589.
To Lord Sheffield.
Lausanne, May 30th, 1792.
DEMOCRATIC PROCESS IN ENGLAND.
*After the receipt of your penultimate, eight days ago, I expected with much impatience, the arrival of your next-promised Epistle. It arrived this morning, but has not compleatly answered my expectations. I wanted, and I hoped for a full and fair picture of the present and probable aspect of your political World, with which, at this distance, I seem every day less satisfied. In the slave question you triumphed last session; in this you have been defeated. What is the cause of this alteration? If it proceeded only from an impulse of humanity, I cannot be displeased, even with an error; since it is very likely that my own vote (had I possessed one) would have been added to the Majority. But in this rage against slavery, in the numerous petitions against the Slave trade, was there no leaven of new democratical principles? no wild ideas of the rights and natural equality of man? It is these I fear. Some articles in newspapers, some pamphlets of the year, the Jockey Club,[218]—have fallen into my hands. I do not infer much from such publications; yet I have never known them of so black and malignant a cast. I shuddered at Grey's motion,[219] disliked the half-support of Fox, admired the firmness of Pitt's declaration, and excused the usual intemperance of Burke. Surely such men as* Grey, Sheridan, Erskine, *have talents for mischief.
I see a Club of reform[220] which contains some respectable names. Inform me of the professions, the principles, the plans, the resources of these reformers. Will they heat the minds of the people? Does the French democracy gain no ground? Will the bulk of your party stand firm to their own interest, and that of their country? Will you not take some active measures to declare your sound opinions, and separate yourselves from your rotten members? or if you allow them to perplex government, if you trifle with this solemn business, if you do not resist the spirit of innovation in the first attempt, if you admit the smallest and most specious change in our parliamentary system, you are lost. You will be driven from one step to another; from principles just in theory, to consequences most pernicious in practice; and your first concessions will be productive of every subsequent mischief, for which you will be answerable to your country and to posterity. Do not suffer yourselves to be lulled into a false security; remember the proud fabric of the French Monarchy. Not four years ago it stood founded, as it might seem, on the rock of time, force, and opinion, supported by the triple Aristocracy of the Church, the Nobility, and the Parliaments. They are crumbled into dust; they are vanished from the earth. If this tremendous warning has no effect on the men of property in England; if it does not open every eye, and raise every arm, you will deserve your fate. If I am too precipitate, enlighten; if I am too desponding, encourage me.
My pen has run into this argument; for, as much a foreigner as you think me, on this momentous subject I feel myself an Englishman.
The pleasure of residing at Sheffield-place is, after all, the first and the ultimate object of my visit to my native country. But when or how will that visit be effected? Clouds and whirlwinds, Austrian Croats, and Gallic cannibals, seem on every side to impede my passage. You appear to apprehend the perils or difficulties of the German road, and French peace is more sanguinary than civilized War. I must pass through, perhaps, a thousand Republics or municipalities, which neither obey nor are obeyed. The strictness of passports, and the popular ferment, are much encreased since last summer: Aristocrate is in every mouth, Lanterns hang in every street, and an hasty word or a casual resemblance, may be fatal. Yet, on the other hand, it is probable that many English, men, women, and children, will traverse the country without any accident before next September; and I am sensible that many things appear more formidable at a distance than on a nearer approach. Without any absolute determination, we must see what the events of the next three or four months will produce. In the mean while, I shall expect with impatience your next letter: let it be speedy; my answer shall be prompt.
GALLIC WOLVES PROWL ROUND GENEVA.
You will be glad, or sorry, to learn that my gloomy apprehensions are much abated, and that my departure, whenever it takes place, will be an act of choice, rather than of necessity. I do not pretend to affirm, that secret discontent, dark suspicion, private animosity, are very materially asswaged; but we have not experienced, nor do we now apprehend, any dangerous acts of violence, which may compell me to seek a refuge among the friendly Bears,[221] and to abandon my library to the mercy of the Democrates. The firmness and vigour of Government have crushed, at least for a time, the spirit of innovation; and I do not believe that the body of the people, especially the Peasants, are disposed for a revolution. From France, praised be the Demon of Anarchy! the insurgents of the pays de Vaud could not at present have much to hope; and should the Gardes nationales, of which there is little appearance, attempt an incursion, the country is armed and prepared, and they would be resisted with equal numbers and superior discipline. The Gallic wolves that prowled round Geneva are drawn away, some to the south and some to the north, and the late events in Flanders seem to have diffused a general contempt, as well as abhorrence, for the lawless savages, who fly before the enemy, hang their prisoners, and murder their officers.[222] The brave and patient regiment of Ernest is expected home every day, and as Bern will take them into present pay, that veteran and regular corps will add to the security of our frontier.
I rejoyce that we have so little to say on that subject of Worldly affairs.* Since the interest of the Yorkshire is due from the mouth of February my complaints are silenced, but I am desirous of the consummation of the business. You seem to applaud your good fortune in finding an excellent settlement for £3000, with which you have purchased three unexceptionable Debentures, but you forget to mention who are my Creditors and in what part of the Globe my landed security is placed. I must confess some fears of Ireland or the West Indies, with neither of which I would willingly have any connection. As my property is now divided, I should much wish that you would draw up and sign a regular statement of the several objects, stating in whose hands and where the respective title deeds are deposited. With regard to those which are entrusted ——[223] it could not surely be offensive to ask him for a written acknowledgment. I have no evidence whatsoever to produce to his Executors; this thought sometimes makes me rather uneasy. I thank you for the offer of supporting my Credit at Gosling's; but the stream now begins to flow faster than I draw, and they have been instructed to keep £500 India bonds from your talons. Notwithstanding the Darrel's caution, I wish you had seized the propitious moment when stocks were so ridiculously high. I am much surprized to have no account whatsoever of the approach of my Madeira, which has been so injudiciously paid for beforehand; enquiries must be made. Will you likewise inform yourself of the Wedgewood, why I have not been able to obtain their old account which was solicited by letter, a strong measure from me, when I paid Severy's bill two or three years ago? If they have waited scandalously for their money, it is not my fault; but I do not like it myself, as it is the only debt I have in the World. Mrs. Moss saw my house and garden in a rainy day, and her passage was so rapid that I could not even give her a dish of tea: she seems pleased with her situation at Geneva.
*This summer we are threatened with an inundation, besides many nameless English and Irish; the Dowager Lady Spencer is arrived, the Dutchess of Ancaster is expected, but I am less anxious about those matrons, than for the good Dutchess of Devonshire and the wicked Lady Elizabeth Foster, who are on their march. Lord Malmsbury, the audacieux Harris,[224] will inform you that he has seen me: him I would have consented to keep.*
THE DESTINY OF HIS LIBRARY.
Before I absolutely conclude, I must animadvert on the whimsical peroration of your last Epistle concerning the future fate of my library,[225] about which you are so indignant. I am a friend to the circulation of property of every kind, and besides the pecuniary advantage of my poor heirs, I consider a public sale as the most laudable method of disposing of it. From such sales my books were chiefly collected, and when I can no longer use them they will be again culled by various buyers according to the measure of their wants and means. If indeed a true liberal public library existed in London, I might be tempted to enrich the catalogue and encourage the institution: but to bury my treasure in a country mansion under the key of a jealous master! I am not flattered by the Gibbonian collection, and shall own my presumptuous belief that six quarto Volumes may be sufficient for the preservation of that name. If however your unknown successor should be a man of learning, if I should live to see the love of litterature dawning in your grandson—— In the meanwhile I admire the firm confidence of our friendship that you can insist, and I can demur, on a legacy of fifteen hundred or two thousand pounds without the smallest fear of offence.
*One word more before we part; call upon Mr. John Nichols,[226] bookseller and printer, at Cicero's head, Red-Lion-passage, Fleet-street, and ask him whether he did not, about the beginning of March, receive a very polite letter[227] from Mr. Gibbon of Lausanne? To which, either as a man of business or a civil Gentleman, he should have returned an answer. My application related to a domestic article in the Gentleman's magazine of August, 1788, (p. 698,)[228] which had lately fallen into my hands, and concerning which I requested some farther lights. Mrs. Moss delivered the letters into my hands, but I doubt whether they will be of much service to me; the work appears far more difficult in the execution than in the idea, and as I am now taking my leave for some time of the library, I shall not make much progress in the memoirs of P. P. till I am on English ground. But is it indeed true, that I shall eat any Sussex pheasants this autumn? The event is in the book of Fate, and I cannot unroll the leaves of September and October. Should I reach Sheffield-place, I hope to find the whole family in a perfect state of existence, except a certain Maria Holroyd, my fair and generous correspondent, whose annihilation on proper terms I most fervently desire. I must receive a copious answer before the end of next month, June, and again call upon you for a map of your political World. The Chancellor roars; does he break his chain? Vale.*