In short those half-pence are like the accursed thing, which, as the Scripture tells us, the children of Israel were forbidden to touch; they will run about like the plague and destroy every one who lays his hands upon them. I have heard scholars talk of a man who told a king that he had invented a way to torment people by putting them into a bull of bra.s.s with fire under it, but the prince put the projector first into his own brazen bull to make the experiment; this very much resembles the project of Mr. Wood; and the like of this may possibly be Mr. Wood"s fate, that the bra.s.s he contrived to torment this kingdom with, may prove his own torment, and his destruction at last.
_N.B._--The author of this paper is inform"d by persons who have made it their business to be exact in their observations on the true value of these half-pence, that any person may expect to get a quart of twopenny ale for thirty-six of them.
I desire all persons may keep this paper carefully by them to refresh their memories whenever they shall have further notice of Mr. Wood"s half-pence or any other the like imposture.
II.
A LETTER TO MR. HARDING THE PRINTER, UPON OCCASION OF A PARAGRAPH IN HIS NEWS-PAPER OF AUGUST 1, 1724, RELATING TO MR. WOOD"S HALF-PENCE.
In your news-letter of the first instant there is a paragraph dated from London, July 25th, relating to Wood"s half-pence; whereby it is plain, what I foretold in my letter to the shop-keepers, etc., that this vile fellow would never be at rest, and that the danger of our ruin approaches nearer, and therefore the kingdom requires new and fresh warning; however I take that paragraph to be, in a great measure, an imposition upon the public, at least I hope so, because I am informed that Wood is generally his own news-writer. I cannot but observe from that paragraph that this public enemy of ours, not satisfied to ruin us with his trash, takes every occasion to treat this kingdom with the utmost contempt. He represents several of our merchants and traders upon examination before a committee of a council, agreeing that there was the utmost necessity of copper-money here, before his patent, so that several gentlemen have been forced to tally with their workmen, and give them bits of cards sealed and subscribed with their names. What then? If a physician prescribe to a patient a dram of physic, shall a rascal apothecary cram him with a pound, and mix it up with poison? And is not a landlord"s hand and seal to his own labourers a better security for five or ten shillings, than Wood"s bra.s.s seven times below the real value, can be to the kingdom, for an hundred and four thousand pounds?
But who are these merchants and traders of Ireland that make this report of the utmost necessity we are under of copper money? They are only a few betrayers of their country, confederates with Wood, from whom they are to purchase a great quant.i.ty of his coin, perhaps at half value, and vend it among us to the ruin of the public and their own private advantage. Are not these excellent witnesses, upon whose integrity the fate of a kingdom must depend, who are evidences in their own cause, and sharers in this work of iniquity?
If we could have deserved the liberty of coining for ourselves, as we formerly did (and why we have not is everybody"s wonder as well as mine), ten thousand pounds might have been coined here in Dublin of only one fifth below the intrinsic value, and this sum, with the stock of half-pence we then had, would have been sufficient: but Wood by his emissaries, enemies to G.o.d and this kingdom, hath taken care to buy up as many of our old half-pence as he could, and from thence the present want of change arises; to remove which, by Mr. Wood"s remedy, would be, to cure a scratch on the finger by cutting off the arm. But supposing there were not one farthing of change in the whole nation, I will maintain that five and twenty thousand pounds would be a sum fully sufficient to answer all our occasions. I am no inconsiderable shop-keeper in this town, I have discoursed with several of my own and other trades, with many gentlemen both of city and country, and also with great numbers of farmers, cottagers, and labourers, who all agree that two shillings in change for every family would be more than necessary in all dealings. Now by the largest computation (even before that grievous discouragement of agriculture, which hath so much lessened our numbers) the souls in this kingdom are computed to be one million and a half, which, allowing but six to a family, makes two hundred and fifty thousand families, and consequently two shillings to each family will amount only to five and twenty thousand pounds, whereas this honest liberal hard-ware-man Wood, would impose upon us above four times that sum.
Your paragraph relates further, that Sir Isaac Newton reported an a.s.say taken at the Tower, of Wood"s metal, by which it appears that Wood had in all respects performed his contract. His contract! With whom? Was it with the Parliament or people of Ireland? Are not they to be the purchasers? But they detest, abhor, and reject it, as corrupt, fraudulent, mingled with dirt and trash. Upon which he grows angry, goes to law, and will impose his goods upon us by force.
But your news-letter says that an a.s.say was made of the coin. How impudent and insupportable is this? Wood takes care to coin a dozen or two half-pence of good metal, sends them to the Tower and they are approved, and these must answer all that he hath already coined or shall coin for the future. It is true, indeed, that a gentleman often sends to my shop for a pattern of stuff, I cut it fairly off, and if he likes it he comes or sends and compares the pattern with the whole piece, and probably we come to a bargain. But if I were to buy an hundred sheep, and the grazier should bring me one single weather fat and well fleeced by way of pattern, and expect the same price round for the whole hundred, without suffering me to see them before he was paid, or giving me good security to restore my money for those that were lean or shorn or scabby, I would be none of his customer. I have heard of a man who had a mind to sell his house, and therefore carried a piece of brick in his pocket, which he showed as a pattern to encourage purchasers: and this is directly the case in point with Mr.
Wood"s a.s.say.
The next part of the paragraph contains Mr. Wood"s voluntary proposals for preventing any future objections or apprehensions.
His first proposal is, that whereas he hath already coined seventeen thousand pounds, and has copper prepared to make it up forty thousand pounds, he will be content to coin no more, unless the exigences of trade require it, though his patent empowers him to coin a far greater quant.i.ty.
To which if I were to answer it should be thus: Let Mr. Wood and his crew of founders and tinkers coin on till there is not an old kettle left in the kingdom; let them coin old leather, tobacco-pipe clay, or the dirt in the streets, and call their trumpery by what name they please from a guinea to a farthing, we are not under any concern to know how he and his tribe or accomplices think fit to employ themselves. But I hope and trust that we are all to a man fully determined to have nothing to do with him or his ware.
The king has given him a patent to coin half-pence, but hath not obliged us to take them, and I have already shown in my Letter to the Shop-keepers, etc., that the law hath not left it in the power of the prerogative to compel the subject to take any money, beside gold and silver of the right sterling and standard.
Wood further proposes, (if I understand him right, for his expressions are dubious) that he will not coin above forty thousand pounds unless the exigences of trade require it: First, I observe that this sum of forty thousand pounds is almost double to what I proved to be sufficient for the whole kingdom, although we had not one of our old half-pence left. Again I ask, who is to be judge when the exigences of trade require it? Without doubt he means himself, for as to us of this poor kingdom, who must be utterly ruined if his project should succeed, we were never once consulted till the matter was over, and he will judge of our exigences by his own; neither will these be ever at an end till he and his accomplices will think they have enough: and it now appears that he will not be content with all our gold and silver, but intends to buy up our goods and manufactures with the same coin.
I shall not enter into examination of the prices for which he now proposes to sell his half-pence or what he calls his copper, by the pound; I have said enough of it in my former letter, and it hath likewise been considered by others. It is certain that, by his own first computation, we were to pay three shillings for what was intrinsically worth but one, although it had been of the true weight and standard for which he pretended to have contracted; but there is so great a difference both in weight and badness in several of his coins that some of them have been nine in ten below the intrinsic value, and most of them six or seven.
His last proposal being of a peculiar strain and nature, deserves to be very particularly consider"d, both on account of the matter and the style. It is as follows.
Lastly, in consideration of the direful apprehensions which prevail in Ireland, that Mr. Wood will by such coinage drain them of their gold and silver, he proposes to take their manufactures in exchange, and that no person be obliged to receive more than five-pence half-penny at one payment.
First, observe this little impudent hard-ware-man turning into ridicule the direful apprehensions of a whole kingdom, priding himself as the cause of them, and daring to prescribe what no king of England ever attempted, how far a whole nation shall be obliged to take his bra.s.s coin. And he has reason to insult; for sure there was never an example in history of a great kingdom kept in awe for above a year in daily dread of utter destruction, not by a powerful invader at the head of twenty thousand men, not by a plague or a famine, not by a tyrannical prince (for we never had one more gracious) or a corrupt administration, but by one single, diminutive, insignificant, mechanic.
But to go on. To remove our direful apprehensions that he will drain us of our gold and silver by his coinage, this little arbitrary mock-monarch most graciously offers to take our manufactures in exchange. Are our Irish understandings indeed so low in his opinion?
Is not this the very misery we complain of? That his cursed project will put us under the necessity of selling our goods for what is equal to nothing. How would such a proposal sound from France or Spain, or any other country we deal with, if they should offer to deal with us only upon this condition, that we should take their money at ten times higher than the intrinsic value? Does Mr. Wood think, for instance, that we will sell him a stone of wool for a parcel of his counters not worth sixpence, when we can send it to England and receive as many shillings in gold and silver? Surely there was never heard such a compound of impudence, villainy and folly.
His proposals conclude with perfect high-treason. He promises, that no person shall be obliged to receive more than five-pence half-penny of his coin in one payment: by which it is plain that he pretends to oblige every subject in this kingdom to take so much in every payment, if it be offered; whereas his patent obliges no man, nor can the prerogative by law claim such a power, as I have often observed; so that here Mr. Wood takes upon him the entire legislature, and an absolute dominion over the properties of the whole nation.
Good G.o.d! Who are this wretch"s advisers? Who are his supporters, abettors, encouragers, or sharers? Mr. Wood will oblige me to take five-pence half-penny of his bra.s.s in every payment. And I will shoot Mr. Wood and his deputies through the head, like highway-men or house-breakers, if they dare to force one farthing of their coin upon me in the payment of an hundred pounds. It is no loss of honour to submit to the lion; but who, with the figure of a man can think with patience of being devoured alive by a rat? He has laid a tax upon the people of Ireland of seventeen shillings at least in the pound; a tax, I say, not only upon lands, but interest-money, goods, manufactures, the hire of handicraftsmen, labourers and servants. Shop-keepers, look to yourselves. Wood will oblige and force you to take five-pence half-penny of his trash in every payment, and many of you receive twenty, thirty, forty, payments in one day, or else you can hardly find bread: and pray consider how much that will amount to in a year; twenty times five-pence half-penny is nine shillings and two-pence, which is above an hundred and sixty pounds a year, whereof you will be losers of at least one hundred and forty pounds by taking your payments in his money. If any of you be content to deal with Mr. Wood on such conditions they may. But for my own particular, let his money perish with him. If the famous Mr. Hampden rather chose to go to prison than pay a few shillings to King Charles I. without authority of Parliament, I will rather choose to be hanged than have all my substance taxed at seventeen shillings in the pound, at the arbitrary will and pleasure of the venerable Mr. Wood.
The paragraph concludes thus. _N.B._ (that is to say _nota bene_, or mark well) No evidence appeared from Ireland or elsewhere, to prove the mischiefs complained of, or any abuses whatsoever committed in the execution of the said grant.
The impudence of this remark exceeds all that went before. First, the House of Commons in Ireland, which represents the whole people of the kingdom; and secondly the Privy Council, addressed his majesty against these half-pence. What could be done more to express the universal sense and opinion of the nation? If his copper were diamonds, and the kingdom were entirely against it, would not that be sufficient to reject it? Must a committee of the House of Commons, and our whole Privy Council go over to argue pro and con with Mr. Wood? To what end did the king give his patent for coining of half-pence in Ireland? Was it not, because it was represented to his sacred majesty, that such a coinage would be of advantage to the good of this kingdom, and of all his subjects here? It is to the patentee"s peril if his representation be false, and the execution of his patent be fraudulent and corrupt.
Is he so wicked and foolish to think that his patent was given him to ruin a million and a half of people, that he might be a gainer of three or fourscore thousand pounds to himself? Before he was at the charge of pa.s.sing a patent, much more of raking up so much filthy dross, and stamping it with his majesty"s image and superscription, should he not first in common sense, in common equity, and common manners, have consulted the princ.i.p.al party concerned; that is to say, the people of the kingdom, the House of Lords or Commons, or the Privy Council? If any foreigner should ask us, whose image and superscription there is on Wood"s coin, we should be ashamed to tell him, it was Caesar"s. In that great want of copper half-pence, which he alleges we were, our city set up our Caesar"s statue in excellent copper, at an expence that is equal in value to thirty thousand pounds of his coin; and we will not receive his image in worse metal.
I observe many of our people putting a melancholy case on this subject. It is true say they, we are all undone if Wood"s half-pence must pa.s.s; but what shall we do, if his majesty puts out a proclamation commanding us to take them? This has been often dinned in my ears. But I desire my countrymen to be a.s.sured that there is nothing in it. The king never issues out a proclamation but to enjoin what the law permits him. He will not issue out a proclamation against law, or if such a thing should happen by a mistake, we are no more obliged to obey it than to run our heads into the fire. Besides, his majesty will never command us by a proclamation, what he does not offer to command us in the patent itself. There he leaves it to our discretion, so that our destruction must be entirely owing to ourselves. Therefore let no man be afraid of a proclamation, which will never be granted; and if it should, yet upon this occasion, will be of no force. The king"s revenues here are near four hundred thousand pounds a year, can you think his ministers will advise him to take them in Wood"s bra.s.s, which will reduce the value to fifty thousand pounds? England gets a million sterl. by this nation, which, if this project goes on, will be almost reduc"d to nothing: and do you think those who live in England upon Irish estates will be content to take an eighth or a tenth part, by being paid in Wood"s dross?
If Wood and his confederates were not convinced of our stupidity, they never would have attempted so audacious an enterprise. He now sees a spirit hath been raised against him, and he only watches till it begins to flag, he goes about watching when to devour us. He hopes we shall be weary of contending with him, and at last out of ignorance, or fear, or of being perfectly tired with opposition, we shall be forced to yield. And therefore I confess it is my chief endeavour to keep up your spirits and resentments. If I tell you there is a precipice under you, and that if you go forwards you will certainly break your necks--if I point to it before your eyes, must I be at the trouble of repeating it every morning? Are our people"s hearts waxed gross? Are their ears dull of hearing, and have they closed their eyes? I fear there are some few vipers among us, who, for ten or twenty pounds" gain, would sell their souls and their country, though at last it would end in their own ruin as well as ours. Be not like the deaf adder, who refuses to hear the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely.
Though my letter be directed to you, Mr. Harding, yet I intend it for all my countrymen. I have no interest in this affair but what is common to the public; I can live better than many others, I have some gold and silver by me, and a shop well furnished, and shall be able to make a shift when many of my betters are starving. But I am grieved to see the coldness and indifference of many people with whom I discourse. Some are afraid of a proclamation, others shrug up their shoulders, and cry, what would you have us to do? Some give out, there is no danger at all. Others are comforted that it will be a common calamity and they shall fare no worse than their neighbours. Will a man, who hears midnight-robbers at his door, get out of bed, and raise his family for a common defence, and shall a whole kingdom lie in a lethargy, while Mr. Wood comes at the head of his confederates to rob them of all they have, to ruin us and our posterity for ever? If an high-way-man meets you on the road, you give him your money to save your life; but, G.o.d be thanked, Mr. Wood cannot touch a hair of your heads. You have all the laws of G.o.d and man on your side. When he or his accomplices offer you his dross, it is but saying No, and you are safe. If a madman should come to my shop with a handful of dirt raked out of the kennel, and offer it in payment for ten yards of stuff, I would pity or laugh at him, or, if his behaviour deserved it, kick him out of my doors. And if Mr. Wood comes to demand any gold or silver, or commodities for which I have paid my gold and silver, in exchange for his trash, can he deserve or expect better treatment?
When the evil day is come (if it must come) let us mark and observe those who presume to offer these half-pence in payment. Let their names and trades, and places of abode be made public, that every one may be aware of them, as betrayers of their country, and confederates with Mr. Wood. Let them be watched at markets and fairs, and let the first honest discoverer give the word about, that Wood"s half-pence have been offered, and caution the poor innocent people not to receive them.
Perhaps I have been too tedious; but there would never be an end, if I attempt to say all that this melancholy subject will bear. I will conclude with humbly offering one proposal, which if it were put in practice, would blow up this destructive project at once. Let some skilful judicious pen draw up an advertis.e.m.e.nt to the following purpose:
_Whereas one William Wood, hard-ware-man, now or lately sojourning in the city of London, hath, by many misrepresentations, procured a patent for coining an hundred and forty thousand pounds in copper half-pence for this kingdom, which is a sum five times greater than our occasions require: And whereas it is notorious that the said Wood hath coined his half-pence of such base metal and false weight, that they are, at least, six parts in seven below the real value: And whereas we have reason to apprehend that the said Wood may, at any time hereafter, clandestinely coin as many more half-pence as he pleases: And whereas the said patent neither doth nor can oblige his majesty"s subjects to receive the said half-pence in any payment, but leaves it to their voluntary choice, because, by law the subject cannot be obliged to take any money except gold or silver: And whereas, contrary to the letter and meaning of the said patent, the said Wood hath declared that every person shall be obliged to take five-pence half-penny of his coin in every payment: And whereas the House of Commons and Privy Council have severally addressed his most sacred majesty representing the ill consequences which the said coinage may have upon this kingdom: And lastly, whereas it is universally agreed, that the whole nation to a man (except Mr. Wood and his confederates) are in the utmost apprehensions of the ruinous consequences that must follow from the said coinage. Therefore we, whose names are underwritten, being persons of considerable estates in this kingdom, and residers therein, do unanimously resolve and declare that we will never receive one farthing or half-penny of the said Wood"s coining, and that we will direct all our tenants to refuse the said coin from any person whatsoever; of which, that they may not be ignorant, we have sent them a copy of this advertis.e.m.e.nt, to be read to them by our stewards, receivers, etc._
I could wish, that a paper of this nature might be drawn up, and signed by two or three hundred princ.i.p.al gentlemen of this kingdom, and printed copies thereof sent to their several tenants; I am deceived, if anything could sooner defeat this execrable design of Wood and his accomplices. This would immediately give the alarm, and set the kingdom on their guard. This would give courage to the meanest tenant and cottager. _How long, O Lord, righteous and true_, etc.
I must tell you in particular, Mr. Harding, that you are much to blame. Several hundred persons have enquired at your house for my Letter to the Shop-keepers, etc., and you had none to sell them. Pray keep yourself provided with that letter and with this; you have got very well by the former, but I did not then write for your sake, any more than I do now. Pray advertise both in every news-paper, and let it not be your fault or mine if our countrymen will not take warning.
I desire you likewise to sell them as cheap as you can.--I am your Servant, M.B.
_Aug. 4, 1724._
IV.--"SECOND LETTER ON A REGICIDE PEACE"
BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EDMUND BURKE
(_I have found the selection of a suitable sample of Burke to be my most difficult task in this volume. All his writings, as I have pointed out in the general introduction, are, after a sort, pamphlets; and this of itself was an embarra.s.sment. It was partly complicated and partly lessened by the fact that the form of his speeches naturally excluded them. Many of his other works--notably the _Thoughts on the Present Discontents_, the immortal _Reflections on the French Revolution_, and the _Appeal from the New Whigs to the Old_--were much too long for a scheme in which I have made it a rule to give in each case entire works or divisions of works. I at last reduced the suitable candidates to three--the _Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe_, that _To a n.o.ble Lord_, and the present number of the _Letters on a Regicide Peace_. The first went as being to some extent identical in subject with the examples of another writer, Sydney Smith, which I had already resolved on giving; the second as being too much in the nature of a personal apologia. With the third, which I looked on at first with least favour, I have become increasingly well satisfied. It has not the gorgeous rhetoric of _The Letter to a n.o.ble Lord_, the _Reflections_, and others. It has nothing so lively as the contrast between France and Algiers in its immediate predecessor. It may even seem, to those who have accustomed themselves to think of Burke wholly or mainly as a gorgeous rhetorician, rather tame as a whole. But if it does not soar, it never droops; it is admirably proportioned, admirably written, and admirably argued throughout, and it shows great knowledge and mastery of foreign politics--the point in which English statesmen have always been weakest. I may add that it seems to me a triumphant refutation of the charge--constantly brought against Burke not merely by extreme democrats, but by the usual advocate of the _juste milieu_,--that in his later years, and especially in these very Letters, he became a mere raving Gallophobe, with no sense of proportion or circ.u.mstance. For my part, I have read scores, probably hundreds, of books--English, French, and German--on the French Revolution; I have never read one that made Burke obsolete. Let it only be added that the author, who was born in 1730, was very near the end of his career--he died next year--when he wrote these letters, and that the peace proposals which he deprecated, and which he did not a little to avert, were dictated on the one side by the sobering down of the first Revolutionary fervour under the Directory; on the other by the persistent ill-success of the Allies, and the conflicts of interest and principle which had arisen among them._)
My dear Sir--I closed my first letter with serious matter, and I hope it has employed your thoughts. The system of peace must have a reference to the system of the war. On that ground, I must therefore again recall your mind to our original opinions, which time and events have not taught me to vary.
My ideas and my principles led me, in this contest, to encounter France, not as a state, but as a faction. The vast territorial extent of that country, its immense population, its riches of production, its riches of commerce and convention--the whole aggregate ma.s.s of what, in ordinary cases, const.i.tutes the force of a state, to me were but objects of secondary consideration. They might be balanced; and they have been often more than balanced. Great as these things are, they are not what make the faction formidable. It is the faction that makes them truly dreadful. That faction is the evil spirit that possesses the body of France; that informs it as a soul; that stamps upon its ambition, and upon all its pursuits, a characteristic mark, which strongly distinguishes them from the same general pa.s.sions, and the same general views, in other men and in other communities. It is that spirit which inspires into them a new, a pernicious, a desolating activity. Const.i.tuted as France was ten years ago, it was not in that France to shake, to shatter, and to overwhelm Europe in the manner that we behold. A sure destruction impends over those infatuated princes, who, in the conflict with this new and unheard-of power, proceed as if they were engaged in a war that bore a resemblance to their former contests; or that they can make peace in the spirit of their former arrangements of pacification. Here the beaten path is the very reverse of the safe road.
As to me, I was always steadily of opinion, that this disorder was not in its nature intermittent. I conceived that the contest, once begun, could not be laid down again, to be resumed at our discretion; but that our first struggle with this evil would also be our last. I never thought we could make peace with the system; because it was not for the sake of an object we pursued in rivalry with each other, but with the system itself, that we were at war. As I understood the matter, we were at war not with its conduct, but with its existence; convinced that its existence and its hostility were the same.
The faction is not local or territorial. It is a general evil. Where it least appears in action, it is still full of life. In its sleep it recruits its strength, and prepares its exertion. Its spirit lies deep in the corruption of our common nature. The social order which restrains it, feeds it. It exists in every country in Europe; and among all orders of men in every country, who look up to France as to a common head. The centre is there. The circ.u.mference is the world of Europe wherever the race of Europe may be settled. Everywhere else the faction is militant; in France it is triumphant. In France it is the bank of deposit, and the bank of circulation, of all the pernicious principles that are forming in every state. It will be folly scarcely deserving of pity, and too mischievous for contempt, to think of restraining it in any other country whilst it is predominant there.
War, instead of being the cause of its force, has suspended its operation. It has given a reprieve, at least, to the Christian world.
The true nature of a Jacobin war, in the beginning, was, by most of the Christian powers, felt, acknowledged, and even in the most precise manner declared. In the joint manifesto, published by the emperor and the king of Prussia, on the 4th of August, 1792, it is expressed in the clearest terms, and on principles which could not fail, if they had adhered to them, of cla.s.sing those monarchs with the first benefactors of mankind. This manifesto was published, as they themselves express it, "to lay open to the present generation, as well as to posterity, their motives, their intentions, and the _disinterestedness_ of their personal views; taking up arms for the purpose of preserving social and political order amongst all civilised nations, and to secure to _each_ state its religion, happiness, independence, territories, and real const.i.tution."--"On this ground, they hoped that all empires and all states would be unanimous; and becoming the firm guardians of the happiness of mankind, that they could not fail to unite their efforts to rescue a numerous nation from its own fury, to preserve Europe from the return of barbarism, and the universe from the subversion and anarchy with which it was threatened." The whole of that n.o.ble performance ought to be read at the first meeting of any congress which may a.s.semble for the purpose of pacification. In that piece "these powers expressly renounce all views of personal aggrandis.e.m.e.nt," and confine themselves to objects worthy of so generous, so heroic, and so perfectly wise and politic an enterprise. It was to the principles of this confederation, and to no other, that we wished our sovereign and our country to accede, as a part of the commonwealth of Europe. To these principles with some trifling exceptions and limitations they did fully accede. And all our friends who took office acceded to the ministry (whether wisely or not), as I always understood the matter, on the faith and on the principles of that declaration.
As long as these powers flattered themselves that the menace of force would produce the effect of force, they acted on those declarations: but when their menaces failed of success, their efforts took a new direction. It did not appear to them that virtue and heroism ought to be purchased by millions of rix-dollars. It is a dreadful truth, but it is a truth that cannot be concealed; in ability, in dexterity, in the distinctness of their views, the Jacobins are our superiors. They saw the thing right from the very beginning. Whatever were the first motives to the war among politicians, they saw that in its spirit, and for its objects, it was a _civil war_; and as such they pursued it. It is a war between the partisans of the ancient, civil, moral, and political order of Europe, against a sect of fanatical and ambitious atheists which means to change them all. It is not France extending a foreign empire over other nations; it is a sect aiming at universal empire, and beginning with the conquest of France. The leaders of that sect secured the _centre of Europe_; and that secured, they knew, that whatever might be the event of battles and sieges, their _cause_ was victorious. Whether its territory had a little more or a little less peeled from its surface, or whether an island or two was detached from its commerce, to them was of little moment. The conquest of France was a glorious acquisition. That once well laid as a basis of empire, opportunities never could be wanting to regain or to replace what had been lost, and dreadfully to avenge themselves on the faction of their adversaries.
They saw it was a _civil war_. It was their business to persuade their adversaries that it ought to be a _foreign_ war. The Jacobins everywhere set up a cry against the new crusade; and they intrigued with effect in the cabinet, in the field, and in every private society in Europe. Their task was not difficult. The condition of princes, and sometimes of first ministers too, is to be pitied. The creatures of the desk, and the creatures of favour, had no relish for the principles of the manifestoes. They promised no governments, no regiments, no revenues from whence emoluments might arise by perquisite or by grant. In truth, the tribe of vulgar politicians are the lowest of our species. There is no trade so vile and mechanical as government in their hands. Virtue is not their habit. They are out of themselves in any course of conduct recommended only by conscience and glory. A large, liberal, and prospective view of the interests of states pa.s.ses with them for romance; and the principles that recommend it, for the wanderings of a disordered imagination. The calculators compute them out of their senses. The jesters and buffoons shame them out of everything grand and elevated. Littleness in object and in means, to them appears soundness and sobriety. They think there is nothing worth pursuit but that which they can handle; which they can measure with a two-foot rule; which they can tell upon ten fingers.
Without the principles of the Jacobins, perhaps without any principles at all, they played the game of that faction. There was a beaten road before them. The powers of Europe were armed; France had always appeared dangerous; the war was easily diverted from France as a faction, to France as a state. The princes were easily taught to slide back into their old, habitual course of politics. They were easily led to consider the flames that were consuming France, not as a warning to protect their own buildings (which were without any party wall, and linked by a contignation into the edifice of France,) but as a happy occasion for pillaging the goods, and for carrying off the materials, of their neighbour"s house. Their provident fears were changed into avaricious hopes. They carried on their new designs without seeming to abandon the principles of their old policy. They pretended to seek, or they flattered themselves that they sought, in the accession of new fortresses, and new territories, a _defensive_ security. But the security wanted was against a kind of power which was not so truly dangerous in its fortresses nor in its territories, as in its spirit and its principles. The aimed, or pretended to aim, at _defending_ themselves against a danger from which there can be no security in any _defensive_ plan. If armies and fortresses were a defence against Jacobinism, Louis the Sixteenth would this day reign a powerful monarch over a happy people.