FREE THOUGHTS ON PUBLIC AFFAIRS IN A LETTER ADDRESSED TO A MEMBER OF THE OLD OPPOSITION

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

This pamphlet of 46 8vo pages was published by the author himself in 1806. The title-page was ‘Free Thoughts on Public Affairs, or Advice to a Patriot; in a Letter addressed to a Member of the Old Opposition. London, Printed by Taylor & Co., Shoe Lane, and sold by J. Budd, Crown & Mitre, Pall Mall, 1806.’ Mr. W. C. Hazlitt reprinted the pamphlet from the author’s own copy in 1885 (Bohn’s Library, The Spirit of the Age, etc.), and that reprint forms the text of the present edition. The pamphlet is exceedingly rare. Mr. Alexander Ireland knew of only one copy, that which belonged to Mr. W. C. Hazlitt. This he caused to be transcribed; but it has not been possible to collate the present text with either the original or Mr. Ireland’s transcription.

ADVICE TO A PATRIOT; IN A LETTER ADDRESSED TO A MEMBER OF THE OLD OPPOSITION

Sir, If the opposition of character between the individuals of different nations is that which attaches every one the most strongly to his own country; if the love of liberty instilled from our very cradle is any security for the hatred of oppression; if a spirit of independence, and a constitutional stubbornness of temper are not forward to crouch under the yoke of unjust ambition; if to look up with heartfelt admiration to the great names, whether heroes or sages, which England has produced, and to be unwilling that the country which gave birth to Shakespear and Milton should ever be enslaved by a mean and servile foe; if to love its glory—that virtue, that integrity, that genius, which have distinguished it from all others, and in which its true greatness consists,—is to love one’s country, there are few persons who have a better right than myself (on the score of sincerity) to offer that kind of advice which is the subject of the following letter, however weak or defective it may be found.

To love one’s country is to wish well to it; to prefer its interests to our own; to oppose every measure inconsistent with its welfare; and to be ready to sacrifice ease, health, and life itself in its defence. But there is a false kind of patriotism, loud and noisy, and ever ready to usurp that name from others, as an honourable covering either for selfish designs or blind zeal, to which I shall make no pretensions. It has been called patriotism, to flatter those in power at the expense of the people; to sail with the stream; to make a popular prejudice the stalking-horse of ambition, to mislead first and then betray; to enrich yourself out of the public treasure; to strengthen your influence by pursuing such measures as give to the richest members of the community an opportunity of becoming richer, and to laugh at the waste of blood and the general misery which they occasion; to defend every act of a party, and to treat all those as enemies of their country who do not think the pride of a minister and the avarice of a few of

2his creatures of more consequence than the safety and happiness of a free, brave, industrious, and honest people; to strike at the liberty of other countries, and through them at your own; to change the maxims of a state, to degrade its spirit, to insult its feelings, and tear from it its well-earned and proudest distinctions; to soothe the follies of the multitude, to lull them in their sleep, to goad them on in their madness, and, under the terror of imaginary evils, to cheat them of their best privileges; to blow the blast of war for a livelihood in journals and pamphlets, and by spreading abroad incessantly a spirit of defiance, animosity, suspicion, distrust, and the most galling contempt, to make it impossible that we should ever remain at peace or in safety, while insults and general obloquy have a tendency to provoke those passions in others which they are intended to excite.

Being then of opinion, that to flatter is not always the duty of a friend; that it is no part of the love of one’s country to be blind to her errors, or to wish her to persist in them; I may take the liberty of stating freely such observations as have occurred to an unprejudiced but not indifferent spectator on the present state of things: and there is at least this advantage in reflections which are not the echo of the popular cry, that something may be found in them, however unsupported or frivolous in general, which may be turned to good account by persons of sounder judgment and more extensive means of information. It has been said that ‘there is wisdom in a multitude of counsellors;’ but if they only raise a clamour by repeating all of them the same thing, I do not see how this advantage can be obtained.

What I would chiefly remark upon is,—How far the principles and views acted upon by the late administrations are such as to afford us the safest and most honourable ground for prosecuting a war which is said to be carried on for the existence of the empire.

Had I to engage with an enemy in a struggle of this kind, the ground which I should choose to occupy would be such a one as that he must feel himself to be the aggressor. In a conflict which is to decide the fate of a people, I think the greatest care should be taken to remove all doubtful or frivolous causes of debate, to suffer no sinister motives to divert their minds from the great object in which they are engaged or lessen their steady confidence in the justice of their cause. It is hardly to be expected that the mass of a people should defend the patrimony of independence which they inherit from their ancestors with the reverence, intrepidity, and dauntless zeal required of them, when they see a minister ready to gamble it away for the first idle object that excites his cupidity, or opens a door to the spirit of intrigue. Examining the conduct of those who were the advisers and authors of the late renewal of hostilities according to 3these maxims, which seem to me well founded, it is not easy to imagine any thing more remote from true dignity, magnanimity, or

wisdom, than the manner in which we chose to enter upon a war on which we were to stake our all. We chose to rest a dispute, which was to involve every thing near and dear to us, on a diplomatic ambiguity; on a technical question, as to the manner how and to whom we were to give up a barren rock which was of no use to us, and to which we had resigned all pretensions. It was clear that we had refused to fulfil our share of a treaty which had been formally ratified; but the reasons which we gave for doing this were by no means equally clear and satisfactory. They sounded more like the excuses of those seeking a pretence for the continuance of an unsuccessful contest, than the remonstrances of persons sincerely anxious for peace, and opposed by real difficulties. I remember at the time when the design of retaining Malta was first made known, every one’s remark was,—Had we not agreed to give it up? And as to the official reasons for this change of measures, which were afterwards detailed to the public with such pomp and circumstance, viz., that it

was to have been given up to the Order that formerly possessed it only on the supposition of that Order’s remaining entire, though no such condition had been expressed, and under the guarantee of another power whose consent had neither been asked or obtained, I believe that no one who was not either indifferent to peace or desirous of war ever thought them of sufficient consequence to justify us in exposing ourselves to unnecessary reproach and odium, and plunging into a sea of unknown troubles. It is certain that by the generality of people they could neither be felt nor understood. On this tottering foundation did Mr. Addington think proper to take his stand. Doubt, perplexity, evasion, a general indifference as to the immediate object of the dispute, and a direct accusation of breach of faith on the part of the enemy were the auspices under which we were to begin a war, which ought (from the tremendous consequences attached to it) to have had no motives but what came home to the bosoms and businesses of men; to every manly, generous, and honest feeling; that might

not have been uttered boldly without fear of contradiction in the face of an enemy; that must not have beat in every heart, have strung every arm, and animated every tongue. If the situation of the country was believed to be at all precarious; if there was even a chance that the contest might really lead to the dreadful alternative held out to us, the want either of cautious prudence or of manly wisdom in ministers was at that time inexcusable. It is no part of wisdom to hang the fate of kingdoms in the balance with straws. It is no part of courage to fight, to show that you are not afraid of 4fighting. Calm steady courage does not distrust itself; nor is it afraid that by giving up a trifling or doubtful point, it may afterwards be bullied into dangerous compliances. Firmness and moderation seem to me not only not incompatible with each other, but that the one is a necessary consequence of the other. On the other hand, meanness and pride are nearly allied together. In common life we should think that a readiness to seize the first occasion of quarrel

shewed a man to be either a bully or a coward; it would seem as if he was afraid that by deferring his resentment he should either want courage or opportunity for shewing it another time. Yet the great excuse for our going into the war was,—that by yielding any thing to the demands of the enemy, we should soon lose all power of resistance, and crouch in abject submission at his feet. This was not a proud confidence in ourselves, but a mean dread of our own pusillanimity and want of firmness. It was to suppose that we had no security for our firmness, but in the heat of our passions and the infliction of mutual injuries. But it may be said, that whatever was the cause of the war, the consequences were the same. The critical situation in which we stood, and the threats of the enemy made it necessary for us to repel force by force, to call forth every energy of which we were possessed, and to stand forth as one man in defence of the country. But whatever this might prove as to the conduct of the people, it forms no justification of the conduct of ministers. It was

not the danger of invasion which produced the taking up arms, but the determination to take up arms which produced the fear of invasion. The threatened invasion was not the cause of the war, but the consequence of it. This reasoning, as applied to the commencement of the war is preposterous. It is the same absurdity as to give yourself an infectious disease in order that you may call in the physician, instead of calling in the physician because you are attacked by the disease. It is ridiculous, I say, to argue that the war was necessary to repel the horrors and ravages of invasion; when, if the war had not taken place, no such evils would have been possible. It was true, that so long as we determined to carry on the war, it was necessary to guard ourselves against the consequences of war; but to suppose (which seemed to be generally the case with the good people of England in the height of their panic) that to doubt for a moment of the necessity of the war was the same thing as wishing that the French might come here and put every one to the sword (when one

chief object of peace would be to prevent all such wild alarms), implies such an intricate confusion of ideas as I am not able to unravel. At least I can account for it only in one way; by supposing that this reluctance to distinguish between the necessity of our going to war, 5and the necessity of self-defence, brought upon us by it, arose from a deep consciousness in the human mind of the importance of the motives by which we have been actuated to the success of our undertakings, and a belief that he who lessens your confidence in the grounds of your proceeding, thereby unnerves your resolution, and lessens your safety. I know that immediate danger, however incurred, produces the same necessity for self-defence; but it does not produce the same temper of mind and motives for going through it. It may also produce the same mechanical courage at the moment; but perseverance, superiority to fear or disaster, self-confidence, a cheerful determined submission to the greatest hardships and sufferings from a sense that they were unavoidable, ‘the unconquerable will, and courage

never to submit or yield, and what else is not to be overcome;’ all these are not in the gift of fear, or folly, or ignorance, or hatred. It is therefore of the highest consequence to ascertain the true grounds and motives of a war, such as the present, and to know the spirit and sentiments by which it was brought about, and to what part of our character, whether to its strong or its weak side, whether to our vices or our virtues, those motives were addressed which called forth our ardour and readiness to engage in it. It is not from loud boasting, from what we think or say of ourselves, but from what we really are; not from a pretended, but real love of justice, of independence, of honour, and of our country’s welfare, that we can expect the fruits of victory. If we find in those who lead, no higher principle of action than a wish to serve their own interests, or gratify their own passions, and in those who are led, only that zeal which arises from the drunken uproar of an ale-house, the low credulity of ignorance, or the idle

vanity of wearing a red coat and shouldering a firelock—I will not say that the situation of the country is desperate indeed, but I think it is not such as to afford the most solid grounds of confidence in our security against a spirit of unbounded ambition; the insolence of almost unexampled success, resentment for supposed injuries, and the most consummate military skill. ‘The still small voice is wanting.’... It is not in the order of nature that an administration acting upon such principles as I have here described should feel, or be capable of inspiring into others, either true patriotism, a sincere and manly spirit of independence, or any particle of that high-souled energy, which is necessary to contend with inordinate ambition, armed with strength and cunning. That administration is no more: I trust that its spirit has not survived it!

It seems almost impertinent at present to turn back to the diplomatic pedantry and legal quibbling by which the retention of Malta was so gravely justified at the time. After the repeated declarations that 6have been made in parliament, and after having witnessed those tragical events, to which, it seems, it was the necessary prelude, there can be little doubt as to the real motives of that measure. From these motives then we are to form our opinion of the conduct of ministers. If it was a wise and necessary measure to plunge Europe again into the calamities of war, to bathe it once more in that ‘fountain of blood,’ then and then only was our refusing to fulfil our engagements a wise and necessary determination; for the now avowed reason of our going to war was, that we might not remain at peace! Here then was a war voluntarily undertaken for its own sake, peace studiously shunned, and all the evils consequent upon such a step incurred, for the sake of making one more desperate effort to reduce the power of France and humble it with the dust. We therefore entered upon this

wild Quixotic scheme at our own peril, and the responsibility of the war devolved upon us. We ought therefore to have had strong grounds, either from a confidence in the result or from the justice of the principle, for making such an attempt. But we have seen what has been the result with respect to the other powers of Europe, it remains to be seen how it will terminate with respect to ourselves. As to the justice and generosity of the design, I may perhaps speak of that hereafter.

I will not pretend to censure the general practice of obtaining a war under false pretences, I leave it to the politicians to settle the rules of honour among themselves: but I cannot help thinking that in a war which is to try the spirit of a people, they ought not to be tricked, or bullied, or unnecessarily forced into it. With respect to the suspension of the war in consequence of the treaty of Amiens, it certainly had this good effect (on the supposition that it was absolutely necessary to go on with the contest), that it gave those who had been enemies of the old war, and had been afterwards disgusted by the conduct of the French, but did not like to relinquish their opinion while the original cause of dispute remained—it gave all persons of this class (of which there were great numbers) an opportunity to quit the ranks of discontent without exposing themselves to the charge of inconsistency. As it was a new war, they thought they had a fair right to have a new opinion about it; and they exercised their freedom

of election as eagerly in approving the conduct of ministers in entering upon the present war, as they had done in condemning their continuance of the former one. For myself, I confess I have always looked upon the present war as a continuance of the last, carried on upon the same principles and for the same purposes, only without any hopes of success, and therefore infinitely more wanton and foolish. For as, in the commencement of the last war, it was our intention to 7conquer France, in this we can only hope to defend ourselves. Of the necessity of this defence there can be but one opinion. But to confound this with the necessity of the war itself, or to argue as if the discontinuance of the war would increase the dangers arising from it, is an improvement in political logic, a luminous arrangement of ideas, that must have crept in with the benefits of the Union.

The first plea that was made use of to give a colouring of interest to the renewal of hostilities, before the discovery of that profound train of policy, the explosion of which has left Europe a heap of ruins, was, that after the incautious surrender of Malta, it had been found to be of much greater importance to Great Britain than had been imagined at the time; and that it could not be suffered to fall into the hands of the French, or even become subject to their influence, without endangering one of the chief sources of the wealth and prosperity of this country. It seems Malta was the enchanted island, into which Buonaparte was to convey himself by stealth, and thence passing easily into Egypt was, at another vast stride, to come down souse upon our possessions in India. With these resting-places, and the help of the thousand-league boots which our imagination had lent him, the political magician was to take but a hop, step and a jump, from one hemisphere into the other. Or, in the language of the day, Malta was the key to Egypt, and Egypt was the key to our Eastern