"Supposing last of all the invasion successful—Is France to be kept like a conquered country, or is it to be awed as Holland now is, by England and Prussia with the aid of some German troops? The idea is too absurd.—But the aristocrats themselves do not wish the return of Despotism. In general they wish to stop at the English Constitution, which purified as it must be when newly instituted, is very different from the corrupted state of it after so many years' service.
"The Church lands which are sold can never be restored. Queen Mary of England who succeeded immediately after the Reformation, easily persuaded the aristocrats of those days to change back to popery, but she could prevail on no one to restore the abbey lands.
"The nonsense of feudality can never be revived. The people can never be taxed again without the consent of some representative body consisting of one or more Houses. The Bastille cannot be rebuilt. The administration of justice and feudality cannot again go together.
"These fundamental points I call the Revolution, and must insure the essence of freedom. The rest, supposing the worst to happen, may be very safely left to public opinion and to the light of the times. Public opinion once set free acts like the sea neverceasingly, controlling imperceptibly and irresistibly both laws and ministers of laws, reducing and advancing everything to its own level. After what has passed in France the most violent despotism cannot efface it."[1]
Such was the state of feeling in England during the opening stages of the French Revolution. Gradually a change began. One of the first proofs of it was given in the Birmingham riots of July 1791.
In the great speech which Burke delivered against the French Revolution on the 2nd March, 1790, he had attacked his old enemies, the Nonconformist ministers, reading extracts from the writings of Price and Priestley, from which he argued that the Church Establishment was in more serious danger in England, than it had been a year
- ↑ Lansdowne House MSS.
