the historians, who are to give us their true interpretation, are often prejudiced, often ignorant, often fonder of system than of truth. Whereas if a man with reasonable good parts and natural sagacity, and not in the leading-strings of any master, will look steadily on the business before him, without being diverted by retrospect and comparison, he may be capable of forming a reasonable good judgment of what is to be done. There are some fundamental points in which nature never changes-but they are few and obvious, and belong rather to morals than to politics. But so far as regards political matter, the human mind and human affairs are susceptible of infinite modifications, and of combinations wholly new and unlooked for. Very few, for instance, could have imagined that property, which has been taken for natural dominion, should, through the whole of a vast kingdom, lose all its importance and even its influence. This is what history or books of speculation could hardly have taught us. How many could have thought, that the most complete and formidable revolution in a great empire should be made by men of letters, not as subordinate instruments and trumpeters of sedition, but as the chief contrivers and managers, and in a short time as the open administrators and sovereign rulers? Who could have imagined that atheism could produce one of the most violently operative principles of fanaticism? Who could have imagined that, in a commonwealth in a manner cradled in war, and in an extensive and dreadful war, military commanders should be of little or no account? That the convention should not contain one military man of name? That administrative bodies in a state of the utmost confusion, and of but a momentary duration, and composed of men with not one imposing part of character, should be able to govern the country and its armies, with an authority which the most settled senates, and the most respected monarchs scarcely ever had in the same degree? This, for one, I confess I did not foresee, though all the rest was present to me very early, and not out of my apprehension even for several years.

I believe very few were able to enter into the effects of

mere terror, as a principle not only for the support of power in given hands or forms, but in those things in which the soundest political speculators were of opinion, that the least appearance of force would be totally destructive, such is the market, whether of money, provision, or commodities of any kind. Yet for four years we have seen loans made, treasuries supplied, and armies levied and maintained, more numerous than France ever shewed in the field, by the effects of fear alone.

Here is a state of things of which, in its totality, if history furnishes any examples at all, they are very remote and feeble. I therefore am not so ready as some are, to tax with folly or cowardice, those who were not prepared to meet an evil of this nature. Even now, after the events, all the causes may be somewhat difficult to ascertain. Very many are however traceable. But these things history and books of speculation (as I have already said) did not teach men to foresee, and of course to resist. Now that they are no longer a matter of sagacity, but of experience, of recent experience, of our own experience, it would be unjustifiable to go back to the records of other times, to instruct us to manage what they never enabled us to foresee.

9*

APPENDIX.

EXTRACTS FROM VATTELL'S LAW OF NATIONS.

[The Titles and Notes, are by Mr. BURKE, excepting such of the Notes as are here distinguished.]

CASES OF INTERFERENCE WITH INDEPENDENT POWERS.

BOOK II. CHAP. IV. § 53.

IF then there is any where a nation of a restless and mischievous disposition, always ready to injure others, to traverse their designs, and to raise domestic troubles, it is not to be doubted, that all have a right to join in order to repress, chastise, and put it ever after out of its power to injure them. Such should be the just fruits of the policy which Machiavel praises in Cæsar Borgia. The conduct followed by Philip II. king of Spain, was adapted to unite all Europe against him; and it was from just reasons that Henry the Great formed the design of humbling a power, formidable by its forces, and pernicious by its maxims.

$70. Let us apply to the unjust, what we have said above ($53) of a mischievous, or maleficent nation. If there be any that makes an open profession of trampling justice under foot, of despising and violating the right of others,† whenever it finds an opportunity the interest of human society will authorize all others to unite, in order to humble and chastise it. We do not here forget the maxim established in our prelimi

*This is the case of France-Semonville at Turin-Jacobin clubs-Liegois meeting-Flemish meeting-La Fayette's answer-Cloot's embassy-Avignon. + The French acknowledge no power not directly emanating from the people.

naries, that it does not belong to nations to usurp the power of being judges of each other. In particular cases, liable to the least doubt, it ought to be supposed, that each of the parties may have some right: and the injustice of that which has committed the injury, may proceed from error, and not from a general contempt of justice. But if, by constant maxims, and by a continued conduct, one nation shews, that it has evidently this pernicious disposition, and that it considers no right as sacred, the safety of the human race requires that it should be suppressed. To form and support an unjust pretension, is to do an injury not only to him who is interested in this pretension, but to mock at justice in general, and to injure all nations.

§ 56. If the prince, attacking the fundamental laws, gives his subjects a legal right to resist him; if tyranny, becoming insupportable, obliges the nation to rise in their defence; every foreign power has a right to succor an oppressed people who implore their assistance. The English justly complained of James the Second. The nobility, and the most distinguished patriots, resolved to put a check on his enterprises, which manifestly tended to overthrow the constitution, and to destroy the liberties and the religion of the people; and therefore applied for assistance to the United Provinces. The authority of the Prince of Orange had, doubtless, an influence on the deliberations of the statesgeneral; but it did not make them commit injustice; for when a people, from good reasons, take up arms against an oppressor, justice and generosity require, that brave men should be assisted in the defence of their liberties. Whenever, therefore, a civil war is kindled in a state, foreign powers may assist that party which appears to them to have justice on their side. He who assists an odious tyrant; he who declares FOR AN UNJUST AND REBELLIOUS PEOPLE, offends against his duty. When the bands of the political society are broken, or at least suspended between the sovereign. and his people, they then may be considered as two distinct powers; and since each is independent of all foreign

authority, nobody has a right to judge them. Either may be in the right; and each of those who grant their assistance may believe that he supports a good cause. It follows then, in virtue of the voluntary laws of nations, (see Prelim. $21) that the two parties may act as having an equal right, and behave accordingly, till the decision of the affair.

But we ought not to abuse this maxim for authorizing odious proceedings against the tranquillity of states. It is a violation of the law of nations to persuade those subjects to revolt who actually obey their sovereign, though they complain of his government.

The practice of nations is conformable to our maxims. When the German protestants came to the assistance of the reformed in France, the court never undertook to treat them otherwise than as common enemies, and according to the laws of war. France at the same time assisted the Netherlands, which took up arms against Spain, and did not pretend that her troops should be considered upon any other footing than as auxiliaries in a regular war. But no power avoids complaining of an atrocious injury, if any one attempts by his emissaries to excite his subjects to revolt.

As to those monsters who, under the title of sovereigns, render themselves the scourges and horror of the human race; these are savage beasts, from which every brave man may justly purge the earth. All antiquity has praised Hercules for delivering the world from an Antæus, a Busiris, and a Diomedes.

Book 4. Chap. 2. § 14. After stating, that nations have no right to interfere in domestic concerns, he proceeds— "But this rule does not preclude them from espousing the quarrel of a dethroned king, and assisting him, if he appears to have justice on his side. They then declare themselves enemies to the nation who has acknowledged his rival, as when two different nations are at war they are at liberty to assist that whose quarrel they think has the fairest appearance."