The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke Volume IV Part 17

[Sidenote: Ecclesiastical State.]

In the States of the Church, notwithstanding their strictness in banis.h.i.+ng the French out of that country, there are not wanting the seeds of a revolution. The spirit of nepotism prevails there nearly as strong as ever. Every Pope of course is to give origin or restoration to a great family by the means of large donations. The foreign revenues have long been gradually on the decline, and seem now in a manner dried up. To supply this defect, the resource of vexatious and impolitic jobbing at home, if anything, is rather increased than lessened. Various well-intended, but ill-understood practices, some of them existing, in their spirit at least, from the time of the old Roman Empire, still prevail; and that government is as blindly attached to old abusive customs as others are wildly disposed to all sorts of innovations and experiments. These abuses were less felt whilst the Pontificate drew riches from abroad, which in some measure counterbalanced the evils of their remiss and jobbish government at home. But now it can subsist only on the resources of domestic management; and abuses in that management of course will be more intimately and more severely felt.

In the midst of the apparently torpid languor of the Ecclesiastical State, those who have had opportunity of a near observation have seen a little rippling in that smooth water, which indicates something alive under it. There is in the Ecclesiastical State a personage who seems capable of acting (but with more force and steadiness) the part of the tribune Rienzi. The people, once inflamed, will not be dest.i.tute of a leader. They have such an one already in the Cardinal or Archbishop Boncompagni. He is, of all men, if I am not ill-informed, the most turbulent, seditious, intriguing, bold, and desperate. He is not at all made for a Roman of the present day. I think he lately held the first office of their state, that of Great Chamberlain, which is equivalent to High Treasurer. At present he is out of employment, and in disgrace. If he should be elected Pope, or even come to have any weight with a new Pope, he will infallibly conjure up a democratic spirit in that country.

He may, indeed, be able to effect it without these advantages. The nest interregnum will probably show more of him. There may be others of the same character, who have not come to my knowledge. This much is certain,--that the Roman people, if once the blind reverence they bear to the sanct.i.ty of the Pope, which is their only bridle, should relax, are naturally turbulent, ferocious, and headlong, whilst the police is defective, and the government feeble and resourceless beyond all imagination.

[Sidenote: Spain]

As to Spain, it is a nerveless country. It does not possess the use, it only suffers the abuse, of a n.o.bility. For some time, and even before the settlement of the Bourbon dynasty, that body has been systematically lowered, and rendered incapable by exclusion, and for incapacity excluded from affairs. In this circle the body is in a manner annihilated; and so little means have they of any weighty exertion either to control or to support the crown, that, if they at all interfere, it is only by abetting desperate and mobbish insurrections, like that at Madrid, which drove Squillace from his place. Florida Blanca is a creature of office, and has little connection and no sympathy with that body.

As to the clergy, they are the only thing in Spain that looks like an independent order; and they are kept in some respect by the Inquisition, the sole, but unhappy resource of public tranquillity and order now remaining in Spain. As in Venice, it is become mostly an engine of state,--which, indeed, to a degree, it has always been in Spain. It wars no longer with Jews and heretics: it has no such war to carry on. Its great object is, to keep atheistic and republican doctrines from making their way in that kingdom. No French book upon any subject can enter there which does not contain such matter. In Spain, the clergy are of moment from their influence, but at the same time with the envy and jealousy that attend great riches and power. Though the crown has by management with the Pope got a very great share of the ecclesiastical revenues into its own hands, much still remains to them. There will always be about that court those who look out to a farther division of the Church property as a resource, and to be obtained by shorter methods than those of negotiations with the clergy and their chief. But at present I think it likely that they will stop, lest the business should be taken out of their hands,--and lest that body, in which remains the only life that exists in Spain, and is not a fever, may with their property lose all the influence necessary to preserve the monarchy, or, being poor and desperate, may employ whatever influence remains to them as active agents in its destruction.

[Sidenote: Castile different from Catalonia and Aragon.]

The Castilians have still remaining a good deal of their old character, their _gravedad, lealtad_, and _el temor de Dios_; but that character neither is, nor ever was, exactly true, except of the Castilians only.

The several kingdoms which compose Spain have, perhaps, some features which run through the whole; but they are in many particulars as different as nations who go by different names: the Catalans, for instance, and the Aragonians too, in a great measure, have the spirit of the Miquelets, and much more of republicanism than of an attachment to royalty. They are more in the way of trade and intercourse with France, and, upon the least internal movement, will disclose and probably let loose a spirit that may throw the whole Spanish monarchy into convulsions.

It is a melancholy reflection, that the spirit of melioration which has been going on in that part of Europe, more or less, during this century, and the various schemes very lately on foot for further advancement, are all put a stop to at once. Reformation certainly is nearly connected with innovation; and where that latter comes in for too large a share, those who undertake to improve their country may risk their own safety.

In times where the correction, which includes the confession, of an abuse, is turned to criminate the authority which has long suffered it, rather than to honor those who would amend it, (which is the spirit of this malignant French distemper,) every step out of the common course becomes critical, and renders it a task full of peril for princes of moderate talents to engage in great undertakings. At present the only safety of Spain is the old national hatred to the French. How far that can be depended upon, if any great ferments should be excited, it is impossible to say.

As to Portugal, she is out of the high-road of these politics. I shall, therefore, not divert my thoughts that way, but return again to the North of Europe, which at present seems the part most interested, and there it appears to me that the French speculation on the Northern countries may be valued in the following or some such manner.

[Sidenote: Denmark.]

[Sidenote: Sweden.]

Denmark and Norway do not appear to furnish any of the materials of a democratic revolution, or the dispositions to it. Denmark can only be _consequentially_ affected by anything done in Prance; but of Sweden I think quite otherwise. The present power in Sweden is too new a system, and too green and too sore from its late Revolution, to be considered as perfectly a.s.sured. The king, by his astonis.h.i.+ng activity, his boldness, his decision, his ready versatility, and by rousing and employing the old military spirit of Sweden, keeps up the top with continual agitation and las.h.i.+ng. The moment it ceases to spin, the royalty is a dead bit of box. Whenever Sweden is quiet externally for some time, there is great danger that all the republican elements she contains will be animated by the new French spirit, and of this I believe the king is very sensible.

[Sidenote: Russia.]

The Russian government is of all others the most liable to be subverted by military seditions, by court conspiracies, and sometimes by headlong rebellions of the people, such as the turbinating movement of Pugatchef.

It is not quite so probable that in any of these changes the spirit of system may mingle, in the manner it has done in France. The Muscovites are no great speculators; but I should not much rely on their uninquisitive disposition, if any of their ordinary motives to sedition should arise. The little catechism of the Rights of Men is soon learned; and the inferences are in the pa.s.sions.

[Sidenote: Poland.]

[Sidenote: Saxony.]

Poland, from one cause or other, is always unquiet. The new Const.i.tution only serves to supply that restless people with new means, at least new modes, of cheris.h.i.+ng their turbulent disposition. The bottom of the character is the same. It is a great question, whether the joining that crown with the Electorate of Saxony will contribute most to strengthen the royal authority of Poland or to shake the ducal in Saxony. The Elector is a Catholic; the people of Saxony are, six sevenths at the very least, Protestants. He _must_ continue a Catholic, according to the Polish law, if he accepts that crown. The pride of the Saxons, formerly flattered by having a crown in the house of their prince, though an honor which cost them dear,--the German probity, fidelity, and loyalty,--the weight of the Const.i.tution of the Empire under the Treaty of Westphalia,--the good temper and good-nature of the princes of the House of Saxony, had formerly removed from the people all apprehension with regard to their religion, and kept them perfectly quiet, obedient, and even affectionate. The Seven Years' War made some change in the minds of the Saxons. They did not, I believe, regret the loss of what might be considered almost as the succession to the crown of Poland, the possession of which, by annexing them to a foreign interest, had often obliged them to act an arduous part, towards the support of which that foreign interest afforded no proportionable strength. In this very delicate situation of their political interests, the speculations of the French and German _Economists_, and the cabals, and the secret, as well as public doctrines of the _Illuminatenorden_, and _Freemasons_, have made a considerable progress in that country; and a turbulent spirit, under color of religion, but in reality arising from the French rights of man, has already shown itself, and is ready on every occasion to blaze out.

The present Elector is a prince of a safe and quiet temper, of great prudence and goodness. He knows, that, in the actual state of things, not the power and respect belonging to sovereigns, but their very existence, depends on a reasonable frugality. It is very certain that not one sovereign in Europe can either promise for the continuance of his authority in a state of indigence and insolvency, or dares to venture on a new imposition to relieve himself. Without abandoning wholly the ancient magnificence of his court, the Elector has conducted his affairs with infinitely more economy than any of his predecessors, so as to restore his finances beyond what was thought possible from the state in which the Seven Years' War had left Saxony. Saxony, during the whole of that dreadful period, having been in the hands of an exasperated enemy, rigorous by resentment, by nature, and by necessity, was obliged to bear in a manner the whole burden of the war; in the intervals when their allies prevailed, the inhabitants of that country were not better treated.

The moderation and prudence of the present Elector, in my opinion, rather, perhaps, respites the troubles than secures the peace of the Electorate. The offer of the succession to the crown of Poland is truly critical, whether he accepts or whether he declines it. If the States will consent to his acceptance, it will add to the difficulties, already great, of his situation between the king of Prussia and the Emperor.--But these thoughts lead me too far, when I mean to speak only of the interior condition of these princes. It has always, however, some necessary connection with their foreign politics.

[Sidenote: Holland.]

With regard to Holland, and the ruling party there, I do not think it at all tainted, or likely to be so, except by fear,--or that it is likely to be misled, unless indirectly and circuitously. But the predominant party in Holland is not Holland. The suppressed faction, though suppressed, exists. Under the ashes, the embers of the late commotions are still warm. The anti-Orange party has from the day of its origin been French, though alienated in some degree for some time, through the pride and folly of Louis the Fourteenth. It will ever hanker after a French connection; and now that the internal government in France has been a.s.similated in so considerable a degree to that which the immoderate republicans began so very lately to introduce into Holland, their connection, as still more natural, will be more desired. I do not well understand the present exterior politics of the Stadtholder, nor the treaty into which the newspapers say he has entered for the States with the Emperor. But the Emperor's own politics with regard to the Netherlands seem to me to be exactly calculated to answer the purpose of the French Revolutionists. He endeavors to crush the aristocratic party, and to nourish one in avowed connection with the most furious democratists in France.

These Provinces in which the French game is so well played they consider as part of the old French Empire: certainly they were amongst the oldest parts of it. These they think very well situated, as their party is well disposed to a reunion. As to the greater nations, they do not aim at making a direct conquest of them, but, by disturbing them through a propagation of their principles, they hope to weaken, as they will weaken them, and to keep them in perpetual alarm and agitation, and thus render all their efforts against them utterly impracticable, whilst they extend the dominion of their sovereign anarchy on all sides.

[Sidenote: England.]

As to England, there may be some apprehension from vicinity, from constant communication, and from the very name of liberty, which, as it ought to be very dear to us, in its worst abuses carries something seductive. It is the abuse of the first and best of the objects which we cherish. I know that many, who sufficiently dislike the system of France, have yet no apprehensions of its prevalence here. I say nothing to the ground of this security in the attachment of the people to their Const.i.tution, and their satisfaction in the discreet portion of liberty which it measures out to them. Upon this I have said all I have to say, in the Appeal I have published. That security is something, and not inconsiderable; but if a storm arises, I should not much rely upon it.

[Sidenote: Objection to the stability of the French system.]

There are other views of things which may be used to give us a perfect (though in my opinion a delusive) a.s.surance of our own security. The first of these is from the weakness and rickety nature of the new system in the place of its first formation. It is thought that the monster of a commonwealth cannot possibly live,--that at any rate the ill contrivance of their fabric will make it fall in pieces of itself,--that the a.s.sembly must be bankrupt,--and that this bankruptcy will totally destroy that system from the contagion of which apprehensions are entertained.

For my part I have long thought that one great cause of the stability of this wretched scheme of things in France was an opinion that it could not stand, and therefore that all external measures to destroy it were wholly useless.

[Sidenote: Bankruptcy.]

As to the bankruptcy, that event has happened long ago, as much as it is ever likely to happen. As soon as a nation compels a creditor to take paper currency in discharge of his debt, there is a bankruptcy. The compulsory paper has in some degree answered,--not because there was a surplus from Church lands, but because faith has not been kept with the clergy. As to the holders of the old funds, to them the payments will be dilatory, but they will be made; and whatever may be the discount on paper, whilst paper is taken, paper will be issued.

[Sidenote: Resources.]

As to the rest, they have shot out three branches of revenue to supply all those which they have destroyed: that is, _the Universal Register of all Transactions_, the heavy and universal _Stamp Duty_, and the new _Territorial Impost_, levied chiefly on the reduced estates of the gentlemen. These branches of the revenue, especially as they take a.s.signats in payment, answer their purpose in a considerable degree, and keep up the credit of their paper: for, as they receive it in their treasury, it is in reality funded upon all their taxes and future resources of all kinds, as well as upon the Church estates. As this paper is become in a manner the only visible maintenance of the whole people, the dread of a bankruptcy is more apparently connected with the delay of a counter-revolution than with the duration of this republic; because the interest of the new republic manifestly leans upon it, and, in my opinion, the counter-revolution cannot exist along with it. The above three projects ruined some ministers under the old government, merely for having conceived them. They are the salvation of the present rulers.

As the a.s.sembly has laid a most unsparing and cruel hand on all men who have lived by the bounty, the justice, or the abuses of the old government, they have lessened many expenses. The royal establishment, though excessively and ridiculously great for _their_ scheme of things, is reduced at least one half; the estates of the king's brothers, which under the ancient government had been in truth royal revenues, go to the general stock of the confiscation; and as to the crown lands, though under the monarchy they never yielded two hundred and fifty thousand a year, by many they are thought at least worth three times as much.

As to the ecclesiastical charge, whether as a compensation for losses, or a provision for religion, of which they made at first a great parade, and entered into a solemn engagement in favor of it, it was estimated at a much larger sum than they could expect from the Church property, movable or immovable: they are completely bankrupt as to that article.

It is just what they wish; and it is not productive of any serious inconvenience. The non-payment produces discontent and occasional sedition; but is only by fits and spasms, and amongst the country people, who are of no consequence. These seditions furnish new pretexts for non-payment to the Church establishment, and help the a.s.sembly wholly to get rid of the clergy, and indeed of any form of religion, which is not only their real, but avowed object.

[Sidenote: Want of money how supplied.]

They are embarra.s.sed, indeed, in the highest degree, but not wholly resourceless. They are without the species of money. Circulation of money is a great convenience, but a subst.i.tute for it may be found.

Whilst the great objects of production and consumption, corn, cattle, wine, and the like, exist in a country, the means of giving them circulation, with more or less convenience, cannot be _wholly_ wanting.

The great confiscation of the Church and of the crown lands, and of the appanages of the princes, for the purchase of all which their paper is always received at par, gives means of continually destroying and continually creating; and this perpetual destruction and renovation feeds the speculative market, and prevents, and will prevent, till that fund of confiscation begins to fail, a _total_ depreciation.

[Sidenote: Moneyed interest not necessary to them.]

But all consideration of public credit in France is of little avail at present. The action, indeed, of the moneyed interest was of absolute necessity at the beginning of this Revolution; but the French republic can stand without any a.s.sistance from that description of men, which, as things are now circ.u.mstanced, rather stands in need of a.s.sistance itself from the power which alone substantially exists in France: I mean the several districts and munic.i.p.al republics, and the several clubs which direct all their affairs and appoint all their magistrates. This is the power now paramount to everything, even to the a.s.sembly itself called National and that to which tribunals, priesthood, laws, finances, and both descriptions of military power are wholly subservient, so far as the military power of either description yields obedience to any name of authority.

The world of contingency and political combination is much larger than we are apt to imagine. We never can say what may or may not happen, without a view to all the actual circ.u.mstances. Experience, upon other data than those, is of all things the most delusive. Prudence in new cases can do nothing on grounds of retrospect. A constant vigilance and attention to the train of things as they successively emerge, and to act on what they direct, are the only sure courses. The physician that let blood, and by blood-letting cured one kind of plague, in the next added to its ravages. That power goes with property is not universally true, and the idea that the operation of it is certain and invariable may mislead us very fatally.

[Sidenote: Power separated from property.]

Whoever will take an accurate view of the state of those republics, and of the composition of the present a.s.sembly deputed by them, (in which a.s.sembly there are not quite fifty persons possessed of an income amounting to 100_l._ sterling yearly,) must discern clearly, _that the political and civil power of France is wholly separated from its property of every description_, and of course that neither the landed nor the moneyed interest possesses the smallest weight or consideration in the direction of any public concern. The whole kingdom is directed by _the refuse of its chicane_, with the aid of the bustling, presumptuous young clerks of counting-houses and shops, and some intermixture of young gentlemen of the same character in the several towns. The rich peasants are bribed with Church lands; and the poorer of that description are, and can be, counted for nothing. They may rise in ferocious, ill-directed tumults,--but they can only disgrace themselves and signalize the triumph of their adversaries.

[Sidenote: Effects of the rota.]

The _truly_ active citizens, that is, the above descriptions, are all concerned in intrigue respecting the various objects in their local or their general government. The rota, which the French have established for their National a.s.sembly, holds out the highest objects of ambition to such vast mult.i.tudes as in an unexampled measure to widen the bottom of a new species of interest merely political, and wholly unconnected with birth or property. This scheme of a rota, though it enfeebles the state, considered as one solid body, and indeed wholly disables it from acting as such, gives a great, an equal, and a diffusive strength to the democratic scheme. Seven hundred and fifty people, every two years raised to the supreme power, has already produced at least fifteen hundred bold, acting politicians: a great number for even so great a country as France. These men never will quietly settle in ordinary occupations, nor submit to any scheme which must reduce them to an entirely private condition, or to the exercise of a steady, peaceful, but obscure and unimportant industry. Whilst they sit in the a.s.sembly, they are denied offices of trust and profit,--but their short duration makes this no restraint: during their probation and apprentices.h.i.+p they are all salaried with an income to the greatest part of them immense; and after they have pa.s.sed the novitiate, those who take any sort of lead are placed in very lucrative offices, according to their influence and credit, or appoint those who divide their profits with them.

This supply of recruits to the corps of the highest civil ambition goes on with a regular progression. In very few years it must amount to many thousands. These, however, will be as nothing in comparison to the mult.i.tude of munic.i.p.al officers, and officers of district and department, of all sorts, who have tasted of power and profit, and who hunger for the periodical return of the meal. To these needy agitators, the glory of the state, the general wealth and prosperity of the nation, and the rise or fall of public credit are as dreams; nor have arguments deduced from these topics any sort of weight with them. The indifference with which the a.s.sembly regards the state of their colonies, the only valuable part of the French commerce, is a full proof how little they are likely to be affected by anything but the selfish game of their own ambition, now universally diffused.

[Sidenote: Impracticability of resistance.]

It is true, amidst all these turbulent means of security to their system, very great discontents everywhere prevail. But they only produce misery to those who nurse them at home, or exile, beggary, and in the end confiscation, to those who are so impatient as to remove from them.

Each munic.i.p.al republic has a _Committee_, or something in the nature of a _Committee of Research_. In these petty republics the tyranny is so near its object that it becomes instantly acquainted with every act of every man. It stifles conspiracy in its very first movements. Their power is absolute and uncontrollable. No stand can be made against it.

These republics are besides so disconnected, that very little intelligence of what happens in them is to be obtained beyond their own bounds, except by the means of their clubs, who keep up a constant correspondence, and who give what color they please to such facts as they choose to communicate out of the track of their correspondence.