The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 04 (of 12)

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Edmund Burke. The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 04 (of 12)

LETTER TO A MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, IN ANSWER TO SOME OBJECTIONS TO HIS BOOK ON FRENCH AFFAIRS. 1791

AN APPEAL FROM THE NEW TO THE OLD WHIGS, IN CONSEQUENCE OF SOME LATE DISCUSSIONS IN PARLIAMENT RELATIVE TO THE REFLECTIONS ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 1791

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION

AN APPEAL FROM THE NEW TO THE OLD WHIGS

A LETTER TO A PEER OF IRELAND ON THE PENAL LAWS AGAINST IRISH CATHOLICS, PREVIOUS TO THE LATE REPEAL OF A PART THEREOF IN THE SESSION OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT, HELD A.D. 1782

A LETTER TO SIR HERCULES LANGRISHE, BART., M.P., ON THE SUBJECT OF THE ROMAN CATHOLICS OF IRELAND, THE PROPRIETY OF ADMITTING THEM TO THE ELECTIVE FRANCHISE, CONSISTENTLY WITH THE PRINCIPLES OF THE CONSTITUTION, AS ESTABLISHED AT THE REVOLUTION. 1792

HINTS FOR A MEMORIAL TO BE DELIVERED TO MONSIEUR DE M.M. WRITTEN IN THE EARLY PART OF 1791

THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS, ETC., ETC. WRITTEN IN DECEMBER, 1791

HEADS FOR CONSIDERATION ON THE PRESENT STATE OF AFFAIRS. WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER, 1792

REMARKS ON THE POLICY OF THE ALLIES WITH RESPECT TO FRANCE. BEGUN IN OCTOBER, 1793

APPENDIX

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There are some corrections in this edition, which tend to render the sense less obscure in one or two places. The order of the two last members is also changed, and I believe for the better. This change was made on the suggestion of a very learned person, to the partiality of whose friendship I owe much; to the severity of whose judgment I owe more.

At Mr. Burke's time of life, and in his dispositions, petere honestam missionem was all he had to do with his political associates. This boon they have not chosen to grant him. With many expressions of good-will, in effect they tell him he has loaded the stage too long. They conceive it, though an harsh, yet a necessary office, in full Parliament to declare to the present age, and to as late a posterity as shall take any concern in the proceedings of our day, that by one book he has disgraced the whole tenor of his life.—Thus they dismiss their old partner of the war. He is advised to retire, whilst they continue to serve the public upon wiser principles and under better auspices.

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The gentlemen of the party (I include Mr. Fox) have been kind enough to consider the dispute brought on by this business, and the consequent separation of Mr. Burke from their corps, as a matter of regret and uneasiness. I cannot be of opinion that by his exclusion they have had any loss at all. A man whose opinions are so very adverse to theirs, adverse, as it was expressed, "as pole to pole," so mischievously as well as so directly adverse that they found themselves under the necessity of solemnly disclaiming them in full Parliament,—such a man must ever be to them a most unseemly and unprofitable incumbrance. A coöperation with him could only serve to embarrass them in all their councils. They have besides publicly represented him as a man capable of abusing the docility and confidence of ingenuous youth,—and, for a bad reason or for no reason, of disgracing his whole public life by a scandalous contradiction of every one of his own acts, writings, and declarations. If these charges be true, their exclusion of such a person from their body is a circumstance which does equal honor to their justice and their prudence. If they express a degree of sensibility in being obliged to execute this wise and just sentence, from a consideration of some amiable or some pleasant qualities which in his private life their former friend may happen to possess, they add to the praise of their wisdom and firmness the merit of great tenderness of heart and humanity of disposition.

On their ideas, the new Whig party have, in my opinion, acted as became them. The author of the Reflections, however, on his part, cannot, without great shame to himself, and without entailing everlasting disgrace on his posterity, admit the truth or justice of the charges which have been made upon him, or allow that he has in those Reflections discovered any principles to which honest men are bound to declare, not a shade or two of dissent, but a total, fundamental opposition. He must believe, if he does not mean wilfully to abandon his cause and his reputation, that principles fundamentally at variance with those of his book are fundamentally false. What those principles, the antipodes to his, really are, he can only discover from their contrariety. He is very unwilling to suppose that the doctrines of some books lately circulated are the principles of the party; though, from the vehement declarations against his opinions, he is at some loss how to judge otherwise.

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