Volume V Part 11 (2/2)

In one point we are lucky. The Regicide has received our advances with scorn. We have an enemy to whose virtues we can owe nothing, but on this occasion we are infinitely obliged to one of his vices. We owe more to his insolence than to our own precaution. The haughtiness by which the proud repel us has this of good in it,--that, in making us keep our distance, they must keep their distance too. In the present case, the pride of the Regicide may be our safety. He has given time for our reason to operate, and for British dignity to recover from its surprise.

From first to last he has rejected all our advances. Far as we have gone, he has still left a way open to our retreat.

There is always an augury to be taken of what a peace is likely to be from the preliminary steps that are made to bring it about. We may gather something from the time in which the first overtures are made, from the quarter whence they come, from the manner in which they are received. These discover the temper of the parties. If your enemy offers peace in the moment of success, it indicates that he is satisfied with something. It shows that there are limits to his ambition or his resentment. If he offers nothing under misfortune, it is probable that it is more painful to him to abandon the prospect of advantage than to endure calamity. If he rejects solicitation, and will not give even a nod to the suppliants for peace, until a change in the fortune of the war threatens him with ruin, then I think it evident that he wishes nothing more than to disarm his adversary to gain time. Afterwards a question arises, Which of the parties is likely to obtain the greater advantages by continuing disarmed and by the use of time?

With these few plain indications in our minds, it will not be improper to reconsider the conduct of the enemy together with our own, from the day that a question of peace has been in agitation. In considering this part of the question, I do not proceed on my own hypothesis. I suppose, for a moment, that this body of Regicide, calling itself a Republic, is a politic person, with whom something deserving the name of peace may be made. On that supposition, let us examine our own proceeding. Let us compute the profit it has brought, and the advantage that it is likely to bring hereafter. A peace too eagerly sought is not always the sooner obtained. The discovery of vehement wishes generally frustrates their attainment, and your adversary has gained a great advantage over you when he finds you impatient to conclude a treaty. There is in reserve not only something of dignity, but a great deal of prudence too. A sort of courage belongs to negotiation, as well as to operations of the field. A negotiator must often seem willing to hazard the whole issue of his treaty, if he wishes to secure any one material point.

The Regicides were the first to declare war. We are the first to sue for peace. In proportion to the humility and perseverance we have shown in our addresses has been the obstinacy of their arrogance in rejecting our suit. The patience of their pride seems to have been worn out with the importunity of our courts.h.i.+p. Disgusted as they are with a conduct so different from all the sentiments by which they are themselves filled, they think to put an end to our vexatious solicitation by redoubling their insults.

It happens frequently that pride may reject a public advance, while interest listens to a secret suggestion of advantage. The opportunity has been afforded. At a very early period in the diplomacy of humiliation, a gentleman was sent on an errand,[23] of which, from the motive of it, whatever the event might be, we can never be ashamed.

Humanity cannot be degraded by humiliation. It is its very character to submit to such things. There is a consanguinity between benevolence and humility. They are virtues of the same stock. Dignity is of as good a race; but it belongs to the family of fort.i.tude. In the spirit of that benevolence, we sent a gentleman to beseech the Directory of Regicide not to be quite so prodigal as their republic had been of judicial murder. We solicited them to spare the lives of some unhappy persons of the first distinction, whose safety at other times could not have been an object of solicitation. They had quitted France on the faith of the declaration of the rights of citizens. They never had been in the service of the Regicides, nor at their hands had received any stipend.

The very system and const.i.tution of government that now prevails was settled subsequent to their emigration. They were under the protection of Great Britain, and in his Majesty's pay and service. Not an hostile invasion, but the disasters of the sea, had thrown them upon a sh.o.r.e more barbarous and inhospitable than the inclement ocean under the most pitiless of its storms. Here was an opportunity to express a feeling for the miseries of war, and to open some sort of conversation, which, (after our public overtures had glutted their pride,) at a cautious and jealous distance, might lead to something like an accommodation.--What was the event? A strange, uncouth thing, a theatrical figure of the opera, his head shaded with three-colored plumes, his body fantastically habited, strutted from the back scenes, and, after a short speech, in the mock-heroic falsetto of stupid tragedy, delivered the gentleman who came to make the representation into the custody of a guard, with directions not to lose sight of him for a moment, and then ordered him to be sent from Paris in two hours.

Here it is impossible that a sentiment of tenderness should not strike athwart the sternness of politics, and make us recall to painful memory the difference between this insolent and b.l.o.o.d.y theatre and the temperate, natural majesty of a civilized court, where the afflicted family of Asgill did not in vain solicit the mercy of the highest in rank and the most compa.s.sionate of the compa.s.sionate s.e.x.

In this intercourse, at least, there was nothing to promise a great deal of success in our future advances. Whilst the fortune of the field was wholly with the Regicides, nothing was thought of but to follow where it led: and it led to everything. Not so much as a talk of treaty. Laws were laid down with arrogance. The most moderate politician in their clan[24] was chosen as the organ, not so much for prescribing limits to their claims as to mark what for the present they are content to leave to others. They made, not laws, not conventions, not late possession, but physical Nature and political convenience the sole foundation of their claims. The Rhine, the Mediterranean, and the ocean were the bounds which, for the time, they a.s.signed to the Empire of Regicide.

What was the Chamber of Union of Louis the Fourteenth, which astonished and provoked all Europe, compared to this declaration? In truth, with these limits, and their principle, they would not have left even the shadow of liberty or safety to any nation. This plan of empire was not taken up in the first intoxication of unexpected success. You must recollect that it was projected, just as the report has stated it, from the very first revolt of the faction against their monarchy; and it has been uniformly pursued, as a standing maxim of national policy, from that time to this. It is generally in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles, and designs. But this principle, suggested in their first struggles, fully avowed in their prosperity, has, in the most adverse state of their affairs, been tenaciously adhered to. The report, combined with their conduct, forms an infallible criterion of the views of this republic.

In their fortune there has been some fluctuation. We are to see how their minds have been affected with a change. Some impression it made on them, undoubtedly. It produced some oblique notice of the submissions that were made by suppliant nations. The utmost they did was to make some of those cold, formal, general professions of a love of peace which no power has ever refused to make, because they mean little and cost nothing. The first paper I have seen (the publication at Hamburg) making a show of that pacific disposition discovered a rooted animosity against this nation, and an incurable rancor, even more than any one of their hostile acts. In this Hamburg declaration they choose to suppose that the war, on the part of England, _is a war of government, begun and carried on against the sense and interests of the people_,--thus sowing in their very overtures towards peace the seeds of tumult and sedition: for they never have abandoned, and never will they abandon, in peace, in war, in treaty, in any situation, or for one instant, their old, steady maxim of separating the people from their government. Let me add, (and it is with unfeigned anxiety for the character and credit of ministers that I do add,) if our government perseveres in its as uniform course of acting under instruments with such preambles, it pleads guilty to the charges made by our enemies against it, both on its own part and on the part of Parliament itself. The enemy must succeed in his plan for loosening and disconnecting all the internal holdings of the kingdom.

It was not enough that the speech from the throne, in the opening of the session in 1795, threw out oglings and glances of tenderness. Lest this coquetting should seem too cold and ambiguous, without waiting for its effect, the violent pa.s.sion for a relation to the Regicides produced a direct message from the crown, and its consequences from the two Houses of Parliament. On the part of the Regicides these declarations could not be entirely pa.s.sed by without notice; but in that notice they discovered still more clearly the bottom of their character. The offer made to them by the message to Parliament was hinted at in their answer,--but in an obscure and oblique manner, as before. They accompanied their notice of the indications manifested on our side with every kind of insolent and taunting reflection. The Regicide Directory, on the day which, in their gypsy jargon, they call the 5th of _Pluviose_, in return for our advances, charge us with eluding our declarations under ”evasive formalities and frivolous pretexts.” What these pretexts and evasions were they do not say, and I have never heard. But they do not rest there. They proceed to charge us, and, as it should seem, our allies in the ma.s.s, with direct _perfidy_; they are so conciliatory in their language as to hint that this perfidious character is not new in our proceedings. However, notwithstanding this our habitual perfidy, they will offer peace ”on conditions _as_ moderate”--as what? as reason and as equity require? No,--as moderate ”as are suitable to their _national dignity_.” National dignity in all treaties I do admit is an important consideration: they have given us an useful hint on that subject: but dignity hitherto has belonged to the mode of proceeding, not to the matter of a treaty. Never before has it been mentioned as the standard for rating the conditions of peace,--no, never by the most violent of conquerors. Indemnification is capable of some estimate; dignity has no standard. It is impossible to guess what acquisitions pride and ambition may think fit for their _dignity_. But lest any doubt should remain on what they think for their dignity, the Regicides in the next paragraph tell us ”that they will have no peace with their enemies, until they have reduced them to a state which will put them under an _impossibility_ of pursuing their wretched projects,”--that is, in plain French or English, until they have accomplished our utter and irretrievable ruin. This is their _pacific_ language. It flows from their unalterable principle, in whatever language they speak or whatever steps they take, whether of real war or of pretended pacification. They have never, to do them justice, been at much trouble in concealing their intentions. We were as obstinately resolved to think them not in earnest: but I confess, jests of this sort, whatever their urbanity may be, are not much to my taste.

To this conciliatory and amicable public communication our sole answer, in effect, is this:--”Citizen Regicides! whenever _you_ find yourselves in the humor, you may have a peace with _us_. That is a point you may always command. We are constantly in attendance, and nothing you can do shall hinder us from the renewal of our supplications. You may turn us out at the door, but we will jump in at the window.”

To those who do not love to contemplate the fall of human greatness, I do not know a more mortifying spectacle than to see the a.s.sembled majesty of the crowned heads of Europe waiting as patient suitors in the antechamber of Regicide. They wait, it seems, until the sanguinary tyrant Carnot shall have snorted away the fumes of the indigested blood of his sovereign. Then, when, sunk on the down of usurped pomp, he shall have sufficiently indulged his meditations with what monarch he shall next glut his ravening maw, he may condescend to signify that it is his pleasure to be awake, and that he is at leisure to receive the proposals of his high and mighty clients for the terms on which he may respite the execution of the sentence he has pa.s.sed upon them. At the opening of those doors, what a sight it must be to behold the plenipotentiaries of royal impotence, in the precedency which they will intrigue to obtain, and which will be granted to them according to the seniority of their degradation, sneaking into the Regicide presence, and, with the relics of the smile which they had dressed up for the levee of their masters still flickering on their curled lips, presenting the faded remains of their courtly graces, to meet the scornful, ferocious, sardonic grin of a b.l.o.o.d.y ruffian, who, whilst he is receiving their homage, is measuring them with his eye, and fitting to their size the slider of his guillotine! These amba.s.sadors may easily return as good courtiers as they went; but can they ever return from that degrading residence loyal and faithful subjects, or with any true affection to their master, or true attachment to the const.i.tution, religion, or laws of their country?

There is great danger that they, who enter smiling into this Trophonian cave, will come out of it sad and serious conspirators, and such will continue as long as they live. They will become true conductors of contagion to every country which has had the misfortune to send them to the source of that electricity. At best, they will become totally indifferent to good and evil, to one inst.i.tution or another. This species of indifference is but too generally distinguishable in those who have been much employed in foreign courts, but in the present case the evil must be aggravated without measure: for they go from their country, not with the pride of the old character, but in a state of the lowest degradation; and what must happen in their place of residence can have no effect in raising them to the level of true dignity or of chaste self-estimation, either as men or as representatives of crowned heads.

Our early proceeding, which has produced these returns of affront, appeared to me totally new, without being adapted to the new circ.u.mstances of affairs. I have called to my mind the speeches and messages in former times. I find nothing like these. You will look in the journals to find whether my memory fails me. Before this time, never was a ground of peace laid, (as it were, in a Parliamentary record,) until it had been as good as concluded. This was a wise homage paid to the discretion of the crown. It was known how much a negotiation must suffer by having anything in the train towards it prematurely disclosed.

But when those Parliamentary declarations were made, not so much as a step had been taken towards a negotiation in any mode whatever. The measure was an unpleasant and unseasonable discovery.

I conceive that another circ.u.mstance in that transaction has been as little authorized by any example, and that it is as little prudent in itself: I mean the formal recognition of the French Republic. Without entering, for the present, into a question on the good faith manifested in that measure, or on its general policy, I doubt, upon mere temporary considerations of prudence, whether it was perfectly advisable. It is not within, the rules of dexterous conduct to make an acknowledgment of a contested t.i.tle in your enemy before you are morally certain that your recognition will secure his friends.h.i.+p. Otherwise it is a measure worse than thrown away. It adds infinitely to the strength, and consequently to the demands, of the adverse party. He has gained a fundamental point without an equivalent. It has happened as might have been foreseen. No notice whatever was taken of this recognition. In fact, the Directory never gave themselves any concern about it; and they received our acknowledgment with perfect scorn. With them it is not for the states of Europe to judge of their t.i.tle: the very reverse. In their eye the t.i.tle of every other power depends wholly on their pleasure.

Preliminary declarations of this sort, thrown out at random, and sown, as it wore, broadcast, were never to be found in the mode of our proceeding with France and Spain, whilst the great monarchies of France and Spain existed. I do not say that a diplomatic measure ought to be, like a parliamentary or a judicial proceeding, according to strict precedent: I hope I am far from that pedantry. But this I know: that a great state ought to have some regard to its ancient maxims, especially where they indicate its dignity, where they concur with the rules of prudence, and, above all, where the circ.u.mstances of the time require that a spirit of innovation should be resisted which leads to the humiliation of sovereign powers. It would be ridiculous to a.s.sert that those powers have suffered nothing in their estimation. I admit that the greater interests of state will for a moment supersede all other considerations; but if there was a rule, that a sovereign never should let down his dignity without a sure payment to his interest, the dignity of kings would be held high enough. At present, however, fas.h.i.+on governs in more serious things than furniture and dress. It looks as if sovereigns abroad were emulous in bidding against their estimation. It seems as if the preeminence of regicide was acknowledged,--and that kings tacitly ranked themselves below their sacrilegious murderers, as natural magistrates and judges over them. It appears as if dignity were the prerogative of crime, and a temporizing humiliation the proper part for venerable authority. If the vilest of mankind are resolved to be the most wicked, they lose all the baseness of their origin, and take their place above kings. This example in foreign princes I trust will not spread. It is the concern of mankind, that the destruction of order should not, be a claim to rank, that crimes should not be the only t.i.tle to preeminence and honor.

At this second stage of humiliation, (I mean the insulting declaration in consequence of the message to both Houses of Parliament,) it might not have been amiss to pause, and not to squander away the fund of our submissions, until we knew what final purposes of public interest they might answer. The policy of subjecting ourselves to further insults is not to me quite apparent. It was resolved, however, to hazard a third trial. Citizen Barthelemy had been established, on the part of the new republic, at Basle,--where, with his proconsulate of Switzerland and the adjacent parts of Germany, he was appointed as a sort of factor to deal in the degradation of the crowned heads of Europe. At Basle it was thought proper, in order to keep others, I suppose, in countenance, that Great Britain should appear at this market, and bid with the rest for the mercy of the People-King.

On the 6th of March, 1796, Mr. Wickham, in consequence of authority, was desired to sound France on her disposition towards a general pacification,--to know whether she would consent to send ministers to a congress at such a place as might be hereafter agreed upon,--whether there would be a disposition to communicate the general grounds of a pacification, such as France (the diplomatic name of the Regicide power) would be willing to propose, as a foundation for a negotiation for peace with his Majesty _and his allies_, or to suggest any other way of arriving at the same end of a general pacification: but he had no authority to enter into any negotiation or discussion with Citizen Barthelemy upon these subjects.

On the part of Great Britain this measure was a voluntary act, wholly uncalled for on the part of Regicide. Suits of this sort are at least strong indications of a desire for accommodation. Any other body of men but the Directory would be somewhat soothed with such advances. They could not, however, begin their answer, which was given without much delay, and communicated on the 28th of the same month, without a preamble of insult and reproach. ”They doubt the sincerity of the pacific intentions of this court.” She did not begin, say they, yet to ”know her real interests.” ”She did not seek peace _with good faith_.”

This, or something to this effect, has been the constant preliminary observation (now grown into a sort of office form) on all our overtures to this power: a perpetual charge on the British government of fraud, evasion, and habitual perfidy.

It might be asked, From whence did these opinions of our insincerity and ill faith arise? It was because the British ministry (leaving to the Directory, however, to propose a better mode) proposed a _congress_ for the purpose of a general pacification, and this they said ”would render negotiation endless.” From hence they immediately inferred a fraudulent intention in the offer. Unquestionably their mode of giving the law would bring matters to a more speedy conclusion. As to any other method more agreeable to them than a congress, an alternative expressly proposed to them, they did not condescend to signify their pleasure.

This refusal of treating conjointly with the powers allied against this republic furnishes matter for a great deal of serious reflection. They have hitherto constantly declined any other than a treaty with a single power. By thus dissociating every state from every other, like deer separated from the herd, each power is treated with on the merit of his being a deserter from the common cause. In that light, the Regicide power, finding each of them insulated and unprotected, with great facility gives the law to them all. By this system, for the present an incurable distrust is sown amongst confederates, and in future all alliance is rendered impracticable. It is thus they have treated with Prussia, with Spain, with Sardinia, with Bavaria, with the Ecclesiastical State, with Saxony; and here we see them refuse to treat with Great Britain in any other mode. They must be worse than blind who do not see with what undeviating regularity of system, in this case and in all cases, they pursue their scheme for the utter destruction of every independent power,--especially the smaller, who cannot find any refuge whatever but in some common cause.

Renewing their taunts and reflections, they tell Mr. Wickham, ”that _their_ policy has no guides but openness and good faith, and that their conduct shall be conformable to these principles.” They say concerning their government, that, ”yielding to the ardent desire by which it is animated to procure peace for the French Republic and for all nations, it will not _fear to declare itself openly_. Charged by the Const.i.tution with the execution of the _laws_, it cannot _make_ or _listen_ to any proposal that would be contrary to them. The const.i.tutional act does not permit it to consent to any alienation of that which, according to the existing laws, const.i.tutes the territory of the Republic.”

”With respect to the countries _occupied by the French armies, and which have not been united to France_, they, as well as other interests, political and commercial, may become the subject of a negotiation, which will present to the Directory the means of proving how much it desires to attain speedily to a happy pacification.” That ”the Directory is ready to receive, in this respect, any overtures that shall be just, reasonable, and compatible _with the dignity of the Republic_.”

On the head of what is _not_ to be the subject of negotiation, the Directory is clear and open. As to what may be a matter of treaty, all this open dealing is gone. She retires into her sh.e.l.l. There she expects overtures from _you_: and you are to guess what she shall judge just, reasonable, and, above all, _compatible with her dignity_.

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