might obtain a British constitution; they plunged themselves headlong into those calamities, to prevent themselves from settling into that constitution, or into any thing resembling it. That if they should perfectly succeed in what they propose, as they are likely enough to do, and establish a democracy, or a mob of democracies, in a country circumstanced like France, they will establish a very bad government-a very bad species of tyranny. That the worst effect of all their proceeding was on their military, which was rendered an rmy for every purpose but that of defence. That if the question was, whether soldiers were o forget they were citizens, as an abstract proosition, he could have no difference about it; hough as it is usual, when abstract principles are > be applied, much was to be thought on the Janner of uniting the character of citizen and solier. But as applied to the events which had hapened in France, where the abstract principle was lothed with its circumstances, he thought that is friend would agree with him, that what was one there furnished no matter of exultation, ther in the act or the example. These soldiers ere not citizens; but base hireling mutineers, id mercenary sordid deserters, wholly destitute any honourable principle. Their conduct was ne of the fruits of that anarchick spirit, from the ils of which a democracy itself was to be resortI to, by those who were the least disposed to that rm, as a sort of refuge. It was not an army in rps and with discipline, and embodied under e respectable patriot citizens of the state in resting tyranny. Nothing like it. It was the case common soldiers deserting from their officers, join a furious licentious populace. It was a dertion to a cause, the real object of which was to vel all those institutions, and to break all those innexions, natural and civil, that regulate and ld together the community by a chain of subdination; to raise soldiers against their officers; rvants against their masters; tradesmen against eir customers; artificers against their employers; nants against their landlords; curates against eir bishops; and children against their parents. hat this cause of theirs was not an enemy to sertude, but to society. they animated one another to rapine and murder; whilst abetted by ambitious men of another class, they were crushing every thing respectable and virtuous in their nation, and to their power disgracing almost every name, by which we formerly knew there was such a country in the world as France. He knew too well, and he felt as much as any man, how difficult it was to accommodate a standing army to a free constitution, or to any constitution. An armed, disciplined body is, in its essence, dangerous to liberty; undisciplined, it is ruinous to society. Its component parts are, in the latter case, neither good citizens nor good soldiers. What have they thought of in France, under such a difficulty as almost puts the human faculties to a stand? They have put their army under such a variety of principles of duty, that it is more likely to breed litigants, pettifoggers, and mutineers, than soldiers. They have set up, to balance their crown army, another army, deriving under another authority, called a municipal armya balance of armies, not of orders. These latter they have destroyed with every mark of insult and oppression. States may, and they will best, exist with a partition of civil powers. Armies cannot exist under a divided command. This state of things he thought, in effect, a state of war, or, at best, but a truce instead of peace, in the country. What a dreadful thing is a standing army for the conduct of the whole or any part of which no man is responsible! In the present state of the French crown army, is the crown responsible for the whole of it? Is there any general who can be responsible for the obedience of a brigade? Any colonel for that of a regiment? Any captain for that of a company? And as to the municipal army, reinforced as it is by the new citizen-deserters, under whose command are they? Have we not seen them, not led by, but dragging, their nominal commander with a rope about his neck, when they, or those whom they accompanied, proceeded to the most atrocious acts of treason and murder? Are any of these armies? Are any of these citizens? We have in such a difficulty as that of fitting a standing army to the state, he conceived, done much better. We have not distracted our army by divided principles of obedience. We have put them under a single authority, with a simple (our common) oath of fidelity; and we keep the whole under our annual inspection. This was doing all that could be safely done. He wished the house to consider, how the memers would like to have their mansions pulled own and pillaged, their persons abused, insulted, ad destroyed; their title deeds brought out and urned before their faces, and themselves and their milies driven to seek refuge in every nation He felt some concern that this strange thing, roughout Europe, for no other reason than this, called a Revolution in France, should be comat, without any fault of theirs, they were born pared with the glorious event commonly called the entlemen, and men of property, and were sus- Revolution in England; and the conduct of the ected of a desire to preserve their consideration soldiery, on that occasion, compared with the beand their estates. The desertion in France was to haviour of some of the troops of France in the predan abominable sedition, the very professed prin- sent instance. At that period the Prince of Orange, ple of which was an implacable hostility to nobi-a prince of the blood-royal in England, was called y and gentry, and whose savage war-whoop was in by the flower of the English aristocracy to deal' Aristocrate," by which senseless, bloody cry, fend its ancient constitution, and not to level all • They are sworn to obey the king, the nation, and the law. distinctions. To this prince, so invited, the aristocratick leaders who commanded the troops went over with their several corps, in bodies, to the deliverer of their country. Aristocratick leaders brought up the corps of citizens who newly enlisted in this cause. Military obedience changed its object; but military discipline was not for a moment interrupted in its principle. The troops were ready for war, but indisposed to mutiny. But as the conduct of the English armies was different, so was that of the whole English nation at that time. In truth, the circumstances of our revolution (as it is called) and that of France are just the reverse of each other in almost every particular, and in the whole spirit of the transaction. With us it was the case of a legal monarch attempting arbitrary power-in France it is the case of an arbitrary monarch, beginning, from whatever cause, to legalize his authority. The one was to be resisted, the other was to be managed and directed; but in neither case was the order of the state to be changed, lest government might be ruined, which ought only to be corrected and legalized. With us we got rid of the man, and preserved the constituent parts of the state. There they get rid of the constituent parts of the state, and keep the man. What we did was in truth and substance, and in a constitutional light, a revolution, not made, but prevented. We took solid securities; we settled doubtful questions; we corrected anomalies in our law. In the stable, fundamental parts of our constitution we made no revolution; no, nor any alteration at all. We did not impair the monarchy. Perhaps it might be shewn that we strengthened it very considerably. The nation kept the same ranks, the same orders, the same privileges, the same franchises, the same rules for property, the same subordinations, the same order in the law, in the revenue, and in the magistracy; the same lords, the same commons, the same corporations, the same electors. The church was not impaired. Her estates, her majesty, her splendour, her orders and gradations, continued the same. She was preserved in her full efficiency, and cleared only of a certain intolerance, which was her weakness and disgrace. The church and the state were the same after the Revolution that they were before, but better secured in every part. Was little done because a revolution was not made in the constitution? No! Every thing was done; because we commenced with reparation, not with ruin. Accordingly the state flourished. Instead of laying as dead, in a sort of trance, or exposed, as some others, in an epileptic fit, to the pity or derision of the world, for her wild, ridiculous, convulsive movements, impotent to every purpose but that of dashing out her brains against the pavement, Great Britain rose above the standard even of her former self. An æra of a more improved domestick prosperity then commenced, and still continues not only unimpaired, but growing, under the wasting hand of time. All the | energies of the country were awakened. England never preserved a firmer countenance, nor a more vigorous arm, to all her enemies, and to all be rivals. Europe under her respired and revived. Every where she appeared as the protector, asse?tor, or avenger, of liberty. A war was made and supported against fortune itself. The treaty Ryswick, which first limited the power of France, was soon after made: the grand alliance very shortly followed, which shook to the foundatio the dreadful power which menaced the indepen dence of mankind. The states of Europe la happy under the shade of a great and free me narchy, which knew how to be great without esdangering its own peace at home, or the inte or external peace of any of its neighbours. Mr. Burke said he should have felt very unpl santly if he had not delivered these sentiment. He was near the end of his natural, probably si nearer the end of his political, career; that he weak and weary; and wished for rest. That was little disposed to controversies, or what called a detailed opposition. That at his time life, if he could not do something by some sort weight of opinion, natural or acquired, it was less and indecorous to attempt any thing by ne struggle. Turpe senex miles. That he had that reason little attended the army business. that of the revenue, or almost any other matter detail, for some years past. That he had, howeve his task. He was far from condemning such position; on the contrary, he most highly plauded it, where a just occasion existed for it, gentlemen had vigour and capacity to pursue Where a great occasion occurred, he was, df. while he continued in parliament, would amongst the most active and the most earnest : "" he hoped he had shewn on a late event. W respect to the constitution itself, he wished t alterations in it. Happy if he left it not the w for any share he had taken in its service. Mr. Fox then rose, and declared, in substr that so far as regarded the French army, he w no farther than the general principle, by w that army shewed itself indisposed to be an strument in the servitude of their fellow citizes but did not enter into the particulars of their duct. He declared, that he did not affect a te mocracy. That he always thought any of t simple, unbalanced governments bad; simple narchy, simple aristocracy, simple democracy ; * held them all imperfect er vicious: all were by themselves: the composition alone was 2 That these had been always his principle which he had agreed with his friend Mr. Burk whom he said many kind and flattering th which Mr. Burke, I take it for granted, will kr 4 himself too well to think he merits from at thing but Mr. Fox's acknowledged good-nats Mr. Fox thought, however, that, in many cass Mr. Burke was rather carried too far by his lat to innovation. Mr. Burke said, he well knew that these been Mr. Fox's invariable opinions; that *-* were a sure ground for the confidence of his coun- | orders, and not under those of the national try. But he had been fearful, that cabals of very assembly. different intentions would be ready to make use of N. B. As to the particular gentlemen, I do not his great name, against his character and senti- remember that Mr. Burke mentioned either of ments, in order to derive a credit to their destruc-them-certainly not Mr. Bailly. He alluded, untive machinations. doubtedly, to the case of the Marquis de la Fayette; but whether what he asserted of him be a libel on him, must be left to those who are acquainted with the business. Mr. Sheridan then rose, and made a lively and eloquent speech against Mr. Burke; in which, among other things, he said that Mr. Burke had libelled the national assembly of France, and had cast out reflections on such characters as those of the Marquis de la Fayette and Mr. Bailly. Mr. Burke said, that he did not libel the national assembly of France, whom he considered very little n the discussion of these matters. That he thought ll the substantial power resided in the republick of Paris, whose authority guided, or whose eximple was followed by, all the republicks of France. The republick of Paris had an army under their Mr. Pitt concluded the debate with becoming gravity and dignity, and a reserve on both sides of the question, as related to France, fit for a person in a ministerial situation. He said, that what he had spoken only regarded France when she should unite, which he rather thought she soon might, with the liberty she had acquired, the blessings of law and order. He, too, said several civil things concerning the sentiments of Mr. Burke, as applied to this country. MR. BURKE'S REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE, AND ON THE PROCEEDINGS IN CERTAIN SOCIETIES IN LONDON RELATIVE TO THAT EVENT: IN A LETTER INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN SENT TO A GENTLEMAN IN PARIS. 1790. An an Ir may not be unnecessary to inform the Reader, that the following Reflections had their origin in a correspondence between the Author and a very young gentleman at Paris, who did him the honour of desiring his opinion upon the important transactions, which then, and have ever since, so much occupied the attention of all men. swer was written some time in the month of October 1789; but it was kept back upon prudential considerations. That letter is alluded to in the beginning of the following sheets. It has been since forwarded to the person to whom it was addressed. The reasons for the delay in sending it were assigned in a short letter to the same gentleman. This produced on his part a new and pressing application for the Author's sentiments. The Author began a second and more full s cussion on the subject. This he had some thoug of publishing early in the last spring; but, t matter gaining upon him, he found that what a had undertaken not only far exceeded the meast. of a letter, but that its importance required rathe a more detailed consideration than at that t he had any leisure to bestow upon it. Howeve having thrown down his first thoughts in the for of a letter, and, indeed, when he sat down to w having intended it for a private letter, he foun difficult to change the form of address, when sentiments had grown into a greater extent. had received another direction. A different p he is sensible, might be more favourable to a c modious division and distribution of his matte: DEAR SIR, You are pleased to call again, and with some earnestness, for my thoughts on the late proceedings in France. I will not give you reason to imagine that I think my sentiments of such value as to wish myself to be solicited about them. They are of too little consequence to be very anxiously either communicated or withheld. It was from attention to you, and to you only, that I hesitated at the time when you first desired to receive them. In the first letter I had the honour to write to you, and which at length I send, I wrote neither for, nor from, any description of men; nor shall I in this. My errours, if any, are my own. My repu tation alone is to answer for them. You see, Sir, by the long letter I have trans | mitted to you, that though I do most heartily that France may be animated by a spirit of ra liberty, and that I think you bound, in all h policy, to provide a permanent body in . that spirit may reside, and an effectual orga which it may act, it is my misfortune to enterta great doubts concerning several material points your late transactions. You imagined, when you wrote last, that I possibly be reckoned among the approvers certain proceedings in France, from the schm publick seal of sanction they have received two clubs of gentlemen in London, called the Costitutional Society, and the Revolution Society I certainly have the honour to belong to clubs than one, in which the constitution of this kingdom, and the principles of the glorious Revolution, are held in high reverence; and I reckon myself among the most forward in my zeal for maintaining that constitution and those principles in their utmost purity and vigour. It is because I lo so that I think it necessary for me that there should be no mistake. Those who cultivate the nemory of our Revolution, and those who are atached to the constitution of this kingdom, will ake good care how they are involved with perons, who under the pretext of zeal towards the levolution and constitution too frequently waner from their true principles; and are ready on very occasion to depart from the firm but cautious nd deliberate spirit which produced the one, and hich presides in the other. Before I proceed > answer the more material particulars in your tter, I shall beg leave to give you such informaon as I have been able to obtain of the two clubs hich have thought proper, as bodies, to interfere the concerns of France; first assuring you, that am not, and that I have never been, a member 'either of those societies. The first, calling itself the Constitutional Society, Society for Constitutional Information, or by me such title, is, I believe, of seven or eight years anding. The institution of this society appears be of a charitable, and so far of a laudable, nare it was intended for the circulation, at the pence of the members, of many books, which others would be at the expence of buying; id which might lie on the hands of the booksell8, to the great loss of an useful body of men. hether the books, so charitably circulated, were er as charitably read, is more than I know. ssibly several of them have been exported to ance; and, like goods not in request here, may th you have found a market. I have heard uch talk of the lights to be drawn from books at are sent from hence. What improvements ey have had in their passage (as it is said some juors are meliorated by crossing the sea) I canot tell but I never heard a man of common dgment, or the least degree of information, speak word in praise of the greater part of the publicaons circulated by that society; nor have their oceedings been accounted, except by some of emselves, as of any serious consequence. Your national assembly seems to entertain much e same opinion that I do of this poor charitable b. As a nation, you reserved the whole stock your eloquent acknowledgments for the Revotion Society; when their fellows in the Constiitional were, in equity, entitled to some share. ince you have selected the Revolution Society as e great object of your national thanks and ruses, you will think me excusable in making its te conduct the subject of my observations. The ational Assembly of France has given importance these gentlemen by adopting them: and they turn the favour, by acting as a committee in gland for extending the principles of the Naonal Assembly. Henceforward we must consider them as a kind of privileged persons; as no inconsiderable members in the diplomatick body. This is one among the revolutions which have given splendour to obscurity, and distinction to undiscerned merit. Until very lately I do not recollect to have heard of this club. I am quite sure that it never occupied a moment of my thoughts: nor, I believe, those of any person out of their own set. I find, upon enquiry, that on the anniversary of the Revolution in 1688, a club of dissenters, but of what denomination I know not, have long had the custom of hearing a sermon in one of their churches; and that afterwards they spent the day cheerfully, as other clubs do, at the tavern. But I never heard that any publick measure, or political system, much less that the merits of the constitution of any foreign nation, had been the subject of a formal proceeding at their festivals; until, to my inexpressible surprise, I found them in a sort of publick capacity, by a congratulatory address, giving an authoritative sanction to the proceedings of the National Assembly in France. In the ancient principles and conduct of the club, so far at least as they were declared, I see nothing to which I could take exception. I think it very probable, that for some purpose, new members may have entered among them; and that some truly christian politicians, who love to dispense benefits, but are careful to conceal the hand which distributes the dole, may have made them the instruments of their pious designs. Whatever I may have reason to suspect concerning private management, I shall speak of nothing as of a certainty but what is publick. For one, I should be sorry to be thought, directly or indirectly, concerned in their proceedings. I certainly take my full share, along with the rest of the world, in my individual and private capacity, in speculating on what has been done, or is doing, on the publick stage, in any place ancient or modern; in the republick of Rome, or the republick of Paris; but having no general apostolical mission, being a citizen of a particular state, and being bound up, in a considerable degree, by its publick will, I should think it at least improper and irregular for me to open a formal publick correspondence with the actual government of a foreign nation, without the express authority of the government under which I live. I should be still more unwilling to enter into that correspondence under any thing like an equivocal description, which to many, unacquainted with our usages, might make the address, in which I joined, appear as the act of persons in some sort of corporate capacity, acknowledged by the laws of this kingdom, and authorized to speak the sense of some part of it. On account of the ambiguity and uncertainty of unauthorized general descriptions, and of the deceit which may be practised under them, and not from mere formality, the house of commons would reject the most sneaking petition for the most trifling object, un |