Chapter VII: Letter IV: To the Earl Fitzwilliam (5)

I know very well that a great proportion of the money of every subordinate country will flow towards the metropolis. This is unavoidable. Other inconveniences, too, will result to particular parts: and why? Why, because they are particular parts,--each a member of a greater, and not an whole within itself. But those members are to consider whether these inconveniences are not fully balanced, perhaps more than balanced, by the united strength of a great and compact body. I am sensible, too, of a difficulty that will be started against the application of some of the principles which I reason upon to the case of Ireland. It will be said, that Ireland, in many particulars, is not bound to consider itself as a part of the British body; because this country, in many instances, is mistaken enough to treat you as foreigners, and draws away your money by absentees, without suffering you to enjoy your natural advantages in trade and commerce. No man living loves restrictive regulations of any kind less than myself; at best, nine times in ten, they are little better than laborious and vexatious follies. Often, as in your case, they are great oppressions, as well as great absurdities. But still an injury is not always a reason for retaliation; nor is the folly of others with regard to us a reason for imitating it with regard to them. Before we attempt to retort, we ought to consider whether we may not injure ourselves even more than our adversary; since, in the contest who shall go the greatest length in absurdity, the victor is generally the greatest sufferer. Besides, when there is an unfortunate emulation in restraints and oppressions, the question of _strength_ is of the highest importance. It little becomes the feeble to be unjust. Justice is the shield of the weak; and when they choose to lay this down, and fight naked in the contest of mere power, the event will be what must be expected from such imprudence.

I ought to beg your pardon for running into this length. You want no arguments to convince you on this subject, and you want no resources of matter to convince others. I ought, too, to ask pardon for having delayed my answer so long; but I received your letter on Tuesday, in town, and I was obliged to come to the country on business. From the country I write at present; but this day I shall go to town again. I shall see Lord Rockingham, who has spared neither time nor trouble in making a vigorous opposition to this inconsiderate measure. I hope to be able to send you the papers which will give you information of the steps he has taken. He has pursued this business with the foresight, diligence, and good sense with which he generally resists unconstitutional attempts of government. A life of disinterestedness, generosity, and public spirit are his titles to have it believed that the effect which the tax may have upon his private property is not the sole nor the principal motive to his exertions. I know he is of opinion that the opposition in Ireland ought to be carried on with that spirit as if no aid was expected from this country, and here as if nothing would be done in Ireland: many things have been lost by not acting in this manner.

I am told that you are not likely to be alone in the generous stand you are to make against this unnatural monster of court popularity. It is said, Mr. Hussey, who is so very considerable at present, and who is everything in expectation, will give you his assistance. I rejoice to see (that very rare spectacle) a good mind, a great genius, and public activity united together, and united so early in life. By not running into every popular humor, he may depend upon it, the popularity of his character will wear the better.

Non ponebat enim rumores ante salutem;
Ergo postque magisque viri nunc gloria claret.

Adieu, my dear Sir. Give my best respects to Lady Bingham; and believe me, with great truth and esteem,

Your most obedient and most humble servant,

EDM. BURKE.

BEACONSFIELD, 30th October, 1773.

TO SIR CHARLES BINGHAM.

A

LETTER

TO

THE HON. CHARLES JAMES FOX,

ON THE AMERICAN WAR.

OCTOBER 8, 1777.

My Dear Charles,--I am, on many accounts, exceedingly pleased with your journey to Ireland. I do not think it was possible to dispose better of the interval between this and the meeting of Parliament. I told you as much, in the same general terms, by the post. My opinion of the infidelity of that conveyance hindered me from being particular. I now sit down with malice prepense to kill you with a very long letter, and must take my chance for some safe method of conveying the dose. Before I say anything to you of the place you are in, or the business of it, on which, by the way, a great deal might be said, I will turn myself to the concluding part of your letter from Chatsworth.

You are sensible that I do not differ from you in many things; and most certainly I do not dissent from the main of your doctrine concerning the heresy of depending upon contingencies. You must recollect how uniform my sentiments have been on that subject. I have ever wished a settled plan of our own, founded in the very essence of the American business, wholly unconnected with the events of the war, and framed in such a manner as to keep up our credit and maintain our system at home, in spite of anything which may happen abroad. I am now convinced, by a long and somewhat vexatious experience, that such a plan is absolutely impracticable. I think with you, that some faults in the constitution of those whom we must love and trust are among the causes of this impracticability; they are faults, too, that one can hardly wish them perfectly cured of, as I am afraid they are intimately connected with honest, disinterested intentions, plentiful fortunes, assured rank, and quiet homes. A great deal of activity and enterprise can scarcely ever be expected from such men, unless some horrible calamity is just over their heads, or unless they suffer some gross personal insults from power, the resentment of which may be as unquiet and stimulating a principle in their minds as ambition is in those of a different complexion. To say the truth, I cannot greatly blame them. We live at a time when men are not repaid in fame for what they sacrifice in interest or repose.

On the whole, when I consider of what discordant, and particularly of what fleeting materials the opposition has been all along composed, and at the same time review what Lord Rockingham has done, with that and with his own shattered constitution, for these last twelve years, I confess I am rather surprised that he has done so much and persevered so long, than that he has felt now and then some cold fits, and that he grows somewhat languid and desponding at last. I know that he, and those who are much prevalent with him, though they are not thought so much devoted to popularity as others, do very much look to the people, and more than I think is wise in them, who do so little to guide and direct the public opinion. Without this they act, indeed; but they act as it were from compulsion, and because it is impossible, in their situation, to avoid taking some part. All this it is impossible to change, and to no purpose to complain of.

As to that popular humor which is the medium we float in, if I can discern anything at all of its present state, it is far worse than I have ever known or could ever imagine it. The faults of the people are not popular vices; at least, they are not such as grow out of what we used to take to be the English temper and character. The greatest number have a sort of an heavy, lumpish acquiescence in government, without much respect or esteem for those that compose it. I really cannot avoid making some very unpleasant prognostics from this disposition of the people. I think that many of the symptoms must have struck you: I will mention one or two that are to me very remarkable. You must know that at Bristol we grow, as an election interest, and even as a party interest, rather stronger than we were when I was chosen. We have just now a majority in the corporation. In this state of matters, what, think you, have they done? They have voted their freedom to Lord Sandwich and Lord Suffolk!--to the first, at the very moment when the American privateers were domineering in the Irish Sea, and taking the Bristol traders in the Bristol Channel;--to the latter, when his remonstrances on the subject of captures were the jest of Paris and of Europe. This fine step was taken, it seems, in honor of the zeal of these two profound statesmen in the prosecution of John the Painter: so totally negligent are they of everything essential, and so long and so deeply affected with trash the most low and contemptible; just as if they thought the merit of Sir John Fielding was the most shining point in the character of great ministers, in the most critical of all times, and, of all others, the most deeply interesting to the commercial world! My best friends in the corporation had no other doubts on the occasion than whether it did not belong to me, by right of my representative capacity, to be the bearer of this auspicious compliment. In addition to this, if it could receive any addition, they now employ me to solicit, as a favor of no small magnitude, that, after the example of Newcastle, they may be suffered to arm vessels for their own defence in the Channel. Their memorial, under the seal of Merchants' Hall, is now lying on the table before me. Not a soul has the least sensibility, on finding themselves, now for the first time, obliged to act as if the community were dissolved, and, after enormous payments towards the common protection, each part was to defend itself, as if it were a separate state.

I don't mention Bristol as if that were the part furthest gone in this mortification. Far from it: I know that there is, rather, a little more life in us than in any other place. In Liverpool they are literally almost ruined by this American war; but they love it as they suffer from it. In short, from whatever I see, and from whatever quarter I hear, I am convinced that everything that is not absolute stagnation is evidently a party-spirit very adverse to our politics, and to the principles from whence they arise. There are manifest marks of the resurrection of the Tory party. They no longer criticize, as all disengaged people in the world will, on the acts of government; but they are silent under every evil, and hide and cover up every ministerial blander and misfortune, with the officious zeal of men who think they have a party of their own to support in power. The Tories do universally think their power and consequence involved in the success of this American business. The clergy are astonishingly warm in it; and what the Tories are, when embodied and united with their natural head, the crown, and animated by their clergy, no man knows better than yourself. As to the Whigs, I think them far from extinct. They are, what they always were, (except by the able use of opportunities,) by far the weakest party in this country. They have not yet learned the application of their principles to the present state of things; and as to the Dissenters, the main effective part of the Whig strength, they are, to use a favorite expression of our American campaign style, "not all in force." They will do very little, and, as far as I can discern, are rather intimidated than provoked at the denunciations of the court in the Archbishop of York's sermon. I thought that sermon rather imprudent, when I first saw it; but it seems to have done its business.

In this temper of the people, I do not wholly wonder that our Northern friends look a little towards events. In war, particularly, I am afraid it must be so. There is something so weighty and decisive in the events of war, something that so completely overpowers the imagination of the vulgar, that all counsels must in a great degree be subordinate to and attendant on them. I am sure it was so in the last war, very eminently. So that, on the whole, what with the temper of the people, the temper of our own friends, and the domineering necessities of war, we must quietly give up all ideas of any settled, preconcerted plan. We shall be lucky enough, if, keeping ourselves attentive and alert, we can contrive to profit of the occasions as they arise: though I am sensible that those who are best provided with a general scheme are fittest to take advantage of all contingencies. However, to act with any people with the least degree of comfort, I believe we must contrive a little to assimilate to their character. We must gravitate towards them, if we would keep in the same system, or expect that they should approach towards us. They are, indeed, worthy of much concession and management. I am quite convinced that they are the honestest public men that ever appeared in this country, and I am sure that they are the wisest, by far, of those who appear in it at present. None of those who are continually complaining of them, but are themselves just as chargeable with all their faults, and have a decent stock of their own into the bargain. They (our friends) are, I admit, as you very truly represent them, but indifferently qualified for storming a citadel. After all, God knows whether this citadel is to be stormed by them, or by anybody else, by the means they use, or by any means. I know that as they are, abstractedly speaking, to blame, so there are those who cry out against them for it, not with a friendly complaint, as we do, but with the bitterness of enemies. But I know, too, that those who blame them for want of enterprise have shown no activity at all against the common enemy: all their skill and all their spirit have been shown only in weakening, dividing, and indeed destroying their allies. What they are and what we are is now pretty evidently experienced; and it is certain, that, partly by our common faults, but much more by the difficulties of our situation, and some circumstances of unavoidable misfortune, we are in little better than a sort of _cul-de-sac_. For my part, I do all I can to give ease to my mind in this strange position. I remember, some years ago, when I was pressing some points with great eagerness and anxiety, and complaining with great vexation to the Duke of Richmond of the little progress I make, he told me kindly, and I believe very truly, that, though he was far from thinking so himself, other people could not be persuaded I had not some latent private interest in pushing these matters, which I urged with an earnestness so extreme, and so much approaching to passion. He was certainly in the right. I am thoroughly resolved to give, both to myself and to my friends, less vexation on these subjects than hitherto I have done,--much less, indeed.

If _you_ should grow too earnest, you will be still more inexcusable than I was. Your having entered into affairs so much younger ought to make them too familiar to you to be the cause of much agitation, and you have much more before you for your work. Do not be in haste. Lay your foundations deep in public opinion. Though (as you are sensible) I have never given you the least hint of advice about joining yourself in a declared connection with our party, nor do I now, yet, as I love that party very well, and am clear that you are better able to serve them than any man I know, I wish that things should be so kept as to leave you mutually very open to one another in all changes and contingencies; and I wish this the rather, because, in order to be very great, as I am anxious that you should be, (always presuming that you are disposed to make a good use of power,) you will certainly want some better support than merely that of the crown. For I much doubt, whether, with all your parts, you are the man formed for acquiring real interior favor in this court, or in any; I therefore wish you a firm ground in the country; and I do not know so firm and so sound a bottom to build on as our party.--Well, I have done with this matter; and you think I ought to have finished it long ago. Now I turn to Ireland.

Observe, that I have not heard a word of any news relative to it, from thence or from London; so that I am only going to state to you my conjectures as to facts, and to speculate again on these conjectures. I have a strong notion that the lateness of our meeting is owing to the previous arrangements intended in Ireland. I suspect they mean that Ireland should take a sort of lead, and act an efficient part in this war, both with men and money. It will sound well, when we meet, to tell us of the active zeal and loyalty of the people of Ireland, and contrast it with the rebellious spirit of America. It will be a popular topic,--the perfect confidence of Ireland in the power of the British Parliament. From thence they will argue the little danger which any dependency of the crown has to apprehend from the enforcement of that authority. It will be, too, somewhat flattering to the country gentlemen, who might otherwise begin to be sullen, to hold out that the burden is not wholly to rest upon them; and it will pique our pride to be told that Ireland has cheerfully stepped forward: and when a dependant of this kingdom has already engaged itself in another year's war, merely for our dignity, how can we, who are principals in the quarrel, hold off? This scheme of policy seems to me so very obvious, and is likely to be of so much service to the present system, that I cannot conceive it possible they should neglect it, or something like it. They have already put the people of Ireland to the proof. Have they not borne the Earl of Buckinghamshire, the person who was employed to move the fiery committee in the House of Lords in order to stimulate the ministry to this war, who was in the chair, and who moved the resolutions?

It is within a few days of eleven years since I was in Ireland, and then after an absence of two. Those who have been absent from any scene for even a much shorter time generally lose the true practical notion of the country, and of what may or may not be done in it. When I knew Ireland, it was very different from the state of England, where government is a vast deal, the public something, but individuals comparatively very little. But if Ireland bears any resemblance to what it was some years ago, neither government nor public opinion can do a great deal; almost the whole is in the hands of a few leading people. The populace of Dublin, and some parts in the North, are in some sort an exception. But the Primate, Lord Hillsborough, and Lord Hertford have great sway in the latter; and the former may be considerable or not, pretty much as the Duke of Leinster pleases. On the whole, the success of government usually depended on the bargain made with a very few men. The resident lieutenancy may have made some change, and given a strength to government, which formerly, I know, it had not; still, however, I am of opinion, the former state, though in other hands perhaps, and in another manner, still continues. The house you are connected with is grown into a much greater degree of power than it had, though it was very considerable, at the period I speak of. If the D. of L. takes a popular part, he is sure of the city of Dublin, and he has a young man attached to him who stands very forward in Parliament and in profession, and, by what I hear, with more good-will and less envy than usually attends so rapid a progress. The movement of one or two principal men, if they manage the little popular strength which is to be found in Dublin and Ulster, may do a great deal, especially when money is to be saved and taxes to be kept off. I confess I should despair of your succeeding with any of them, if they cannot be satisfied that every job which they can look for on account of carrying this measure would be just as sure to them for their ordinary support of government. They are essential to government, which at this time must not be disturbed, and their neutrality will be purchased at as high a price as their alliance offensive and defensive. Now, as by supporting they may get as much as by betraying their country, it must be a great leaning to turpitude that can make them take a part in this war. I am satisfied, that, if the Duke of Leinster and Lord Shannon would act together, this business could not go on; or if either of them took part with Ponsonby, it would have no better success. Hutchinson's situation is much altered since I saw you. To please Tisdall, he had been in a manner laid aside at the Castle. It is now to be seen whether he prefers the gratification of his resentment and his appetite for popularity, both of which are strong enough in him, to the advantages which his independence gives him, of making a new bargain, and accumulating new offices on his heap. Pray do not be asleep in this scene of action,--at this time, if I am right, the principal. The Protestants of Ireland will be, I think, in general, backward: they form infinitely the greatest part of the landed and the moneyed interests; and they will not like to pay. The Papists are reduced to beasts of burden: they will give all they have, their shoulders, readily enough, if they are flattered. Surely the state of Ireland ought forever to teach parties moderation in their victories. People crushed by law have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those who have much to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous, more or less. But this is not our present business. If all this should prove a dream, however, let it not hinder you from writing to me and tolling me so. You will easily refute, in your conversation, the little topics which they will set afloat: such as, that Ireland is a boat, and must go with the ship; that, if the Americans contended only for their liberties, it would be different,--but since they have declared independence, and so forth--

You are happy in enjoying Townshend's company. Remember me to him. How does he like his private situation in a country where he was the son of the sovereign?--Mrs. Burke and the two Richards salute you cordially.

E.B.

BEACONSFIELD, October 8th, 1777.

A

LETTER

TO

THE MARQUIS OF ROCKINGHAM,

WITH

ADDRESSES TO THE KING,

AND

THE BRITISH COLONISTS IN NORTH AMERICA,

IN RELATION TO

THE MEASURES OF GOVERNMENT IN THE AMERICAN CONTEST, AND A PROPOSED SECESSION OF THE OPPOSITION FROM PARLIAMENT.

JANUARY, 1777.

NOTE.

This Letter, with the two Addresses which follow it, was
written upon occasion of a proposed secession from Parliament
of the members in both Houses who had opposed the measures of
government, in the contest between this country and the
colonies in North America, from the time of the repeal of the
Stamp Act. It appears, from an indorsement written by Mr.
Burke on the manuscript, that he warmly recommended the
measure, but (for what reasons is not stated) it was not
adopted.

LETTER

TO THE MARQUIS OF ROCKINGHAM.

My Dear Lord,--I am afraid that I ought rather to beg your pardon for troubling you at all in this season of repose, than to apologize for having been so long silent on the approaching business. It comes upon us, not indeed in the most agreeable manner, but it does come-upon us; and I believe your friends in general are in expectation of finding your Lordship resolved in what way you are to meet it. The deliberation is full of difficulties; but the determination is necessary.

The affairs of America seem to be drawing towards a crisis. The Howes are at this time in possession of, or are able to awe, the whole middle coast of America, from Delaware to the western boundary of Massachusetts Bay; the naval barrier on the side of Canada is broken; a great tract of country is open for the supply of the troops; the river Hudson opens a way into the heart of the provinces; and nothing can, in all probability, prevent an early and offensive campaign. What the Americans _have_ done is, in their circumstances, truly astonishing; it is, indeed, infinitely more than I expected from them. But having done so much, for some short time I began to entertain an opinion that they might do more. It is now, however, evident that they cannot look standing armies in the face. They are inferior in everything, even in numbers,--I mean, in the number of those whom they keep in constant duty and in regular pay. There seem, by the best accounts, not to be above ten or twelve thousand men, at most, in their grand army. The rest are militia, and not wonderfully well composed or disciplined. They decline a general engagement,--prudently enough, if their object had been to make the war attend upon a treaty of good terms of subjection; but when they look further, this will not do. An army that is obliged at all times and in all situations to decline an engagement may delay their ruin, but can never defend their country. Foreign assistance they have little or none, nor are likely soon to have more. France, in effect, has no king, nor any minister accredited enough either with the court or nation to undertake a design of great magnitude.

In this state of things, I persuade myself Franklin is come to Paris to draw from that court a definitive and satisfactory answer concerning the support of the colonies. If he cannot get such an answer, (and I am of opinion that at present he cannot,) then it is to be presumed he is authorized to negotiate with Lord Stormont on the basis of dependence on the crown. This I take to be his errand: for I never can believe that he is come thither as a fugitive from his cause in the hour of its distress, or that he is going to conclude a long life, which has brightened every hour it has continued, with so foul and dishonorable a flight. On this supposition, I thought it not wholly impossible that the Whig party might be made a sort of mediators of the peace. It is unnatural to suppose, that, in making an accommodation, the Americans should not choose rather to give credit to those who all along have opposed the measure of ministers, than to throw themselves wholly on the mercy of their bitter, uniform, and systematic enemies. It is, indeed, the victorious enemy that has the terms to offer; the vanquished party and their friends are, both of them, reduced in their power; and it is certain that those who are utterly broken and subdued have no option. But, as this is hardly yet the case of the Americans, in this middle state of their affairs, (much impaired, but not perfectly ruined,) one would think it must be their interest to provide, if possible, some further security for the terms which they may obtain from their enemies. If the Congress could be brought to declare in favor of those terms for which one hundred members of the House of Commons voted last year, with some civility to the party which held out those terms, it would undoubtedly have an effect to revive the cause of our liberties in England, and to give the colonies some sort of mooring and anchorage in this country. It seemed to me that Franklin might be made to feel the propriety of such a step; and as I have an acquaintance with him, I had a strong desire of taking a turn to Paris. Everything else failing, one might obtain a better knowledge of the general aspect of affairs abroad than, I believe, any of us possess at present. The Duke of Portland approved the idea. But when I had conversed with the very few of your Lordship's friends who were in town, and considered a little more maturely the constant temper and standing maxims of the party, I laid aside the design,--not being desirous of risking the displeasure of those for whose sake alone I wished to take that fatiguing journey at this severe season of the year.

The Duke of Portland has taken with him some heads of deliberation, which were the result of a discourse with his Grace and Mr. Montagu at Burlington House. It seems essential to the cause that your Lordship should meet your friends with some settled plan either of action or inaction. Your friends will certainly require such a plan; and I am sure the state of affairs requires it, whether they call for it or not. As to the measure of a secession with reasons, after rolling the matter in my head a good deal, and turning it an hundred ways, I confess I still think it the most advisable, notwithstanding the serious objections that lie against it, and indeed the extreme uncertainty of all political measures, especially at this time. It provides for your honor. I know of nothing else that can so well do this. It is something, perhaps all, that can be done in our present situation. Some precaution, in this respect, is not without its motives. That very estimation for which you have sacrificed everything else is in some danger of suffering in the general wreck; and perhaps it is likely to suffer the more, because you have hitherto confided more than was quite prudent in the clearness of your intentions, and in the solidity of the popular judgment upon them. The former, indeed, is out of the power of events; the latter is full of levity, and the very creature of fortune. However, such as it is, (and for one I do not think I am inclined to overvalue it,) both our interest and our duty make it necessary for us to attend to it very carefully, so long as we act a part in public. The measure you take for this purpose may produce no immediate effect; but with regard to the party, and the principles for whose sake the party exists, all hope of their preservation or recovery depends upon your preserving your reputation.

By the conversation of some friends, it seemed as if they were willing to fall in with this design, because it promised to emancipate them from the servitude of irksome business, and to afford them an opportunity of retiring to ease and tranquillity. If that be their object in the secession and addresses proposed, there surely never were means worse chosen to gain their end; and if this be any part of the project, it were a thousand times better it were never undertaken. The measure is not only unusual, and as such critical, but it is in its own nature strong and vehement in a high degree. The propriety, therefore, of adopting it depends entirely upon the spirit with which it is supported and followed. To pursue violent measures with languor and irresolution is not very consistent in speculation, and not more reputable or safe in practice. If your Lordship's friends do not go to this business with their whole hearts, if they do not feel themselves uneasy without it, if they do not undertake it with a certain degree of zeal, and even with warmth and indignation, it had better be removed wholly out of our thoughts. A measure of less strength, and more in the beaten circle of affairs, if supported with spirit and industry, would be on all accounts infinitely more eligible. We have to consider what it is that in this undertaking we have against us. We have the weight of King, Lords, and Commons in the other scale; we have against us, within a trifle, the whole body of the law; we oppose the more considerable part of the landed and mercantile interests; we contend, in a manner, against the whole Church; we set our faces against great armies flushed with victory, and navies who have tasted of civil spoil, and have a strong appetite for more; our strength, whatever it is, must depend, for a good part of its effect, upon events not very probable. In such a situation, such a step requires not only great magnanimity, but unwearied activity and perseverance, with a good deal, too, of dexterity and management, to improve every accident in our favor.

The delivery of this paper may have very important consequences. It is true that the court may pass it over in silence, with a real or affected contempt. But this I do not think so likely. If they do take notice of it, the mildest course will be such an address from Parliament as the House of Commons made to the king on the London Remonstrance in the year 1769. This address will be followed by addresses of a similar tendency, from all parts of the kingdom, in order to overpower you with what they will endeavor to pass as the united voice and sense of the nation. But if they intend to proceed further, and to take steps of a more decisive nature, you are then to consider, not what they may legally and justly do, but what a Parliament omnipotent in power, influenced with party rage and personal resentment, operating under the implicit military obedience of court discipline, is capable of. Though they have made some successful experiments on juries, they will hardly trust enough to them to order a prosecution for a supposed libel. They may proceed in two ways: either by an _impeachment_, in which the Tories may retort on the Whigs (but with better success, though in a worse cause) the proceedings in the case of Sacheverell, or they may, without this form, proceed, as against the Bishop of Rochester, by a bill of pains and penalties more or less grievous. The similarity of the cases, or the justice, is (as I said) out of the question. The mode of proceeding has several very ancient and very recent precedents. None of these methods is impossible. The court may select three or four of the most distinguished among you for the victims; and therefore nothing is more remote from the tendency of the proposed act than any idea of retirement or repose. On the contrary, you have, all of you, as principals or auxiliaries, a much better [hotter?] and more desperate conflict, in all probability, to undergo, than any you have been yet engaged in. The only question is, whether the risk ought to be run for the chance (and it is no more) of recalling the people of England to their ancient principles, and to that personal interest which formerly they took in all public affairs. At any rate, I am sure it is right, if we take this step, to take it with a full view of the consequences, and with minds and measures in a state of preparation to meet them. It is not becoming that your boldness should arise from a want of foresight. It is more reputable, and certainly it is more safe too, that it should be grounded on the evident necessity of encountering the dangers which you foresee.

Your Lordship will have the goodness to excuse me, if I state in strong terms the difficulties attending a measure which on the whole I heartily concur in. But as, from my want of importance, I can be personally little subject to the most trying part of the consequences, it is as little my desire to urge others to dangers in which I am myself to have no inconsiderable a share.

If this measure should be thought too great for our strength or the dispositions of the times, then the point will be to consider what is to be done in Parliament. A weak, irregular, desultory, peevish opposition there will be as much too little as the other may be too big. Our scheme ought to be such as to have in it a succession of measures: else it is impossible to secure anything like a regular attendance; opposition will otherwise always carry a disreputable air; neither will it be possible, without that attendance, to persuade the people that we are in earnest. Above all, a motion should be well digested for the first day. There is one thing in particular I wish to recommend to your Lordship's consideration: that is, the opening of the doors of the House of Commons. Without this, I am clearly convinced, it will be in the power of ministry to make our opposition appear without doors just in what light they please. To obtain a gallery is the easiest thing in the world, if we are satisfied to cultivate the esteem of our adversaries by the resolution and energy with which we act against them: but if their satisfaction and good-humor be any part of our object, the attempt, I admit, is idle.

I had some conversation, before I left town, with the D. of M. He is of opinion, that, if you adhere to your resolution of seceding, you ought not to appear on the first day of the meeting. He thinks it can have no effect, except to break the continuity of your conduct, and thereby to weaken and fritter away the impression of it. It certainly will seem odd to give solemn reasons for a discontinuance of your attendance in Parliament, after having two or three times returned to it, and immediately after a vigorous act of opposition. As to trials of the temper of the House, there have been of that sort so many already that I see no reason for making another that would not hold equally good for another after that,--particularly as nothing has happened in the least calculated to alter the disposition of the House. If the secession were to be general, such an attendance, followed by such an act, would have force; but being in its nature incomplete and broken, to break it further by retreats and returns to the chase must entirely destroy its effect. I confess I am quite of the D. of M.'s opinion in this point.

I send your Lordship a corrected copy of the paper: your Lordship will be so good to communicate it, if you should approve of the alterations, to Lord J.C. and Sir G.S. I showed it to the D. of P. before his Grace left town; and at his, the D. of P.'s, desire, I have sent it to the D. of R. The principal alteration is in the pages last but one. It is made to remove a difficulty which had been suggested to Sir G.S., and which he thought had a good deal in it. I think it much the better for that alteration. Indeed, it may want still more corrections, in order to adapt it to the present or probable future state of things.

What shall I say in excuse for this long letter, which frightens me when I look back upon it? Your Lordship will take it, and all in it, with your usual incomparable temper, which carries you through so much both from enemies and friends. My most humble respects to Lady R., and believe me, with the highest regard, ever, &o.

E.B.

I hear that Dr. Franklin has had a most extraordinary reception at Paris from all ranks of people.

BEACONSFIELD, Monday night, Jan. 6, 1777.

ADDRESS TO THE KING.

We, your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, several of the peers of the realm, and several members of the House of Commons chosen by the people to represent them in Parliament, do in our individual capacity, but with hearts filled with a warm affection to your Majesty, with a strong attachment to your royal house, and with the most unfeigned devotion to your true interest, beg leave, at this crisis of your affairs, in all humility to approach your royal presence.

Whilst we lament the measures adopted by the public councils of the kingdom, we do not mean to question the legal validity of their proceedings. We do not desire to appeal from them to any person whatsoever. We do not dispute the conclusive authority of the bodies in which we have a place over all their members. We know that it is our ordinary duty to submit ourselves to the determinations of the majority in everything, except what regards the just defence of our honor and reputation. But the situation into which the British empire has been brought, and the conduct to which we are reluctantly driven in that situation, we hold ourselves bound by the relation in which we stand both to the crown and the people clearly to explain to your Majesty and our country.

We have been called upon in the speech from the throne at the opening of this session of Parliament, in a manner peculiarly marked, singularly emphatical, and from a place from whence anything implying censure falls with no common weight, to concur in unanimous approbation of those measures which have produced our present distresses and threaten us in future with others far more grievous. We trust, therefore, that we shall stand justified in offering to our sovereign and the public our reasons for persevering inflexibly in our uniform dissent from every part of those measures. We lament them from an experience of their mischief, as we originally opposed them from a sure foresight of their unhappy and inevitable tendency.

We see nothing in the present events in the least degree sufficient to warrant an alteration in our opinion. We were always steadily averse to this civil war,--not because we thought it impossible that it should be attended with victory, but because we were fully persuaded that in such a contest victory would only vary the mode of our ruin, and by making it less immediately sensible would render it the more lasting and the more irretrievable. Experience had but too fully instructed us in the possibility of the reduction of a free people to slavery by foreign mercenary armies. But we had an horror of becoming the instruments in a design, of which, in our turn, we might become the victims. Knowing the inestimable value of peace, and the contemptible value of what was sought by war, we wished to compose the distractions of our country, not by the use of foreign arms, but by prudent regulations in our own domestic policy. We deplored, as your Majesty has done in your speech from the throne, the disorders which prevail in your empire; but we are convinced that the disorders of the people, in the present time and in the present place, are owing to the usual and natural cause of such disorders at all times and in all places, where such have prevailed,--the misconduct of government;--that they are owing to plans laid in error, pursued with obstinacy, and conducted without wisdom.

We cannot attribute so much to the power of faction, at the expense of human nature, as to suppose, that, in any part of the world, a combination of men, few in number, not considerable in rank, of no natural hereditary dependencies, should be able, by the efforts of their policy alone, or the mere exertion of any talents, to bring the people of your American dominions into the disposition which has produced the present troubles. We cannot conceive, that, without some powerful concurring cause, any management should prevail on some millions of people, dispersed over an whole continent, in thirteen provinces, not only unconnected, but, in many particulars of religion, manners, government, and local interest, totally different and adverse, voluntarily to submit themselves to a suspension of all the profits of industry and all the comforts of civil life, added to all the evils of an unequal war, carried on with circumstances of the greatest asperity and rigor. This, Sir, we conceive, could never have happened, but from a general sense of some grievance so radical in its nature and so spreading in its effects as to poison all the ordinary satisfactions of life, to discompose the frame of society, and to convert into fear and hatred that habitual reverence ever paid by mankind to an ancient and venerable government.

That grievance is as simple in its nature, and as level to the most ordinary understanding, as it is powerful in affecting the most languid passions: it is--

"AN ATTEMPT MADE TO DISPOSE OF THE PROPERTY OF A WHOLE PEOPLE WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT."

Your Majesty's English subjects in the colonies, possessing the ordinary faculties of mankind, know that to live under such a plan of government is not to live in a state of freedom. Your English subjects in the colonies, still impressed with the ancient feelings of the people from whom they are derived, cannot live under a government which does not establish freedom as its basis.

This scheme, being, therefore, set up in direct opposition to the rooted and confirmed sentiments and habits of thinking of an whole people, has produced the effects which ever must result from such a collision of power and opinion. For we beg leave, with all duty and humility, to represent to your Majesty, (what we fear has been industriously concealed from you,) that it is not merely the opinion of a very great number, or even of the majority, but the universal sense of the whole body of the people in those provinces, that the practice of taxing, in the mode and on the principles which have been lately contended for and enforced, is subversive of all their rights.

This sense has been declared, as we understand on good information, by the unanimous voice of all their Assemblies: each Assembly also, on this point, is perfectly unanimous within itself. It has been declared as fully by the actual voice of the people without these Assemblies as by the constructive voice within them, as well by those in that country who addressed as by those who remonstrated; and it is as much the avowed opinion of those who have hazarded their all, rather than take up arms against your Majesty's forces, as of those who have run the same risk to oppose them. The difference among them is not on the grievance, but on the mode of redress; and we are sorry to say, that they who have conceived hopes from the placability of the ministers who influence the public councils of this kingdom disappear in the multitude of those who conceive that passive compliance only confirms and emboldens oppression.

The sense of a whole people, most gracious sovereign, never ought to be contemned by wise and beneficent rulers,--whatever may be the abstract claims, or even rights, of _the supreme power_. We have been too early instructed, and too long habituated to believe, that the only firm seat of all authority is in the minds, affections, and interests of the people, to change our opinions on the theoretic reasonings of speculative men, or for the convenience of a mere temporary arrangement of state. It is not consistent with equity or wisdom to set at defiance the general feelings of great communities, and of all the orders which compose them. Much power is tolerated, and passes unquestioned, where much is yielded to opinion. All is disputed, where everything is enforced.

Such are our sentiments on the duty and policy of conforming to the prejudices of a whole people, even where the foundation of such prejudices may be false or disputable. But permit us to lay at your Majesty's feet our deliberate judgment on the real merits of that principle, the violation of which is the known ground and origin of these troubles. We assure your Majesty, that, on our parts, we should think ourselves unjustifiable, as good citizens, and not influenced by the true spirit of Englishmen, if, with any effectual means of prevention in our hands, we were to submit to taxes to which we did not consent, either directly, or by a representation of the people securing to us the substantial benefit of an absolutely free disposition of our own property in that important case. And we add, Sir, that, if fortune, instead of blessing us with a situation where we may have daily access to the propitious presence of a gracious prince, had fixed us in settlements on the remotest part of the globe, we must carry these sentiments with us, as part of our being,--persuaded that the distance of situation would render this privilege in the disposal of property but the more necessary. If no provision had been made for it, such provision ought to be made or permitted. Abuses of subordinate authority increase, and all means of redress lessen, as the distance of the subject removes him from the seat of the supreme power. What, in those circumstances, can save him from the last extremes of indignity and oppression, but something left in his own hands which may enable him to conciliate the favor and control the excesses of government? When no means of power to awe or to oblige are possessed, the strongest ties which connect mankind in every relation, social and civil, and which teach them mutually to respect each other, are broken. Independency, from that moment, virtually exists. Its formal declaration will quickly follow. Such must be our feelings for ourselves: we are not in possession of another rule for our brethren.

When the late attempt practically to annihilate that inestimable privilege was made, great disorders and tumults, very unhappily and very naturally, arose from it. In this state of things, we were of opinion that satisfaction ought instantly to be given, or that, at least, the punishment of the disorder ought to be attended with the redress of the grievance. We were of opinion, that, if our dependencies had so outgrown the positive institutions made for the preservation of liberty in this kingdom, that the operation of their powers was become rather a pressure than a relief to the subjects in the colonies, wisdom dictated that the spirit of the Constitution should rather be applied to their circumstances, than its authority enforced with violence in those very parts where its reason became wholly inapplicable.

Other methods were then recommended and followed, as infallible means of restoring peace and order. We looked upon them to be, what they have since proved to be, the cause of inflaming discontent into disobedience, and resistance into revolt. The subversion of solemn, fundamental charters, on a suggestion of abuse, without citation, evidence, or hearing,--the total suspension of the commerce of a great maritime city, the capital of a great maritime province, during the pleasure of the crown,--the establishment of a military force, not accountable to the ordinary tribunals of the country in which it was kept up,--these and other proceedings at that time, if no previous cause of dissension had subsisted, were sufficient to produce great troubles: unjust at all times, they were then irrational.

We could not conceive, when disorders had arisen from the complaint of one violated right, that to violate every other was the proper means of quieting an exasperated people. It seemed to us absurd and preposterous to hold out, as the means of calming a people in a state of extreme inflammation, and ready to take up arms, the austere law which a rigid conqueror would impose as the sequel of the most decisive victories.

Recourse, indeed, was at the same time had to force; and we saw a force sent out, enough to menace liberty, but not to awe opposition,--tending to bring odium on the civil power, and contempt on the military,--at once to provoke and encourage resistance. Force was sent out not sufficient to hold one town; laws were passed to inflame thirteen provinces.