STATE OF PARTIES IN ENGLAND.
The events which had taken place in France during this year, naturally attracted the anxious notice of other European states. In England many persons read of them with pleasure, others with suspicion and jealousy, and others with anxiety and alarm. The general opinion was favourable to the revolution, arising from the natural abhorrence with which Englishmen look upon despotism under every possible form and shape. Even Fox and Pitt at first united in a tribute of admiration of the great movement; they, with others, overlooking its most criminal excesses, on the presumption that it would tend to establish the liberty and the happiness of the French people. All parties, indeed, agreed in believing, or at least hoping, that the states being properly modelled would by degrees effect the most important reforms, and produce the most valuable results, not only to the French themselves, but to all the world. Poets sang the destruction of the Bastille; orators applauded the asserters of liberty; statesmen contemplated the revolution with pleasure; and even divines from their pulpits did not blush to extol the character of the French regenerators. Among the most ardent admirers of the French revolution was an assemblage of persons, with Lord Stanhope at their head, who had associated for many years for the purpose of commemorating the British revolution of 1888. These revolutions were totally different in character, but losing sight of this, the society even went so far as to offer a formal address of “congratulation to the national assembly on the event of the late glorious revolution in France.” It must be in charity supposed, that a great deal of ignorance existed as to the real character of the movement in France, otherwise it could only be concluded that a similar spirit existed in England as in that country. It must not be disguised, however, that England contained a certain class of discontented speculative men, who considered their own country deficient in the liberty which, they imagined as agreeable to man’s natural rights; and who therefore looked upon the French revolution as the precursor to a similar movement among ourselves: men who, from a revolutionary ardour and a fondness for innovation, looked on all resistance to power as commendable, confounded revolt with liberty, and identified conspiracy with patriotism. But this section of the community happily was not extensive: the many who admired the French revolution did so from a generous sympathy, and while they lamented the excesses committed, they attributed it to the old tyranny, which had brutalized the people, and which they considered as not likely to continue. They concluded, erroneously indeed, that a change from the old system of despotism must be an improvement, and fondly hoped that the alterations would produce a government in France, similar to that which they themselves enjoyed. Others there were, however, who viewed the new politics of France with horror. Looking from the present to the future, they foresaw that the events which had taken place in that country, instead of producing such a change in the condition of the French people as every friend to rational and well-regulated freedom must desire, would only produce the most lamentable consequences—would either terminate in anarchy, or in the establishment of despotism. Of the great public men of the day, Burke was perhaps the first to discern the true character of this movement in France. The letters which he wrote during its progress all show that he looked upon it with the utmost suspicion: arguing from the bloody deeds with which it was consummated, deeds still more bloody and fearful. But the keen insight into the French character which Burke possessed was not common to the public at large, or even to his own party and the friends of his bosom: the general impression was, that the French people, after the first ebullitions of vengeance, would return to their senses; and that then they would build up a fabric of freedom on the ruins of tyranny, which might serve for a model to all Europe: a bulwark of liberty which the iron foot of despotism should never be able to throw down.
“But history, time’s slavish scribe, will tell How rapidly the zealots of the cause Disbanded—or in hostile ranks appeared: Some, tired of honest service; these outdone, Disgusted, therefore, or appalled, by aims Of fiercer zealots—so confusion reigned, And the more faithful were compelled to exclaim, As Brutus did to virtue: ‘Liberty, I worshipped thee, and find thee but a shade.’” —Wordsworth.
MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.
A.D. 1790
The British parliament met on the 21st of January. The king, who had now recovered from his malady, attended in person, and in his speech he slightly glanced at the affairs of the continent, by observing that they had engaged his most serious attention; paid an appropriate tribute to the excellence of the British constitution; and congratulated the country on the increase of the public revenue, the extension of commerce and manufactures, and the general prosperity. The addresses in both houses were voted without opposition or division. In moving that in the commons, Lord Valletort took occasion to contrast the tranquil and prosperous situation of England with the anarchy and licentiousness prevailing in France, and to stigmatize the revolution as an event the most disastrous and the most fatal that had ever taken place since the foundation of the French monarchy. Nearly all who followed Lord Valletort coincided in his sentiments, attributing the prosperity and tranquillity of England to the superior excellence of its constitution, and to the prudent administration of the executive government. The subject was resumed in the debates which took place on the 5th and 9th of February, in both of which Fox spoke in a laudatory manner of the French military, and in the latter of which he extended his eulogiums to the French revolution itself. It has been seen before that Burke’s sentiments on this subject were foreign to those of his party, and notwithstanding his political connection with, and friendship for Fox, he rose from his seat greatly agitated, and denounced the revolution as “an irrational, unprincipled, proscribing, confiscating, plundering, ferocious, bloody, tyrannical democracy.” In his speech, Burke, after paying some high compliments to the genius and character of Fox, and adverting to the danger of his opinions as sanctioned by the authority of so great a name, entered at large into the subject. He remarked:—“The French have shown themselves the ablest architects of ruin that have hitherto appeared in the world. In one short summer they have completely pulled down their monarchy, their church, their nobility, their law, their army, and their revenue. Were we absolute conquerors, with France prostrate at our feet, we should blush to impose on them terms so destructive to their national consequence, as the durance they have imposed on themselves. Our present clanger is that of being led, from admiration, to imitate the excesses of a people whose government is anarchy, and whose religion is atheism.” Burke expressed his concern at hearing this strange thing called a revolution in France, compared with the glorious event called the revolution in England. He instituted a parallel between the two, and showed how widely they differed from each other, and how Great Britain had risen beyond the standard of her former self, because she had commenced with reparation, and not with ruin. The French, he said, had made their way through the destruction of their country to a bad constitution, when they were absolutely in possession of a good one. Instead of redressing grievances and improving the fabric of their state, to which they were called by their monarch and sent by their country, they had first destroyed all the balances and counterpoises which served to fix the state and to give it a steady direction, melting down the whole into one incongruous, ill-connected mass; and then, with the most atrocious perfidy and breach of all faith, they laid the axe to the root of all property, and consequently of all national prosperity, by the principles they established and the example they set in confiscating all the possessions of the church. They had made and recorded a sort of institute and digest of anarchy, called “A Declaration of the Rights of Man;” thus systematically destroying every hold of authority by opinion, religious or civil, on the minds of the people. By this mad declaration they had subverted the state, and brought on such calamities as no country, without a long war, had been known to suffer. Burke expressed himself astonished and troubled at the movements in France beyond measure, and denounced it as so far from being worthy of imitation, that it ought to have our utter abhorrence He would spend the last drop of his blood—would quit his best friends, and join his bitterest enemies, to oppose the least influence of such a spirit in England. Burke concluded his noble harangue by saying that he was now near the end of his natural, and probably still nearer the end of his political, career; that he was weak and weary, and wished for rest; that at his time of life, if he could not do something by weight of opinion, it would be useless to attempt anything by mere struggle; and that, with respect to the British constitution, he wished but few alterations in it, adding, that he should be happy if he left it not the worse for any share he had taken in its service. This speech, so full of patriotism and unanswerable argument, gave rise to a grand schism among the Whigs. As soon as Burke had concluded, Fox rose and declared his total dissent from opinions “so hostile to the general principles of liberty,” and which, he said, he was grieved to hear from the lips of a man whom he loved and revered; a man by whose precepts he had been taught, and from whom he had learned more than from all the men with whom he had ever conversed. His speech on that day, he remarked, some arguments and observations excepted, was among the wisest and most brilliant that had ever been delivered in the house; but still, with all these admissions, his opinion on the general subject remained unaltered. Fox entered into a vindication of the conduct of the French army, in refusing to act against their fellow-citizens, and excused the scenes of bloodshed and cruelty which had been committed by the citizens, on the ground of their long-suffering from tyranny. At the same time Fox declared, that he never would lend himself to support any cabal or scheme to introduce any dangerous innovation into our excellent constitution; and that Burke might rest assured they could never differ in principles, although they might disagree in the application of principles. Burke rejoined, and expressed himself satisfied with the explanation of his right-honourable friend; and the discussion might have ended for the present, had it not been for Sheridan, who wished to make a speech on this grand subject. Sheridan, in rising, said, that he felt it his duty to declare that he differed from Burke in almost every word respecting the French revolution. In his opinion it was as just as our own, proceeding upon as sound a principle, and a greater provocation. Sheridan then eulogised Lafayette, Bailly, and other patriots of that stamp, and vehemently defended the general views and conduct of the national assembly. He concluded his harangue by charging Burke with being an advocate for despotism, and with having spoken of the national assembly with an unwarrantable freedom of speech. Burke instantly rose to reply; and in doing so he expressed his indignation at the language which Sheridan had used, and declared that henceforth his honourable friend and he were separated in politics. Sheridan’s language, he said, was not new, since it was only a repetition of what was to be heard at the reforming clubs and societies with which the honourable gentleman had recently become entangled, and for whose plaudits he had chosen to sacrifice his friends. He added, that his argument was chiefly an argument ad invidiam, and that all the applause he could hope for from clubs was scarcely worth the sacrifice which he had chosen to make. The Whig party were alarmed at this breach in their camp; and attempts were instantly made to bring about a reconciliation by means of mutual explanations. But these attempts were fruitless; the bond of union was for ever broken. The Whig party were rendered still more uneasy by the conduct of Pitt, who declared that Burke had that day conferred a great obligation upon the country, and warmly applauded the zealous and seasonable attachment which he had displayed to the principles of the British constitution. No man, in truth, rendered more service to the cause of constitutional liberty than did Burke at this period. This was but the first of a series of splendid harangues which he uttered upon the subject of the French revolution, and which were as the sound of a trumpet to the hearts of the English people. The contagion of its principles were also arrested by the weighty productions of his pen; in which productions “his fancy laid all nature under tribute, collecting treasures from scenes of creation, and from every walk of art to adorn his pages.” His sentiments had the more weight because they proceeded from a mind which had ever been active in the great business of reform; some traces of which activity were manifest in the statute-book. But the reforms which Burke had ever advocated were founded in justice; those which the French regenerators had adopted were subversive of all order, and tended only to anarchy and desolation.