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Page 19
When an author undertakes to treat of public happiness, he ought to be
certain that he does not mistake passion for right, nor imagination
for principle. Principle, like truth, needs no contrivance. It will
ever tell its own tale, and tell it the same way. But where this is
not the case, every page must be watched, recollected, and compared
like an invented story.
I am surprised at this passage of the Abbe. It means nothing or it
means ill; and in any case it shows the great difference between
speculative and practical knowledge. A treaty according to the Abbe's
language would have neither duration nor affection; it might have
lasted to the end of the war, and then expired with it.--But France,
by acting in a style superior to the little politics of narrow
thinking, has established a generous fame, and won the love of a
country she was before a stranger to. She had to treat with a people
who thought as nature taught them; and, on her own part, she wisely
saw there was no present advantage to be obtained by unequal terms,
which could balance the more lasting ones that might flow from a kind
and generous beginning.
From this part the Abbe advances into the secret transactions of the
two Cabinets of Versailles and Madrid, respecting the independence of
America, through which I mean not to follow him. It is a circumstance
sufficiently striking, without being commented on, that the former
union of America with Britain, produced a power, which, in her hands,
had was becoming dangerous to the world: and there is no improbability
in supposing, that had the latter known as much of the strength of
former, before she began the quarrel, as she has known since, that
instead of attempting to reduce her to unconditional submission, would
have proposed to her the conquest of Mexico. But from the countries
separately, Spain has nothing to apprehend, though from their union,
she had more to fear than any other power in Europe.
The part which I shall more particularly confine myself to, is that,
wherein the Abbe takes an opportunity of complimenting the British
Ministry with high encomiums of admiration, on their rejecting the
offered mediation of the Court of Madrid, in 1779.
It must be remembered, that before Spain joined France in the War, she
undertook the office of a mediator, and made proposals to the British
King and Ministry so exceedingly favourable to their interest, that
had they been accepted, would have become inconvenient, if not
inadmissible to America. These proposals were nevertheless rejected by
the British Cabinet: on which the Abbe says,--
"It is in such a circumstance as this, it is in the time when noble
pride elevates the soul superior to all terror; when nothing is seen
more dreadful than the shame of receiving the law, and when there is
no doubt or hesitation which to chuse, between ruin and dishonour; it
is then, that the greatness of a nation is displayed. I acknowledge,
however, that men accustomed to judge of things by the event, call
great and perilous resolutions, heroism or madness, according to the
good or bad success with which they have been attended. If then I
should be asked, what is the name which shall in years to come be
given to the firmness, which was in this moment exhibited by the
English, I shall answer, that I do not know. But that which it
deserves I know. I know that the annals of the world hold out to us
but rarely the august and majestic spectacle of a nation, which chuses
rather to renounce its duration than its glory."
In this paragraph the conception is lofty, and the expression elegant;
but the colouring is too high for the original, and the likeness fails
through an excess of graces. To fit the powers of thinking and the
turn of language to the subject, so as to bring out a clear conclusion
that shall hit the point in question, and nothing else, is the true
criterion of writing. But the greater part of the Abbe's writings (if
he will pardon me the remark) appear to me uncentral and burthened
with variety. They represent a beautiful wilderness without paths; in
which the eye is diverted by every thing, without being particularly
directed to any thing: and in which it is agreeable to be lost, and
difficult to find the way out.
Before I offer any other remark oh the spirit and composition of the
above passage, I shall compare it with the circumstance it alludes to.
The circumstance, then, does not deserve the encomium. The rejection
was not prompted by her fortitude but her vanity. She did not view it
as a case of despair or even of extreme danger, and consequently the
determination to renounce her duration rather than her glory, cannot
apply to the condition of her mind. She had then high expectations of
subjugating America, and had no other naval force against her than
France; neither was she certain that rejecting the mediation of Spain
would combine that power with France. New mediations might arise more
favourable than those she had refused. But if they should not, and
Spain should join, she still saw that it would only bring out her
naval force against France and Spain, which was wanted and could not
be employed against America, and habits of thinking had taught her to
believe herself superior to both.
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