_an aristocracy of the rich_ would be established. But this
+inconvenience entirely disappears, when the proportional relation of the
+contribution is only considered in the _great masses_, and is solely
+between province and province; it serves in that case only to form a
+just reciprocal proportion between the cities, without affecting the
+personal rights of the citizens."
+
+Here the principle of _contribution_, as taken between man and man, is
+reprobated as _null_, and destructive to equality,--and as pernicious,
+too, because it leads to the establishment of an _aristocracy of the
+rich_. However, it must not be abandoned. And the way of getting rid of
+the difficulty is to establish the inequality as between department and
+department, leaving all the individuals in each department upon an exact
+par. Observe, that this parity between individuals had been before
+destroyed, when the qualifications within the departments were settled;
+nor does it seem a matter of great importance whether the equality of
+men be injured by masses or individually. An individual is not of the
+same importance in a mass represented by a few as in a mass represented
+by many. It would be too much to tell a man jealous of his equality,
+that the elector has the same franchise who votes for three members as
+he who votes for ten.
+
+Now take it in the other point of view, and let us suppose their
+principle of representation according to contribution, that is according
+to riches, to be well imagined, and to be a necessary basis for their
+republic. In this their third basis they assume that riches ought to be
+respected, and that justice and policy require that they should entitle
+men, in some mode or other, to a larger share in the administration of
+public affairs; it is now to be seen how the Assembly provides for the
+preëminence, or even for the security of the rich, by conferring, in
+virtue of their opulence, that larger measure of power to their district
+which is denied to them personally. I readily admit (indeed, I should
+lay it down as a fundamental principle) that in a republican government,
+which has a democratic basis, the rich do require an additional security
+above what is necessary to them in monarchies. They are subject to envy,
+and through envy to oppression. On the present scheme it is impossible
+to divine what advantage they derive from the aristocratic preference
+upon which the unequal representation of the masses is founded. The rich
+cannot feel it, either as a support to dignity or as security to
+fortune: for the aristocratic mass is generated from purely democratic
+principles; and the prevalence given to it in the general representation
+has no sort of reference to or connection with the persons upon account
+of whose property this superiority of the mass is established. If the
+contrivers of this scheme meant any sort of favor to the rich, in
+consequence of their contribution, they ought to have conferred the
+privilege either on the individual rich, or on some class formed of rich
+persons (as historians represent Servius Tullius to have done in the
+early constitution of Rome); because the contest between the rich and
+the poor is not a struggle between corporation and corporation, but a
+contest between men and men,--a competition, not between districts, but
+between descriptions. It would answer its purpose better, if the scheme
+were inverted: that the votes of the masses were rendered equal, and
+that the votes within each mass were proportioned to property.
+
+Let us suppose one man in a district (it is an easy supposition) to
+contribute as much as a hundred of his neighbors. Against these he has
+but one vote. If there were but one representative for the mass, his
+poor neighbors would outvote him by an hundred to one for that single
+representative. Bad enough! But amends are to be made him. How? The
+district, in virtue of his wealth, is to choose, say ten members instead
+of one: that is to say, by paying a very large contribution he has the
+happiness of being outvoted, an hundred to one, by the poor, for ten
+representatives, instead of being outvoted exactly in the same
+proportion for a single member. In truth, instead of benefiting by this
+superior quantity of representation, the rich man is subjected to an
+additional hardship. The increase of representation within his province
+sets up nine persons more, and as many more than nine as there may be
+democratic candidates, to cabal and intrigue and to flatter the people
+at his expense and to his oppression. An interest is by this means held
+out to multitudes of the inferior sort, in obtaining a salary of
+eighteen livres a day, (to them a vast object,) besides the pleasure of
+a residence in Paris, and their share in the government of the kingdom.
+The more the objects of ambition are multiplied and become democratic,
+just in that proportion the rich are endangered.
+
+Thus it must fare between the poor and the rich in the province deemed
+aristocratic, which in its internal relation is the very reverse of that
+character. In its external relation, that is, in its relation to the
+other provinces, I cannot see how the unequal representation which is
+given to masses on account of wealth becomes the means of preserving the
+equipoise and the tranquillity of the commonwealth. For, if it be one of
+the objects to secure the weak from being crushed by the strong, (as in
+all society undoubtedly it is,) how are the smaller and poorer of these
+masses to be saved from the tyranny of the more wealthy? Is it by adding
+to the wealthy further and more systematical means of oppressing them?
+When we come to a balance of representation between corporate bodies,
+provincial interests, emulations, and jealousies are full as likely to
+arise among them as among individuals; and their divisions are likely to
+produce a much hotter spirit of dissension, and something leading much
+more nearly to a war.
+
+I see that these aristocratic masses are made upon what is called the
+principle of direct contribution. Nothing can be a more unequal standard
+than this. The indirect contribution, that which arises from duties on
+consumption, is in truth a better standard, and follows and discovers
+wealth more naturally than this of direct contribution. It is difficult,
+indeed, to fix a standard of local preference on account of the one, or
+of the other, or of both, because some provinces may pay the more of
+either or of both on account of causes not intrinsic, but originating
+from those very districts over whom they have obtained a preference in
+consequence of their ostensible contribution. If the masses were
+independent, sovereign bodies, who were to provide for a federative
+treasury by distinct contingents, and that the revenue had not (as it
+has) many impositions running through the whole, which affect men
+individually, and not corporately, and which, by their nature, confound
+all territorial limits, something might be said for the basis of
+contribution as founded on masses. But, of all things, this
+representation, to be measured by contribution, is the most difficult to
+settle upon principles of equity in a country which considers its
+districts as members of a whole. For a great city, such as Bordeaux or
+Paris, appears to pay a vast body of duties, almost out of all
+assignable proportion to other places, and its mass is considered
+accordingly. But are these cities the true contributors in that
+proportion? No. The consumers of the commodities imported into Bordeaux,
+who are scattered through all France, pay the import duties of Bordeaux.
+The produce of the vintage in Guienne and Languedoc give to that city
+the means of its contribution growing out of an export commerce. The
+landholders who spend their estates in Paris, and are thereby the
+creators of that city, contribute for Paris from the provinces out of
+which their revenues arise. Very nearly the same arguments will apply to
+the representative share given on account of _direct_ contribution:
+because the direct contribution must be assessed on wealth, real or
+presumed; and that local wealth will itself arise from causes not local,
+and which therefore in equity ought not to produce a local preference.
+
+It is very remarkable, that, in this fundamental regulation which
+settles the representation of the mass upon the direct contribution,
+they have not yet settled how that direct contribution shall be laid,
+and how apportioned. Perhaps there is some latent policy towards the
+continuance of the present Assembly in this strange procedure. However,
+until they do this, they can have no certain constitution. It must
+depend at last upon the system of taxation, and must vary with every
+variation in that system. As they have contrived matters, their taxation
+does not so much depend on their constitution as their constitution on
+their taxation. This must introduce great confusion among the masses; as
+the variable qualification for votes within the district must, if ever
+real contested elections take place, cause infinite internal
+controversies.
+
+To compare together the three bases, not on their political reason, but
+on the ideas on which the Assembly works, and to try its consistency
+with itself, we cannot avoid observing that the principle which the
+committee call the basis of _population_ does not begin to operate from
+the same point with the two other principles, called the bases of
+_territory_ and of _contribution_, which are both of an aristocratic
+nature. The consequence is, that, where all three begin to operate
+together, there is the most absurd inequality produced by the operation
+of the former on the two latter principles. Every canton contains four
+square leagues, and is estimated to contain, on the average, 4,000
+inhabitants, or 680 voters in the _primary assemblies_, which vary in
+numbers with the population of the canton, and send _one deputy_ to the
+_commune_ for every 200 voters. _Nine cantons_ make a _commune_.
+
+Now let us take _a canton_ containing _a seaport town of trade_, or _a
+great manufacturing town_. Let us suppose the population of this canton
+to be 12,700 inhabitants, or 2,193 voters, forming _three primary
+assemblies_, and sending _ten deputies_ to the _commune_.
+
+Oppose to this _one_ canton _two_ others of the remaining eight in the
+same commune. These we may suppose to have their fair population, of
+4,000 inhabitants, and 680 voters each, or 8,000 inhabitants and 1,360
+voters, both together. These will form only _two primary assemblies_,
+and send only _six_ deputies to the _commune_.
+
+When the assembly of the _commune_ comes to vote on the _basis of
+territory_, which principle is first admitted to operate in that
+assembly, the _single canton_, which has _half_ the territory of the
+_other two_, will have _ten_ voices to _six_ in the election of _three
+deputies_ to the assembly of the department, chosen on the express
+ground of a representation of territory. This inequality, striking as it
+is, will be yet highly aggravated, if we suppose, as we fairly may, the
+_several_ other cantons of the _commune_ to fall proportionally short of
+the average population, as much as the _principal canton_ exceeds it.
+
+Now as to _the basis of contribution_, which also is a principle
+admitted first to operate in the assembly of the _commune_. Let us again
+take _one_ canton, such as is stated above. If the whole of the direct
+contributions paid by a great trading or manufacturing town be divided
+equally among the inhabitants, each individual will be found to pay much
+more than an individual living in the country according to the same
+average. The whole paid by the inhabitants of the former will be more
+than the whole paid by the inhabitants of the latter,--we may fairly
+assume one third more. Then the 12,700 inhabitants, or 2,193 voters of
+the canton, will pay as much as 19,050 inhabitants, or 3,289 voters of
+the _other cantons_, which are nearly the estimated proportion of
+inhabitants and voters of _five_ other cantons. Now the 2,193 voters
+will, as I before said, send only _ten_ deputies to the assembly; the
+3,289 voters will send _sixteen_. Thus, for an _equal_ share in the
+contribution of the whole _commune_, there will be a difference of
+_sixteen_ voices to _ten_ in voting for deputies to be chosen on the
+principle of representing the general contribution of the whole
+_commune_.
+
+By the same mode of computation, we shall find 15,875 inhabitants, or
+2,741 voters of the _other_ cantons, who pay _one sixth_ LESS to the
+contribution of the whole _commune_, will have _three_ voices MORE than
+the 12,700 inhabitants, or 2,193 voters of the _one_ canton.
+
+Such is the fantastical and unjust inequality between mass and mass, in
+this curious repartition of the rights of representation arising out of
+_territory_ and _contribution_. The qualifications which these confer
+are in truth negative qualifications, that give a right in an inverse
+proportion to the possession of them.
+
+In this whole contrivance of the three bases, consider it in any light
+you please, I do not see a variety of objects reconciled in one
+consistent whole, but several contradictory principles reluctantly and
+irreconcilably brought and held together by your philosophers, like wild
+beasts shut up in a cage, to claw and bite each other to their mutual
+destruction.
+
+I am afraid I have gone too far into their way of considering the
+formation of a Constitution. They have much, but bad,
+metaphysics,--much, but bad, geometry,--much, but false, proportionate
+arithmetic; but if it were all as exact as metaphysics, geometry, and
+arithmetic ought to be, and if their schemes were perfectly consistent
+in all their parts, it would make only a more fair and sightly vision.
+It is remarkable, that, in a great arrangement of mankind, not one
+reference whatsoever is to be found to anything moral or anything
+politic,--nothing that relates to the concerns, the actions, the
+passions, the interests of men. _Hominem non sapiunt_.
+
+You see I only consider this Constitution as electoral, and leading by
+steps to the National Assembly. I do not enter into the internal
+government of the departments, and their genealogy through the communes
+and cantons. These local governments are, in the original plan, to be as
+nearly as possible composed in the same manner and on the same
+principles with the elective assemblies. They are each of them bodies
+perfectly compact and rounded in themselves.
+
+You cannot but perceive in this scheme, that it has a direct and
+immediate tendency to sever France into a variety of republics, and to
+render them totally independent of each other, without any direct
+constitutional means of coherence, connection, or subordination, except
+what may be derived from their acquiescence in the determinations of the
+general congress of the ambassadors from each independent republic. Such
+in reality is the National Assembly; and such governments, I admit, do
+exist in the world, though, in forms infinitely more suitable to the
+local and habitual circumstances of their people. But such associations,
+rather than bodies politic, have generally been the effect of necessity,
+not choice; and I believe the present French power is the very first
+body of citizens who, having obtained full authority to do with their
+country what they pleased, have chosen to dissever it in this barbarous
+manner.
+
+It is impossible not to observe, that, in the spirit of this geometrical
+distribution and arithmetical arrangement, these pretended citizens
+treat France exactly like a country of conquest. Acting as conquerors,
+they have imitated the policy of the harshest of that harsh race. The
+policy of such barbarous victors, who contemn a subdued people, and
+insult their feelings, has ever been, as much as in them lay, to destroy
+all vestiges of the ancient country, in religion, in polity, in laws,
+and in manners; to confound all territorial limits; to produce a general
+poverty; to put up their properties to auction; to crush their princes,
+nobles, and pontiffs; to lay low everything which had lifted its head
+above the level, or which could serve to combine or rally, in their
+distresses, the disbanded people, under the standard of old opinion.
+They have made France free in the manner in which those sincere friends
+to the rights of mankind, the Romans, freed Greece, Macedon, and other
+nations. They destroyed the bonds of their union, under color of
+providing for the independence of each of their cities.
+
+When the members who compose these new bodies of cantons, communes, and
+departments, arrangements purposely produced through the medium of
+confusion, begin to act, they will find themselves in a great measure
+strangers to one another. The electors and elected throughout,
+especially in the rural _cantons_, will be frequently without any civil
+habitudes or connections, or any of that natural discipline which is the
+soul of a true republic. Magistrates and collectors of revenue are now
+no longer acquainted with their districts, bishops with their dioceses,
+or curates with their parishes. These new colonies of the rights of men
+bear a strong resemblance to that sort of military colonies which
+Tacitus has observed upon in the declining policy of Rome. In better and
+wiser days (whatever course they took with foreign nations) they were
+careful to make the elements of a methodical subordination and
+settlement to be coeval, and even to lay the foundations of discipline
+in the military.[122] But when all the good arts had fallen into ruin,
+they proceeded, as your Assembly does, upon the equality of men, and
+with as little judgment, and as little care for those things which make
+a republic tolerable or durable. But in this, as well as almost every
+instance, your new commonwealth is born and bred and fed in those
+corruptions which mark degenerated and worn-out republics. Your child
+comes into the world with the symptoms of death; the _facies
+Hippocratica_ forms the character of its physiognomy and the prognostic
+of its fate.
+
+The legislators who framed the ancient republics knew that their
+business was too arduous to be accomplished with no better apparatus
+than the metaphysics of an undergraduate and the mathematics and
+arithmetic of an exciseman. They had to do with men, and they were
+obliged to study human nature. They had to do with citizens, and they
+were obliged to study the effects of those habits which are
+communicated by the circumstances of civil life. They were sensible
+that the operation of this second nature on the first produced a new
+combination,--and thence arose many diversities amongst men, according
+to their birth, their education, their professions, the periods of their
+lives, their residence in towns or in the country, their several ways of
+acquiring and of fixing property, and according to the quality of the
+property itself, all which rendered them, as it were, so many different
+species of animals. From hence they thought themselves obliged to
+dispose their citizens into such classes, and to place them in such
+situations in the state, as their peculiar habits might qualify them to
+fill, and to allot to them such appropriated privileges as might secure
+to them what their specific occasions required, and which might furnish
+to each description such force as might protect it in the conflict
+caused by the diversity of interests that must exist, and must contend,
+in all complex society: for the legislator would have been ashamed that
+the coarse husbandman should well know how to assort and to use his
+sheep, horses, and oxen, and should have enough of common sense not to
+abstract and equalize them all into animals, without providing for each
+kind an appropriate food, care, and employment,--whilst he, the
+economist, disposer, and shepherd of his own kindred, subliming himself
+into an airy metaphysician, was resolved to know nothing of his flocks
+but as men in general. It is for this reason that Montesquieu observed,
+very justly, that, in their classification of the citizens, the great
+legislators of antiquity made the greatest display of their powers, and
+even soared above themselves. It is here that your modern legislators
+have gone deep into the negative series, and sunk even below their own
+nothing. As the first sort of legislators attended to the different
+kinds of citizens, and combined them into one commonwealth, the others,
+the metaphysical and alchemistical legislators, have taken the directly
+contrary course. They have attempted to confound all sorts of citizens,
+as well as they could, into one homogeneous mass; and then they divided
+this their amalgama into a number of incoherent republics. They reduce
+men to loose counters, merely for the sake of simple telling, and not to
+figures, whose power is to arise from their place in the table. The
+elements of their own metaphysics might have taught them better lessons.
+The troll of their categorical table might have informed them that there
+was something else in the intellectual world besides _substance_ and
+_quantity_. They might learn from the catechism of metaphysics that
+there were eight heads more,[123] in every complex deliberation, which
+they have never thought of; though these, of all the ten, are the
+subject on which the skill of man can operate anything at all.
+
+So far from this able disposition of some of the old republican
+legislators, which follows with a solicitous accuracy the moral
+conditions and propensities of men, they have levelled and crushed
+together all the orders which they found, even under the coarse,
+unartificial arrangement of the monarchy, in which mode of government
+the classing of the citizens is not of so much importance as in a
+republic. It is true, however, that every such classification, if
+properly ordered, is good in all forms of government, and composes a
+strong barrier against the excesses of despotism, as well as it is the
+necessary means of giving effect and permanence to a republic. For want
+of something of this kind, if the present project of a republic should
+fail, all securities to a moderated freedom fail along with it, all the
+indirect restraints which mitigate despotism are removed; insomuch that,
+if monarchy should ever again obtain an entire ascendency in France,
+under this or any other dynasty, it will probably be, if not voluntarily
+tempered, at setting out, by the wise and virtuous counsels of the
+prince, the most completely arbitrary power that has ever appeared on
+earth. This is to play a most desperate game.
+
+The confusion which attends on all such proceedings they even declare to
+be one of their objects, and they hope to secure their Constitution by a
+terror of a return of those evils which attended their making it. "By
+this," say they, "its destruction will become difficult to authority,
+which cannot break it up without the entire disorganization of the whole
+state." They presume, that, if this authority should ever come to the
+same degree of power that they have acquired, it would make a more
+moderate and chastised use of it, and would piously tremble entirely to
+disorganize the state in the savage manner that they have done. They
+expect from the virtues of returning despotism the security which is to
+be enjoyed by the offspring of their popular vices.
+
+I wish, Sir, that you and my readers would give an attentive perusal to
+the work of M. de Calonne on this subject. It is, indeed, not only an
+eloquent, but an able and instructive performance. I confine myself to
+what he says relative to the Constitution of the new state, and to the
+condition of the revenue. As to the disputes of this minister with his
+rivals, I do not wish to pronounce upon them. As little do I mean to
+hazard any opinion concerning his ways and means, financial or
+political, for taking his country out of its present disgraceful and
+deplorable situation of servitude, anarchy, bankruptcy, and beggary. I
+cannot speculate quite so sanguinely as he does: but he is a Frenchman,
+and has a closer duty relative to those objects, and better means of
+judging of them, than I can have. I wish that the formal avowal which he
+refers to, made by one of the principal leaders in the Assembly,
+concerning the tendency of their scheme to bring France not only from a
+monarchy to a republic, but from a republic to a mere confederacy, may
+be very particularly attended to. It adds new force to my observations:
+and, indeed, M. de Calonne's work supplies my deficiencies by many new
+and striking arguments on most of the subjects of this letter.[124]
+
+It is this resolution to break their country into separate republics
+which has driven them into the greatest number of their difficulties and
+contradictions. If it were not for this, all the questions of exact
+equality, and these balances, never to be settled, of individual rights,
+population, and contribution, would be wholly useless. The
+representation, though derived from parts, would be a duty which equally
+regarded the whole. Each deputy to the Assembly would be the
+representative of France, and of all its descriptions, of the many and
+of the few, of the rich and of the poor, of the great districts and of
+the small. All these districts would themselves be subordinate to some
+standing authority, existing independently of them,--an authority in
+which their representation, and everything that belongs to it,
+originated, and to which it was pointed. This standing, unalterable,
+fundamental government would make, and it is the only thing which could
+make, that territory truly and properly a whole. With us, when we elect
+popular representatives, we send them to a council in which each man
+individually is a subject, and submitted to a government complete in all
+its ordinary functions. With you the elective Assembly is the sovereign,
+and the sole sovereign; all the members are therefore integral parts of
+this sole sovereignty. But with us it is totally different. With us the
+representative, separated from the other parts, can have no action and
+no existence. The government is the point of reference of the several
+members and districts of our representation. This is the centre of our
+unity. This government of reference is a trustee for the _whole_, and
+not for the parts. So is the other branch of our public council: I mean
+the House of Lords. With us the King and the Lords are several and joint
+securities for the equality of each district, each province, each city.
+When did you hear in Great Britain of any province suffering from the
+inequality of its representation? what district from having no
+representation at all? Not only our monarchy and our peerage secure the
+equality on which our unity depends, but it is the spirit of the House
+of Commons itself. The very inequality of representation, which is so
+foolishly complained of, is perhaps the very thing which prevents us
+from thinking or acting as members for districts. Cornwall elects as
+many members as all Scotland. But is Cornwall better taken care of than
+Scotland? Few trouble their heads about any of your bases, out of some
+giddy clubs. Most of those who wish for any change, upon any plausible
+grounds, desire it on different ideas.
+
+Your new Constitution is the very reverse of ours in its principle; and
+I am astonished how any persons could dream of holding out anything done
+in it as an example for Great Britain. With you there is little, or
+rather no, connection between the last representative and the first
+constituent. The member who goes to the National Assembly is not chosen
+by the people, nor accountable to them. There are three elections before
+he is chosen; two sets of magistracy intervene between him and the
+primary assembly, so as to render him, as I have said, an ambassador of
+a state, and not the representative of the people within a state. By
+this the whole spirit of the election is changed; nor can any corrective
+your Constitution-mongers have devised render him anything else than
+what he is. The very attempt to do it would inevitably introduce a
+confusion, if possible, more horrid than the present. There is no way to
+make a connection between the original constituent and the
+representative, but by the circuitous means which may lead the candidate
+to apply in the first instance to the primary electors, in order that by
+their authoritative instructions (and something more perhaps) these
+primary electors may force the two succeeding bodies of electors to make
+a choice agreeable to their wishes. But this would plainly subvert the
+whole scheme. It would be to plunge them back into that tumult and
+confusion of popular election, which, by their interposed gradation of
+elections, they mean to avoid, and at length to risk the whole fortune
+of the state with those who have the least knowledge of it and the
+least interest in it. This is a perpetual dilemma, into which they are
+thrown by the vicious, weak, and contradictory principles they have
+chosen. Unless the people break up and level this gradation, it is plain
+that they do not at all substantially elect to the Assembly; indeed,
+they elect as little in appearance as reality.
+
+What is it we all seek for in an election? To answer its real purposes,
+you must first possess the means of knowing the fitness of your man; and
+then you must retain some hold upon him by personal obligation or
+dependence. For what end are these primary electors complimented, or
+rather mocked, with a choice? They can never know anything of the
+qualities of him that is to serve them, nor has he any obligation
+whatsoever to them. Of all the powers unfit to be delegated by those who
+have any real means of judging, that most peculiarly unfit is what
+relates to a _personal_ choice. In case of abuse, that body of primary
+electors never can call the representative to an account for his
+conduct. He is too far removed from them in the chain of representation.
+If he acts improperly at the end of his two years' lease, it does not
+concern him for two years more. By the new French Constitution the best
+and the wisest representatives go equally with the worst into this
+_Limbus Patrum_. Their bottoms are supposed foul, and they must go into
+dock to be refitted. Every man who has served in an Assembly is
+ineligible for two years after. Just as these magistrates begin to learn
+their trade, like chimney-sweepers, they are disqualified for exercising
+it. Superficial, new, petulant acquisition, and interrupted, dronish,
+broken, ill recollection, is to be the destined character of all your
+future governors. Your Constitution has too much of jealousy to have
+much of sense in it. You consider the breach of trust in the
+representative so principally that you do not at all regard the question
+of his fitness to execute it.
+
+This purgatory interval is not unfavorable to a faithless
+representative, who may be as good a canvasser as he was a bad governor.
+In this time he may cabal himself into a superiority over the wisest and
+most virtuous. As, in the end, all the members of this elective
+Constitution are equally fugitive, and exist only for the election, they
+may be no longer the same persons who had chosen him, to whom he is to
+be responsible when he solicits for a renewal of his trust. To call all
+the secondary electors of the _commune_ to account is ridiculous,
+impracticable, and unjust: they may themselves have been deceived in
+their choice, as the third set of electors, those of the _department_,
+may be in theirs. In your elections responsibility cannot exist.
+
+Finding no sort of principle of coherence with each other in the nature
+and constitution of the several new republics of France, I considered
+what cement the legislators had provided for them from any extraneous
+materials. Their confederations, their _spectacles_, their civic feasts,
+and their enthusiasm I take no notice of; they are nothing but mere
+tricks; but tracing their policy through their actions, I think I can
+distinguish the arrangements by which they propose to hold these
+republics together. The first is the _confiscation_, with the compulsory
+paper currency annexed to it; the second is the supreme power of the
+city of Paris; the third is the general army of the state. Of this last
+I shall reserve what I have to say, until I come to consider the army
+as an head by itself.
+
+As to the operation of the first (the confiscation and paper currency)
+merely as a cement, I cannot deny that these, the one depending on the
+other, may for some time compose some sort of cement, if their madness
+and folly in the management, and in the tempering of the parts together,
+does not produce a repulsion in the very outset. But allowing to the
+scheme some coherence and some duration, it appears to me, that, if,
+after a while, the confiscation should not be found sufficient to
+support the paper coinage, (as I am morally certain it will not,) then,
+instead of cementing, it will add infinitely to the dissociation,
+distraction, and confusion of these confederate republics, both with
+relation to each other and to the several parts within themselves. But
+if the confiscation should so far succeed as to sink the paper currency,
+the cement is gone with the circulation. In the mean time its binding
+force will be very uncertain, and it will straiten or relax with every
+variation in the credit of the paper.
+
+One thing only is certain in this scheme, which is an effect seemingly
+collateral, but direct, I have no doubt, in the minds of those who
+conduct this business; that is, its effect in producing an _oligarchy_
+in every one of the republics. A paper circulation, not founded on any
+real money deposited or engaged for, amounting already to four-and-forty
+millions of English money, and this currency by force substituted in the
+place of the coin of the kingdom, becoming thereby the substance of its
+revenue, as well as the medium of all its commercial and civil
+intercourse, must put the whole of what power, authority, and influence
+is left, in any form whatsoever it may assume, into the hands of the
+managers and conductors of this circulation.
+
+In England we feel the influence of the Bank, though it is only the
+centre of a voluntary dealing. He knows little, indeed, of the influence
+of money upon mankind, who does not see the force of the management of a
+moneyed concern which is so much more extensive, and in its nature so
+much more depending on the managers, than any of ours. But this is not
+merely a money concern. There is another member in the system
+inseparably connected with this money management. It consists in the
+means of drawing out at discretion portions of the confiscated lands for
+sale, and carrying on a process of continual transmutation of paper into
+land and land into paper. When we follow this process in its effects, we
+may conceive something of the intensity of the force with which this
+system must operate. By this means the spirit of money-jobbing and
+speculation goes into the mass of land itself, and incorporates with it.
+By this kind of operation, that species of property becomes, as it were,
+volatilized; it assumes an unnatural and monstrous activity, and thereby
+throws into the hands of the several managers, principal and
+subordinate, Parisian and provincial, all the representative of money,
+and perhaps a full tenth part of all the land in France, which has now
+acquired the worst and most pernicious part of the evil of a paper
+circulation, the greatest possible uncertainty in its value. They have
+reversed the Latonian kindness to the landed property of Delos. They
+have sent theirs to be blown about, like the light fragments of a wreck,
+_oras et littora circum_.
+
+The new dealers, being all habitually adventurers, and without any fixed
+habits or local predilections, will purchase to job out again, as the
+market of paper or of money or of land shall present an advantage. For
+though a holy bishop thinks that agriculture will derive great
+advantages from the "_enlightened_" usurers who are to purchase the
+Church confiscations, I, who am not a good, but an old farmer, with
+great humility beg leave to tell his late Lordship that usury is not a
+tutor of agriculture; and if the word "enlightened" be understood
+according to the new dictionary, as it always is in your new schools, I
+cannot conceive how a man's not believing in God can teach him to
+cultivate the earth with the least of any additional skill or
+encouragement. "_Diis immortalibus sero_," said an old Roman, when he
+held one handle of the plough, whilst Death held the other. Though you
+were to join in the commission all the directors of the two Academies to
+the directors of the _Caisse d'Escompte_, an old experienced peasant is
+worth them all. I have got more information upon a curious and
+interesting branch of husbandry, in one short conversation with an old
+Carthusian monk, than I have derived from all the bank directors that I
+have ever conversed with. However, there is no cause for apprehension
+from the meddling of money-dealers with rural economy. These gentlemen
+are too wise in their generation. At first, perhaps, their tender and
+susceptible imaginations may be captivated with the innocent and
+unprofitable delights of a pastoral life; but in a little time they will
+find that agriculture is a trade much more laborious and much less
+lucrative than that which they had left. After making its panegyric,
+they will turn their backs on it, like their great precursor and
+prototype. They may, like him, begin by singing, "_Beatus ille_"--but
+what will be the end?
+
+    Hæc ubi locutus fœnerator Alphius,
+      Jam jam futurus rusticus,
+    Omnem relegit Idibus pecuniam,
+      Quærit Calendis ponere.
+
+They will cultivate the _Caisse d'Église_, under the sacred auspices of
+this prelate, with much more profit than its vineyards and its
+corn-fields. They will employ their talents according to their habits
+and their interests. They will not follow the plough, whilst they can
+direct treasuries and govern provinces.
+
+Your legislators, in everything new, are the very first who have founded
+a commonwealth upon gaming, and infused this spirit into it as its vital
+breath. The great object in these politics is to metamorphose France
+from a great kingdom into one great play-table,--to turn its inhabitants
+into a nation of gamesters,--to make speculation as extensive as
+life,--to mix it with all its concerns,--and to divert the whole of the
+hopes and fears of the people from their usual channels into the
+impulses, passions, and superstitions of those who live on chances. They
+loudly proclaim their opinion, that this their present system of a
+republic cannot possibly exist without this kind of gaming fund, and
+that the very thread of its life is spun out of the staple of these
+speculations. The old gaming in funds was mischievous enough,
+undoubtedly; but it was so only to individuals. Even when it had its
+greatest extent, in the Mississippi and South Sea, it affected but few,
+comparatively; where it extends further, as in lotteries, the spirit has
+but a single object. But where the law, which in most circumstances
+forbids, and in none countenances gaming, is itself debauched, so as to
+reverse its nature and policy, and expressly to force the subject to
+this destructive table, by bringing the spirit and symbols of gaming
+into the minutest matters, and engaging everybody in it, and in
+everything, a more dreadful epidemic distemper of that kind is spread
+than yet has appeared in the world. With you a man can neither earn nor
+buy his dinner without a speculation. What he receives in the morning
+will not have the same value at night. What he is compelled to take as
+pay for an old debt will not be received as the same, when he comes to
+pay a debt contracted by himself; nor will it be the same, when by
+prompt payment he would avoid contracting any debt at all. Industry must
+wither away. Economy must be driven from your country. Careful provision
+will have no existence. Who will labor without knowing the amount of his
+pay? Who will study to increase what none can estimate? Who will
+accumulate, when he does not know the value of what he saves? If you
+abstract it from its uses in gaming, to accumulate your paper wealth
+would be, not the providence of a man, but the distempered instinct of a
+jackdaw.
+
+The truly melancholy part of the policy of systematically making a
+nation of gamesters is this,--that, though all are forced to play, few
+can understand the game, and fewer still are in a condition to avail
+themselves of that knowledge. The many must be the dupes of the few who
+conduct the machine of these speculations. What effect it must have on
+the country-people is visible. The townsman can calculate from day to
+day; not so the inhabitant of the country. When the peasant first brings
+his corn to market, the magistrate in the towns obliges him to take the
+assignat at par; when he goes to the shop with this money, he finds it
+seven per cent the worse for crossing the way. This market he will not
+readily resort to again. The towns-people will be inflamed; they will
+force the country-people to bring their corn. Resistance will begin, and
+the murders of Paris and St. Denis may be renewed through all France.
+
+What signifies the empty compliment paid to the country, by giving it,
+perhaps, more than its share in the theory of your representation? Where
+have you placed the real power over moneyed and landed circulation?
+Where have you placed the means of raising and falling the value of
+every man's freehold? Those whose operations can take from or add ten
+per cent to the possessions of every man in France must be the masters
+of every man in France. The whole of the power obtained by this
+Revolution will settle in the towns among the burghers, and the moneyed
+directors who lead them. The landed gentleman, the yeoman, and the
+peasant have, none of them, habits or inclinations or experience which
+can lead them to any share in this the sole source of power and
+influence now left in France. The very nature of a country life, the
+very nature of landed property, in all the occupations and all the
+pleasures they afford, render combination and arrangement (the sole way
+of procuring and exerting influence) in a manner impossible amongst
+country-people. Combine them by all the art you can, and all the
+industry, they are always dissolving into individuality. Anything in the
+nature of incorporation is almost impracticable amongst them. Hope,
+fear, alarm, jealousy, the ephemerous tale that does its business and
+dies in a day, all these things, which are the reins and spurs by which
+leaders check or urge the minds of followers, are not easily employed,
+or hardly at all, amongst scattered people. They assemble, they arm,
+they act, with the utmost difficulty, and at the greatest charge. Their
+efforts, if ever they can be commenced, cannot be sustained. They cannot
+proceed systematically. If the country-gentlemen attempt an influence
+through the mere income of their property, what is it to that of those
+who have ten times their income to sell, and who can ruin their property
+by bringing their plunder to meet it at market? If the landed man wishes
+to mortgage, he falls the value of his land and raises the value of
+assignats. He augments the power of his enemy by the very means he must
+take to contend with him. The country-gentleman, therefore, the officer
+by sea and land, the man of liberal views and habits, attached to no
+profession, will be as completely excluded from the government of his
+country as if he were legislatively proscribed. It is obvious, that, in
+the towns, all the things which conspire against the country-gentleman
+combine in favor of the money manager and director. In towns combination
+is natural. The habits of burghers, their occupations, their diversion,
+their business, their idleness, continually bring them into mutual
+contact. Their virtues and their vices are sociable; they are always in
+garrison; and they come embodied and half-disciplined into the hands of
+those who mean to form them for civil or military action.
+
+All these considerations leave no doubt on my mind, that, if this
+monster of a Constitution can continue, France will be wholly governed
+by the agitators in corporations, by societies in the towns, formed of
+directors in assignats, and trustees for the sale of Church lands,
+attorneys, agents, money-jobbers, speculators, and adventurers,
+composing an ignoble oligarchy, founded on the destruction of the crown,
+the Church, the nobility, and the people. Here end all the deceitful
+dreams and visions of the equality and rights of men. In "the Serbonian
+bog" of this base oligarchy they are all absorbed, sunk, and lost
+forever.
+
+Though human eyes cannot trace them, one would be tempted to think some
+great offences in France must cry to Heaven, which has thought fit to
+punish it with a subjection to a vile and inglorious domination, in
+which no comfort or compensation is to be found in any even of those
+false splendors which, playing about other tyrannies, prevent mankind
+from feeling themselves dishonored even whilst they are oppressed. I
+must confess I am touched with a sorrow mixed with some indignation, at
+the conduct of a few men, once of great rank, and still of great
+character, who, deluded with specious names, have engaged in a business
+too deep for the line of their understanding to fathom,--who have lent
+their fair reputation and the authority of their high-sounding names to
+the designs of men with whom they could not be acquainted, and have
+thereby made their very virtues operate to the ruin of their country.
+
+So far as to the first cementing principle.
+
+The second material of cement for their new republic is the superiority
+of the city of Paris; and this, I admit, is strongly connected with the
+other cementing principle of paper circulation and confiscation. It is
+in this part of the project we must look for the cause of the
+destruction of all the old bounds of provinces and jurisdictions,
+ecclesiastical and secular, and the dissolution of all ancient
+combinations of things, as well as the formation of so many small
+unconnected republics. The power of the city of Paris is evidently one
+great spring of all their politics. It is through the power of Paris,
+now become the centre and focus of jobbing, that the leaders of this
+faction direct, or rather command, the whole legislative and the whole
+executive government. Everything, therefore, must be done which can
+confirm the authority of that city over the other republics. Paris is
+compact; she has an enormous strength, wholly disproportioned to the
+force of any of the square republics; and this strength is collected and
+condensed within a narrow compass. Paris has a natural and easy
+connection of its parts, which will not be affected by any scheme of a
+geometrical constitution; nor does it much signify whether its
+proportion of representation be more or less, since it has the whole
+draught of fishes in its drag-net. The other divisions of the kingdom,
+being hackled and torn to pieces, and separated from all their habitual
+means and even principles of union, cannot, for some time at least,
+confederate against her. Nothing was to be left in all the subordinate
+members, but weakness, disconnection, and confusion. To confirm this
+part of the plan, the Assembly has lately come to a resolution that no
+two of their republics shall have the same commander-in-chief.
+
+To a person who takes a view of the whole, the strength of Paris, thus
+formed, will appear a system of general weakness. It is boasted that the
+geometrical policy has been adopted, that all local ideas should be
+sunk, and that the people should be no longer Gascons, Picards, Bretons,
+Normans,--but Frenchmen, with one country, one heart, and one Assembly.
+But, instead of being all Frenchmen, the greater likelihood is that the
+inhabitants of that region will shortly have no country. No man ever was
+attached by a sense of pride, partiality, or real affection, to a
+description of square measurement. He never will glory in belonging to
+the chequer No. 71, or to any other badge-ticket. We begin our public
+affections in our families. No cold relation is a zealous citizen. We
+pass on to our neighborhoods, and our habitual provincial connections.
+These are inns and resting-places. Such divisions of our country as have
+been formed by habit, and not by a sudden jerk of authority, were so
+many little images of the great country, in which the heart found
+something which it could fill. The love to the whole is not extinguished
+by this subordinate partiality. Perhaps it is a sort of elemental
+training to those higher and more large regards by which alone men come
+to be affected, as with their own concern, in the prosperity of a
+kingdom so extensive as that of France. In that general territory
+itself, as in the old name of Provinces, the citizens are interested
+from old prejudices and unreasoned habits, and not on account of the
+geometric properties of its figure. The power and preëminence of Paris
+does certainly press down and hold these republics together as long as
+it lasts: but, for the reasons I have already given you, I think it can
+not last very long.
+
+Passing from the civil creating and the civil cementing principles of
+this Constitution to the National Assembly, which is to appear and act
+as sovereign, we see a body in its constitution with every possible
+power and no possible external control. We see a body without
+fundamental laws, without established maxims, without respected rules of
+proceeding, which nothing can keep firm to any system whatsoever. Their
+idea of their powers is always taken at the utmost stretch of
+legislative competency, and their examples for common cases from the
+exceptions of the most urgent necessity. The future is to be in most
+respects like the present Assembly; but, by the mode of the new
+elections and the tendency of the new circulations, it will be purged of
+the small degree of internal control existing in a minority chosen
+originally from various interests, and preserving something of their
+spirit. If possible, the next Assembly must be worse than the present.
+The present, by destroying and altering everything, will leave to their
+successors apparently nothing popular to do. They will be roused by
+emulation and example to enterprises the boldest and the most absurd. To
+suppose such an Assembly sitting in perfect quietude is ridiculous.
+
+Your all-sufficient legislators, in their hurry to do everything at
+once, have forgot one thing that seems essential, and which, I believe,
+never has been before, in the theory or the practice, omitted by any
+projector of a republic. They have forgot to constitute a _senate_, or
+something of that nature and character. Never, before this time, was
+heard of a body politic composed of one legislative and active assembly,
+and its executive officers, without such a council: without something to
+which foreign states might connect themselves,--something to which, in
+the ordinary detail of government, the people could look up,--something
+which might give a bias and steadiness, and preserve something like
+consistency in the proceedings of state. Such a body kings generally
+have as a council. A monarchy may exist without it; but it seems to be
+in the very essence of a republican government. It holds a sort of
+middle place between the supreme power exercised by the people, or
+immediately delegated from them, and the mere executive. Of this there
+are no traces in your Constitution; and in providing nothing of this
+kind, your Solons and Numas have, as much as in anything else,
+discovered a sovereign incapacity.
+
+Let us now turn our eyes to what they have done towards the formation of
+an executive power. For this they have chosen a degraded king. This
+their first executive officer is to be a machine, without any sort of
+deliberative discretion in any one act of his function. At best, he is
+but a channel to convey to the National Assembly such matter as may
+import that body to know. If he had been made the exclusive channel, the
+power would not have been without its importance, though infinitely
+perilous to those who would choose to exercise it. But public
+intelligence and statement of facts may pass to the Assembly with equal
+authenticity through any other conveyance. As to the means, therefore,
+of giving a direction to measures by the statement of an authorized
+reporter, this office of intelligence is as nothing.
+
+To consider the French scheme of an executive officer, in its two
+natural divisions of civil and political.--In the first it must be
+observed, that, according to the new Constitution, the higher parts of
+judicature, in either of its lines, are not in the king. The king of
+France is not the fountain of justice. The judges, neither the original
+nor the appellate, are of his nomination. He neither proposes the
+candidates nor has a negative on the choice. He is not even the public
+prosecutor. He serves only as a notary, to authenticate the choice made
+of the judges in the several districts. By his officers he is to execute
+their sentence. When we look into the true nature of his authority, he
+appears to be nothing more than a chief of bumbailiffs,
+sergeants-at-mace, catchpoles, jailers, and hangmen. It is impossible to
+place anything called royalty in a more degrading point of view. A
+thousand times better it had been for the dignity of this unhappy
+prince, that he had nothing at all to do with the administration of
+justice, deprived as he is of all that is venerable and all that is
+consolatory in that function, without power of originating any process,
+without a power of suspension, mitigation, or pardon. Everything in
+justice that is vile and odious is thrown upon him. It was not for
+nothing that the Assembly has been at such pains to remove the stigma
+from certain offices, when they were resolved to place the person who
+had lately been their king in a situation but one degree above the
+executioner, and in an office nearly of the same quality. It is not in
+Nature, that, situated as the king of the French now is, he can respect
+himself or can be respected by others.
+
+View this new executive officer on the side of his political capacity,
+as he acts under the orders of the National Assembly. To execute laws is
+a royal office; to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a
+political executive magistracy, though merely such, is a great trust. It
+is a trust, indeed, that has much depending upon its faithful and
+diligent performance, both in the person presiding in it and in all its
+subordinates. Means of performing this duty ought to be given by
+regulation; and dispositions towards it ought to be infused by the
+circumstances attendant on the trust. It ought to be environed with
+dignity, authority, and consideration, and it ought to lead to glory.
+The office of execution is an office of exertion. It is not from
+impotence we are to expect the tasks of power. What sort of person is a
+king to command executory service, who has no means whatsoever to reward
+it:--not in a permanent office; not in a grant of land; no, not in a
+pension of fifty pounds a year; not in the vainest and most trivial
+title? In France the king is no more the fountain of honor than he is
+the fountain of justice. All rewards, all distinctions, are in other
+hands. Those who serve the king can be actuated by no natural motive but
+fear,--by a fear of everything except their master. His functions of
+internal coercion are as odious as those which he exercises in the
+department of justice. If relief is to be given to any municipality, the
+Assembly gives it. If troops are to be sent to reduce them to obedience
+to the Assembly, the king is to execute the order; and upon every
+occasion he is to be spattered over with the blood of his people. He has
+no negative; yet his name and authority is used to enforce every harsh
+decree. Nay, he must concur in the butchery of those who shall attempt
+to free him from his imprisonment, or show the slightest attachment to
+his person or to his ancient authority.
+
+Executive magistracy ought to be constituted in such a manner that those
+who compose it should be disposed to love and to venerate those whom
+they are bound to obey. A purposed neglect, or, what is worse, a
+literal, but perverse and malignant obedience, must be the ruin of the
+wisest counsels. In vain will the law attempt to anticipate or to follow
+such studied neglects and fraudulent attentions. To make them act
+zealously is not in the competence of law. Kings, even such as are truly
+kings, may and ought to bear the freedom of subjects that are obnoxious
+to them. They may, too, without derogating from themselves, bear even
+the authority of such persons, if it promotes their service. Louis the
+Thirteenth mortally hated the Cardinal de Richelieu; but his support of
+that minister against his rivals was the source of all the glory of his
+reign, and the solid foundation of his throne itself. Louis the
+Fourteenth, when come to the throne, did not love the Cardinal Mazarin;
+but for his interests he preserved him in power. When old, he detested
+Louvois; but for years, whilst he faithfully served his greatness, he
+endured his person. When George the Second took Mr. Pitt, who certainly
+was not agreeable to him, into his councils, he did nothing which could
+humble a wise sovereign. But these ministers, who were chosen by
+affairs, not by affections, acted in the name of and in trust for kings,
+and not as their avowed constitutional and ostensible masters. I think
+it impossible that any king, when he has recovered his first terrors,
+can cordially infuse vivacity and vigor into measures which he knows to
+be dictated by those who, he must be persuaded, are in the highest
+degree ill affected to his person. Will any ministers, who serve such a
+king (or whatever he may be called) with but a decent appearance of
+respect, cordially obey the orders of those whom but the other day in
+his name they had committed to the Bastile? will they obey the orders
+of those whom, whilst they were exercising despotic justice upon them,
+they conceived they were treating with lenity, and for whom in a prison
+they thought they had provided an asylum? If you expect such obedience,
+amongst your other innovations and regenerations, you ought to make a
+revolution in Nature, and provide a new constitution, for the human
+mind: otherwise your supreme government cannot harmonize with its
+executory system. There are cases in which we cannot take up with names
+and abstractions. You may call half a dozen leading individuals, whom we
+have reason to fear and hate, the nation. It makes no other difference
+than to make us fear and hate them the more. If it had been thought
+justifiable and expedient to make such a revolution by such means and
+through such persons as you have made yours, it would have been more
+wise to have completed the business of the fifth and sixth of October.
+The new executive officer would then owe his situation to those who are
+his creators as well as his masters; and he might be bound in interest,
+in the society of crime, and (if in crimes there could be virtues) in
+gratitude, to serve those who had promoted him to a place of great lucre
+and great sensual indulgence,--and of something more: for more he must
+have received from those who certainly would not have limited an
+aggrandized creature as they have done a submitting antagonist.
+
+A king circumstanced as the present, if he is totally stupefied by his
+misfortunes, so as to think it not the necessity, but the premium and
+privilege of life, to eat and sleep, without any regard to glory, can
+never be fit for the office. If he feels as men commonly feel, he must
+he sensible that an office so circumstanced is one in which he can
+obtain no fame or reputation. He has no generous interest that can
+excite him to action. At best, his conduct will be passive and
+defensive. To inferior people such an office might be matter of honor.
+But to be raised to it and to descend to it are different things, and
+suggest different sentiments. Does he _really_ name the ministers? They
+will have a sympathy with him. Are they forced upon him? The whole
+business between them and the nominal king will be mutual counteraction.
+In all other countries the office of ministers of state is of the
+highest dignity. In France it is full of peril, and incapable of glory.
+Rivals, however, they will have in their nothingness, whilst shallow
+ambition exists in the world, or the desire of a miserable salary is an
+incentive to short-sighted avarice. Those competitors of the ministers
+are enabled by your Constitution to attack them in their vital parts,
+whilst they have not the means of repelling their charges in any other
+than the degrading character of culprits. The ministers of state in
+Prance are the only persons in that country who are incapable of a share
+in the national councils. What ministers! What councils! What a
+nation!--But they are responsible. It is a poor service that is to be
+had from responsibility. The elevation of mind to be derived from fear
+will never make a nation glorious. Responsibility prevents crimes. It
+makes all attempts against the laws dangerous. But for a principle of
+active and zealous service, none but idiots could think of it. Is the
+conduct of a war to be trusted to a man who may abhor its
+principle,--who, in every step he may take to render it successful,
+confirms the power of those by whom he is oppressed? Will foreign
+states seriously treat with him who has no prerogative of peace or
+war,--no, not so much as in a single vote by himself or his ministers,
+or by any one whom he can possibly influence? A state of contempt is not
+a state for a prince: better get rid of him at once.
+
+I know it will be said that these humors in the court and executive
+government will continue only through this generation, and that the king
+has been brought to declare the dauphin shall be educated in a
+conformity to his situation. If he is made to conform to his situation,
+he will have no education at all. His training must be worse even than
+that of an arbitrary monarch. If he reads,--whether he reads or not,
+some good or evil genius will tell him his ancestors were kings.
+Thenceforward his object must be to assert himself and to avenge his
+parents. This you will say is not his duty. That may be; but it is
+Nature; and whilst you pique Nature against you, you do unwisely to
+trust to duty. In this futile scheme of polity, the state nurses in its
+bosom, for the present, a source of weakness, perplexity, counteraction,
+inefficiency, and decay; and it prepares the means of its final ruin. In
+short, I see nothing in the executive force (I cannot call it authority)
+that has even an appearance of vigor, or that has the smallest degree of
+just correspondence or symmetry or amicable relation with the supreme
+power, either as it now exists, or as it is planned for the future
+government.
+
+You have settled, by an economy as perverted as the policy, two[125]
+establishments of government,--one real, one fictitious: both
+maintained at a vast expense; but the fictitious at, I think, the
+greatest. Such a machine as the latter is not worth the grease of its
+wheels. The expense is exorbitant; and neither the show nor the use
+deserve the tenth part of the charge.--Oh! but I don't do justice to the
+talents of the legislators: I don't allow, as I ought to do, for
+necessity. Their scheme of executive force was not their choice. This
+pageant must be kept. The people would not consent to part with
+it.--Right: I understand you. You do, in spite of your grand theories,
+to which you would have heaven and earth to bend, you do know how to
+conform yourselves to the nature and circumstances of things. But when
+you were obliged to conform thus far to circumstances, you ought to have
+carried your submission farther, and to have made, what you were obliged
+to take, a proper instrument, and useful to its end. That was in your
+power. For instance, among many others, it was in your power to leave to
+your king the right of peace and war.--What! to leave to the executive
+magistrate the most dangerous of all prerogatives?--I know none more
+dangerous; nor any one more necessary to be so trusted. I do not say
+that this prerogative ought to be trusted to your king, unless he
+enjoyed other auxiliary trusts along with it, which he does not now
+hold. But, if he did possess them, hazardous as they are undoubtedly,
+advantages would arise from such a Constitution, more than compensating
+the risk. There is no other way of keeping the several potentates of
+Europe from intriguing distinctly and personally with the members of
+your Assembly, from intermeddling in all your concerns, and fomenting,
+in the heart of your country, the most pernicious of all
+factions,--factions in the interest and under the direction of foreign
+powers. From that worst of evils, thank God, we are still free. Your
+skill, if you had any, would be well employed to find out indirect
+correctives and controls upon this perilous trust. If you did not like
+those which in England we have chosen, your leaders might have exerted
+their abilities in contriving better. If it were necessary to exemplify
+the consequences of such an executive government as yours, in the
+management of great affairs, I should refer you to the late reports of
+M. de Montmorin to the National Assembly, and all the other proceedings
+relative to the differences between Great Britain and Spain. It would be
+treating your understanding with disrespect to point them out to you.
+
+I hear that the persons who are called ministers have signified an
+intention of resigning their places. I am rather astonished that they
+have not resigned long since. For the universe I would not have stood in
+the situation in which they have been for this last twelvemonth. They
+wished well, I take it for granted, to the Revolution. Let this fact be
+as it may, they could not, placed as they were upon an eminence, though
+an eminence of humiliation, but be the first to see collectively, and to
+feel each in his own department, the evils which have been produced by
+that Revolution. In every step which they took, or forbore to take, they
+must have felt the degraded situation of their country, and their utter
+incapacity of serving it. They are in a species of subordinate servitude
+in which no men before them were ever seen. Without confidence from
+their sovereign on whom they were forced, or from the Assembly who
+forced them upon him, all the noble functions of their office are
+executed by committees of the Assembly, without any regard whatsoever to
+their personal or their official authority. They are to execute, without
+power; they are to be responsible, without discretion; they are to
+deliberate, without choice. In their puzzled situation, under two
+sovereigns, over neither of whom they have any influence, they must act
+in such a manner as (in effect, whatever they may intend) sometimes to
+betray the one, sometimes the other, and always to betray themselves.
+Such has been their situation; such must be the situation of those who
+succeed them. I have much respect, and many good wishes, for M. Necker.
+I am obliged to him for attentions. I thought, when his enemies had
+driven him from Versailles, that his exile was a subject of most serious
+congratulation. _Sed multæ urbes et publica vota vicerunt_. He is now
+sitting on the ruins of the finances and of the monarchy of France.
+
+A great deal more might be observed on the strange constitution of the
+executory part of the new government; but fatigue must give bounds to
+the discussion of subjects which in themselves have hardly any limits.
+
+As little genius and talent am I able to perceive in the plan of
+judicature formed by the National Assembly. According to their
+invariable course, the framers of your Constitution have begun with the
+utter abolition of the parliaments. These venerable bodies, like the
+rest of the old government, stood in need of reform, even though there
+should be no change made in the monarchy. They required several more
+alterations to adapt them to the system of a free Constitution. But
+they had particulars in their constitution, and those not a few, which
+deserved approbation from the wise. They possessed one fundamental
+excellence: they were independent. The most doubtful circumstance
+attendant on their office, that of its being vendible, contributed,
+however, to this independency of character. They held for life. Indeed,
+they may be said to have held by inheritance. Appointed by the monarch,
+they were considered as nearly out of his power. The most determined
+exertions of that authority against them only showed their radical
+independence. They composed permanent bodies politic, constituted to
+resist arbitrary innovation; and from that corporate constitution, and
+from most of their forms, they were well calculated to afford both
+certainty and stability to the laws. They had been a safe asylum to
+secure these laws, in all the revolutions of humor and opinion. They had
+saved that sacred deposit of the country during the reigns of arbitrary
+princes and the struggles of arbitrary factions. They kept alive the
+memory and record of the Constitution. They were the great security to
+private property; which might be said (when personal liberty had no
+existence) to be, in fact, as well guarded in France as in any other
+country. Whatever is supreme in a state ought to have, as much as
+possible, ifs judicial authority so constituted as not only not to
+depend upon it, but in some sort to balance it. It ought to give a
+security to its justice against its power. It ought to make its
+judicature, as it were, something exterior to the state.
+
+Those parliaments had furnished, not the best certainly, but some
+considerable corrective to the excesses and vices of the monarchy. Such
+an independent judicature was ten times more necessary when a democracy
+became the absolute power of the country. In that Constitution,
+elective, temporary, local judges, such as you have contrived,
+exercising their dependent functions in a narrow society, must be the
+worst of all tribunals. In them it will be vain to look for any
+appearance of justice towards strangers, towards the obnoxious rich,
+towards the minority of routed parties, towards all those who in the
+election have supported unsuccessful candidates. It will be impossible
+to keep the new tribunals clear of the worst spirit of faction. All
+contrivances by ballot we know experimentally to be vain and childish to
+prevent a discovery of inclinations. Where they may the best answer the
+purposes of concealment, they answer to produce suspicion, and this is a
+still more mischievous cause of partiality.
+
+If the parliaments had been preserved, instead of being dissolved at so
+ruinous a change to the nation, they might have served in this new
+commonwealth, perhaps not precisely the same, (I do not mean an exact
+parallel,) but near the same purposes as the court and senate of
+Areopagus did in Athens: that is, as one of the balances and correctives
+to the evils of a light and unjust democracy. Every one knows that this
+tribunal was the great stay of that state; every one knows with what
+care it was upheld, and with what a religious awe it was consecrated.
+The parliaments were not wholly free from faction, I admit; but this
+evil was exterior and accidental, and not so much the vice of their
+constitution itself as it must be in your new contrivance of sexennial
+elective judicatories. Several English commend the abolition of the old
+tribunals, as supposing that they determined everything by bribery and
+corruption. But they have stood the test of monarchic and republican
+scrutiny. The court was well disposed to prove corruption on those
+bodies, when they were dissolved in 1771; those who have again dissolved
+them would have done the same, if they could; but both inquisitions
+having failed, I conclude that gross pecuniary corruption must have been
+rather rare amongst them.
+
+It would have been prudent, along with the parliaments, to preserve
+their ancient power of registering, and of remonstrating at least upon,
+all the decrees of the National Assembly, as they did upon those which
+passed in the time of the monarchy. It would be a means of squaring the
+occasional decrees of a democracy to some principles of general
+jurisprudence. The vice of the ancient democracies, and one cause of
+their ruin, was, that they ruled, as you do, by occasional decrees,
+_psephismata_. This practice soon broke in upon the tenor and
+consistency of the laws; it abated the respect of the people towards
+them, and totally destroyed them in the end.
+
+Your vesting the power of remonstrance, which, in the time of the
+monarchy, existed in the Parliament of Paris, in your principal
+executive officer, whom, in spite of common sense, you persevere in
+calling king, is the height of absurdity. You ought never to suffer
+remonstrance from him who is to execute. This is to understand neither
+council nor execution, neither authority nor obedience. The person whom
+you call king ought not to have this power, or he ought to have more.
+
+Your present arrangement is strictly judicial. Instead of imitating your
+monarchy, and seating your judges on a bench of independence, your
+object is to reduce them to the most blind obedience. As you have
+changed all things, you have invented new principles of order. You first
+appoint judges, who, I suppose, are to determine according to law, and
+then you let them know, that, at some time or other, you intend to give
+them some law by which they are to determine. Any studies which they
+have made (if any they have made) are to be useless to them. But to
+supply these studies, they are to be sworn to obey all the rules,
+orders, and instructions which from time to time they are to receive
+from the National Assembly. These if they submit to, they leave no
+ground of law to the subject. They become complete and most dangerous
+instruments in the hands of the governing power, which, in the midst of
+a cause, or on the prospect of it, may wholly change the rule of
+decision. If these orders of the National Assembly come to be contrary
+to the will of the people who locally choose those judges, such
+confusion must happen as is terrible to think of. For the judges owe
+their place to the local authority, and the commands they are sworn to
+obey come from those who have no share in their appointment. In the mean
+time they have the example of the court of _Châtelet_ to encourage and
+guide them in the exercise of their functions. That court is to try
+criminals sent to it by the National Assembly, or brought before it by
+other courses of delation. They sit under a guard to save their own
+lives. They know not by what law they judge, nor under what authority
+they act, nor by what tenure they hold. It is thought that they are
+sometimes obliged to condemn at peril of their lives. This is not
+perhaps certain, nor can it be ascertained; but when they acquit, we
+know they have seen the persons whom they discharge, with perfect
+impunity to the actors, hanged at the door of their court.
+
+The Assembly, indeed, promises that they will form a body of law, which
+shall be short, simple, clear, and so forth. That is, by their short
+laws, they will leave much to the discretion of the judge, whilst they
+have exploded the authority of all the learning which could make
+judicial discretion (a thing perilous at best) deserving the appellation
+of a _sound_ discretion.
+
+It is curious to observe, that the administrative bodies are carefully
+exempted from the jurisdiction of these new tribunals. That is, those
+persons are exempted from the power of the laws who ought to be the most
+entirely submitted to them. Those who execute public pecuniary trusts
+ought of all men to be the most strictly held to their duty. One would
+have thought that it must have been among your earliest cares, if you
+did not mean that those administrative bodies should be real, sovereign,
+independent states, to form an awful tribunal, like your late
+parliaments, or like our King's Bench, where all corporate officers
+might obtain protection in the legal exercise of their functions, and
+would find coercion, if they trespassed against their legal duty. But
+the cause of the exemption is plain. These administrative bodies are the
+great instruments of the present leaders in their progress through
+democracy to oligarchy. They must therefore be put above the law. It
+will be said that the legal tribunals which you have made are unfit to
+coerce them. They are, undoubtedly. They are unfit for any rational
+purpose. It will be said, too, that the administrative bodies will be
+accountable to the general Assembly. This, I fear, is talking without
+much consideration of the nature of that Assembly or of these
+corporations. However, to be subject to the pleasure of that Assembly is
+not to be subject to law, either for protection or for constraint.
+
+This establishment of judges as yet wants something to its completion.
+It is to be crowned by a new tribunal. This is to be a grand state
+judicature; and it is to judge of crimes committed against the nation,
+that is, against the power of the Assembly. It seems as if they had
+something in their view of the nature of the high court of justice
+erected in England during the time of the great usurpation. As they have
+not yet finished this part of the scheme, it is impossible to form a
+direct judgment upon it. However, if great care is not taken to form it
+in a spirit very different from that which has guided them in their
+proceedings relative to state offences, this tribunal, subservient to
+their inquisition, _the Committee of Research_, will extinguish the last
+sparks of liberty in France, and settle the most dreadful and arbitrary
+tyranny ever known in any nation. If they wish to give to this tribunal
+any appearance of liberty and justice, they must not evoke from or send
+to it the causes relative to their own members, at their pleasure. They
+must also remove the seat of that tribunal out of the republic of
+Paris.[126]
+
+Has more wisdom been displayed in the constitution of your army than
+what is discoverable in your plan of judicature? The able arrangement of
+this part is the more difficult, and requires the greater skill and
+attention, not only as a great concern in itself, but as it is the third
+cementing principle in the new body of republics which you call the
+French nation. Truly, it is not easy to divine what that army may become
+at last. You have voted a very large one, and on good appointments, at
+least fully equal to your apparent means of payment. But what is the
+principle of its discipline? or whom is it to obey? You have got the
+wolf by the ears, and I wish you joy of the happy position in which you
+have chosen to place yourselves, and in which you are well circumstanced
+for a free deliberation relatively to that army, or to anything else.
+
+The minister and secretary of state for the War Department is M. de La
+Tour du Pin. This gentleman, like his colleagues in administration, is a
+most zealous assertor of the Revolution, and a sanguine admirer of the
+new Constitution which originated in that event. His statement of facts
+relative to the military of France is important, not only from his
+official and personal authority, but because it displays very clearly
+the actual condition of the army in France, and because it throws light
+on the principles upon which the Assembly proceeds in the administration
+of this critical object. It may enable us to form some judgment how far
+it may be expedient in this country to imitate the martial policy of
+France.
+
+M. de La Tour du Pin, on the fourth of last June, comes to give an
+account of the state of his department, as it exists under the auspices
+of the National Assembly. No man knows it so well; no man can express it
+better. Addressing himself to the National Assembly, he says,--
+
+"His Majesty has _this day_ sent me to apprise you of the multiplied
+disorders of which _every day_ he receives the most distressing
+intelligence. The army [_le corps militaire_] threatens to fall into the
+most turbulent anarchy. Entire regiments have dared to violate at once
+the respect due to the laws, to the king, to the order established by
+your decrees, and to the oaths which they have taken with the most awful
+solemnity. Compelled by my duty to give you information of these
+excesses, my heart bleeds, when I consider who they are that have
+committed them. Those against whom it is not in my power to withhold the
+most grievous complaints are a part of that very soldiery which to this
+day have been so full of honor and loyalty, and with whom for fifty
+years I have lived the comrade and the friend.
+
+"What incomprehensible spirit of delirium and delusion has all at once
+led them astray? Whilst you are indefatigable in establishing uniformity
+in the empire and moulding the whole into one coherent and consistent
+body, whilst the French are taught by you at once the respect which the
+laws owe to the rights of man and that which the citizens owe to the
+laws, the administration of the army presents nothing but disturbance
+and confusion. I see in more than one corps the bonds of discipline
+relaxed or broken,--the most unheard-of pretensions avowed directly and
+without any disguise,--the ordinances without force,--the chiefs without
+authority,--the military chest and the colors carried off,--the
+authority of the king himself [_risum teneatis_] proudly defied,--the
+officers despised, degraded, threatened, driven away, and some of them
+prisoners in the midst of their corps, dragging on a precarious life in
+the bosom of disgust and humiliation. To fill up the measure of all
+these horrors, the commandants of places have had their throats out
+under the eyes and almost in the arms of their own soldiers.
+
+"These evils are great; but they are not the worst consequences which
+may be produced by such military insurrections. Sooner or later they may
+menace the nation itself. _The nature of things requires_ that the army
+should never act but as _an instrument_. The moment that, erecting
+itself into a deliberate body, it shall act according to its own
+resolutions, _the government, be it what it may, will immediately
+degenerate into a military democracy_: a species of political monster
+which has always ended by devouring those who have produced it.
+
+"After all this, who must not be alarmed at the irregular consultations
+and turbulent committees formed in some regiments by the common soldiers
+and non-commissioned officers, without the knowledge, or even in
+contempt of the authority, of their superiors?--although the presence
+and concurrence of those superiors could give no authority to such
+monstrous democratic assemblies [_comices_]."
+
+It is not necessary to add much to this finished picture,--finished as
+far as its canvas admits, but, as I apprehend, not taking in the whole
+of the nature and complexity of the disorders of this military
+democracy, which, the minister at war truly and wisely observes,
+wherever it exists, must be the true constitution of the state, by
+whatever formal appellation it may pass. For, though he informs the
+Assembly that the more considerable part of the army have not cast off
+their obedience, but are still attached to their duty, yet those
+travellers who have seen the corps whose conduct is the best rather
+observe in them the absence of mutiny than the existence of discipline.
+
+I cannot help pausing here for a moment, to reflect upon the expressions
+of surprise which this minister has let fall relative to the excesses he
+relates. To him the departure of the troops from their ancient
+principles of loyalty and honor seems quite inconceivable. Surely those
+to whom he addresses himself know the causes of it but too well. They
+know the doctrines which they have preached, the decrees which they have
+passed, the practices which they have countenanced. The soldiers
+remember the sixth of October. They recollect the French guards. They
+have not forgot the taking of the king's castles in Paris and at
+Marseilles. That the governors in both places were murdered with
+impunity is a fact that has not passed out of their minds. They do not
+abandon the principles, laid down so ostentatiously and laboriously, of
+the equality of men. They cannot shut their eyes to the degradation of
+the whole noblesse of France, and the suppression of the very idea of a
+gentleman. The total abolition of titles and distinctions is not lost
+upon them. But M. du Pin is astonished at their disloyalty, when the
+doctors of the Assembly have taught them at the same time the respect
+due to laws. It is easy to judge which of the two sorts of lessons men
+with arms in their hands are likely to learn. As to the authority of the
+king, we may collect from the minister himself (if any argument on that
+head were not quite superfluous) that it is not of more consideration
+with these troops than it is with everybody else. "The king," says he,
+"has over and over again repeated his orders to put a stop to these
+excesses; but in so terrible a crisis, _your_ [the Assembly's]
+concurrence is become indispensably necessary to prevent the evils which
+menace the state. _You_ unite to the force of the legislative power
+_that of opinion_, still more important." To be sure, the army can have
+no opinion of the power or authority of the king. Perhaps the soldier
+has by this time learned, that the Assembly itself does not enjoy a much
+greater degree of liberty than that royal figure.
+
+It is now to be seen what has been proposed in this exigency, one of the
+greatest that can happen in a state. The minister requests the Assembly
+to array itself in all its terrors, and to call forth all its majesty.
+He desires that the grave and severe principles announced by them may
+give vigor to the king's proclamation. After this we should have looked
+for courts civil and martial, breaking of some corps, decimating of
+others, and all the terrible means which necessity has employed in such
+cases to arrest the progress of the most terrible of all evils;
+particularly, one might expect that a serious inquiry would be made into
+the murder of commandants in the view of their soldiers. Not one word of
+all this, or of anything like it. After they had been told that the
+soldiery trampled upon the decrees of the Assembly promulgated by the
+king, the Assembly pass new decrees, and they authorize the king to make
+new proclamations. After the secretary at war had stated that the
+regiments had paid no regard to oaths, _prêtés avec la plus imposante
+solennité_, they propose--what? More oaths. They renew decrees and
+proclamations as they experience their insufficiency, and they multiply
+oaths in proportion as they weaken in the minds of men the sanctions of
+religion. I hope that handy abridgments of the excellent sermons of
+Voltaire, D'Alembert, Diderot, and Helvétius, on the Immortality of the
+Soul, on a Particular Superintending Providence, and on a Future State
+of Rewards and Punishments, are sent down to the soldiers along with
+their civic oaths. Of this I have no doubt; as I understand that a
+certain description of reading makes no inconsiderable part of their
+military exercises, and that they are full as well supplied with the
+ammunition of pamphlets as of cartridges.
+
+To prevent the mischiefs arising from conspiracies, irregular
+consultations, seditious committees, and monstrous democratic assemblies
+[_comitia, comices_] of the soldiers, and all the disorders arising from
+idleness, luxury, dissipation, and insubordination, I believe the most
+astonishing means have been used that ever occurred to men, even in all
+the inventions of this prolific age. It is no less than this:--The king
+has promulgated in circular letters to all the regiments his direct
+authority and encouragement, that the several corps should join
+themselves with the clubs and confederations in the several
+municipalities, and mix with them in their feasts and civic
+entertainments! This jolly discipline, it seems, is to soften the
+ferocity of their minds, to reconcile them to their bottle companions of
+other descriptions, and to merge particular conspiracies in more general
+associations.[127] That this remedy would be pleasing to the soldiers,
+as they are described by M. de La Tour du Pin, I can readily
+believe,--and that, however mutinous otherwise, they will dutifully
+submit themselves to _these_ royal proclamations. But I should question
+whether all this civic swearing, clubbing, and feasting would dispose
+them, more than at present they are disposed, to an obedience to their
+officers, or teach them better to submit to the austere rules of
+military discipline. It will make them admirable citizens after the
+French mode, but not quite so good soldiers after any mode. A doubt
+might well arise, whether the conversations at these good tables would
+fit them a great deal the better for the character of _mere
+instruments_, which this veteran officer and statesman justly observes
+the nature of things always requires an army to be.
+
+Concerning the likelihood of this improvement in discipline by the free
+conversation of the soldiers with the municipal festive societies, which
+is thus officially encouraged by royal authority and sanction, we may
+judge by the state of the municipalities themselves, furnished to us by
+the war minister in this very speech. He conceives good hopes of the
+success of his endeavors towards restoring order _for the present_ from
+the good disposition of certain regiments; but he finds something cloudy
+with regard to the future. As to preventing the return of confusion,
+"for this the administration" (says he) "cannot be answerable to you, as
+long as they see the municipalities arrogate to themselves an authority
+over the troops which your institutions have reserved wholly to the
+monarch. You have fixed the limits of the military authority and the
+municipal authority. You have bounded the action which you have
+permitted to the latter over the former to the right of requisition; but
+never did the letter or the spirit of your decrees authorize the commons
+in these municipalities to break the officers, to try them, to give
+orders to the soldiers, to drive them from the posts committed to their
+guard, to stop them in their marches ordered by the king, or, in a word,
+to enslave the troops to the caprice of each of the cities or even
+market-towns through which they are to pass."
+
+Such is the character and disposition of the municipal society which is
+to reclaim the soldiery, to bring them back to the true principles of
+military subordination, and to lender them machines in the hands of the
+supreme power of the country! Such are the distempers of the French
+troops! Such is their cure! As the army is, so is the navy. The
+municipalities supersede the orders of the Assembly, and the seamen in
+their turn supersede the orders of the municipalities. From my heart I
+pity the condition of a respectable servant of the public, like this war
+minister, obliged in his old age to pledge the Assembly in their civic
+cups, and to enter with a hoary head into all the fantastic vagaries of
+these juvenile politicians. Such schemes are not like propositions
+coming from a man of fifty years' wear and tear amongst mankind. They
+seem rather such as ought to be expected from those grand compounders in
+politics who shorten the road to their degrees in the state, and have a
+certain inward fanatical assurance and illumination upon all
+subjects,--upon the credit of which, one of their doctors has thought
+fit, with great applause, and greater success, to caution the Assembly
+not to attend to old men, or to any persons who value themselves upon
+their experience. I suppose all the ministers of state must qualify, and
+take this test,--wholly abjuring the errors and heresies of experience
+and observation. Every man has his own relish; but I think, if I could
+not attain to the wisdom, I would at least preserve something of the
+stiff and peremptory dignity of age. These gentlemen deal in
+regeneration: but at any price I should hardly yield my rigid fibres to
+be regenerated by them,--nor begin, in my grand climacteric, to squall
+in their new accents, or to stammer, in my second cradle, the elemental
+sounds of their barbarous metaphysics.[128] _Si isti mihi largiantur ut
+repuerascam, et in eorum cunis vagiam, valde recusem!_
+
+The imbecility of any part of the puerile and pedantic system which they
+call a Constitution cannot be laid open without discovering the utter
+insufficiency and mischief of every other part with which it comes in
+contact, or that bears any the remotest relation to it. You cannot
+propose a remedy for the incompetence of the crown, without displaying
+the debility of the Assembly. You cannot deliberate on the confusion of
+the army of the state, without disclosing the worse disorders of the
+armed municipalities. The military lays open the civil, and the civil
+betrays the military anarchy. I wish everybody carefully to peruse the
+eloquent speech (such it is) of Mons. de La Tour du Pin. He attributes
+the salvation of the municipalities to the good behavior of some of the
+troops. These troops are to preserve the well-disposed part of the
+municipalities, which is confessed to be the weakest, from the pillage
+of the worst disposed, which is the strongest. But the municipalities
+affect a sovereignty, and will command those troops which are necessary
+for their protection. Indeed, they must command them or court them. The
+municipalities, by the necessity of their situation, and by the
+republican powers they have obtained, must, with relation to the
+military, be the masters, or the servants, or the confederates, or each
+successively, or they must make a jumble of all together, according to
+circumstances. What government is there to coerce the army but the
+municipality, or the municipality but the army? To preserve concord
+where authority is extinguished, at the hazard of all consequences, the
+Assembly attempts to cure the distempers by the distempers themselves;
+and they hope to preserve themselves from a purely military democracy by
+giving it a debauched interest in the municipal.
+
+If the soldiers once come to mix for any time in the municipal clubs,
+cabals, and confederacies, an elective attraction will draw them to the
+lowest and most desperate part. With them will be their habits,
+affections, and sympathies. The military conspiracies which are to be
+remedied by civic confederacies, the rebellious municipalities which are
+to be rendered obedient by furnishing them with the means of seducing
+the very armies of the state that are to keep them in order,--all these
+chimeras of a monstrous and portentous policy must aggravate the
+confusion from which they have arisen. There must be blood. The want of
+common judgment manifested in the construction of all their descriptions
+of forces, and in all their kinds of civil and judicial authorities,
+will make it flow. Disorders may be quieted in one time and in one
+part. They will break out in others; because the evil is radical and
+intrinsic. All these schemes of mixing mutinous soldiers with seditious
+citizens must weaken still more and more the military connection of
+soldiers with their officers, as well as add military and mutinous
+audacity to turbulent artificers and peasants. To secure a real army,
+the officer should be first and last in the eye of the soldier,--first
+and last in his attention, observance, and esteem. Officers, it seems,
+there are to be, whose chief qualification must be temper and patience.
+They are to manage their troops by electioneering arts. They must bear
+themselves as candidates, not as commanders. But as by such means power
+may be occasionally in their hands, the authority by which they are to
+be nominated becomes of high importance.
+
+What you may do finally does not appear: nor is it of much moment,
+whilst the strange and contradictory relation between your army and all
+the parts of your republic, as well as the puzzled relation of those
+parts to each other and to the whole, remain as they are. You seem to
+have given the provisional nomination of the officers, in the first
+instance, to the king, with a reserve of approbation by the National
+Assembly. Men who have an interest to pursue are extremely sagacious in
+discovering the true seat of power. They must soon perceive that those
+who can negative indefinitely in reality appoint. The officers must
+therefore look to their intrigues in the Assembly as the sole certain
+road to promotion. Still, however, by your new Constitution, they must
+begin their solicitation at court. This double negotiation for military
+rank seems to me a contrivance, as well adapted as if it were studied
+for no other end, to promote faction in the Assembly itself relative to
+this vast military patronage,--and then to poison the corps of officers
+with factions of a nature still more dangerous to the safety of
+government, upon any bottom on which it can be placed, and destructive
+in the end to the efficacy of the army itself. Those officers who lose
+the promotions intended for them by the crown must become of a faction
+opposite to that of the Assembly which has rejected their claims, and
+must nourish discontents in the heart of the army against the ruling
+powers. Those officers, on the other hand, who, by carrying their point
+through an interest in the Assembly, feel themselves to be at best only
+second in the good-will of the crown, though first in that of the
+Assembly, must slight an authority which would not advance and could not
+retard their promotion. If, to avoid these evils, you will have no other
+rule for command or promotion than seniority, you will have an army of
+formality; at the same time it will become more independent and more of
+a military republic. Not they, but the king is the machine. A king is
+not to be deposed by halves. If he is not everything in the command of
+an army, he is nothing. What is the effect of a power placed nominally
+at the head of the army, who to that army is no object of gratitude or
+of fear? Such a cipher is not fit for the administration of an object of
+all things the most delicate, the supreme command of military men. They
+must be constrained (and their inclinations lead them to what their
+necessities require) by a real, vigorous, effective, decided, personal
+authority. The authority of the Assembly itself suffers by passing
+through such a debilitating channel as they have chosen. The army will
+not long look to an Assembly acting through the organ of false show and
+palpable imposition. They will not seriously yield obedience to a
+prisoner. They will either despise a pageant, or they will pity a
+captive king. This relation of your army to the crown will, if I am not
+greatly mistaken, become a serious dilemma in your politics.
+
+It is besides to be considered, whether an Assembly like yours, even
+supposing that it was in possession of another sort of organ, through
+which its orders were to pass, is fit for promoting the obedience and
+discipline of an army. It is known that armies have hitherto yielded a
+very precarious and uncertain obedience to any senate or popular
+authority; and they will least of all yield it to an Assembly which is
+to have only a continuance of two years. The officers must totally lose
+the characteristic disposition of military men, if they see with perfect
+submission and due admiration the dominion of pleaders,--especially when
+they find that they have a new court to pay to an endless succession of
+those pleaders, whose military policy, and the genius of whose command,
+(if they should have any,) must be as uncertain as their duration is
+transient. In the weakness of one kind of authority, and in the
+fluctuation of all, the officers of an army will remain for some time
+mutinous and full of faction, until some popular general, who
+understands the art of conciliating the soldiery, and who possesses the
+true spirit of command, shall draw the eyes of all men upon himself.
+Armies will obey him on his personal account. There is no other way of
+securing military obedience in this state of things. But the moment in
+which that event shall happen, the person who really commands the army
+is your master,--the master (that is little) of your king, the master of
+your Assembly, the master of your whole republic.
+
+How came the Assembly by their present power over the army? Chiefly, to
+be sure, by debauching the soldiers from their officers. They have begun
+by a most terrible operation. They have touched the central point about
+which the particles that compose armies are at repose. They have
+destroyed the principle of obedience in the great, essential, critical
+link between the officer and the soldier, just where the chain of
+military subordination commences, and on which the whole of that system,
+depends. The soldier is told he is a citizen, and has the rights of man
+and citizen. The right of a man, he is told, is, to be his own governor,
+and to be ruled only by those to whom he delegates that self-government.
+It is very natural he should think that he ought most of all to have his
+choice where he is to yield the greatest degree of obedience. He will
+therefore, in all probability, systematically do what he does at present
+occasionally: that is, he will exercise at least a negative in the
+choice of his officers. At present the officers are known at best to be
+only permissive, and on their good behavior. In fact, there have been
+many instances in which they have been cashiered by their corps. Here is
+a second negative on the choice of the king: a negative as effectual, at
+least, as the other of the Assembly. The soldiers know already that it
+has been a question, not ill received in the National Assembly, whether
+they ought not to have the direct choice of their officers, or some
+proportion of them. When such matters are in deliberation, it is no
+extravagant supposition that they will incline to the opinion most
+favorable to their pretensions. They will not bear to be deemed the army
+of an imprisoned king, whilst another army in the same country, with
+whom too they are to feast and confederate, is to be considered as the
+free army of a free Constitution. They will cast their eyes on the other
+and more permanent army: I mean the municipal. That corps, they well
+know, does actually elect its own officers. They may not be able to
+discern the grounds of distinction on which they are not to elect a
+Marquis de La Fayette (or what is his new name?) of their own. If this
+election of a commander-in-chief be a part of the rights of men, why not
+of theirs? They see elective justices of peace, elective judges,
+elective curates, elective bishops, elective municipalities, and
+elective commanders of the Parisian army. Why should they alone be
+excluded? Are the brave troops of France the only men in that nation who
+are not the fit judges of military merit, and of the qualifications
+necessary for a commander-in-chief? Are they paid by the state, and do
+they therefore lose the rights of men? They are a part of that nation
+themselves, and contribute to that pay. And is not the king, is not the
+National Assembly, and are not all who elect the National Assembly,
+likewise paid? Instead of seeing all these forfeit their rights by their
+receiving a salary, they perceive that in all these cases a salary is
+given for the exercise of those rights. All your resolutions, all your
+proceedings, all your debates, all the works of your doctors in religion
+and politics, have industriously been put into their hands; and you
+expect that they will apply to their own case just as much of your
+doctrines and examples as suits your pleasure.
+
+Everything depends upon the army in such a government as yours; for you
+have industriously destroyed all the opinions and prejudices, and, as
+far as in you lay, all the instincts which support government. Therefore
+the moment any difference arises between your National Assembly and any
+part of the nation, you must have recourse to force. Nothing else is
+left to you,--or rather, you have left nothing else to yourselves. You
+see, by the report of your war minister, that the distribution of the
+army is in a great measure made with a view of internal coercion.[129]
+You must rule by an army; and you have infused into that army by which
+you rule, as well as into the whole body of the nation, principles which
+after a time must disable you in the use you resolve to make of it. The
+king is to call out troops to act against his people, when the world has
+been told, and the assertion is still ringing in our ears, that troops
+ought not to fire on citizens. The colonies assert to themselves an
+independent constitution and a free trade. They must be constrained by
+troops. In what chapter of your code of the rights of men are they able
+to read that it is a part of the rights of men to have their commerce
+monopolized and restrained for the benefit of others? As the colonists
+rise on you, the negroes rise on them. Troops again,--massacre, torture,
+hanging! These are your rights of men! These are the fruits of
+metaphysic declarations wantonly made and shamefully retracted! It was
+but the other day that the farmers of land in one of your provinces
+refused to pay some sorts of rents to the lord of the soil. In
+consequence of this, you decree that the country-people shall pay all
+rents and dues, except those which as grievances you have abolished; and
+if they refuse, then you order the king to march troops against them.
+You lay down metaphysic propositions which infer universal consequences,
+and then you attempt to limit logic by despotism. The leaders of the
+present system tell them of their rights, as men, to take fortresses, to
+murder guards, to seize on kings without the least appearance of
+authority even from the Assembly, whilst, as the sovereign legislative
+body, that Assembly was sitting in the name of the nation; and yet these
+leaders presume to order out the troops which have acted in these very
+disorders, to coerce those who shall judge on the principles and follow
+the examples which have been guarantied by their own approbation.
+
+The leaders teach the people to abhor and reject all feodality as the
+barbarism of tyranny; and they tell them afterwards how much of that
+barbarous tyranny they are to bear with patience. As they are prodigal
+of light with regard to grievances, so the people find them sparing in
+the extreme with regard to redress. They know that not only certain
+quit-rents and personal duties, which you have permitted them to redeem,
+(but have furnished no money for the redemption,) are as nothing to
+those burdens for which you have made no provision at all; they know
+that almost the whole system of landed property in its origin is
+feudal,--that it is the distribution of the possessions of the original
+proprietors made by a barbarous conqueror to his barbarous
+instruments,--and that the most grievous effects of the conquest axe the
+land-rents of every kind, as without question they are.
+
+The peasants, in all probability, are the descendants of these ancient
+proprietors, Romans or Gauls. But if they fail, in any degree, in the
+titles which they make on the principles of antiquaries and lawyers,
+they retreat into the citadel of the rights of men. There they find that
+men are equal; and the earth, the kind and equal mother of all, ought
+not to be monopolized to foster the pride and luxury of any men, who by
+nature are no better than themselves, and who, if they do not labor for
+their bread, are worse. They find, that, by the laws of Nature, the
+occupant and subduer of the soil is the true proprietor,--that there is
+no prescription against Nature,--and that the agreements (where any
+there are) which have been made with the landlords during the time of
+slavery are only the effect of duresse and force,--and that, when the
+people reëntered into the rights of men, those agreements were made as
+void as everything else which had been settled under the prevalence of
+the old feudal and aristocratic tyranny. They will tell you that they
+see no difference between an idler with a hat and a national cockade and
+an idler in a cowl or in a rochet. If you ground the title to rents on
+succession and prescription, they tell you from the speech of M. Camus,
+published by the National Assembly for their information, that things
+ill begun cannot avail themselves of prescription,--that the title of
+those lords was vicious in its origin,--and that force is at least as
+bad as fraud. As to the title by succession, they will tell you that the
+succession of those who have cultivated the soil is the true pedigree of
+property, and not rotten parchments and silly substitutions,--that the
+lords have enjoyed their usurpation too long,--and that, if they allow
+to these lay monks any charitable pension, they ought to be thankful to
+the bounty of the true proprietor, who is so generous towards a false
+claimant to his goods.
+
+When the peasants give you back that coin of sophistic reason on which
+you have set your image and superscription, you cry it down as base
+money, and tell them you will pay for the future with French guards and
+dragoons and hussars. You hold up, to chastise them, the second-hand
+authority of a king, who is only the instrument of destroying, without
+any power of protecting either the people or his own person. Through
+him, it seems, you will make yourselves obeyed. They answer,--"You have
+taught us that there are no gentlemen; and which of your principles
+teach us to bow to kings whom we have not elected? We know, without your
+teaching, that lands were given for the support of feudal dignities,
+feudal titles, and feudal offices. When you took down the cause as a
+grievance, why should the more grievous effect remain? As there are now
+no hereditary honors and no distinguished families, why are we taxed to
+maintain what you tell us ought not to exist? You have sent down our old
+aristocratic landlords in no other character and with no other title but
+that of exactors under your authority. Have you endeavored to make these
+your rent-gatherers respectable to us? No. You have sent them to us with
+their arms reversed, their shields broken, their impresses defaced,--and
+so displumed, degraded, and metamorphosed, such unfeathered two-legged
+things, that we no longer know them. They are strangers to us. They do
+not even go by the names of our ancient lords. Physically they may be
+the same men,--though we are not quite sure of that, on your new
+philosophic doctrines of personal identity. In all other respects they
+are totally changed. We do not see why we have not as good a right to
+refuse them their rents as you have to abrogate all their honors,
+titles, and distinctions. This we have never commissioned you to do; and
+it is one instance among many, indeed, of your assumption of undelegated
+power. We see the burghers of Paris, through their clubs, their mobs,
+and their national guards, directing you at their pleasure, and giving
+that as law to you, which, under your authority, is transmitted as law
+to us. Through you, these burghers dispose of the lives and fortunes of
+us all. Why should not you attend as much to the desires of the
+laborious husbandman with regard to our rent, by which we are affected
+in the most serious manner, as you do to the demands of these insolent
+burghers relative to distinctions and titles of honor, by which neither
+they nor we are affected at all? But we find you pay more regard to
+their fancies than to our necessities. Is it among the rights of man to
+pay tribute to his equals? Before this measure of yours we might have
+thought we were not perfectly equal; we might have entertained some old,
+habitual, unmeaning prepossession in favor of those landlords; but we
+cannot conceive with what other view than that of destroying all respect
+to them you could have made the law that degrades them. You have
+forbidden us to treat them with any of the old formalities of respect;
+and now you send troops to sabre and to bayonet us into a submission to
+fear and force which you did not suffer us to yield to the mild
+authority of opinion."
+
+The ground of some of these arguments is horrid and ridiculous to all
+rational ears; but to the politicians of metaphysics, who have opened
+schools for sophistry, and made establishments for anarchy, it is solid
+and conclusive. It is obvious, that, on a mere consideration of the
+right, the leaders in the Assembly would not in the least have scrupled
+to abrogate the rents along with the titles and family ensigns. It would
+be only to follow up the principle of their reasonings, and to complete
+the analogy of their conduct. But they had newly possessed themselves of
+a great body of landed property by confiscation. They had this commodity
+at market; and the market would have been wholly destroyed, if they were
+to permit the husbandmen to riot in the speculations with which they so
+freely intoxicated themselves. The only security which property enjoys
+in any one of its descriptions is from the interests of their rapacity
+with regard to some other. They have left nothing but their own
+arbitrary pleasure to determine what property is to be protected and
+what subverted.
+
+Neither have they left any principle by which any of their
+municipalities can be bound to obedience,--or even conscientiously
+obliged not to separate from the whole, to become independent, or to
+connect itself with some other state. The people of Lyons, it seems,
+have refused lately to pay taxes. Why should they not? What lawful
+authority is there left to exact them? The king imposed some of them.
+The old States, methodized by orders, settled the more ancient. They may
+say to the Assembly,--"Who are you, that are not our kings, nor the
+States we have elected, nor sit on the principles on which we have
+elected you? And who are we, that, when we see the _gabelles_ which you
+have ordered to be paid wholly shaken off, when we see the act of
+disobedience afterwards ratified by yourselves, who are we, that we are
+not to judge what taxes we ought or ought not to pay, and are not to
+avail ourselves of the same powers the validity of which you have
+approved in others?" To this the answer is, "We will send troops." The
+last reason of kings is always the first with your Assembly. This
+military aid may serve for a time, whilst the impression of the increase
+of pay remains, and the vanity of being umpires in all disputes is
+flattered. But this weapon will snap short, unfaithful to the hand that
+employs it. The Assembly keep a school, where, systematically, and with
+unremitting perseverance, they teach principles and form regulations
+destructive to all spirit of subordination, civil and military,--and
+then they expect that they shall hold in obedience an anarchic people by
+an anarchic army.
+
+The municipal army, which, according to their new policy, is to balance
+this national army, if considered in itself only, is of a constitution
+much more simple, and in every respect less exceptionable. It is a mere
+democratic body, unconnected with the crown or the kingdom, armed and
+trained and officered at the pleasure of the districts to which the
+corps severally belong; and the personal service of the individuals who
+compose, or the fine in lieu of personal service, are directed by the
+same authority.[130] Nothing is more uniform. If, however, considered in
+any relation to the crown, to the National Assembly, to the public
+tribunals, or to the other army, or considered in a view to any
+coherence or connection between its parts, it seems a monster, and can
+hardly fail to terminate its perplexed movements in some great national
+calamity. It is a worse preservative of a general constitution than the
+systasis of Crete, or the confederation of Poland, or any other
+ill-devised corrective which has yet been imagined, in the necessities
+produced by an ill-constructed system of government.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Having concluded my few remarks on the constitution of the supreme
+power, the executive, the judicature, the military, and on the
+reciprocal relation of all these establishments, I shall say something
+of the ability showed by your legislators with regard to the revenue.
+
+In their proceedings relative to this object, if possible, still fewer
+traces appear of political judgment or financial resource. When the
+States met, it seemed to be the great object to improve the system of
+revenue, to enlarge its collection, to cleanse it of oppression and
+vexation, and to establish it on the most solid footing. Great were the
+expectations entertained on that head throughout Europe. It was by this
+grand arrangement that France was to stand or fall; and this became, in
+my opinion very properly, the test by which the skill and patriotism of
+those who ruled in that Assembly would be tried. The revenue of the
+state is the state. In effect, all depends upon it, whether for support
+or for reformation. The dignity of every occupation wholly depends upon
+the quantity and the kind of virtue that may be exerted in it. As all
+great qualities of the mind which operate in public, and are not merely
+suffering and passive, require force for their display, I had almost
+said for their unequivocal existence, the revenue, which is the spring
+of all power, becomes in its administration the sphere of every active
+virtue. Public virtue, being of a nature magnificent and splendid,
+instituted for great things, and conversant about great concerns,
+requires abundant scope and room, and cannot spread and grow under
+confinement, and in circumstances straitened, narrow, and sordid.
+Through the revenue alone the body politic can act in its true genius
+and character; and therefore it will display just as much of its
+collective virtue, and as much of that virtue which may characterize
+those who move it, and are, as it were, its life and guiding principle,
+as it is possessed of a just revenue. For from hence not only
+magnanimity, and liberality, and beneficence, and fortitude, and
+providence, and the tutelary protection of all good arts derive their
+food, and the growth of their organs, but continence, and self-denial,
+and labor, and vigilance, and frugality, and whatever else there is in
+which the mind shows itself above the appetite, are nowhere more in
+their proper element than in the provision and distribution of the
+public wealth. It is therefore not without reason that the science of
+speculative and practical finance, which must take to its aid so many
+auxiliary branches of knowledge, stands high in the estimation not only
+of the ordinary sort, but of the wisest and best men; and as this
+science has grown with the progress of its object, the prosperity and
+improvement of nations has generally increased with the increase of
+their revenues; and they will both continue to grow and flourish as long
+as the balance between what is left to strengthen the efforts of
+individuals and what is collected for the common efforts of the state
+bear to each other a due reciprocal proportion, and are kept in a close
+correspondence and communication. And perhaps it may be owing to the
+greatness of revenues, and to the urgency of state necessities, that old
+abuses in the constitution of finances are discovered, and their true
+nature and rational theory comes to be more perfectly understood;
+insomuch that a smaller revenue might have been more distressing in one
+period than a far greater is found to be in another, the proportionate
+wealth even remaining the same. In this state of things, the French
+Assembly found something in their revenues to preserve, to secure, and
+wisely to administer, as well as to abrogate and alter. Though their
+proud assumption might justify the severest tests, yet, in trying their
+abilities on their financial proceedings, I would only consider what is
+the plain, obvious duty of a common finance minister, and try them upon
+that, and not upon models of ideal perfection.
+
+The objects of a financier are, then, to secure an ample revenue; to
+impose it with judgment and equality; to employ it economically; and
+when necessity obliges him to make use of credit, to secure its
+foundations in that instance, and forever, by the clearness and candor
+of his proceedings, the exactness of his calculations, and the solidity
+of his funds. On these heads we may take a short and distinct view of
+the merits and abilities of those in the National Assembly who have
+taken to themselves the management of this arduous concern.
+
+Far from any increase of revenue in their hands, I find, by a report of
+M. Vernier, from the Committee of Finances, of the second of August
+last, that the amount of the national revenue, as compared with its
+produce before the Revolution, was diminished by the sum of two hundred
+millions, or _eight millions sterling_, of the annual
+income,--considerably more than one third of the whole.
+
+If this be the result of great ability, never surely was ability
+displayed in a more distinguished manner or with so powerful an effect.
+No common folly, no vulgar incapacity, no ordinary official negligence,
+even no official crime, no corruption, no peculation, hardly any direct
+hostility, which we have seen in the modern world, could in so short a
+time have made so complete an overthrow of the finances, and, with them,
+of the strength of a great kingdom.--_Cedo quî vestram rempublicam
+tantam amisistis tam cito?_
+
+The sophisters and declaimers, as soon as the Assembly met, began with
+decrying the ancient constitution of the revenue in many of its most
+essential branches, such as the public monopoly of salt. They charged
+it, as truly as unwisely, with being ill-contrived, oppressive, and
+partial. This representation they were not satisfied to make use of in
+speeches preliminary to some plan of reform; they declared it in a
+solemn resolution or public sentence, as it were judicially passed upon
+it; and this they dispersed throughout the nation. At the time they
+passed the decree, with the same gravity they ordered the same absurd,
+oppressive, and partial tax to be paid, until they could find a revenue
+to replace it. The consequence was inevitable. The provinces which had
+been always exempted from this salt monopoly, some of whom were charged
+with other contributions, perhaps equivalent, were totally disinclined
+to bear any part of the burden, which by an equal distribution was to
+redeem the others. As to the Assembly, occupied as it was with the
+declaration and violation of the rights of men, and with their
+arrangements for general confusion, it had neither leisure nor capacity
+to contrive, nor authority to enforce, any plan of any kind relative to
+the replacing the tax, or equalizing it, or compensating the provinces,
+or for conducting their minds to any scheme of accommodation with the
+other districts which were to be relieved. The people of the salt
+provinces, impatient under taxes damned by the authority which had
+directed their payment, very soon found their patience exhausted. They
+thought themselves as skilful in demolishing as the Assembly could be.
+They relieved themselves by throwing off the whole burden. Animated by
+this example, each district, or part of a district, judging of its own
+grievance by its own feeling, and of its remedy by its own opinion, did
+as it pleased with other taxes.
+
+We are next to see how they have conducted themselves in contriving
+equal impositions, proportioned to the means of the citizens, and the
+least likely to lean heavy on the active capital employed in the
+generation of that private wealth from whence the public fortune must be
+derived. By suffering the several districts, and several of the
+individuals in each district, to judge of what part of the old revenue
+they might withhold, instead of better principles of equality, a new
+inequality was introduced of the most oppressive kind. Payments were
+regulated by dispositions. The parts of the kingdom which were the most
+submissive, the most orderly, or the most affectionate to the
+commonwealth, bore the whole burden of the state. Nothing turns out to
+be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government. To fill up all the
+deficiencies in the old impositions, and the new deficiencies of every
+kind which were to be expected, what remained to a state without
+authority? The National Assembly called for a voluntary
+benevolence,--for a fourth part of the income of all the citizens, to be
+estimated on the honor of those who were to pay. They obtained something
+more than could be rationally calculated, but what was far indeed from
+answerable to their real necessities, and much less to their fond
+expectations. Rational people could have hoped for little from this
+their tax in the disguise of a benevolence,--tax weak, ineffective, and
+unequal,--a tax by which luxury, avarice, and selfishness were screened,
+and the load thrown upon productive capital, upon integrity, generosity,
+and public spirit,--a tax of regulation upon virtue. At length the mask
+is thrown off, and they are now trying means (with little success) of
+exacting their benevolence by force.
+
+This benevolence, the rickety offspring of weakness, was to be supported
+by another resource, the twin brother of the same prolific imbecility.
+The patriotic donations were to make good the failure of the patriotic
+contribution. John Doe was to become security for Richard Roe. By this
+scheme they took things of much price from the giver, comparatively of
+small value to the receiver; they ruined several trades; they pillaged
+the crown of its ornaments, the churches of their plate, and the people
+of their personal decorations. The invention of those juvenile
+pretenders to liberty was in reality nothing more than a servile
+imitation of one of the poorest resources of doting despotism. They took
+an old, huge, full-bottomed periwig out of the wardrobe of the
+antiquated frippery of Louis the Fourteenth, to cover the premature
+baldness of the National Assembly. They produced this old-fashioned
+formal folly, though it had been so abundantly exposed in the Memoirs of
+the Duke de Saint-Simon,--if to reasonable men it had wanted any
+arguments to display its mischief and insufficiency. A device of the
+same kind was tried in my memory by Louis the Fifteenth, but it answered
+at no time. However, the necessities of ruinous wars were some excuse
+for desperate projects. The deliberations of calamity are rarely wise.
+But here was a season for disposition and providence. It was in a time
+of profound peace, then enjoyed for five years, and promising a much
+longer continuance, that they had recourse to this desperate trifling.
+They were sure to lose more reputation by sporting, in their serious
+situation, with these toys and playthings of finance, which have filled
+half their journals, than could possibly be compensated by the poor
+temporary supply which they afforded. It seemed as if those who adopted
+such projects were wholly ignorant of their circumstances, or wholly
+unequal to their necessities. Whatever virtue may be in these devices,
+it is obvious that neither the patriotic gifts nor the patriotic
+contribution can ever be resorted to again. The resources of public
+folly are soon exhausted. The whole, indeed, of their scheme of revenue
+is to make, by any artifice, an appearance of a full reservoir for the
+hour, whilst at the same time they cut off the springs and living
+fountains of perennial supply. The account not long since furnished by
+M. Necker was meant, without question, to be favorable. He gives a
+flattering view of the means of getting through the year; but he
+expresses, as it is natural he should, some apprehension for that which
+was to succeed. On this last prognostic, instead of entering into the
+grounds of this apprehension, in order, by a proper foresight, to
+prevent the prognosticated evil, M. Necker receives a sort of friendly
+reprimand from the President of the Assembly.
+
+As to their other schemes of taxation, it is impossible to say anything
+of them with certainty, because they have not yet had their operation;
+but nobody is so sanguine as to imagine they will fill up any
+perceptible part of the wide gaping breach which their incapacity has
+made in their revenues. At present the state of their treasury sinks
+every day more and more in cash, and swells more and more in fictitious
+representation. When so little within or without is now found but paper,
+the representative not of opulence, but of want, the creature not of
+credit, but of power, they imagine that our flourishing state in England
+is owing to that bank-paper, and not the bank-paper to the flourishing
+condition of our commerce, to the solidity of our credit, and to the
+total exclusion of all idea of power from any part of the transaction.
+They forget that in England not one shilling of paper money of any
+description is received but of choice,--that the whole has had its
+origin in cash actually deposited,--and that it is convertible at
+pleasure, in an instant, and without the smallest loss, into cash again.
+Our paper is of value in commerce, because in law it is of none. It is
+powerful on 'Change, because in Westminster Hall it is impotent. In
+payment of a debt of twenty shillings a creditor may refuse all the
+paper of the Bank of England. Nor is there amongst us a single public
+security, of any quality or nature whatsoever, that is enforced by
+authority. In fact, it might be easily shown that our paper wealth,
+instead of lessening the real coin, has a tendency to increase
+it,--instead of being a substitute for money, it only facilitates its
+entry, its exit, and its circulation,--that it is the symbol of
+prosperity, and not the badge of distress. Never was a scarcity of cash
+and an exuberance of paper a subject of complaint in this nation.
+
+Well! but a lessening of prodigal expenses, and the economy which has
+been introduced by the virtuous and sapient Assembly, make amends for
+the losses sustained in the receipt of revenue. In this at least they
+have fulfilled the duty of a financier.--Have those who say so looked at
+the expenses of the National Assembly itself? of the municipalities? of
+the city of Paris? of the increased pay of the two armies? of the new
+police? of the new judicatures? Have they even carefully compared the
+present pension-list with the former? These politicians have been cruel,
+not economical. Comparing the expenses of the former prodigal government
+and its relation to the then revenues with the expenses of this new
+system as opposed to the state of its new treasury, I believe the
+present will be found beyond all comparison more chargeable.[131]
+
+It remains only to consider the proofs of financial ability furnished
+by the present French managers when they are to raise supplies on
+credit. Here I am a little at a stand; for credit, properly speaking,
+they have none. The credit of the ancient government was not, indeed,
+the best; but they could always, on some terms, command money, not only
+at home, but from most of the countries of Europe where a surplus
+capital was accumulated; and the credit of that government was improving
+daily. The establishment of a system of liberty would of course be
+supposed to give it new strength: and so it would actually have done, if
+a system of liberty had been established. What offers has their
+government of pretended liberty had from Holland, from Hamburg, from
+Switzerland, from Genoa, from England, for a dealing in their paper? Why
+should these nations of commerce and economy enter into any pecuniary
+dealings with a people who attempt to reverse the very nature of
+things,--amongst whom they see the debtor prescribing at the point of
+the bayonet the medium of his solvency to the creditor, discharging one
+of his engagements with another, turning his very penury into his
+resource, and paying his interest with his rags?
+
+Their fanatical confidence in the omnipotence of Church plunder has
+induced these philosophers to overlook all care of the public estate,
+just as the dream of the philosopher's stone induces dupes, under the
+more plausible delusion of the hermetic art, to neglect all rational
+means of improving their fortunes. With these philosophic financiers,
+this universal medicine made of Church mummy is to cure all the evils of
+the state. These gentlemen perhaps do not believe a great deal in the
+miracles of piety; but it cannot be questioned that they have an
+undoubting faith in the prodigies of sacrilege. Is there a debt which
+presses them? Issue _assignats_. Are compensations to be made or a
+maintenance decreed to those whom they have robbed of their freehold in
+their office or expelled from their profession? _Assignats_. Is a fleet
+to be fitted out? _Assignats_. If sixteen millions sterling of these
+_assignats_ forced on the people leave the wants of the state as urgent
+as ever, Issue, says one, thirty millions sterling of _assignats_,--says
+another, Issue fourscore millions more of _assignats_. The only
+difference among their financial factions is on the greater or the
+lesser quantity of _assignats_ to be imposed on the public sufferance.
+They are all professors of _assignats_. Even those whose natural good
+sense and knowledge of commerce, not obliterated by philosophy, furnish
+decisive arguments against this delusion, conclude their arguments by
+proposing the emission of _assignats_. I suppose they must talk of
+_assignats_, as no other language would be understood. All experience of
+their inefficacy does not in the least discourage them. Are the old
+_assignats_ depreciated at market? What is the remedy? Issue new
+_assignats_.--_Mais si maladia opiniatria non vult se garire, quid illi
+facere? Assignare; postea assignare; ensuita assignare_. The word is a
+trifle altered. The Latin of your present doctors may be better than
+that of your old comedy; their wisdom and the variety of their resources
+are the same. They have not more notes in their song than the cuckoo;
+though, far from the softness of that harbinger of summer and plenty,
+their voice is as harsh and as ominous as that of the raven.
+
+Who but the most desperate adventurers in philosophy and finance could
+at all have thought of destroying the settled revenue of the state, the
+sole security for the public credit, in the hope of rebuilding it with
+the materials of confiscated property? If, however, an excessive zeal
+for the state should have led a pious and venerable prelate (by
+anticipation a father of the Church[132]) to pillage his own order, and,
+for the good of the Church and people, to take upon himself the place of
+grand financier of confiscation and comptroller-general of sacrilege, he
+and his coadjutors were, in my opinion, bound to show, by their
+subsequent conduct, that they knew something of the office they assumed.
+When they had resolved to appropriate to the _fisc_ a certain portion of
+the landed property of their conquered country, it was their business to
+render their bank a real fund of credit,--as far as such a bank was
+capable of becoming so.
+
+To establish a current circulating credit upon any _land-bank_, under
+any circumstances whatsoever, has hitherto proved difficult at the very
+least. The attempt has commonly ended in bankruptcy. But when the
+Assembly were led, through a contempt of moral, to a defiance of
+economical principles, it might at least have been expected that nothing
+would be omitted on their part to lessen this difficulty, to prevent
+any aggravation of this bankruptcy. It might be expected, that, to
+render your land-bank tolerable, every means would be adopted that could
+display openness and candor in the statement of the security, everything
+which could aid the recovery of the demand. To take things in their most
+favorable point of view, your condition was that of a man of a large
+landed estate which he wished to dispose of for the discharge of a debt
+and the supply of certain services. Not being able instantly to sell,
+you wished to mortgage. What would a man of fair intentions and a
+commonly clear understanding do in such circumstances? Ought he not
+first to ascertain the gross value of the estate, the charges of its
+management and disposition, the incumbrances perpetual and temporary of
+all kinds that affect it,--then, striking a net surplus, to calculate
+the just value of the security? When that surplus (the only security to
+the creditor) had been clearly ascertained, and properly vested in the
+hands of trustees, then he would indicate the parcels to be sold, and
+the time and conditions of sale; after this he would admit the public
+creditor, if he chose it, to subscribe his stock into this new fund,--or
+he might receive proposals for an _assignat_ from those who would
+advance money to purchase this species of security. This would be to
+proceed like men of business, methodically and rationally, and on the
+only principles of public and private credit that have an existence. The
+dealer would then know exactly what he purchased; and the only doubt
+which could hang upon his mind would be the dread of the resumption of
+the spoil, which one day might be made (perhaps with an addition of
+punishment) from the sacrilegious gripe of those execrable wretches who
+could become purchasers at the auction of their innocent
+fellow-citizens.
+
+An open, and exact statement of the clear value of the property, and of
+the time, the circumstances, and the place of sale, were all necessary,
+to efface as much as possible the stigma that has hitherto been branded
+on every kind of land-bank. It became necessary on another
+principle,--that is, on account of a pledge of faith previously given on
+that subject, that their future fidelity in a slippery concern might be
+established by their adherence to their first engagement. When they had
+finally determined on a state resource from Church booty, they came, on
+the fourteenth of April, 1790, to a solemn resolution on the subject,
+and pledged themselves to their country, "that, in the statement of the
+public charges for each year, there should be brought to account a sum
+sufficient for defraying the expenses of the R.C.A. religion, the
+support of the ministers at the altars, the relief of the poor, the
+pensions to the ecclesiastics, secular as well as regular, of the one
+and of the other sex, _in order that the estates and goods which are at
+the disposal of the nation may be disengaged of all charges, and
+employed by the representatives, or the legislative body, to the great
+and most pressing exigencies of the state."_ They further engaged, on
+the same day, that the sum necessary for the year 1791 should be
+forthwith determined.
+
+In this resolution they admit it their duty to show distinctly the
+expense of the above objects, which, by other resolutions, they had
+before engaged should be first in the order of provision. They admit
+that they ought to show the estate clear and disengaged of all charges,
+and that they should show it immediately. Have they done this
+immediately, or at any time? Have they ever furnished a rent-roll of the
+immovable estate, or given in an inventory of the movable effects, which
+they confiscate to their assignats? In what manner they can fulfil their
+engagements of holding out to public service "an estate disengaged of
+all charges," without authenticating the value of the estate or the
+quantum of the charges, I leave it to their English admirers to explain.
+Instantly upon this assurance, and previously to any one step towards
+making it good, they issue, on the credit of so handsome a declaration,
+sixteen millions sterling of their paper. This was manly. Who, after
+this masterly stroke, can doubt of their abilities in finance?--But
+then, before any other emission of these financial _indulgences_, they
+took care at least to make good their original promise.--If such
+estimate, either of the value of the estate or the amount of the
+incumbrances, has been made, it has escaped me. I never heard of it.
+
+At length they have spoken out, and they have made a full discovery of
+their abominable fraud in holding out the Church lands as a security for
+any debts or any service whatsoever. They rob only to enable them to
+cheat; but in a very short time they defeat the ends both of the robbery
+and the fraud, by making out accounts for other purposes, which blow up
+their whole apparatus of force and of deception. I am obliged to M. de
+Calonne for his reference to the document which proves this
+extraordinary fact: it had by some means escaped me. Indeed, it was not
+necessary to make out my assertion as to the breach of faith on the
+declaration of the fourteenth of April, 1790. By a report of their
+committee it now appears that the charge of keeping up the reduced
+ecclesiastical establishments, and other expenses attendant on religion,
+and maintaining the religious of both sexes, retained or pensioned, and
+the other concomitant expenses of the same nature, which they have
+brought upon themselves by this convulsion in property, exceeds the
+income of the estates acquired by it in the enormous sum of two millions
+sterling annually,--besides a debt of seven millions and upwards. These
+are the calculating powers of imposture! This is the finance of
+philosophy! This is the result of all the delusions held out to engage a
+miserable people in rebellion, murder, and sacrilege, and to make them
+prompt and zealous instruments in the ruin of their country! Never did a
+state, in any case, enrich itself by the confiscations of the citizens.
+This new experiment has succeeded like all the rest. Every honest mind,
+every true lover of liberty and humanity, must rejoice to find that
+injustice is not always good policy, nor rapine the high-road to riches.
+I subjoin with pleasure, in a note, the able and spirited observations
+of M. de Calonne on this subject.[133]
+
+In order to persuade the world of the bottomless resource of
+ecclesiastical confiscation, the Assembly have proceeded to other
+confiscations of estates in offices, which could not be done with any
+common color without being compensated out of this grand confiscation of
+landed property. They have thrown upon this fund, which was to show a
+surplus disengaged of all charges, a new charge, namely, the
+compensation to the whole body of the disbanded judicature, and of all
+suppressed offices and estates: a charge which I cannot ascertain, but
+which unquestionably amounts to many French millions. Another of the new
+charges is an annuity of four hundred and eighty thousand pounds
+sterling, to be paid (if they choose to keep faith) by daily payments,
+for the interest of the first assignats. Have they ever given themselves
+the trouble to state fairly the expense of the management of the Church
+lands in the hands of the municipalities, to whose care, skill, and
+diligence, and that of their legion of unknown under-agents, they have
+chosen to commit the charge of the forfeited estates, and the
+consequence of which had been so ably pointed out by the Bishop of
+Nancy?
+
+But it is unnecessary to dwell on these obvious heads of incumbrance.
+Have they made out any clear state of the grand incumbrance of all, I
+mean the whole of the general and municipal establishments of all sorts,
+and compared it with the regular income by revenue? Every deficiency in
+these becomes a charge on the confiscated estate, before the creditor
+can plant his cabbages on an acre of Church property. There is no other
+prop than this confiscation to keep the whole state from tumbling to the
+ground. In this situation they have purposely covered all, that they
+ought industriously to have cleared, with a thick fog; and then,
+blindfold themselves, like bulls that shut their eyes when they push,
+they drive, by the point of the bayonets, their slaves, blindfolded
+indeed no worse than their lords, to take their fictions for currencies,
+and to swallow down paper pills by thirty-four millions sterling at a
+dose. Then they proudly lay in their claim to a future credit, on
+failure of all their past engagements, and at a time when (if in such a
+matter anything can be clear) it is clear that the surplus estates will
+never answer even the first of their mortgages,--I mean that of the four
+hundred millions (or sixteen millions sterling) of assignats. In all
+this procedure I can discern neither the solid sense of plain dealing
+nor the subtle dexterity of ingenious fraud. The objections within the
+Assembly to pulling up the flood-gates for this inundation of fraud are
+unanswered; but they are thoroughly refuted by an hundred thousand
+financiers in the street. These are the numbers by which the metaphysic
+arithmeticians compute. These are the grand calculations on which a
+philosophical public credit is founded in France. They cannot raise
+supplies; but they can raise mobs. Let them rejoice in the applauses of
+the club at Dundee for their wisdom and patriotism in having thus
+applied the plunder of the citizens to the service of the state. I hear
+of no address upon this subject from the directors of the Bank of
+England,--though their approbation would be of a _little_ more weight in
+the scale of credit than that of the club at Dundee. But to do justice
+to the club, I believe the gentlemen who compose it to be wiser than
+they appear,--that they will be less liberal of their money than of
+their addresses, and that they would not give a dog's ear of their most
+rumpled and ragged Scotch paper for twenty of your fairest assignats.
+
+Early in this year the Assembly issued paper to the amount of sixteen
+millions sterling. What must have been the state into which the Assembly
+has brought your affairs, that the relief afforded by so vast a supply
+has been hardly perceptible? This paper also felt an almost immediate
+depreciation of five per cent, which in a little time came to about
+seven. The effect of these assignats on the receipt of the revenue is
+remarkable. M. Necker found that the collectors of the revenue, who
+received in coin, paid the treasury in assignats. The collectors made
+seven per cent by thus receiving in money, and accounting in depreciated
+paper. It was not very difficult to foresee that this must be
+inevitable. It was, however, not the less embarrassing. M. Necker was
+obliged (I believe, for a considerable part, in the market of London) to
+buy gold and silver for the mint, which amounted to about twelve
+thousand pounds above the value of the commodity gained. That minister
+was of opinion, that, whatever their secret nutritive virtue might be,
+the state could not live upon assignats alone,--that some real silver
+was necessary, particularly for the satisfaction of those who, having
+iron in their hands, were not likely to distinguish themselves for
+patience, when they should perceive, that, whilst an increase of pay was
+held out to them in real money, it was again to be fraudulently drawn
+back by depreciated paper. The minister, in this very natural distress,
+applied to the Assembly, that they should order the collectors to pay in
+specie what in specie they had received. It could not escape him, that,
+if the Treasury paid three per cent for the use of a currency which
+should be returned seven per cent worse than the minister issued it,
+such a dealing could not very greatly tend to enrich the public. The
+Assembly took no notice of his recommendation. They were in this
+dilemma: If they continued to receive the assignats, cash must become an
+alien to their Treasury; if the Treasury should refuse those paper
+_amulets_, or should discountenance them in any degree, they must
+destroy the credit of their sole resource. They seem, then, to have made
+their option, and to have given some sort of credit to their paper by
+taking it themselves; at the same time, in their speeches, they made a
+sort of swaggering declaration, something, I rather think, above
+legislative competence,--that is, that there is no difference in value
+between metallic money and their assignats. This was a good, stout,
+proof article of faith, pronounced under an anathema by the venerable
+fathers of this philosophic synod. _Credat_ who will,--certainly not
+_Judæus Apella_.
+
+A noble indignation rises in the minds of your popular leaders, on
+hearing the magic-lantern in their show of finance compared to the
+fraudulent exhibitions of Mr. Law. They cannot bear to hear the sands
+of his Mississippi compared with the rock of the Church, on which they
+build their system. Pray let them suppress this glorious spirit, until
+they show to the world what piece of solid ground there is for their
+assignats, which they have not preoccupied by other charges. They do
+injustice to that great mother fraud, to compare it with their
+degenerate imitation. It is not true that Law built solely on a
+speculation concerning the Mississippi. He added the East India trade;
+he added the African trade; he added the farms of all the farmed revenue
+of France. All these together unquestionably could not support the
+structure which the public enthusiasm, not he, chose to build upon these
+bases. But these were, however, in comparison, generous delusions. They
+supposed, and they aimed at, an increase of the commerce of France. They
+opened to it the whole range of the two hemispheres. They did not think
+of feeding France from its own substance. A grand imagination found in
+this flight of commerce something to captivate. It was wherewithal to
+dazzle the eye of an eagle. It was not made to entice the smell of a
+mole, nuzzling and burying himself in his mother earth, as yours is. Men
+were not then quite shrunk from their natural dimensions by a degrading
+and sordid philosophy, and fitted for low and vulgar deceptions. Above
+all, remember, that, in imposing on the imagination, the then managers
+of the system made a compliment to the freedom of men. In their fraud
+there was no mixture of force. This was reserved to our time, to quench
+the little glimmerings of reason which might break in upon the solid
+darkness of this enlightened age.
+
+On recollection, I have said nothing of a scheme of finance which may be
+urged in favor of the abilities of these gentlemen, and which has been
+introduced with great pomp, though not yet finally adopted in the
+National Assembly. It comes with something solid in aid of the credit of
+the paper circulation; and much has been said of its utility and its
+elegance. I mean the project for coining into money the bells of the
+suppressed churches. This is their alchemy. There are some follies which
+baffle argument, which go beyond ridicule, and which excite no feeling
+in us but disgust; and therefore I say no more upon it.
+
+It is as little worth remarking any farther upon all their drawing and
+re-drawing, on their circulation for putting off the evil day, on the
+play between the Treasury and the _Caisse d'Escompte_, and on all these
+old, exploded contrivances of mercantile fraud, now exalted into policy
+of state. The revenue will not be trifled with. The prattling about the
+rights of men will not be accepted in payment of a biscuit or a pound of
+gunpowder. Here, then, the metaphysicians descend from their airy
+speculations, and faithfully follow examples. What examples? The
+examples of bankrupts. But defeated, baffled, disgraced, when their
+breath, their strength, their inventions, their fancies desert them,
+their confidence still maintains its ground. In the manifest failure of
+their abilities, they take credit for their benevolence. When the
+revenue disappears in their hands, they have the presumption, in some of
+their late proceedings, to value _themselves_ on the relief given to the
+people. They did not relieve the people. If they entertained such
+intentions, why did they order the obnoxious taxes to be paid? The
+people relieved themselves, in spite of the Assembly.
+
+But waiving all discussion on the parties who may claim the merit of
+this fallacious relief, has there been, in effect, any relief to the
+people in any form? M. Bailly, one of the grand agents of paper
+circulation, lets you into the nature of this relief. His speech to the
+National Assembly contained a high and labored panegyric on the
+inhabitants of Paris, for the constancy and unbroken resolution with
+which they have borne their distress and misery. A fine picture of
+public felicity! What! great courage and unconquerable firmness of mind
+to endure benefits and sustain redress? One would think, from the speech
+of this learned lord mayor, that the Parisians, for this twelvemonth
+past, had been suffering the straits of some dreadful blockade,--that
+Henry the Fourth had been stopping up the avenues to their supply, and
+Sully thundering with his ordnance at the gates of Paris,--when in
+reality they are besieged by no other enemies than their own madness and
+folly, their own credulity and perverseness. But M. Bailly will sooner
+thaw the eternal ice of his Atlantic regions than restore the central
+heat to Paris, whilst it remains "smitten with the cold, dry, petrific
+mace" of a false and unfeeling philosophy. Some time after this speech,
+that is, on the thirteenth of last August, the same magistrate, giving
+an account of his government at the bar of the same Assembly, expresses
+himself as follows:--"In the month of July, 1789," (the period of
+everlasting commemoration,) "the finances of the city of Paris were
+_yet_ in good order; the expenditure was counterbalanced by the receipt,
+and she had at that time a million [forty thousand pounds sterling] in
+bank. The expenses which she has been constrained to incur, _subsequent
+to the Revolution_, amount to 2,500,000 livres. From these expenses, and
+the great falling off in the product of the _free gifts_, not only a
+momentary, but a _total_, want of money has taken place." This is the
+Paris upon whose nourishment, in the course of the last year, such
+immense sums, drawn from the vitals of all France, have been expended.
+As long as Paris stands in the place of ancient Rome, so long she will
+be maintained by the subject provinces. It is an evil inevitably
+attendant on the dominion of sovereign democratic republics. As it
+happened in Rome, it may survive that republican domination which gave
+rise to it. In that case despotism itself must submit to the vices of
+popularity. Rome, under her emperors, united the evils of both systems;
+and this unnatural combination was one great cause of her ruin.
+
+To tell the people that they are relieved by the dilapidation of their
+public estate is a cruel and insolent imposition. Statesmen, before they
+valued themselves on the relief given to the people by the destruction
+of their revenue, ought first to have carefully attended to the solution
+of this problem:--Whether it be more advantageous to the people to pay
+considerably and to gain in proportion, or to gain little or nothing and
+to be disburdened of all contribution? My mind is made up to decide in
+favor of the first proposition. Experience is with me, and, I believe,
+the best opinions also. To keep a balance between the power of
+acquisition on the part of the subject and the demands he is to answer
+on the part of the state is the fundamental part of the skill of a true
+politician. The means of acquisition are prior in time and in
+arrangement. Good order is the foundation of all good things. To be
+enabled to acquire, the people, without being servile, must be tractable
+and obedient. The magistrate must have his reverence, the laws their
+authority. The body of the people must not find the principles of
+natural subordination by art rooted out of their minds. They must
+respect that property of which they cannot partake. They must labor to
+obtain what by labor can be obtained; and when they find, as they
+commonly do, the success disproportioned to the endeavor, they must be
+taught their consolation in the final proportions of eternal justice. Of
+this consolation whoever deprives them deadens their industry, and
+strikes at the root of all acquisition as of all conservation. He that
+does this is the cruel oppressor, the merciless enemy of the poor and
+wretched; at the same time that by his wicked speculations he exposes
+the fruits of successful industry and the accumulations of fortune to
+the plunder of the negligent, the disappointed, and the unprosperous.
+
+Too many of the financiers by profession are apt to see nothing in
+revenue but banks, and circulations, and annuities on lives, and
+tontines, and perpetual rents, and all the small wares of the shop. In a
+settled order of the state, these things are not to be slighted, nor is
+the skill in them to be held of trivial estimation. They are good, but
+then only good when they assume the effects of that settled order, and
+are built upon it. But when men think that these beggarly contrivances
+may supply a resource for the evils which result from breaking up the
+foundations of public order, and from causing or suffering the
+principles of property to be subverted, they will, in the ruin of their
+country, leave a melancholy and lasting monument of the effect of
+preposterous politics, and presumptuous, short-sighted, narrow-minded
+wisdom.
+
+The effects of the incapacity shown by the popular leaders in all the
+great members of the commonwealth are to be covered with the
+"all-atoning name" of Liberty. In some people I see great liberty,
+indeed; in many, if not in the most, an oppressive, degrading servitude.
+But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the
+greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness,
+without tuition or restraint. Those who know what virtuous liberty is
+cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their
+having high-sounding words in their mouths. Grand, swelling sentiments
+of liberty I am sure I do not despise. They warm the heart; they enlarge
+and liberalize our minds; they animate our courage in a time of
+conflict. Old as I am, I read the fine raptures of Lucan and Corneille
+with pleasure. Neither do I wholly condemn the little arts and devices
+of popularity. They facilitate the carrying of many points of moment;
+they keep the people together; they refresh the mind in its exertions;
+and they diffuse occasional gayety over the severe brow of moral
+freedom. Every politician ought to sacrifice to the Graces, and to join
+compliance with reason. But in such an undertaking as that in France all
+these subsidiary sentiments and artifices are of little avail. To make a
+government requires no great prudence. Settle the seat of power, teach
+obedience, and the work is done. To give freedom is still more easy. It
+is not necessary to guide; it only requires to let go the rein. But to
+form a _free government_, that is, to temper together these opposite
+elements of liberty and restraint in one consistent work, requires much
+thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful, and combining mind.
+This I do not find in those who take the lead in the National Assembly.
+Perhaps they are not so miserably deficient as they appear. I rather
+believe it. It would put them below the common level of human
+understanding. But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at
+an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the
+state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of
+legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people. If any of
+them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and
+defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his
+competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.
+Suspicions will be raised of his fidelity to his cause. Moderation will
+be stigmatized as the virtue of cowards, and compromise as the prudence
+of traitors,--until, in hopes of preserving the credit which may enable
+him to temper and moderate on some occasions, the popular leader is
+obliged to become active in propagating doctrines and establishing
+powers that will afterwards defeat any sober purpose at which he
+ultimately might have aimed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But am I so unreasonable as to see nothing at all that deserves
+commendation in the indefatigable labors of this Assembly? I do not
+deny, that, among an infinite number of acts of violence and folly, some
+good may have been done. They who destroy everything certainly will
+remove some grievance. They who make everything new have a chance that
+they may establish something beneficial. To give them credit for what
+they have done in virtue of the authority they have usurped, or to
+excuse them in the crimes by which that authority has been acquired, it
+must appear that the same things could not have been accomplished
+without producing such a revolution. Most assuredly they might; because
+almost every one of the regulations made by them, which is not very
+equivocal, was either in the cession of the king, voluntarily made at
+the meeting of the States, or in the concurrent instructions to the
+orders. Some usages have been abolished on just grounds; but they were
+such, that, if they had stood as they were to all eternity, they would
+little detract from the happiness and prosperity of any state. The
+improvements of the National Assembly are superficial, their errors
+fundamental.
+
+Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our
+neighbors the example of the British Constitution than to take models
+from them for the improvement of our own. In the former they have got an
+invaluable treasure. They are not, I think, without some causes of
+apprehension and complaint; but these they do not owe to their
+Constitution, but to their own conduct. I think our happy situation
+owing to our Constitution,--but owing to the whole of it, and not to any
+part singly,--owing in a great measure to what we have left standing in
+our several reviews and reformations, as well as to what we have altered
+or superadded. Our people will find employment enough for a truly
+patriotic, free, and independent spirit, in guarding what they possess
+from violation. I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I
+changed, it should be to preserve. I should be led to my remedy by a
+great grievance. In what I did, I should follow the example of our
+ancestors. I would make the reparation as nearly as possible in the
+style of the building. A politic caution, a guarded circumspection, a
+moral rather than a complexional timidity, were among the ruling
+principles of our forefathers in their most decided conduct. Not being
+illuminated with the light of which the gentlemen of France tell us they
+have got so abundant a share, they acted under a strong impression of
+the ignorance and fallibility of mankind. He that had made them thus
+fallible rewarded them for having in their conduct attended to their
+nature. Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their
+fortune or to retain their bequests. Let us add, if we please, but let
+us preserve what they have left; and standing on the firm ground of the
+British Constitution, let us be satisfied to admire, rather than attempt
+to follow in their desperate flights, the aëronauts of France.
+
+I have told you candidly my sentiments. I think they are not likely to
+alter yours. I do not know that they ought. You are young; you cannot
+guide, but must follow, the fortune of your country. But hereafter they
+may be of some use to you, in some future form which your commonwealth
+may take. In the present it can hardly remain; but before its final
+settlement, it may be obliged to pass, as one of our poets says,
+"through great varieties of untried being," and in all its
+transmigrations to be purified by fire and blood.
+
+I have little to recommend my opinions but long observation and much
+impartiality. They come from one who has been no tool of power, no
+flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie
+the tenor of his life. They come from one almost the whole of whose
+public exertion has been a struggle for the liberty of others,--from one
+in whose breast no anger durable or vehement has ever been kindled but
+by what he considered as tyranny, and who snatches from his share in the
+endeavors which are used by good men to discredit opulent oppression the
+hours he has employed on your affairs, and who in so doing persuades
+himself he has not departed from his usual office. They come from one
+who desires honors, distinctions, and emoluments but little, and who
+expects them not at all,--who has no contempt for fame, and no fear of
+obloquy,--who shuns contention, though he will hazard an opinion; from
+one who wishes to preserve consistency, but who would preserve
+consistency by varying his means to secure the unity of his end,--and,
+when the equipoise of the vessel in which he sails may be endangered by
+overloading it upon one side, is desirous of carrying the small weight
+of his reasons to that which may preserve its equipoise.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[77] Ps. cxlix.
+
+[78] Discourse on the Love of our Country, Nov. 4, 1789, by Dr. Richard
+Price, 3d edition, p. 17 and 18.
+
+[79] "Those who dislike that mode of worship which is prescribed by
+public authority ought, if they can find _no_ worship _out_ of the
+Church which they approve, _to set up a separate worship for
+themselves_; and by doing this, and giving an example of a rational and
+manly worship, men of _weight_ from their _rank_ and literature may do
+the greatest service to society and the world."--P. 18, Dr. Price's
+Sermon.
+
+[80] P. 34, Discourse on the Love of our Country, by Dr. Price.
+
+[81] 1st Mary, sess. 3, ch. 1.
+
+[82] "That King James the Second, having endeavored _to subvert the
+Constitution_ of the kingdom, by breaking the _original contract_
+between king and people, and, by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked
+persons, having violated the _fundamental_ laws, and _having withdrawn
+himself out of the kingdom_, hath _abdicated_ the government, and the
+throne is thereby _vacant_."
+
+[83] P. 23, 23, 24.
+
+[84] See Blackstone's Magna Charta, printed at Oxford, 1759.
+
+[85] 1 W. and M.
+
+[86] Ecclesiasticus, chap, xxxviii. ver. 24, 25. "The wisdom of a
+learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure: and he that hath little
+business shall become wise. How can he get wisdom that holdeth the
+plough, and that glorieth in the goad; that driveth oxen, and is
+occupied in their labors, and whose talk is of bullocks?"
+
+Ver. 27. "So every carpenter and workmaster, that laboreth night and
+day," &c.
+
+Ver. 33. "They shall not be sought for in public counsel, nor sit high
+in the congregation: they shall not sit on the judge's seat, nor
+understand the sentence of judgment: they cannot declare justice and
+judgment, and they shall not be found where parables are spoken."
+
+Ver. 34. "But they will maintain the state of the world."
+
+I do not determine whether this book be canonical, as the Gallican
+Church (till lately) has considered it, or apocryphal, as here it is
+taken. I am sure it contains a great deal of sense and truth.
+
+[87] Discourse on the Love of our Country, 3rd edit p. 39.
+
+[88] Another of these reverend gentlemen, who was witness to some of the
+spectacles which Paris has lately exhibited, expresses himself
+thus:--"_A king dragged in submissive triumph by his conquering
+subjects_ is one of those appearances of grandeur which seldom rise in
+the prospect of human affairs, and which, during the remainder of my
+life, I shall think of with wonder and gratification." These gentlemen
+agree marvellously in their feelings.
+
+[89] State Trials, Vol. II. p. 360, 363.
+
+[90] 6th of October, 1789.
+
+[91] "Tous les Évêques à la lanterne!"
+
+[92] It is proper here to refer to a letter written upon this subject by
+an eyewitness. That eyewitness was one of the most honest, intelligent,
+and eloquent members of the National Assembly, one of the most active
+and zealous reformers of the state. He was obliged to secede from the
+Assembly; and he afterwards became a voluntary exile, on account of the
+horrors of this pious triumph, and the dispositions of men, who,
+profiting of crimes, if not causing them, have taken the lead in public
+affairs.
+
+_Extract of M. de Lally Tollendal's Second Letter to a Friend_.
+
+"Parlons du parti que j'ai pris; il est bien justifé dans ma
+conscience.--Ni cette ville coupable, ni cette assemblée plus coupable
+encore, ne méritoient que je me justifie; mais j'ai à cœur que vous, et
+les personnes qui pensent comme vous, ne me condamnent pas.--Ma santé,
+je vous jure, me rendoit mes fonctions impossibles; mais même en les
+mettant de côté il a été au-dessus de mes forces de supporter plus
+longtems l'horreur que me causoit ce sang,--ces têtes,--cette reine
+_presque egorgée_,--ce roi, amené _esclave_, entrant à Paris au milieu
+de ses assassins, et précédé des têtes de ses malheureux gardes,--ces
+perfides janissaires, ces assassins, ces femmes cannibales,--ce cri de
+TOUS LES ÉVÊQUES À LA LANTERNE, dans le moment où le roi entre sa
+capitale avec deux évêques de son conseil dans sa voiture,--un _coup de
+fusil_, que j'ai vu tirer dans un _des carrosses de la reine_,--M.
+Bailly appellant cela _un beau jour_,--l'assemblée ayant déclaré
+froidement le matin, qu'il n'étoit pas de sa dignité d'aller toute
+entière environner le roi,--M. Mirabeau disant impunément dans cette
+assemblée, que le vaisseau de l'état, loin d'être arrêté dans sa course,
+s'élanceroit avec plus de rapidité que jamais vers sa régénération,--M.
+Barnave, riant avec lui, quand des flots de sang couloient autour de
+nous,--le vertueux Mounier[A] échappant par miracle à vingt assassins,
+qui avoient voulu faire de sa tête un trophée de plus: Voilà ce qui me
+fit jurer de ne plus mettre le pied _dans cette caverne d'Antropophages_
+[The National Assembly], où je n'avois plus de force d'élever la voix,
+où depuis six semaines je l'avois élevée en vain.
+
+"Moi, Mounier, et tous les honnêtes gens, ont pensé que le dernier
+effort à faire pour le bien étoit d'en sortir. Aucune idée de crainte ne
+s'est approchée de moi. Je rougirois de m'en défendre. J'avois encore
+reçû sur la route de la part de ce peuple, moins coupable que ceux qui
+l'ont enivré de fureur, des acclamations, et des applaudissements, dont
+d'autres auroient été flattés, et qui m'ont fait frémir. C'est à
+l'indignation, c'est à l'horreur, c'est aux convulsions physiques, que
+le seul aspect du sang me fait éprouver que j'ai cédé. On brave une
+seule mort; on la brave plusieurs fois, quand elle peut être utile. Mais
+aucune puissance sous le ciel, mais aucune opinion publique ou privée
+n'ont le droit de me condamner à souffrir inutilement mille supplices
+par minute, et à périr de désespoir, de rage, au milieu des _triomphes_,
+du crime que je n'ai pu arrêter. Ils me proscriront, ils confisqueront
+mes biens. Je labourerai la terre, et je ne les verrai plus. Voilà ma
+justification. Vous pourrez la lire, la montrer, la laisser copier; tant
+pis pour ceux qui ne la comprendront pas; ce ne sera alors moi qui
+auroit eu tort de la leur donner."
+
+This military man had not so good nerves as the peaceable gentlemen of
+the Old Jewry.--See Mons. Mounier's narrative of these transactions: a
+man also of honor and virtue and talents, and therefore a fugitive.
+
+[A] N.B.M. Mounier was then speaker of the National Assembly. He has
+since been obliged to live in exile, though one of the firmest assertors
+of liberty.
+
+[93] See the fate of Bailly and Condorcet, supposed to be here
+particularly alluded to. Compare the circumstances of the trial and
+execution of the former with this prediction.
+
+[94] The English are, I conceive, misrepresented in a letter published
+in one of the papers, by a gentleman thought to be a Dissenting
+minister. When writing to Dr. Price of the spirit which prevails at
+Paris, he says,--"The spirit of the people in this place has abolished
+all the proud _distinctions_ which the _king_ and _nobles_ had usurped
+in their minds: whether they talk of _the king, the noble, or the
+priest_, their whole language is that of the most _enlightened and
+liberal amongst the English_." If this gentleman means to confine the
+terms _enlightened and liberal_ to one set of men in England, it may be
+true. It is not generally so.
+
+[95] Sit igitur hoc ab initio persuasum civibus, dominos esse omnium
+rerum ac moderatores deos; eaque, quæ gerantur, eorum geri vi, ditione,
+ac numine; eosdemque optime de genere hominum mereri; et qualis quisque
+sit, quid agat, quid in se admittat, qua mente, qua pietate colat
+religiones intueri: piorum et impiorum habere rationem. His enim rebus
+imbutæ mentes haud sane abhorrebunt ab utili et a vera sententia.--Cic.
+de Legibus, l. 2.
+
+[96] Quicquid multis peccatur inultum.
+
+[97] This (down to the end of the first sentence in the next paragraph)
+and some other parts, here and there, were inserted, on his reading the
+manuscript, by my lost son.
+
+[98] I do not choose to shock the feeling of the moral reader with any
+quotation of their vulgar, base, and profane language.
+
+[99] Their connection with Turgot and almost all the people of the
+finance.
+
+[100] All have been confiscated in their turn.
+
+[101] Not his brother, nor any near relation; but this mistake does not
+affect the argument.
+
+[102] The rest of the passage is this:--
+
+    "Who, having spent the treasures of his crown,
+    Condemns their luxury to feed his own.
+    And yet this act, to varnish o'er the shame
+    Of sacrilege, must bear Devotion's name.
+    No crime so bold, but would be understood
+    A Real, or at least a seeming good.
+    Who fears not to do ill, yet fears the name,
+    And free from conscience, is a slave to fame.
+    Thus he the Church at once protects and spoils:
+    But princes' swords are sharper than their styles.
+    And thus to th' ages past he makes amends,
+    Their charity destroys, their faith defends.
+    Then did Religion in a lazy cell,
+    In empty, airy contemplations, dwell;
+    And like the block, unmovèd lay: but ours,
+    As much too active, like the stork devours.
+    Is there no temperate region can be known
+    Betwixt their frigid and our torrid zone?
+    Could we not wake from that lethargic dream,
+    But to be restless in a worse extreme?
+    And for that lethargy was there no care,
+    But to be cast into a calenture?
+    Can knowledge have no bound, but must advance
+    So far, to make us wish for ignorance,
+    And rather in the dark to grope our way,
+    Than, led by a false guide, to err by day?
+    Who sees these dismal heaps, but would demand
+    What barbarous invader sack'd the land?
+    But when he hears no Goth, no Turk did bring
+    This desolation, but a Christian king,
+    When nothing but the name of zeal appears
+    'Twixt our best actions and the worst of theirs,
+    What does he think our sacrilege would spare,
+    When such th' effects of our devotions are?"
+
+                          _Cooper's Hill_, by Sir JOHN DENHAM.
+
+
+
+[103] Rapport de Mons. le Directeur-Général des Finances, fait par Ordre
+du Roi à Versailles. Mai 5, 1789.
+
+[104] In the Constitution of Scotland, during the Stuart reigns, a
+committee sat for preparing bills; and none could pass, but those
+previously approved by them. This committee was called Lords of
+Articles.
+
+[105] When I wrote this I quoted from memory, after many years had
+elapsed from my reading the passage. A learned friend has found it and
+it is as follows:--
+
+τὸ ἠ̂θος τὸ αὐτό, καὶ ἄμφω δεσποτικὰ τω̂ν βελτιόνων, καὶ τὰ
+ψηφίσματα ὥσπερ ἐκει̂ τὰ ἐπιτάγματα, καὶ ὁ δημαγωγὸς καὶ ὁ
+κόλαξ οἱ αὐτοὶ καὶ ἀνάλογον. καὶ μάλιστα δ' ἑκάτεροι παρ'
+ἑκατέροις ἰσχύουσιν, οἱ μὲν κόλακες παρὰ τοι̂ς τυράννοις, οἱ
+δὲ δημαγωγοὶ παρὰ τοι̂ς δήμοις τοι̂ς τοιούτοις.
+
+"The ethical character is the same: both exercise despotism over the
+better class of citizens; and decrees are in the one what ordinances and
+arrêts are in the other: the demagogue, too, and the court favorite, are
+not unfrequently the same identical men, and always bear a close
+analogy; and these have the principal power, each in their respective
+forms of government, favorites with the absolute monarch, and demagogues
+with a people such as I have described."--Arist. Politic. lib. iv. cap.
+4.
+
+[106] De l'Administration des Finances de la France, par Mons. Necker,
+Vol. I. p. 288.
+
+[107] De l'Administration des Finances de la France, par M. Necker.
+
+[108] Vol. III. chap. 8 and chap. 9.
+
+[109] The world is obliged to M. de Calonne for the pains he has taken
+to refute the scandalous exaggerations relative to some of the royal
+expenses, and to detect the fallacious account given of pensions, for
+the wicked purpose of provoking the populace to all sorts of crimes.
+
+[110] See Gulliver's Travels for the idea of countries governed by
+philosophers.
+
+[111] M. de Calonne states the falling off of the population of Paris as
+far more considerable; and it may be so, since the period of M. Necker's
+calculation.
+
+[112]
+
+Travaux de charité pour subvenir
+  au manque de travail à              Livres.         £    s. d.
+  Paris et dans les provinces        3,866,920     161,121 13 4
+Destruction de vagabondage et de la
+  mendicité                          1,671,417      69,642  7 6
+Primes pour l'importation de grains  5,671,907     235,329  9 2
+Dépenses relatives aux subsistances,
+  déduction fait des reconvrements
+  qui out en lieu                   39,871,790   1,661,324 11 8
+                                    -----------------------------
+          Total                     51,082,034   2,128,418  1 8
+
+When I sent this book to the press, I entertained some doubt concerning
+the nature and extent of the last article in the above accounts, which
+is only under a general head, without any detail. Since then I have seen
+M. de Calonne's work. I must think it a great loss to me that I had not
+that advantage earlier. M. de Calonne thinks this article to be on
+account of general subsistence; but as he is not able to comprehend how
+so great a loss as upwards of 1,661,000_l._ sterling could be sustained
+on the difference between the price and the sale of grain, he seems to
+attribute this enormous head of charge to secret expenses of the
+Revolution. I cannot say anything positively on that subject. The reader
+is capable of judging, by the aggregate of these immense charges, on the
+state and condition of France, and the system of public economy adopted
+in that nation. These articles of account produced no inquiry or
+discussion in the National Assembly.
+
+[113] This is on a supposition of the truth of this story; but he was
+not in France at the time. One name serves as well as another.
+
+[114] Domat.
+
+[115] Speech of M. Camus, published by order of the National Assembly.
+
+[116] Whether the following description is strictly true I know not; but
+it is what the publishers would have pass for true, in order to animate
+others. In a letter from Toul, given in one of their papers, is the
+following passage concerning the people of that district:--"Dans la
+Révolution actuelle, ils ont résisté à toutes les _séductions du
+bigotisme, aux persécutions et aux tracasseries_ des ennemis de la
+Révolution. _Oubliant leurs plus grands intérêts_ pour rendre hommage
+aux vues d'ordre général qui out déterminé l'Assemblée Nationale, ils
+voient, _sans se plaindre_, supprimer cette foule d'établissemens
+ecclésiastiques par lesquels _ils subsistoient_; et même, en perdant
+leur siège épiscopal, la seule de toutes ces ressources qui pouvoit, on
+plutôt _qui devoit, en toute équité_, leur être conservée, condamnés _à
+la plus effrayante misère_ sans avoir _été ni pu être entendus, ils ne
+murmurent point_, ils restent fidèles aux principes du plus pur
+patriotisme; ils sont encore prêts à _verser leur sang_ pour le maintien
+de la constitution, qui va réduire leur ville _à la plus déplorable
+nullité_."--These people are not supposed to have endured those
+sufferings and injustices in a struggle for liberty, for the same
+account states truly that they have been always free; their patience in
+beggary and ruin, and their suffering, without remonstrance, the most
+flagrant and confessed injustice, if strictly true, can be nothing but
+the effect of this dire fanaticism. A great multitude all over France is
+in the same condition and the same temper.
+
+[117] See the proceedings of the confederation at Nantes.
+
+[118] "Si plures sunt ii quibus improbe datum est, quam illi quibus
+injuste ademptum est, idcirco plus etiam valent? Non enim numero hæc
+judicantur, sed pondere. Quam autem habet æquitatem, ut agrum multis
+annis, aut etiam sæculis ante possessum, qui nullum habuit habeat, qui
+autem habuit amittat? Ac, propter hoc injuriæ genus, Lacedæmonii
+Lysandrum Ephorum expulerunt; Agin regem (quod nunquam antea apud eos
+acciderat) necaverunt; exque eo tempore tantæ discordiæ secutæ sunt, ut
+et tyranni exsisterent, et optimates exterminarentur, et preclarissime
+constituta respublica dilaberetur. Nec vero solum ipsa cecidit, sed
+etiam reliquam Græciam evertit contagionibus malorum, quæ a Lacedæmoniis
+profectæ manarunt latius."--After speaking of the conduct of the model
+of true patriots, Aratus of Sicyon, which was in a very different
+spirit, he says,--"Sic par est agere cum civibus; non (ut bis jam
+vidimus) hastam in foro ponere et bona civium voci subjicere præconis.
+At ille Græcus (id quod fuit sapientis et præstantis viri) omnibus
+consulendum esse putavit: eaque est summa ratio et sapientia boni civis,
+commoda civium non divellere, sed omnes eadem æquitate continere."--Cic.
+Off. 1. 2.
+
+[119] See two books entitled, "Einige Originalschriften des
+Illuminatenordens,"--"System und Folgen des Illuminatenordens." München,
+1787.
+
+[120] A leading member of the Assembly, M. Rabaut de St. Étienne, has
+expressed the principle of all their proceedings as clearly as possible;
+nothing can be more simple:--"_Tous les établissemens en France
+couronnent le malheur du peuple: pour le rendre heureux, il faut le
+renouveler, changer ses idées, changer ses loix, changer ses mœurs, ...
+changer les hommes, changer les choses, changer ses mots, ... tout
+détruire; oui, tout détruire; puisque tout est à récréer_."--This
+gentleman was chosen president in an assembly not sitting at
+_Quinze-Vingt_ or the _Petites Maisons_, and composed of persons giving
+themselves out to be rational beings; but neither his ideas, language,
+or conduct differ in the smallest degree from the discourses, opinions,
+and actions of those, within and without the Assembly, who direct the
+operations of the machine now at work in France.
+
+[121] The Assembly, in executing the plan of their committee, made some
+alterations. They have struck out one stage in these gradations; this
+removes a part of the objection; but the main objection, namely, that in
+their scheme the first constituent voter has no connection with the
+representative legislator, remains in all its force. There are other
+alterations, some possibly for the better, some certainly for the worse:
+but to the author the merit or demerit of these smaller alterations
+appears to be of no moment, where the scheme itself is fundamentally
+vicious and absurd.
+
+[122] "Non, ut olim, universæ legiones deducebantur, cum tribunis, et
+centurionibus, et sui cujusque ordinis militibus, ut consensu et
+caritate rempublicam efficerent; sed ignoti inter se, diversis
+manipulis, sine rectore, sine affectibus mutuis, quasi ex alio genere
+mortalium repente in unum collecti, numerus magis quam colonia."--Tac.
+Annal. lib. 14, sect. 27.--All this will be still more applicable to the
+unconnected, rotatory, biennial national assemblies, in this absurd and
+senseless constitution.
+
+[123] Qualitas, Relatio, Actio, Passio, Ubi, Quando, Situs, Habitus.
+
+[124] See l'État de la France, p. 363.
+
+[125] In reality three, to reckon the provincial republican
+establishments.
+
+[126] For further elucidations upon the subject of all these judicatures
+and of the Committee of Research, see M. de Calonne's work.
+
+[127] "Comme sa Majesté a reconnu, non un système d'associations
+particulières, mais une réunion de volontés de tous les François pour la
+liberté et la prospérité communes, ainsi pour le maintien de l'ordre
+publique, il a pensé qu'il convenoit que chaque régiment prît part à ces
+fêtes civiques pour multiplier les rapports, et resserrer les liens
+d'union entre les citoyens et les troupes."--Lest I should not be
+credited, I insert the words authorizing the troops to feast with the
+popular confederacies.
+
+[128] This war minister has since quitted the school and resigned his
+office.
+
+[129] Courrier François, 30 July, 1790. Assemblée Nationale, Numero 210.
+
+[130] I see by M. Necker's account, that the national guards of Paris
+have received, over and above the money levied within their own city,
+about 145,000_l._ sterling out of the public treasure. Whether this be
+an actual payment for the nine months of their existence, or an estimate
+of their yearly charge, I do not clearly perceive. It is of no great
+importance, as certainly they may take whatever they please.
+
+[131] The reader will observe that I have but lightly touched (my plan
+demanded nothing more) on the condition of the French finances as
+connected with the demands upon them. If I had intended to do otherwise,
+the materials in my hands for such a task are not altogether perfect. On
+this subject I refer the reader to M. de Calonne's work, and the
+tremendous display that he has made of the havoc and devastation in the
+public estate, and in all the affairs of France, caused by the
+presumptuous good intentions of ignorance and incapacity. Such effects
+those causes will always produce. Looking over that account with a
+pretty strict eye, and, with perhaps too much rigor, deducting
+everything which may be placed to the account of a financier out of
+place, who might be supposed by his enemies desirous of making the most
+of his cause, I believe it will be found that a more salutary lesson of
+caution against the daring spirit of innovators than what has been
+supplied at the expense of France never was at any time furnished to
+mankind.
+
+[132] La Bruyère of Bossuet.
+
+[133] "Ce n'est point à l'assemblée entière que je m'adresse ici; je ne
+parle qu'à ceux qui l'égarent, en lui cachant sous des gazes séduisantes
+le but où ils l'entraînent. C'est à eux que je dis: Votre objet, vous
+n'en disconviendrez pas, c'est d'ôter tout espoir au clergé, et de
+consommer sa ruine; c'est-là, en ne vous soupçonnant d'aucune
+combinaison de cupidité, d'aucun regard sur le jeu des effets publics,
+c'est-là ce qu'on doit croire que vous avez en vue dans la terrible
+opération que vous proposez; c'est ce qui doit en être le fruit. Mais le
+peuple qui vous y intéressez, quel avantage peut-il y trouver? En vous
+servant sans cesse de lui, que faites-vous pour lui? Rien, absolument
+rien; et, au contraire, vous faites ce qui ne conduit qu'à l'accabler de
+nouvelles charges. Vous avez rejeté, à son préjudice, une offre de 400
+millions, dont l'acceptation pouvoit devenir un moyen de soulagement en
+sa faveur; et à cette ressource, aussi profitable que légitime, vous
+avez substitué une injustice ruineuse, qui, de votre propre aveu, charge
+le trésor public, et par consequent le peuple, d'un surcroît de dépense
+annuelle de 50 millions an moins, et d'un remboursement de 150 millions.
+
+"Malheureux peuple! voilà ce que vous vaut en dernier résultat
+l'expropriation de l'Église, et la dureté des décrets taxateurs du
+traitement des ministres d'une religion bienfaisante; et désormais ils
+scront à votre charge: leurs charités soulageoient les pauvres; et vous
+allez être imposés pour subvenir à leur entretien!"--_De l'État de la
+France,_ p. 81. See also p. 92, and the following pages.
+
+
+
+END OF VOL. III.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of the Right Honourable
+Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12), by Edmund Burke
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