that he would forsake his best friends and unite with his bitterest enemies, in order to oppose both the means and the end.

Mr. Burke then took a cursory survey of the recent transactions in France. That nation, he said, had gloried, (and some in Great Britain had thought proper to share in the glory) in bringing about a revolution, as if revolutions were beneficial in themselves. All the crimes and horrors which led to the French revolution, which marked its progress and might virtually attend its establishment, were nothing thought of by the lovers of revolutions. The French had made their way to a bad constitution through the destruction of their country, when they were in possession of a good one. Of this they were in possession on the very day in which the statesgeneral met in separate orders. Their business, had they possessed either virtue or wisdom, was to secure the independence of the states, according to those orders under the monarch on the throne, and that purpose being accomplished, then, and not till then, it was their duty to proceed to the redress of grievances.

Instead, however, of acting in this laudable manner, and improving the fabric of the state, an object for which they had been called by their sovereign, and deputed by their country, they pursued a course entirely different. They first destroyed all the balances that tended to confirm the stability of the state, and framed and recorded a digest of anarchy, denominated the Rights of Man, exhibiting a pedantic prostitution of elementary principles that would disgrace an English school-boy. It was, however, much worse than trifling and pedantry in them, for they systematically destroyed every hold, civil or religious on the public mind. The most pernicious effect of all their proceedings was upon the military. Were it the question whether soldiers were to forget that they were citizens as an abstract principle, he would not quarrel respecting it; but if applied to the events which had taken place in France, where the abstract principle was clothed with its circumstances, he hoped his friend Mr. Fox would coincide with VOL. 1.

him in opinion, that the occurrences in that country were no ground for exultation, whether we considered the act or the example. It was not the mere circumstance of an army under the respectable and patriotic citizens, embodied for the purpose of resisting tyranny, but the case of common soldiers abandoning their officers to unite with a furious and licentious rabble.

He was deeply concerned that this strange thing, denominated the French Revolution, should be put in the balance with that glorious event usually called the RevoJution in England, and the behaviour of the soldiery on that occasion, compared with the conduct of some of the French troops in the present instance. At that time the prince of Orange, one of the bloodroyal of England, was called in by the flower of the aristocratical party to defend the antient constitution, but by no means to level all distinctions. To this prince so invited, the aristocratical party, who commanded the troops, went over in bodies with their different corps, as the saviours of their country. The object of military obedience was changed, but the principle of military obedience was not interrupted for a single moment.

If the conduct of the English armies was different, so also was that of the whole English nation at that memorable period.. In fact the circumstances of our revolution and that of France, are exactly the reverse of each other, in almost every particular, as well as in the whole spirit of the transaction. What we did was in truth and substance, and in a constitutional point of view, not to cause a revolution but to prevent it. We did not impair but strengthen the monarchy, and we did not injure or degrade the church. We made no change in the fundamental parts of our constitution, and the nation preserved the same ranks, privileges, and securities for property. The church and state were the same after as before the revolution, but we may venture to maintain that in every part they were much better secured.

The result of all this was, that the state flourished. Instead of lying, as if dead, in a species of trance, or exposed like some

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others in an epileptic fit to the pity or scorn of the world, for her wild convulsive movements unfit for every purpose but that of dashing out her brains, Great Britain rose above the standard even of her former self. A period thus commenced of a more improved domestic prosperity, and still continues not only unimpaired, but in every part much better secured.

It was in reply to this oration, that Mr. Fox, after expressing his esteem and veneration for Burke, declared that if he were to put all the information he had gained from books, all that he had learned from science, or that the knowledge of the world and affairs had taught him into one scale, and the improvement he had derived from Mr. Burke's conversation in the other, the latter would preponderate. Still, however, he could not agree with the opinion of his friend respecting the French revolution, at which he rejoiced as an emancipation from despotism. He declared himself as much an enemy to democratical as to aristocratical or monarchical despotism, but he did not apprehend that the new constitution of France would degenerate into that description of tyranny. He was a friend only to a mixed government like our own, in which if the aristocracy or any of the three branches were destroyed, the good effects of the whole and the happiness derived under it would in his mind be at an end.

Mr. Sheridan expressed his disapprobation of the remarks and reasonings of Burke, much more strongly than Mr. Fox. He thought them utterly inconsistent with the general principles and conduct of so constant and powerful a friend of liberty, and one who so highly valued the British government and revolution. Indignation and abhorrence of the French revolution, he regarded as inconsistent with admiration of that of England. Detesting the cruelties that had been committed, he imputed them to the natural resentment of a populace, for long-suffered and long-felt oppression. He praised the National Assembly as the dispensers of good to their own country and to other nations. Its members had

exerted a firmness and perseverance hitherto unexampled, which had secured the liberty of France, and vindicated the cause of maukind. Which of their actions could authorise the appellation of a bloody, ferocious, and tyrannical democracy? Burke, perceiving the views of Sheridan to be totally different from his own, disapproving in particular of the opinion that there was a resemblance between the principles of the two revolutions in France and England, and impressed with the persuasion that the construction of his observations was uncandid and unjust, declared that Mr. Sheridan and he were from that time separated for ever in politics. "Mr. Sheridan (he said) has sacrificed my friendship in exchange for the applause of clubs and associations. I assure him he will find the acquisition too insignificant to be worth the price at which it is purchased."

Mr. Burke had many correspondents at Paris of different nations, abilities, and sentiments. Through them he completed his acquaintance with the French system. While attending to its progress and its operation within the country which it more immediately affected, he directed his views to the impressions, which it had made in his own country. The promulgation of Dr. Price's political opinions in a printed sermon, animated Mr. Burke to convince mankind that the French revolution did not tend to ameliorate but to deprave the human character. To establish his position he analized the principles on which the revolutionists reasoned, the religious, moral, and political system on which they acted, and the natural and necessary consequences of their doctrines. Profound wisdom, solid and beneficial philosophy, enforced by all the power of Mr. Burke's eloquence, produced an important change in the public opinion. From this time many men of talents, learning, and political eminence, openly declared sentiments decidedly inimical to the French revolution. The nobility, with few exceptions, were apprehensive of the dangers which awaited their order if French principles became prevalent in Great Britain. The public

opinion, which had been at first so extremely favourable, was at the end of 1790 greatly divided.

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In expressing his opinions of the Rights of Man, Mr. Burke was equally distinguished by the profundity of his views and the splendor of his eloquence. Far," he exclaimed, "am I from denying in theory, far is it from my heart, from withholding in practice, if I were of power to give or to withhold, the real rights of men. In denying their false claims of right, I do not wish to injure those which are real, and such as their pretended rights would totally destroy. If civil society be made for the advantage of man, all the advantages for which it is made became his right; it is an institution of beneficence, and law itself is only beneficence acting by rule. Men have a right to live by that rule. They have a right to justice as between their fellows, whether their fellows are employed in political functions or in ordinary occupation. They have a right to the fruits of their industry, and to the means of rendering their industry fruitful. They have a right to the acquisitions of their parents, to the nourishment and improve ment of their offspring, to instruction in life and consolation in death. Whatever each man can separately do without trespassing on others, he has a right to for himself, and he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with its combination of skill and force, can do in his favor. In this partnership all men have equal rights, but not to equal things. He that has but five shillings in the partnership, has as good a right to it as he that has five hundred has to his larger proportion, but he has not a right to an equal dividend in the product of the joint estate; and as to the share of power, authority, and direction, which each individual ought to have in the management of, the state, that I must deny to be amongst the direct original rights of 'man in civil society, for I have in ny contemplation, the civil social man, and no other.. It is a thing to be settled by convention..

"It civil society be the offspring of convention, that convention must be its law.

That convention must limit and modify all the descriptions of constitution which are formed under it. Every sort of legislative, judicial, and executory power, are its creatures. They can have no being in any other state of things; and how can any man claim, under the conventions of civil society, rights which do not so much as suppose its existence.

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Government is not made in virtue of natural rights which may and do exist in total independence of it, and exist in much greater clearness and in a much greater degree of abstract perfection; but their abstract perfection is their practical defect. By having a right to every thing, they want every thing. Government is a contrivance of human wisdom, to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom. Among these wants is to be reckoned, the want, out of civil society, of a sufficient restraint upon their passions.. Society requires, not only that the passions of individuals should be subjected, but that' even in the mass and body, as well as in the individuals, the inclination of men should frequently be thwarted, their will controlled, and their passions brought into subjection.. This can only be done by a power distinct from themselves, and not in the exercise of its function subject to that will, and those passions which it is its office to bridle and to subdue. In this sense the restraints on men, as well as their liberties, are to be reckoned among their rights. But as the liberty and the restrictions vary with time and circumstances, and admit of infinite modification, they cannot be settled by any abstract rule, and nothing is so foolish as to discuss them upon that principle."

In 1791 a bill was proposed for the government of Canada. In discussing it Mr. Burke entered upon the general principles of legislation, considered the doctrine of the rights of man, proceeded to its offspring, the constitution of France, and expressed his conviction that a design had been formed in this country for the sub-version of the monarch's authority, and for the corruption of the legislative bodies..

Mr. Burke being called to order, Mr. Fox, in order to remove the imputation on his conduct and opinion, conveyed by the speech of his friend and by the previous observations of Mr. Pitt, declared his conviction that the British constitution, though defective in theory, was in practice excellently adapted to this country. He re-, peated, however, his praises of the French revolution; he thought it, on the whole, one of the most glorious events in the history of mankind, and proceeded to express his dissent from Burke's opinion on the subject, as inconsistent with just views of the inherent rights of mankind, and with that gentleman's former principles. Mr. Burke replied in the following language. "Mr. Fox has treated me with harshness and malignity; after having harassed with his light troops in the skirmishes of order, he brought the heavy artillery of his own great abilities to bear on me." He maintained that the constitution and general system of the French, were replete with anarchy, impiety, vice, and misery. He denied the charge of inconsistency; his opinions on government, he insisted, had been the same during the whole career of his political life. He said Mr. Fox and he had often differed, and there had been no loss of friendship between them, but "there is something in the cursed French constitution which envenoms every thing." Fox whisphered" there is no loss of friendship between us." Burke answered, "There isI know the price of my conduct; our friendship is at an end." He concluded by exhorting the two great men who headed the opposite parties, whether they should move in the political hemisphere as two blazing stars in opposite orbits, or walk together as brethren, that they would preserve the British constitution, and guard it against innovation. For his own part he gave up private friendship and party support, and separated from those he esteemed most highly. This country, he trusted, would estimate the sincerity of his avowals, and the importance of his warnings by the price which they had cost himself. He was far from imputing to Mr. Fox a wish for the practical adoption in this country of the

revolutionary doctrines, but thinking and feeling as Mr. Fox and he now did, their intercourse must terminate. With great emotion Mr. Fox deprecated the renunciation of Mr. Burke's friendship, and tears for several minutes interrupted his utterance. When the first ebullitions of sensibility had subsided, he expressed the highest esteem, affection, and gratitude, for Mr. Burke, whom, notwithstanding his harshness, he must still continue to love. Proceeding, for some time, in a strain of plaintive tenderness, he gradually recovered his usual firmness, and afterwards displayed considerable asperity. He renewed the accusation of inconsistency against Mr. Burke, and this repetition of the charge effaced the impression of his respectful and affectionate language and behaviour; the breach was irreparable, and from this time Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke never resumed their former friendship. In this discussion the impartial examiner cannot discover a single sentence or phrase of Mr. Fox, which was not highly in favor of the British constitution, so that the political differences between these illustrious men, arose entirely from their opposite opinions of the French revolution. Burke had already conceived such an abhorrence of the Gallic system that he could not endure expression of satisfaction at of satisfaction at a change, which he regarded as destructive to the best interests of society.

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Among the subjects of anxiety bequeathed by the constituent assembly to their successors, was the report of an intended invasion by several great continental powers, united to support the claims of the emigrant nobles and prelates, and to invade and dismember the French territory. It could not be expected that the other branches of the house of Bourbon, would, without indignation, behold the chief of their line detained in unmerited captivity by his own subjects, and the princes of the blood seeking shelter and soliciting precarious protection in foreign courts, or that the emperor, who boasted of deriving his origin from the Cæsars, could listen, without impatience, to the report of the intolerable indignities offered by the lowest

of mankind to his own sister. A plan had been projected by M. Montmorin, for combining the various princes whom blood or interest called into such an alliance, in a mock attack on France, not for the purpose of terrifying the legislature or the people into any particular mode of conduct, but of gaining for the king the command of an army, which might contribute to the restoration of his authority, and render him beloved by his subjects as the restorer of peace. The plan was impolitic and trifling. A sagacious politician would not have expected that so many powers would incur the expense and trouble of marching armies towards a foreign frontier without seeking an indemnity, or raising some topic of dispute among themselves, in which the monarch, for whose benefit they were ostensibly armed, must become a party, and to which a portion of his dominions might fall an unexpected sacrifice. Some of the potentates, however, on whose assistance the projector of the plan chiefly relied, agreed to the proposal, but no view of personal aggrandizement had yet entered their minds, as they desisted from arming after the acceptance of the constitution by Lewis, and would not approach the frontier, though the prospect of success was extremely favorable, and motives of aggression were abundant.

The emperor, however, did not abandon the cause of his august relatives. Count Alphonso Durfort, a confidential person, employed after the 18th of April to make the count d'Artois acquainted with the situation of the king and queen, was entrusted at Florence with a new plan proposed by the emperor, and finally arranged on the 20th of May, between him, the count d'Artois, M. de Calonne, and M. d'Esears, at Mantua. It was in substance that the emperor, the Swiss circles, and the kings of Spain and of Sardinia, should raise a force of 500,000 men, to march in five columns in due proportions towards the contiguous frontiers, where they were to be joined by the loyal regiments, and by the royalists. Prussia was not to interfere, and the neutrality of England was stated as a momentous acquisition. The sovereigns

were to issue, at an appointed period, a joint proclamation, founded on a declaration in which all the members of the house of Bourbon were previously to concur; and, lest the queen should suffer from the fury of the French populace, they were to take the lead; though.the emperor was avowedly the soul of the compact. The parliaments of France were to be restored as necessary to the re-establishment of forms; the king and queen were recommended to increase their popularity, in hopes that the people, alarmed by the approach of foreign armies, would fly for safety to the mediation of the monarch, and submit to his authority. It is not necessary to discuss the faults or merits of this project, for terrifying the French nation by a force of one hundred thousand men, scattered over five points of their frontier, since it was rejected bot' by Lewis and the queen. The king objecte i to assembling the parliaments in any bui a judicial capacity; both concurred in the necessity of quitting Paris, and refused to recal the orders given to M. de Bouille, The emperor's plan was therefore relinquished, nor were the particulars divulged till more than two years after the death of the king.

Though the enemies of the court had been unable to obtain intelligence respecting these unexecuted projects, they imputed to the sovereigns of the houses of Bourbon and Austria, and to the emigrants, numerous other designs. They accused the king of authorising the count d'Artois to levy troops in his name, and they rendered their motions against the emigrants more popular, by continually reporting to the assembly the most improbable narratives respecting the formidable force which they described as assembling on the frontiers. Such futile intimations of general danger could not produce much permanent effect; a bolder scheme was therefore tried by publishing as authentic, the substance of a pretended treaty concluded at Pavla, in July 1791, between Austria, Russia, Prussia, and Spain, for dismembering France, and dividing among the contracting powers a large proportion of her territory. Although every circumstance respecting the relative