TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.
Weston, Dec. 18, 1789.
My dear Friend,—The present appears to me a wonderful period in the history of mankind. That nations so long contentedly slaves should on a sudden become enamoured of liberty, and understand as suddenly their own natural right to it, feeling themselves at the same time inspired with resolution to assert it, seems difficult to account for from natural causes. With respect to the final issue of all this, I can only say that if, having discovered the value of liberty, they should next discover the value of peace, and lastly the value of the word of God, they will be happier than they ever were since the rebellion of the first pair, and as happy as it is possible they should be in the present life.
Most sincerely yours,
W. C.
The French revolution, to which we have now been led by the correspondence of Cowper, whether we consider its immediate or ultimate consequences, was one of the most extraordinary events recorded in the history of modern Europe. It fixed the contemplation of the politician, the philosopher, and the moralist. By the first, it was viewed according to the political bias which marks the two great divisions of party established in this country. Mr. Fox designated it as one of the noblest fabrics ever erected by human liberty for the happiness of mankind. Mr. Burke asserted that it was a system of demolition, and not of reparation. The French revolution might possibly have merited the eulogium of Mr. Fox, if its promoters had known when to pause, or how to regulate its progress. But unhappily the spirit of democracy was let loose, and those who first engaged in the work (influenced no doubt by the purest motives) were obliged to give way to men of more turbulent passions; demagogues, who were willing to go all lengths; who had nothing to lose, and every thing to gain; and in whose eyes moderation was a crime, and the fear of spoliation and carnage an act of ignoble timidity. Contending factions succeeded each other like the waves of the sea, and were borne along with the same irresistible power, till their fury was spent and exhausted.
The sequel is well known. Property was confiscated. Whatever was venerable in virtue, splendid in rank, or sacred in religion, became the object of popular violence. The throne and the altar were overturned; and an amiable and inoffensive monarch, whose only crime was the title that he sustained, was led in triumph to the scaffold, amidst the acclamations of his people; and, as if to make death more terrible, the place selected for his execution was in view of the very palace which had been the scene of his former greatness.[503]
The features which distinguished the revolution in France from that of England in 1688 are thus finely drawn by Mr. Burke.
"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.
"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.
"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."[504]
That we should have been so graciously preserved in such a period of political convulsions, will ever demand our gratitude and praise. We owe it not to our arms, or to our councils, but to the goodness and mercy of God. We heard the loud echo of the thunder, and the howlings of the storm. We even felt some portion of the heavings of the earthquake; but we were spared from falling into the abyss; we survived the ruin and desolation. We trust we shall still be preserved, by the same superintending Providence, and that we may say in the language of Burke,—
"We are not the converts of Rousseau; we are not the disciples of Voltaire; Helvetius has made no progress amongst us. Atheists are not our preachers; madmen are not our lawgivers."
But, if history be philosophy teaching by example, what, we may ask, were the political and moral causes of that extraordinary convulsion in France, of which we are speaking? They are to be traced to that spirit of ambition and conquest, which, however splendid in military prowess, ultimately exhausted the resources of the state, and oppressed the people with imposts and taxation. They are to be found in the system of peculation and extravagance that pervaded every department of the government; in the profligacy of the court; in the luxurious pomp and pride of the noblesse; and in the universal corruption that infected the whole mass of society. To the above may be added, the zeal with which infidel principles were propagated, and the systematic attempts to undermine the whole fabric of civil society, through the agency of the press. The press became impious toward God, and disloyal toward kings; and unfortunately the church and the state, being enfeebled by corruption, opposed an ineffectual resistance. Religion had lost its hold on the public mind. Men were required to believe too much, and believed nothing. The consequences were inevitable. When men have once cast off the fear of God, it is an easy transition to forget reverence to the authority of kings, and obedience to the majesty of law. It is curious to observe how the effects of this anti-social conspiracy were distinctly foreseen and predicted. "I hold it impossible," said Rousseau, "that the great monarchies of Europe can subsist much longer." "The high may be reduced low, and the rich become poor, and even the monarch dwindle into a subject."[505] The train was laid, the match alone was wanting, to produce the explosion.
The occasion was at length presented. The immediate cause of the French revolution[506] must be sought in the plains of America. When Great Britain was involved with her American colonies, France ungraciously interposed in the quarrel. She paid the price of her interference in a manner that she little anticipated. The Marquis de la Fayette there first acquired his ardour for the cause of liberty; and, crossing the Atlantic, carried back with him the spirit into France, and in a short time lighted up a flame which has since spread so great a conflagration.
But whence sprung the Revolution in America?
To solve this momentous question, we must overlook the more immediate causes, and extend our inquiry to the political and religious discussions of the times of James I. and Charles I. and II. It is in that unfortunate period of polemical controversy and excitement, that the foundation of events was laid which have not even yet spent their strength; and that the philosophical inquirer, whose sole object is the attainment of truth, will find it.
The Puritans proposed to carry forth the principle of the Reformation to a still further extent. The proposition was rejected, their views were impugned, and the freedom of religious inquiry was impeded by vexatious obstructions. They found no asylum at home; they sought it abroad, and on the American continent planted the standard of civil and religious liberty. The times of Charles I. followed. There was the same spirit, and the same results. The Star Chamber and the High Commission Court supplied new victims to swell the tide of angry feeling beyond the Atlantic. It was persecution that first peopled America. Time alone was wanting to mature the fruits. The reign of Charles II. completed the eventful crisis. The Act of Uniformity excluded, in one day, two thousand ministers, (many of whom were distinguished for profound piety and learning) from the bosom of the Church of England; and thus, by the acts of three successive reigns, the spirit of independence was established in America, and dissent in England, from which such mighty results have since followed.
We have indulged in these remarks, because we wish to show the tendency of that high feeling, which originating, as we sincerely believe, in a cordial attachment to our Church, endangers, by mistaking the means, the stability of the edifice which it seeks to support. We think this feeling, though abated in its intenseness, still exists; and, cast as we now are into perilous times, when Churches and States are undergoing a most scrutinizing inquiry, we are deeply solicitous that the past should operate as a beacon for the future. If the Church of England is to be preserved as a component part of our institutions, and in its ascendancy over the public mind, the members of that Church must not too incautiously resist the spirit of the age, but seek to guide what they cannot arrest. Let the value and necessity of an Established Church be recognized by the evidence of its usefulness; let the pure doctrines of the Gospel be proclaimed in our pulpits; and a noble ardour and co-operation be manifested in the prosperity of our great Institutions,—our Bible, Missionary, and Jewish societies. She will then attract the favour, the love, and the veneration of the poor, and diffuse a holy and purifying influence among all classes in the community. Her priests will thus be clothed with righteousness, and her saints shout for joy. To her worshippers we may then exclaim, with humble confidence and joy, "Walk about Zion, and go round about her; tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces, that ye may tell it to the generation following. For this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even unto death."[507]
We now resume the correspondence of Cowper.