Volume IV Part 2 (1/2)

Opposed to these, in appearance, but in appearance only, is another band, who call themselves _the Moderate_. These, if I conceive rightly of their conduct, are a set of men who approve heartily of the whole new Const.i.tution, but wish to lay heavy on the most atrocious of those crimes by which this fine Const.i.tution of theirs has been obtained. They are a sort of people who affect to proceed as if they thought that men may deceive without fraud, rob without injustice, and overturn everything without violence. They are men who would usurp the government of their country with decency and moderation. In fact, they are nothing more or better than men engaged in desperate designs with feeble minds.

They are not honest; they are only ineffectual and unsystematic in their iniquity. They are persons who want not the dispositions, but the energy and vigor, that is necessary for great evil machinations. They find that in such designs they fall at best into a secondary rank, and others take the place and lead in usurpation which they are not qualified to obtain or to hold. They envy to their companions the natural fruit of their crimes; they join to run them down with the hue and cry of mankind, which pursues their common offences; and then hope to mount into their places on the credit of the sobriety with which they show themselves disposed to carry on what may seem most plausible in the mischievous projects they pursue in common. But these men are naturally despised by those who have heads to know, and hearts that are able to go through the necessary demands of bold, wicked enterprises. They are naturally cla.s.sed below the latter description, and will only be used by them as inferior instruments. They will be only the Fairfaxes of your Cromwells.

If they mean honestly, why do they not strengthen the arms of honest men to support their ancient, legal, wise, and free government, given to them in the spring of 1788, against the inventions of craft and the theories of ignorance and folly? If they do not, they must continue the scorn of both parties,--sometimes the tool, sometimes the inc.u.mbrance of that whose views they approve, whose conduct they decry. These people are only made to be the sport of tyrants. They never can obtain or communicate freedom.

You ask me, too, whether we have a Committee of Research. No, Sir,--G.o.d forbid! It is the necessary instrument of tyranny and usurpation; and therefore I do not wonder that it has had an early establishment under your present lords. We do not want it.

Excuse my length. I have been somewhat occupied since I was honored with your letter; and I should not have been able to answer it at all, but for the holidays, which have given me means of enjoying the leisure of the country. I am called to duties which I am neither able nor willing to evade. I must soon return to my old conflict with the corruptions and oppressions which have prevailed in our Eastern dominions. I must turn myself wholly from those of France.

In England we _cannot_ work so hard as Frenchmen. Frequent relaxation is necessary to us. You are naturally more intense in your application. I did not know this part of your national character, until I went into France in 1773. At present, this your disposition to labor is rather increased than lessened. In your a.s.sembly you do not allow yourselves a recess even on Sundays. We have two days in the week, besides the festivals, and besides five or six months of the summer and autumn. This continued, unremitted effort of the members of your a.s.sembly I take to be one among the causes of the mischief they have done. They who always labor can have no true judgment. You never give yourselves time to cool.

You can never survey, from its proper point of sight, the work you have finished, before you decree its final execution. You can never plan the future by the past. You never go into the country, soberly and dispa.s.sionately to observe the effect of your measures on their objects.

You cannot feel distinctly how far the people are rendered better and improved, or more miserable and depraved, by what you have done. You cannot see with your own eyes the sufferings and afflictions you cause.

You know them but at a distance, on the statements of those who always flatter the reigning power, and who, amidst their representations of the grievances, inflame your minds against those who are oppressed. These are amongst the effects of unremitted labor, when men exhaust their attention, burn out their candles, and are left in the dark.--_Malo meorum negligentiam, quam istorum obscuram diligentiam_.

I have the honor, &c.,

EDMUND BURKE.

BEACONSFIELD, January 19th, 1791.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] It is said in the last quackish address of the National a.s.sembly to the people of France, that they have not formed their arrangements upon vulgar practice, but on a theory which cannot fail,--or something to that effect.

[2] See Burnet's Life of Hale.

[3] The pillory (_carcan_) in England is generally made very high like that raised to exposing the king of France.

[4] ”Filiola tua te delectari laetor, et prohari tibi F?s????

esse t?? p??? t? te??a: etenim, si haec non est, nulla potest homini esse ad hominem naturae adjunctio: qua sublata, vitae societas tollitur. Valete Patron [Rousseau] et tui condiscipuli [L'a.s.semblee Nationale]”--Cic. Ep. ad Attic.u.m.

[5] Mirabeau's speech concerning universal peace.

AN

APPEAL

FROM

THE NEW TO THE OLD WHIGS,

IN CONSEQUENCE OF SOME LATE

DISCUSSIONS IN PARLIAMENT