Volume V Part 18 (1/2)

Then, if it is not to satisfy the foreign powers we make this a.s.surance, to what power at home is it that we pay all this humiliating court? Not to the old Whigs or to the ancient Tories of this kingdom,--if any memory of such ancient divisions still exists amongst us. To which of the principles of these parties is this a.s.surance agreeable? Is it to the Whigs we are to recommend the aggrandizement of France, and the subversion of the balance of power? Is it to the Tories we are to recommend our eagerness to cement ourselves with the enemies of royalty and religion? But if these parties, which by their dissensions have so often distracted the kingdom, which by their union have once saved it, and which by their collision and mutual resistance have preserved the variety of this Const.i.tution in its unity, be (as I believe they are) nearly extinct by the growth of new ones, which have their roots in the present circ.u.mstances of the times, I wish to know to which of these new descriptions this Declaration is addressed. It can hardly be to those persons who, in the new distribution of parties, consider the conservation in England of the ancient order of things as necessary to preserve order everywhere else, and who regard the general conservation of order in other countries as reciprocally necessary to preserve the same state of things in these islands. That party never can wish to see Great Britain pledge herself to give the lead and the ground of advantage and superiority to the France of to-day, in any treaty which is to settle Europe. I insist upon it, that, so far from expecting such an engagement, they are generally stupefied and confounded with it. That the other party, which demands great changes here, and is so pleased to see them everywhere else, which party I call Jacobin, that this faction does, from the bottom of its heart, approve the Declaration, and does erect its crest upon the engagement, there can be little doubt. To them it may be addressed with propriety, for it answers their purposes in every point.

The party in opposition within the House of Lords and Commons it is irreverent, and half a breach of privilege, (far from my thoughts,) to consider as Jacobin. This party has always denied the existence of such a faction, and has treated the machinations of those whom you and I call Jacobins as so many forgeries and fictions of the minister and his adherents, to find a pretext for destroying freedom and setting up an arbitrary power in this kingdom. However, whether this minority has a leaning towards the French system or only a charitable toleration of those who lean that way, it is certain that they have always attacked the sincerity of the minister in the same modes, and on the very same grounds, and nearly in the same terms, with the Directory. It must therefore be at the tribunal of the minority (from the whole tenor of the speech) that the minister appeared to consider himself obliged to purge himself of duplicity. It was at their bar that he held up his hand; it was on their _sellette_ that he seemed to answer interrogatories; it was on their principles that he defended his whole conduct. They certainly take what the French call the _haut du pave_.

They have loudly called for the negotiation. It was accorded to them.

They engaged their support of the war with vigor, in case peace was not granted on honorable terms. Peace was not granted on any terms, honorable or shameful. Whether these judges, few in number, but powerful in jurisdiction, are satisfied,--whether they to whom this new pledge is hypothecated have redeemed their own,--whether they have given one particle more of their support to ministry, or even, favored them with their good opinion or their candid construction, I leave it to those who recollect that memorable debate to determine.

The fact is, that neither this Declaration, nor the negotiation which is its subject, could serve any one good purpose, foreign or domestic; it could conduce to no end, either with regard to allies or neutrals. It tends neither to bring back the misled, nor to give courage to the fearful, nor to animate and confirm those who are hearty and zealous in the cause.

I hear it has been said (though I can scarcely believe it) by a distinguished person, in an a.s.sembly where, if there be less of the torrent and tempest of eloquence, more guarded expression is to be expected, that, indeed, there was no just ground of hope in this business from the beginning.

It is plain that this n.o.ble person, however conversant in negotiation, having been employed in no less than four emba.s.sies, and in two hemispheres, and in one of those negotiations having fully experienced what it was to proceed to treaty without previous encouragement, was not at all consulted in this experiment. For his Majesty's princ.i.p.al minister declared, on the very same day, in another House, ”his Majesty's deep and sincere regret at its unfortunate and abrupt termination, so different from the wishes and _hopes_ that were entertained,”--and in other parts of the speech speaks of this abrupt termination as a great disappointment, and as a fall from sincere endeavors and sanguine expectation. Here are, indeed, sentiments diametrically opposite, as to the hopes with which the negotiation was commenced and carried on; and what is curious is, the grounds of the hopes on the one side and the despair on the other are exactly the same.

The logical conclusion from the common premises is, indeed, in favor of the n.o.ble lord; for they are agreed that the enemy was far from giving the least degree of countenance to any such hopes, and that they proceeded in spite of every discouragement which the enemy had thrown in their way. But there is another material point in which they do not seem to differ: that is to say, the result of the desperate experiment of the n.o.ble lord, and of the promising attempt of the great minister, in satisfying the people of England, and in causing discontent to the people of France,--or, as the minister expresses it, ”in uniting England and in dividing France.”

For my own part, though I perfectly agreed with the n.o.ble lord that the attempt was desperate, so desperate, indeed, as to deserve _his_ name of an experiment, yet no fair man can possibly doubt that the minister was perfectly sincere in his proceeding, and that, from his ardent wishes for peace with the Regicides, he was led to conceive hopes which were founded rather in his vehement desires than in any rational ground of political speculation. Convinced as I am of this, it had been better, in my humble opinion, that persons of great name and authority had abstained from those topics which had been used to call the minister's sincerity into doubt, and had not adopted the sentiments of the Directory upon the subject of all our negotiations: for the n.o.ble lord expressly says that the experiment was made for the satisfaction of the country. The Directory says exactly the same thing. Upon granting, in consequence of our supplications, the pa.s.sport to Lord Malmesbury, in order to remove all sort of hope from its success, they charged all our previous steps, even to that moment of submissive demand to be admitted to their presence, on duplicity and perfidy, and a.s.sumed that the object of all the steps we had taken was that ”of justifying the continuance of the war in the eyes of the English nation, and of throwing all the odium of it upon the French.” ”The English nation” (said they) ”supports impatiently the continuance of the war, and _a reply must be made to its complaints and its reproaches_; the Parliament is about to be opened, _and the mouths of the orators who will declaim against the war must be shut; the demands for new taxes must be justified; and to obtain these results, it is necessary to be able to advance that the French government refuses every reasonable proposition for peace_.” I am sorry that the language of the friends to ministry and the enemies to mankind should be so much in unison.

As to the fact in which these parties are so well agreed, that the experiment ought to have been made for the satisfaction of this country, (meaning the country of England,) it were well to be wished that persons of eminence would cease to make themselves representatives of the people of England, without a letter of attorney, or any other act of procuration. In legal construction, the sense of the people of England is to be collected from the House of Commons; and though I do not deny the possibility of an abuse of this trust as well as any other, yet I think, without the most weighty reasons and in the most urgent exigencies, it is highly dangerous to suppose that the House speaks anything contrary to the sense of the people, or that the representative is silent, when the sense of the const.i.tuent, strongly, decidedly, and upon long deliberation, speaks audibly upon any topic of moment. If there is a doubt whether the House of Commons represents perfectly the whole commons of Great Britain, (I think there is none,) there can be no question but that the Lords and the Commons together represent the sense of the whole people to the crown and to the world. Thus it is, when we speak legally and const.i.tutionally. In a great measure it is equally true, when we speak prudentially. But I do not pretend to a.s.sert that there are no other principles to guide discretion than those which are or can be fixed by some law or some const.i.tution: yet before the legally presumed sense of the people should be superseded by a supposition of one more real, (as in all cases where a legal presumption is to be ascertained,) some strong proofs ought to exist of a contrary disposition in the people at large, and some decisive indications of their desire upon this subject. There can be no question, that, previously to a direct message from the crown, neither House of Parliament did indicate anything like a wish for such advances as we have made or such negotiations as we have carried on. The Parliament has a.s.sented to ministry; it is not ministry that has obeyed the impulse of Parliament. The people at large have their organs through which they can speak to Parliament and to the crown by a respectful pet.i.tion, and though not with absolute authority, yet with weight, they can instruct their representatives. The freeholders and other electors in this kingdom have another and a surer mode of expressing their sentiments concerning the conduct which is held by members of Parliament. In the middle of these transactions this last opportunity has been held out to them. In all these points of view I positively a.s.sert that the people have nowhere and in no way expressed their wish of throwing themselves and their sovereign at the feet of a wicked and rancorous foe, to supplicate mercy, which, from the nature of that foe, and from the circ.u.mstances of affairs, we had no sort of ground to expect. It is undoubtedly the business of ministers very much to consult the inclinations of the people, but they ought to take great care that they do not receive that inclination from the few persons who may happen to approach them. The petty interests of such gentlemen, their low conceptions of things, their fears arising from the danger to which the very arduous and critical situation of public affairs may expose their places, their apprehensions from the hazards to which the discontents of a few popular men at elections may expose their seats in Parliament,--all these causes trouble and confuse the representations which they make to ministers of the real temper of the nation. If ministers, instead of following the great indications of the Const.i.tution, proceed on such reports, they will take the whispers of a cabal for the voice of the people, and the counsels of imprudent timidity for the wisdom of a nation.

I well remember, that, when the fortune of the war began (and it began pretty early) to turn, as it is common and natural, we were dejected by the losses that had been sustained, and with the doubtful issue of the contests that were foreseen. But not a word was uttered that supposed peace upon any proper terms was in our power, or therefore that it should be in our desire. As usual, with or without reason, we criticized the conduct of the war, and compared our fortunes with our measures. The ma.s.s of the nation went no further. For I suppose that you always understood me as speaking of that very preponderating part of the nation which had always been equally adverse to the French principles and to the general progress of their Revolution throughout Europe,--considering the final success of their arms and the triumph of their principles as one and the same thing.

The first means that were used, by any one professing our principles, to change the minds of this party upon that subject, appeared in a small pamphlet circulated with considerable industry. It was commonly given to the n.o.ble person himself who has pa.s.sed judgment upon all hopes from negotiation, and justified our late abortive attempt only as an experiment made to satisfy the country; and yet that pamphlet led the way in endeavoring to dissatisfy that very country with the continuance of the war, and to raise in the people the most sanguine expectations from some such course of negotiation as has been fatally pursued. This leads me to suppose (and I am glad to have reason for supposing) that there was no foundation for attributing the performance in question to that author; but without mentioning his name in the t.i.tle-page, it pa.s.sed for his, and does still pa.s.s uncontradicted. It was ent.i.tled, ”Some Remarks on the Apparent Circ.u.mstances of the War in the Fourth Week of October, 1795.”

This sanguine little king's-fisher, (not prescient of the storm, as by his instinct he ought to be,) appearing at that uncertain season before the rigs of old Michaelmas were yet well composed, and when the inclement storms of winter were approaching, began to flicker over the seas, and was busy in building its halcyon nest, as if the angry ocean had been soothed by the genial breath of May. Very unfortunately, this auspice was instantly followed by a speech from the throne in the very spirit and principles of that pamphlet.

I say nothing of the newspapers, which are undoubtedly in the interest, and which are supposed by some to be directly or indirectly under the influence of ministers, and which, with less authority than the pamphlet I speak of, had indeed for some time before held a similar language, in direct contradiction to their more early tone: insomuch that I can speak it with a certain a.s.surance, that very many, who wished to administration as well as you and I do, thought, that, in giving their opinion in favor of this peace, they followed the opinion of ministry;--they were conscious that they did not lead it. My inference, therefore, is this: that the negotiation, whatever its merits may be, in the general principle and policy of undertaking it, is, what every political measure in general ought to be, the sole work of administration; and that, if it was an experiment to satisfy anybody, it was to satisfy those whom the ministers were in the daily habit of condemning, and by whom they were daily condemned,--I mean the _leaders_ of the _opposition_ in _Parliament_. I am certain that the ministers were then, and are now, invested with the fullest confidence of the major part of the nation, to pursue such measures of peace or war as the nature of things shall suggest as most adapted to the public safety. It is in this light, therefore, as a measure which ought to have been avoided and ought not to be repeated, that I take the liberty of discussing the merits of this system of Regicide negotiations. It is not a matter of light experiment, that leaves us where it found us. Peace or war are the great hinges upon which the very being of nations turns.

Negotiations are the means of making peace or preventing war, and are therefore of more serious importance than almost any single event of war can possibly be.

At the very outset, I do not hesitate to affirm, that this country in particular, and the public law in general, have suffered more by this negotiation of experiment than by all the battles together that we have lost from the commencement of this century to this time, when it touches so nearly to its close. I therefore have the misfortune not to coincide in opinion with the great statesman who set on foot a negotiation, as he said, ”in spite of the constant opposition he had met with from Prance.”

He admits, ”that the difficulty in this negotiation became most seriously increased, indeed, by the situation in which we were placed, and the manner in which alone the enemy would _admit_ of a negotiation.”

This situation so described, and so truly described, rendered our solicitation not only degrading, but from the very outset evidently hopeless.

I find it a.s.serted, and even a merit taken for it, ”that this country surmounted every difficulty of form and etiquette which the enemy had thrown in our way.” An odd way of surmounting a difficulty, by cowering under it! I find it a.s.serted that an heroic resolution had been taken, and avowed in Parliament, previous to this negotiation, ”that no consideration of etiquette should stand in the way of it.”

Etiquette, if I understand rightly the term, which in any extent is of modern usage, had its original application to those ceremonial and formal observances practised at courts, which had been established by long usage, in order to preserve the sovereign power from the rude intrusion of licentious familiarity, as well as to preserve majesty itself from a disposition to consult its ease at the expense of its dignity. The term came afterwards to have a greater lat.i.tude, and to be employed to signify certain formal methods used in the transactions between sovereign states.

In the more limited, as well as in the larger sense of the term, without knowing what the etiquette is, it is impossible to determine whether it is a vain and captious punctilio, or a form necessary to preserve decorum in character and order in business. I readily admit that nothing tends to facilitate the issue of all public transactions more than a mutual disposition in the parties treating to waive all ceremony. But the use of this temporary suspension of the recognized modes of respect consists in its being mutual, and in the spirit of conciliation in which all ceremony is laid aside. On the contrary, when one of the parties to a treaty intrenches himself up to the chin in these ceremonies, and will not on his side abate a single punctilio, and that all the concessions are upon one side only, the party so conceding does by this act place himself in a relation of inferiority, and thereby fundamentally subverts that equality which is of the very essence of all treaty.

After this formal act of degradation, it was but a matter of course that gross insult should be offered to our amba.s.sador, and that he should tamely submit to it. He found himself provoked to complain of the atrocious libels against his public character and his person which appeared in a paper under the avowed patronage of that government. The Regicide Directory, on this complaint, did not recognize the paper: and that was all. They did not punish, they did not dismiss, they did not even reprimand the writer. As to our amba.s.sador, this total want of reparation for the injury was pa.s.sed by under the pretence of despising it.

In this but too serious business, it is not possible here to avoid a smile. Contempt is not a thing to be despised. It may be borne with a calm and equal mind, but no man by lifting his head high can pretend that he does not perceive the scorns that are poured down upon him from above. All these sudden complaints of injury, and all these deliberate submissions to it, are the inevitable consequences of the situation in which we had placed ourselves: a situation wherein the insults were such as Nature would not enable us to bear, and circ.u.mstances would not permit us to resent.

It was not long, however, after this contempt of contempt upon the part of our amba.s.sador, (who by the way represented his sovereign,) that a new object was furnished for displaying sentiments of the same kind, though the case was infinitely aggravated. Not the amba.s.sador, but the king himself, was libelled and insulted,--libelled, not by a creature of the Directory, but by the Directory itself. At least, so Lord Malmesbury understood it, and so he answered it in his note of the 12th November, 1796, in which he says,--”With regard to the _offensive and injurious_ insinuations which are contained in that paper, and which are only calculated to throw new obstacles in the way of the accommodation which the French government professes to desire, THE KING HAS DEEMED IT FAR BENEATH HIS DIGNITY to permit an answer to be made to them on his part, in any manner whatsoever.”

I am of opinion, that, if his Majesty had kept aloof from that wash and offscouring of everything that is low and barbarous in the world, it might be well thought unworthy of his dignity to take notice of such scurrilities: they must be considered as much the natural expression of that kind of animal as it is the expression of the feelings of a dog to bark. But when the king had been advised to recognize not only the monstrous composition as a sovereign power, but, in conduct, to admit something in it like a superiority,--when the bench of Regicide was made at least coordinate with his throne, and raised upon a platform full as elevated, this treatment could not be pa.s.sed by under the appearance of despising it. It would not, indeed, have been proper to keep up a war of the same kind; but an immediate, manly, and decided resentment ought to have been the consequence. We ought not to have waited for the disgraceful dismissal of our amba.s.sador. There are cases in which we may pretend to sleep; but the wittol rule has some sense in it, _Non omnibus dormio_. We might, however, have seemed ignorant of the affront; but what was the fact? Did we dissemble or pa.s.s it by in silence? When dignity is talked of, a language which I did not expect to hear in such a transaction, I must say, what all the world must feel, that it was not for the king's dignity to notice this insult and not to resent it. This mode of proceeding is formed on new ideas of the correspondence between sovereign powers.

This was far from the only ill effect of the policy of degradation. The state of inferiority in which we were placed, in this vain attempt at treaty, drove us headlong from error into error, and led us to wander far away, not only from all the paths which have been beaten in the old course of political communication between mankind, but out of the ways even of the most common prudence. Against all rules, after we had met nothing but rebuffs in return to all our proposals, we made _two confidential communications_ to those in whom we had no confidence and who reposed no confidence in us. What was worse, we were fully aware of the madness of the step we were taking. Amba.s.sadors are not sent to a hostile power, persevering in sentiments of hostility, to make candid, confidential, and amicable communications. Hitherto the world has considered it as the duty of an amba.s.sador in such a situation to be cautious, guarded, dexterous, and circ.u.mspect. It is true that mutual confidence and common interest dispense with all rules, smooth the rugged way, remove every obstacle, and make all things plain and level.

When, in the last century, Temple and De Witt negotiated the famous Triple Alliance, their candor, their freedom, and the most _confidential_ disclosures were the result of true policy. Accordingly, in spite of all the dilatory forms of the complex government of the United Provinces, the treaty was concluded in three days. It did not take a much longer time to bring the same state (that of Holland) through a still more complicated transaction,--that of the _Grand Alliance_. But in the present case, this unparalleled candor, this unpardonable want of reserve, produced, what might have been expected from it, the most serious evils. It instructed the enemy in the whole plan of our demands and concessions. It made the most fatal discoveries.

And first, it induced us to lay down the basis of a treaty which itself had nothing to rest upon. It seems, we thought we had gained a great point in getting this basis admitted,--that is, a basis of mutual compensation and exchange of conquests. If a disposition to peace, and with any reasonable a.s.surance, had been previously indicated, such a plan of arrangement might with propriety and safety be proposed; because these arrangements were not, in effect, to make the basis, but a part of the superstructure, of the fabric of pacification. The order of things would thus be reversed. The mutual disposition to peace would form the reasonable base, upon which the scheme of compensation upon one side or the other might be constructed. This truly fundamental base being once laid, all differences arising from the spirit of huckstering and barter might be easily adjusted. If the restoration of peace, with a view to the establishment of a fair balance of power in Europe, had been made the real basis of the treaty, the reciprocal value of the compensations could not be estimated according to their proportion to each other, but according to their proportionate relation to that end: to that great end the whole would be subservient. The effect of the treaty would be in a manner secured before the detail of particulars was begun, and for a plain reason,--because the hostile spirit on both sides had been conjured down; but if, in the full fury and unappeased rancor of war, a little traffic is attempted, it is easy to divine what must be the consequence to those who endeavor to open that kind of petty commerce.

To ill.u.s.trate what I have said, I go back no further than to the two last Treaties of Paris, and to the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which preceded the first of these two Treaties of Paris by about fourteen or fifteen years. I do not mean here to criticize any of them. My opinions upon some particulars of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 are published in a pamphlet[39] which your recollection will readily bring into your view.