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Letter from the Right Honorable the Lord Auckland to the Lord Bishop of Rochester

EDEN FARM, KENT, July 18th, 1812.

My dear Lord,—Mr. Burke's fourth letter to Lord Fitzwilliam is personally interesting to me: I have perused it with a respectful attention.

When I communicated to Mr. Burke, in 1795, the printed work which he arraigns and discusses, I was aware that he would differ from me.

Some light is thrown on the transaction by my note which gave rise to it, and by his answer, which exhibits the admirable powers of his great and good mind, deeply suffering at the time under a domestic calamity.

I have selected these two papers from my manuscript collection, and now transmit them to your Lordship with a wish that they may be annexed to the publication in question.

I have the honor to be, my dear Lord,

Yours most sincerely,

AUCKLAND.

TO THE RIGHT REV. THE LORD BISHOP OF ROCHESTER.

Letter from Lord Auckland to the Right Honorable Edmund Burke

EDEN FARM, KENT, October 28th, 1795.

My dear Sir,—

Though in the stormy ocean of the last twenty-three years we have seldom sailed on the same tack, there has been nothing hostile in our signals or manoeuvres, and, on my part at least, there has been a cordial disposition towards friendly and respectful sentiments. Under that influence, I now send to you a small work which exhibits my fair and full opinions on the arduous circumstances of the moment, "as far as the cautions necessary to be observed will permit me to go beyond general ideas."

Three or four of those friends with whom I am most connected in public and private life are pleased to think that the statement in question (which at first made part of a confidential paper) may do good, and accordingly a very large impression will be published to-day. I neither seek to avow the publication nor do I wish to disavow it. I have no anxiety in that respect, but to contribute my mite to do service, at a moment when service is much wanted.

I am, my dear Sir,

Most sincerely yours,

AUCKLAND.

RIGHT HON. EDMUND BURKE.

Letter from the Right Honorable Edmund Burke to Lord Auckland

My dear Lord,—

I am perfectly sensible of the very flattering honor you have done me in turning any part of your attention towards a dejected old man, buried in the anticipated grave of a feeble old age, forgetting and forgotten in an obscure and melancholy retreat.

In this retreat I have nothing relative to this world to do, but to study all the tranquillity that in the state of my mind I am capable of. To that end I find it but too necessary to call to my aid an oblivion of most of the circumstances, pleasant and unpleasant, of my life,—to think as little and indeed to know as little as I can of everything that is doing about me,—and, above all, to divert my mind from all presagings and prognostications of what I must (if I let my speculations loose) consider as of absolute necessity to happen after my death, and possibly even before it. Your address to the public, which you have been so good as to send to me, obliges me to break in upon that plan, and to look a little on what is behind, and very much on what is before me. It creates in my mind a variety of thoughts, and all of them unpleasant.

It is true, my Lord, what you say, that, through our public life, we have generally sailed on somewhat different tacks. We have so, undoubtedly; and we should do so still, if I had continued longer to keep the sea. In that difference, you rightly observe that I have always done justice to your skill and ability as a navigator, and to your good intentions towards the safety of the cargo and of the ship's company. I cannot say now that we are on different tacks. There would be no propriety in the metaphor. I can sail no longer. My vessel cannot be said to be even in port. She is wholly condemned and broken up. To have an idea of that vessel, you must call to mind what you have often seen on the Kentish road. Those planks of tough and hardy oak, that used for years to brave the buffets of the Bay of Biscay, are now turned, with their warped grain and empty trunnion-holes, into very wretched pales for the inclosure of a wretched farm-yard.

The style of your pamphlet, and the eloquence and power of composition you display in it, are such as do great honor to your talents, and in conveying any other sentiments would give me very great pleasure. Perhaps I do not very perfectly comprehend your purpose, and the drift of your arguments. If I do not, pray do not attribute my mistake to want of candor, but to want of sagacity. I confess, your address to the public, together with other accompanying circumstances, has filled me with a degree of grief and dismay which I cannot find words to express. If the plan of politics there recommended—pray excuse my freedom—should be adopted by the king's councils, and by the good people of this kingdom, (as, so recommended, undoubtedly it will,) nothing can be the consequence but utter and irretrievable ruin to the ministry, to the crown, to the succession,—to the importance, to the independence, to the very existence, of this country. This is my feeble, perhaps, but clear, positive, decided, long and maturely reflected and frequently declared opinion, from which all the events which have lately come to pass, so far from turning me, have tended to confirm beyond the power of alteration, even by your eloquence and authority. I find, my dear Lord, that you think some persons, who are not satisfied with the securities of a Jacobin peace, to be persons of intemperate minds. I may be, and I fear I am, with you in that description; but pray, my Lord, recollect that very few of the causes which make men intemperate can operate upon me. Sanguine hopes, vehement desires, inordinate ambition, implacable animosity, party attachments, or party interests,—all these with me have no existence. For myself, or for a family, (alas! I have none,) I have nothing to hope or to fear in this world. I am attached, by principle, inclination, and gratitude, to the king, and to the present ministry.

Perhaps you may think that my animosity to opposition is the cause of my dissent, on seeing the politics of Mr. Fox (which, while I was in the world, I combated by every instrument which God had put into my hands, and in every situation in which I had taken part) so completely, if I at all understand you, adopted in your Lordship's book: but it was with pain I broke with that great man forever in that cause; and I assure you, it is not without pain that I differ with your Lordship on the same principles. But it is of no concern. I am far below the region of those great and tempestuous passions. I feel nothing of the intemperance of mind. It is rather sorrow and dejection than anger.

Once more my best thanks for your very polite attention; and do me the favor to believe me, with the most perfect sentiments of respect and regard,

My dear Lord,

Your Lordship's most obedient and humble servant,

EDMUND BURKE.

BEACONSFIELD, Oct. 30th, 1795.

Friday Evening.