Conciones Ad Populum. Or, Addresses to the People/On the Present War
On the present War.
Movifti, suneste, aciem—
——— te series orbarum excisa domorum
Planctibus assiduis, te diro horrore volantes
Mille et mille animæ circum noctesque diesque
Adsilient.
Te merito: ast horum miseret, quos sanguine viles
Conjugibus natisque infanda ad prælia raptos
Projicis excidio, bone ***!—Stat. Theb.
Lib. 2.
ON
THE
PRESENT WAR.
In the disclosal of Opinion, it is our duty to consider the character of those, to whom we address ourselves, their situations, and probable degree of knowledge. We should be bold in the avowal of political Truth among those only whose minds are susceptible of reasoning: and never to the multitude, who ignorant and needy must necessarily act from the impulse of inflamed Passions. But however carefully the Advocate of Freedom may preserve this distinction, the Child of Prejudice and the Slave of Corruption will industriously represent it as confounded: whatever may be the sentiments and language of the present Address, the attempt to promote Discussion will be regarded as dangerous, and from fools and from bigots I shall be honoured with much complimentary Reviling, and many panegyrical Abuses. But the Conduct of the speaker is determined chiefly by the nature of his Audience. He therefore, who shall proclaim me seditious because I speak "against wickedness in high places," must prove the majority of my hearers to be unenlightened, and therefore easily deluded—or Men of desperate fortunes, and therefore eager for the Scramble of a Revolution.
In private life well-informed Men are generally found the most quiet and friendly Neighbours; but in the Dictionary of aristocratic Prejudice, Illumination and Sedition are classed as synonimes, and Ignorance prescribed as the only infallible Preventive for Contention. It has been my lot to have had many fierce Aristocrats obtruded on my notice. Their modes of Education and the peculiar direction of their immediate Interests have in general acted upon them with such blended Influence[errata 1], that it was difficult or impossible either to impeach their Sincerity or praise their Honesty. Susceptibility of Truth depends on the temper of our Hearts more than even on the strength of our Understandings. The mind is predisposed by its situations: and when the prejudices of a man are strong, the most over-powering Evidence becomes weak. He "meets with darkness in the day-time, and gropes in the noon-day as in night." Some unmeaning Term generally becomes the Watch-word, and acquires almost a mechanical power over his frame. The indistinctness of the Ideas associated with it increases its effect, as "objects look gigantic thro' a mist." The favorite phrases of the present Day are—"It may be very well in Theory"—and the "effects of Jacobine Principles." Aided by the one and alarmed by the other, the shuddering Bigot flings the door of Argument in your face, and excludes all Parley by gloomy anticipation of the consequences. There are however of this Class, who boldly provoke Discussion, but finding themselves unable to keep the field, are enraged where they should have been convinced, and probably inform against their Opponent. High-spirited Disputants! they first challenge you to box with them, and then call in the Constable. In all public meetings these Men signalize themselves. Argument they answer by inarticulate Noises, and their zeal for the Constitution they manifest by breaking the Peace. Certain to make a riot in their great ardor to prevent one, and prepared to persecute what they are determined not to hear, they wilfully blind themselves to Truth, and like angry Cowards shut their Eyes as they strike the Blow.
Where Love of Freedom from the Heart is fled?
Can lesser Wheels repeat their native Stroke
When the prime function of the Soul is broke?
Regardless of these Men I shall endeavor to preserve "the Unity of Truth in the Bond of Peace."
Yet deem not that these disquisitions are pleasant to me. He, who wanders in the maze of Political Enquiry, must tread over Corses, and at every step detect some dark Conspirator against human happiness, or startle at the fierce visage of some imperial Murderer. Every ungentle feeling will be excited in his bosom, and now he will shiver with horror, and now glow with indignation, and now sicken with contempt. I delight not to paint Wickedness or Misery and if I followed Impulse rather than Duty should abandon myself to those Pursuits
The Bloom of Nature, and before him place
The gayest happiest Attitude of Things.
But my reason confirms the regulation of the Athenian Lawgiver, which ordained, that it should be infamous for a Man, who had reached the years of discretion, not to have formed an opinion concerning the state of affairs in his country, and treasonable, having formed one, not to propagate it by every legal mean in his power. This Duty we should exert at all times, but with peculiar ardor in seasons of public Calamity, when there exists an Evil of such incalculable magnitude as the present War. Off its peculiar crimes and distresses we shall endeavor to give a comprehensive view, that each of us may proportion his energies to the vastness of the general evil, not to the weight of his individual grievances. But its total Causelessness must be proved:—as if the War had been just and necessary, it might be thought disputable whether any Calamities could justify our abandonment of it. On a subject so universally discussed it would be a vain endeavour to adduce any new argument. The War might probably have been prevented by Negociation: Negociation was never attempted. It cannot therefore be proved to have been a necessary war, and consequently it is not a just one.
It has been repeatedly said, that we could not honorably negociate with men so stained with atrocious guilt, so avowedly the enemies of Religion, as the popular Leaders in France. Admire, I pray you, the cautious Delicacy of our Government! that will profess itself the Ally of the Immaculate only—of the merciful Catharine, the honest King of Prussia, and that most christian Arch-pirate, the Dey of Algiers! It is a more plausible objection, that the French possess no fixed Government; but this the War itself has disproved. The Girondists began it, the Jacobins carried it on, and the Moderate Party are now prosecuting it with increased vigor:—a fact, which while it shews the fickleness of their domestic Politics, demonstrates the uniformity of their measures with regard to foreign Nations.—But the ground of argument has been lately changed, and the dangerous Tendency of French Politics assigned as a sufficient reason for continuing the Contest. It has been asserted, that internal disturbances are the evil to be prevented, even by external distresses—a tenet which depraves the suspicious heart which adopts it, and realizes the event which it affects to prophecy. It was a favorite opinion with the unfortunate Charles, that it was more honorable for a King to have his realm almost destroyed, and its very existence endangered by an Enemy, than to hazard the diminution of his prerogatives among his own Subjects. But the absurdity as well as iniquity of thus opposing the diffusion of popular principles by a foreign war, I shall not prefs on your recollection. If the People ever wish for a Revolution, this proneness to change must originate in the sense of their wants and grievances: and it must be a notable Remedy which cures the Disease by doubling the Causes of it. O the wonderful Wisdom of Ministers, who would cónjure restlessness into content by adding famine to poverty, and calamities abroad to oppressions at home!
French Principles are widely different from those of the British Constitution: French Excesses are disgraceful to Humanity: it is therefore impossible to treat with the French. But might not the American States refuse to negociate with us on the same foundation? The principles industriously propagated by the friends of our Government are opposite to the American Constitution—and indeed to Liberty every where; and in order to form a just estimate of our excesses, let us recollect that prominent feature of the late War—Scalping!
What the wisdom of Agur wished, the inhabitants of Wyoming enjoyed—they had neither Riches or Poverty: their climate was soft and salubrious, and their fertile soil asked of these blissful Settlers as much labor only for their sustenance, as would have been otherwise convenient for their health. The Fiend, whose crime was Ambition, leapt over into this Paradise—Hell-hounds laid it waste. English Generals invited the Indians "to banquet on blood:" the savage Indians headed by an Englishman attacked it. Universal massacre ensued. The Houses were destroyed: the Corn Fields burnt: and where under the broad Maple trees innocent Children used to play at noontide, there the Drinkers of human Blood, and the Feasters on human Flesh were seen in horrid circles, counting their scalps and anticipating their gains. The English Court bought Scalps at a fixed price! Scalping this pious Court deemed a fit punishment for the crimes of those, whose only crime was, that being Men, and the descendants of Britons, they had refused to be Slaves. Unconditional Submission was the only Terms offered to the Americans—and Death the immediate Menace. Our Brethren, (if indeed we may presume to call so exalted a race our Brethren,) indignantly rejected the terms, and resolved to hazard the execution of the menace. For this the Horrors of European Warfare afforded not a sufficient Punishment. Inventive in cruelty and undistinguishing in massacre, Savages must be hired against them: human Tygers must be called from their woods, their attacks regulated by Discipline, and their Ferocity increased by Intoxication. But did not this employment of merciless Scalpers rouse the indignation of Britons? Did not they avert public Ignominy by public Vengeance? The Hand, that subscribed these hellish orders, should have been withered; the Voice, that proposed them, should have been echoed only by the arches of a Dungeon! Alas! the Nation slept—and the Sleep of Nations is followed by their Slavery. But perhaps this foul Iniquity was preserved among the secrets of the Cabinet?—No! the fact was publicly known: the Sun of Enquiry shone full and fierce upon it, and the Blood of the Innocent was steaming up to Heaven! Yet during the whole war the Savages were regularly employed—and the Ministry, who authorized it, were not even removed. Such were our hideous excesses daring that holy Rebellion:—yet who among the Americans considered them as precluding a treaty of Peace? Nor has their aversion from War been less exemplary since the Revolution. Lord Dorchester had roused the War-whoop among the Savages: instigated by his Agents the merciless Tribes poured in on the back settlements; and the Algerines were incited against their Commerce. The conduct of the English was every where insolent, and through all the Union detested. The lower classes of the People cried aloud for War. But the Legislature well knew, that the evils even of a just war were not to be calculated, and that no war could be just, unless it had been preceded by sincere negociations for the permanence of Peace. They knew the English Nation to be practical Atheists, professing to believe a God, yet acting as if there were none. In Europe the smoaking Villages of Flanders, and the putrified Fields of La Vendee—from Africa the unnumbered Victims of a detestable Slave-trade—in Asia the desolated plains of Tndostan and the Million whom a rice-contracting Governor caused to perish—in America the recent enormities of their Scalp-Merchants—the four Quarters of the Globe groan beneath the intolerable iniquity of this nation! Yet these high-minded Republicans did not refuse to negociate with us. They thought it criminal folly to make themselves miserable because their Enemies were wicked.—But a lying Spirit hath descended upon us, "which hath made the heart of this People fat and shut their eyes"—and "therefore Hell hath enlarged itself and opened her mouth without measure."
We will now take a rapid survey of the consequences of this unjust because unnecessary War. I mean not to describe the distressful stagnation of Trade and Commerce: I direct not your attention to the wretches that sadden every street in this City, the pale and meagre Troop, who in the bitterness of reluctant Pride, are forced to beg the Morsel, for which they would be willing to "work their fingers to the bone" in honest Industry: I will not frighten you by relating the distresses of that brave Army, which has been melted away on the Continent, nor picture to your imaginations the loathsome pestilence that has mocked our Victories in the West-Indies: I bid you not hear the screams of the deluded Citizens of Toulon—I will not press on your recollection the awful Truth, that in the course of this calamitous Contest more than a Million of men have perished—a [1]Million of men, of each one of whom the mangled corse terrifies the dreams of her that loved him, and makes some mother, some sister, some widow start from slumber with a shriek! These arguments have been urged even to satiety—a British Senator has sneeringly styled them mere common-place against wars. I could weep for the criminal Patience of Humanity! These arguments are hacknied; yet Wars continue!
Horrors, the same in kind though perhaps not equal in degree, necessarily attend all wars: it was my intention to detail those only that are peculiar to the present. And first and least—the loss of our National Character. At the commencement of the War the Government solemnly disclaimed all intervention in the internal affairs of France: not six months passed, ere with matchless insincerity the Restitution of Monarchy became its avowed aim. This guilt however may perhaps rest on its first authors, and fly unclaimed by the People, unless it should be thought, that they, who permit, perpetrate. The depravation of private morals is a more serious and less transient evil. All our happiness and the greater part of our virtues depend on social confidence. This beautiful fabric of Love the system of Spies and Informers has shaken to the very foundation. There have been multiplied among us "Men who carry tales to shed blood!" Men who resemble the familiar Spirits described by Isaiah, as "dark ones, that peep and that mutter!". Men, who may seem to have been typically shadowed out in the Frogs that formed the second plague of Egypt: little low animals with chilly blood and flaring eyes, that "come up into our houses and our bedchambers!" These men are plenteously scattered among us: our very looks are decyphered into disaffection, and we cannot move without treading on some political spring-gun. Nor here has the evil stopped. We have breathed so long the atmosphere of Imposture and Panic, that many honest minds have caught an aguish disorder; in their cold fits they shiver at Freedom, in their hot fits they turn savage against its advocates; and sacrifice to party Rage what they would have scornfully refused to Corruption. Traitors to friendship, that they may be faithful to the Constitution—Enemies of human nature, that they may prove themselves the Adorers of the God of Peace—they hide from themselves the sense of their crime by the merit of their motive. Thus every man begins to suspect his neighbour, the warm ebullience of our hearts is stagnating: and I dread, lest by long stifling the expressions of Patriotism, we may at last lose the Feeling. "Society is in every state a blessing; Government even in its best state but a necessary evil." We are subverting this Blessing in order to support this Evil—or rather to support the desperate Quacks who are administering it with a Life-or-Death Temerity.
This causeless Panic prepared us to endure the further suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act—endure it, after three successive Verdicts of impartial Juries had proved, that a Conspiracy against the Constitution had existed only in the foul imagination of the Accusers. "In the first of these Trials, (Mr. Sheridan observes,) one Pike was produced, which was afterwards withdrawn from mere shame—a formidable Instrument was talked of, to be employed against the Cavalry:—it appeared upon evidence to be no other than a Te tohim in a window at Sheffield. These desperate Conspirators, it appeared, had formed their incampment in a back-garret—their arsenal was provided with Nine rusty muskets—and the formidable preparation which was to overturn the Constitution was supported by an exchequer containing nine pounds and one bad shilling—all to be directed against the armed Force and established Government of Great-Britain!———Fellow Citizens! our laughter may be raised by the cause, but our indignation and sorrow must be excited by the consequences. Not one definite reason assigned, not one fact proved, we have been impelled by dark and terrifying Generalities to sacrifice the personal Security of ourselves and perhaps of our posterity. The august and lofty Tree, which while it rose above the palace of the Monarch, sheltered the distant dwelling of the Cottager, stripped of its boughs, now stands the melancholy memorial of conquered Freedom.—We can only water its roots with our tears, or look forward with anxious eye to the distant Springtide, when it shall branch forth anew!—We are no longer Freemen, and if we be more secure here than in Morocco or at Constantinople, we owe this superiority to the mildness of our Masters, not to the protection of our Laws. It is an insult to tell us that we cannot suffer Death at the pleasure of a Minister, as is the case under arbitrary Governments—Suffer death! we can be torn from the bleeding breast of domestic affection—we can be thrown into foul and damp dungeons—we can hear of the death of a dearly loved Wife, heartbroken by our Imprisonment—till overpowered by disease and wounded sensibilities we sink into the Grave; or if we live, live only to wish in bitterness of Soul, that th' "Almighty had not placed his Canon 'gainst Self-murder." And what if the Habeas Corpus act be restored?—O degenerate People, and bloated with the emptiness of recollected Liberty! Sylla may resign the Dictatorship—but alas! he will have given a tempting proof to Cæsar, how much ye can endure.
Who is this Minister, to whom we have thus implicitly trusted every blessing? Are his Qualities commensurate with the giant evils, which he has occasioned? My mind may be jaundiced by my abhorrence of the man's actions—but whether Truth or Prejudice be the source of my failure I must acknowledge that having investigated attentively the Speeches and Measures of William Pitt. I am as little able to discover Genius in the one, as Virtue in the other. I think of Edmund Burke's declamatory Invectives with emotion; yet while I shudder at the excesses, I must admire the strength, of this Hercules Furens of Oratory. But our Premiers' Harangues!—Mystery concealing Meanness, as steam-clouds invelope a dunghill. To rouse the fears of the Wealthy, and the prejudices of the Ignorant is an easy task for one, who possesses the privilege of manufacturing Royal Eloquence and sticking up Royal Hand-bills. But what Question proposed to him by his great political Adversary has he ever directly answered? His speeches, which seemed so swoln with meaning, alas! what did they mean? In the outset of his political career he did indeed utter some sentences which a man and a citizen might acknowledge—and that his present conduct might not lose the advantages of contrast, he ably supported Mr. Fox's Motion to facilitate a Peace with America. "The War (he said) was conceived in injustice and nurtured in folly: it was pregnant with every kind of mischief, and with every thing that constituted moral depravity and human turpitude, While in black revenge it meditated the destruction of others, the mischief recoiled upon the unhappy and deluded people of this Country." William Pitt observed that, "by this iniquitous and unjust War the Nation was drained of its vital resources of Men and Money." William Pitt exclaimed that "our expences were enormous, while our victories were indecisive, and our defeats fatal—victories celebrated with short-lived triumph over men struggling in the holy cause of Freedom, and defeats which filled the Land with mourning." All this—O calumniated Judas Iscariot! all this William Pitt said!
In opposing the address to his Majesty on the speech delivered from the Throne after the capture of Lord Cornwallis, William Pitt observed, that "in the better days of Parliament the attempt to entrap the House into a countenance of assertions wholly unexplained and unexamined, on the mere authority of a Minister, would have been treated with the indignation and severity it deserved."—"The fact was (he said) that the War was an appendage to the first Lord of the Treasury, too dear to be parted with: it was the grand pillar raised on the ruins of the Constitution, by which he held his situation." This man, William Pitt, did not then know that he should be a Minister compared with whom Lord North might be canonized: and that with unheard of artifices and oppressions that may not be named, he should carry on a causeless War against a Patriot people, more fertile in horrors even than the American, The penetration of the great and good Dr. Jebb foresaw his Apostasy—and he is said to have been greatly agitated. "Elisha settled his countenance stedfastly on Hazael, and the Man of God wept. And Hazael said, Why weepeth my Lord? And he answered, because I know the evil that thou wilt do! strong holds wilt thou set on fire! and the young men wilt thou slay with the sword! and because of thee the Widow and the Orphan shall cry for bread. And Hazael said—But what, is thy Servant a dog, that he should do these things? Elisha answered, The Lord hath shewed me, that thou shalt be ruler over Syria."
If they, who mingled the cup of bitterness, drank its contents, we might look with a calm compassion on the wickedness of great Men. But alas! the storm which they raise, falls heaviest on the unprotected Innocent: and the Cottage of the poor Man is stripped of every Comfort, before the Oppressors, who send forth the mandate of Death, are amerced in one Luxury or one Vice. If a series of calamities succeed each, they deprecate the anger of Heaven by a Fast!—A word that implies, Prayers of Hate to the God of Love—and after these, a Turbot Feast for the rich, and their usual scanty Morsel to the poor, if indeed debarred from their usual labor they can procure even this. But if Victory be the event,
As at an Altar wet with human Blood
And flaming with the Fires of Cities burnt,
Sing their mad Hymns of Triumph, Hymns to God
O'er the destruction of his gracious Works,
Hymns to the Father o'er his slaughter'd Sons!
It is recorded in the shuddering hearts of Christians, that while Europe is reeking with Blood, and smoaking with unextinguished Fires, in a contest of unexampled crimes and unexampled calamities, every Bishop but one voted for the continuance of the War. They deemed the fate of their Religion to be involved in the contest!—Not the Religion of Peace, my Brethren, not the Religion of the meek and lowly Jesus, which forbids to his Disciples all alliance with the powers of this World—but the Religion of Mitres and Mysteries, the Religion of Pluralities and Persecution, the Eighteen-Thousand-Pound-a-Year Religion[2] of Episcopacy. Instead of the Ministers of the Gospel, a Roman might recognize in these Dignitaries the High-priests of Mars—with this difference, that the Ancients fatted their Victims for the Altar, we prepare ours for sacrifice by leanness. War ruins our Manufactures; the ruin of our Manufactures throws Thousands out of employ; men cannot starve: they must either pick their countrymen's Pockets—or cut the throats of their fellow-creatures, because they are Jacobins. If they chuse the latter, the chances are that their own lives are sacrificed: if the former, they are hung or transported to Botany Bay. And here we cannot but admire the deep and comprehensive Views of Ministers, who having starved the wretch into Vice send him to the barren shores of new Holland to be starved back again into Virtue. It must surely charm the eye of humanity to behold Men reclaimed from stealing by being banished to a Coast, where there is nothing to steal, and helpless Women, who had been
Bold from despair and prostitute for Bread,
find motives to Reformation in the sources of their Depravity, refined by Ignorance, and famine-bitten into Chastity. Yet even these poor unfortunates, these disinherited ones of Happiness, appear to me more eligibly situated than the wretched Soldier—because more innocently! Father of Mercies! if we pluck a wing from the back of a Fly, not all the Ministers and Monarchs in Europe can restore it—yet they dare to send forth their mandates for the Death of Thousands, and if they succeed call the Massacre Victory. They with all that majestic serenity, which the sense of personal safety fails not to inspire, can "Ride in the whirl-wind and direct the storm." or rather like the gloomy Spirits in Ossian[errata 2], "sit on their distant clouds and enjoy the Death of the Mariner."
In former wars the victims of Ambition had crowded to the standard from the influence of national Antipathies; but this powerful stimulant has been so unceasingly applied, as to have well nigh produced an exhaustion. What remains? Hunger. Over a recruiting place in this city I have seen pieces of Beef hung up to attract the half-famished Mechanic, It has been said, that Government, though not the best preceptor of Virtue, procures us security from the attack of the lower Orders.——Alas! why should the lower Orders attack us, but because they are brutalized by Ignorance and rendered desperate by Want? And does Government remove this Ignorance by Education? And does not Government increase their want by Taxes?—Taxes rendered necessary by those national assassinations called Wars, and by that worst Corruption and Perjury, which a reverend Moralist has justified under the soft title of "secret Influence!" The poor Infant born in an English or Irish Hovel breathes indeed the air and partakes of the light of Heaven; but of its other Bounties he is disinherited. The powers of Intellect are given him in vain: to make him work like a brute Beast he is kept as ignorant as a brute Beast, It is not possible that this despised and oppressed Man should behold the rich and idle without malignant envy. And if in the bitter cravings of Hunger the dark Tide of Passions should swell, and the poor Wretch rush from despair into guilt, then the Government indeed assumes the right of Punishment though it had neglected the duty of Instruction, and hangs the victim for crimes, to which its own wide-wasting follies and its own most sinful omissions had supplied the cause and the temptation. And yet how often have the fierce Bigots of Despotism told me, that the Poor are not to be pitied, however great their necessities: for if they be out of employ, the King wants men!—They may be shipped off to the Slaughter-house abroad, if they wish to escape a Prison at home!—Fools! to commit Robberies, and get hung, when they might Fight for his King and Country[errata 3] with impunity—yea, and have Sixpence a day into the bargain!
Bounties in truth are offered—great and unexampled Bounties—tho' not always as faithfully paid as magnificently promised. The price of Man-flesh offered to the British Private has almost reached the sum paid to the German Princes—"Death's prime Slave-merchants." And here we may properly describe the method of raising and packing up the human Commodities in the German market, Schiller, a German himself, (beneath the tremendous sublimity of whose genius we have glowed and shuddered, while we perused the "Robbers,") in his tragedy of "Cabal and Love," represents a German Prince as having sent a casket of jewels to his concubine. On her enquiring what might be the price of the jewels, she is told, they were bought with the money which the Prince had received from the English Government, for seven thousand young Men sent to America. "All by compulsion. No sooner were they counted over and their names taken down, than Huzza for America! was the dreadful word all over the plain. The Trumpets were ordered immediately to be sounded, and the Drums to be beaten, in order to drown the shrieks and cries of the young Men torn from their Parents at an instant's call!—Bride and Bridegroom parted by the pointed bayonet and drawn broad-sword! Father and Child separated by the inhuman threats and oaths of some savage Corporal. Just as they were out of the City they looked back, and with one voice exclaimed,—God bless you, Father! God bless you, Mother! at the Last Day we shall all meet again!"
But even these means have proved insufficient; and the poor wretches, whom hunger had driven or artifice seduced into the deeds of death, have fallen so fast, that Crimping has been found necessary. Crimping has been established into a trade, and accompanied with such an apparatus of horrors, as would arm Mercy with the thunderbolt. The Irish[3] Regiment, recently landed at Pill near this City is a melancholy instance—By long confinement and by filth they have almost ceased to resemble men. My Brethren! they who authorize or connive at such enormities, retain still less resemblance!
Lastly, in this inventory of guilt as the immediate and peculiar effect of the present War, and justly attributable to our Ministry, we matt place the excesses of the French, their massacres and blasphemies, all their crimes and all their distresses. This effect the War produced by a two-fold operation of terror:—First, on the people of France, secondly, on their Rulers.
First, on the people of France. Instant death was threatened to all taken in arms;—beheading and confiscation to the members of the departments, districts, and municipalities; military execution to the members of the national assembly, magistrates, and all the inhabitants of Paris; and total destruction to that City. All places and towns shall incur the same punishments as those inflicted on the inhabitants of Paris.—Such was Brunswick's manifesto. "The mode of civilized War will not be practised," says Burke. Our Government were projecting to starve the whole nation, and many of our senators did not scruple to proclaim the war a war of extermination. If we by the shadow and mockery of unreal things have been alarmed into blind reliance on men the most weak and unprincipled, can we wonder that a nation, whose whole horizon was black with approaching tempests, should be equally incautious! Hunted on all sides, insulted by unceasing and brutal menaces, they felt the blended influence of terror and indignation—by the first they were impelled to become voluntary slaves to the bloody fanatics, whose wild energies seemed alone proportionate to the danger; by the latter their gentler feelings were suspended, and the military spirit with all its virtues and all its vices seized at once a whole nation. In the truly prophetic words of Isaiah—"They have trode the wine-press alone, and of the nations there was none with them. They looked and there was none to help; they wondered that there was none to uphold. Therefore their own arm brought salvation unto them, and their fury, it upheld them."
Secondly, on their Leaders. They and their country were in the case of "extreme necessity,"—which, according to Archdeacon Paley, dissolves the ordinary ties of morality. I mean not to imply approbation of such systems of morals: but doubtless the Terrorists at the commencement of their power knew that the general consequences of their actions would be evil, but they thought the occasion so vast and pressing, as to make the particular good consequences over-balance the general evil ones—especially as those actions could never be imitated in after times with any shew of reason, unless in the rage and tempest of some future Revolution.
Black all around us? In our very vitals
Works not the king-bred poison of rebellion?
Say, what shall counteract the selfish plottings.
Of wretches, cold of heart, nor aw'd by fears
Of Him, whose power directs th' eternal justice?
Terror? or secret-sapping gold? The first
Heavy, but transient as the ills that cause it,
And to the virtuous Patriot rendered light
By the necessities that gave it birth:
The other fouls the fount of the Republic
Making it flow polluted thro' all ages;
Inoculates the state with a slow venom,
That once imbib'd must be continued ever!
[4]Fall of Robespierre.
Thus from the influence of the understanding they continued to do what the heart sickened at; but a course of action, which the heart disapproves, will vitiate the heart and make it callous: and when the heart is vitiated, the understanding will not long remain pure. But Terror intoxicates more than strong wine; with the which, who forcibly drenches another man, is the real cause and sole responsible agent of all the excesses, which in the hour of drunkenness he shall have committed. It was a truth easily discovered, a truth on which our Minister has proceeded, that valour and victory would not be the determiners of this War. They would prove finally successful whose resources enabled them to hold out the longest. The commerce of France was annihilated; her money'd-men were slow and cold from that selfishness, with which Mammon fails not to incrust the heart of his votaries. Immense armies were to be supported—immense to the confusion of the faith of posterity. Alas! Freedom weeps! The Guillotine became the Financier-General.—That dreadful pilot, Robespierre, perceived that it would at once furnish wind to the sails, and free the vessel from those who were inclined to mutiny.—Who, my Brethren! was the cause of this guilt, if not He, who supplied the occasion and the motive?—Heaven hath bestowed on that man a portion of its ubiquity, and given him an actual presence in the Sacraments of Hell, wherever administered, in all the bread of bitterness, in all the cups of blood.
Such in addition to the evils attending all wars, are the peculiar horrors of the present. Our national faith has been impaired; our social confidence hath been weakened, or made unsafe; our liberties have suffered a perilous breach, and even now are being (still more perilously) undermined; the Dearth, which would otherwise have been scarcely visible, hath enlarged its terrible features into the threatening face of Famine; and finally, of us will justice require a dreadful account of whatever guilt France has perpetrated, of whatever miseries France has endured. Are we men? Freemen? rational men? And shall we carry on this wild and priestly War against reason, against freedom, against human nature? If there be one among you, who departs from me without feeling it his immediate duty to petition or remonstrate against the continuance of it, I envy that man neither his head or his heart!
February, 1795.
- ↑ By the internal disturbances of France in La Vendee and other places, disturbances excited by English agents, and rendered obstinate by our Ministers' promises, more than Three Hundred Thousand have been butchered.
- ↑ Wherever Mens' temporal interests depend on the general belief of disputed tenets, we must expect to find hypocrisy and a persecuting Spirit, a jealousy of investigation, and an endeavor to hold the minds of the people in submissive Ignorance. That pattern of Christian meekness, Bishop Horsley, has declared it to be the vice of the age and government that it has suffered a free and general investigation of the most solemn Truths that regard Society—and there is a remark in the last charge of the disinterested Bishop Prettyman, that the same busy spirit which inclines men to be Unitarians in Religion, drive them into Republicanism in Politics. And truly, the most exalted Forms of Society are cemented preserved by the purest Notions of Religion. But whatever I may deem of the justice of their Lordship's observations, the prudence and policy of them have gained my immediate assent. Alas! what room would there be for Bishops or for Priests in a Religion where Deity is the only object of Reverence, and our Immortality the only article of Faith—Immortality made probable to us by the Light of Nature, and proved to us by the Resurrection of Jesus. Him the high Priests crucified; but he has left us a Religion, which shall prove fatal to every High Priest—a Religion, which every true Christian is the Priest, his own Heart the Altar, the Universe its Temple, and Errors and Vices its only Sacrifices. Ride on, mighty Jesus! because of thy words of Truth, of Love, and Equality! The age of Priesthood will soon be no more—that of Philosophers and of Christians will succeed, and the torch of Superstition be extinguished for ever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous Loyalty to rank, which is prodigal of its own virtue and its own happiness to invest a few with unholy Splendors;—that subordination of the Heart, which keeps alive the spirit of Servitude amid the empty forms of boasted Liberty! This dear-bought Grace of Cathedrals, this costly defence of Despotism, this nurse of grovelling sentiment and cold-hearted Lip-worship will be gone—it will be gone, that sensibility to Interest, that jealous tenacity of Honors, which suspects in every argument a mortal wound; which inspires Oppression, while it prompts Servility;—which stains indelibly whatever it touches; and under which supple Dullness loses half its shame by wearing a Mitre where reason would have placed a Fool's-Cap! The age of Priesthood will be no more— Peace to its departing spirit! With delighted ears should I listen to some fierce Orator from St. Omers' or from Bedlam, who should weep over its Pageantries rent and faded, and pour forth eloquent Nonsense in a funeral Oration.
- ↑ They who wish to mangle their feelings by perusing the particulars of this complicated wickedness, are referred to a Pamphlet of William Bryant, who himself attended on, and medically relieved these disfigured wretches.
- ↑ A Tragedy, of which the First Act was written by S. T. Coleridge.
Errata