It may be borne with a calm and equal mind, but no man by lifting his head high can pretend that he does not perceive the scorns that are poured down upon him from above.
Edmund Burke
The Public Record
Edmund Burke was an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher, and politician who is widely credited as the founder of the cultural and political philosophy of conservatism. Regarded as one of the most influential conservative thinkers and political writers of the 18th century, Burke spent the majority of his career in Great Britain and was elected as a member of Parliament (MP) from 1766 to 1794 in the House of Commons of Great Britain with the Whig Party. His writings played a significant role in influencing public views and opinions in both Great Britain and France following the French Revolution in 1789, and he remains a major figure in modern conservative circles.
gutenberg.org
All these sudden complaints of injury, and all these deliberate submissions to it, are the inevitable consequences of the situation in which we had placed ourselves: a situation wherein the insults were such as Nature would not enable us…
Not the ambassador, but the king himself, was libelled and insulted,--libelled, not by a creature of the Directory, but by the Directory itself.
It would not, indeed, have been proper to keep up a war of the same kind; but an immediate, manly, and decided resentment ought to have been the consequence.
We ought not to have waited for the disgraceful dismissal of our ambassador.
When dignity is talked of, a language which I did not expect to hear in such a transaction, I must say, what all the world must feel, that it was not for the king's dignity to notice this insult and not to resent it.
Ambassadors are not sent to a hostile power, persevering in sentiments of hostility, to make candid, confidential, and amicable communications.
Hitherto the world has considered it as the duty of an ambassador in such a situation to be cautious, guarded, dexterous, and circumspect.
It is true that mutual confidence and common interest dispense with all rules, smooth the rugged way, remove every obstacle, and make all things plain and level.
But in the present case, this unparalleled candor, this unpardonable want of reserve, produced, what might have been expected from it, the most serious evils.
It instructed the enemy in the whole plan of our demands and concessions.
If a disposition to peace, and with any reasonable assurance, had been previously indicated, such a plan of arrangement might with propriety and safety be proposed; because these arrangements were not, in effect, to make the basis, but a…
The mutual disposition to peace would form the reasonable base, upon which the scheme of compensation upon one side or the other might be constructed.
This truly fundamental base being once laid, all differences arising from the spirit of huckstering and barter might be easily adjusted.
The balance of power had been ever assumed as the known common law of Europe at all times and by all powers: the question had only been (as it must happen) on the more or less inclination of that balance.
In all those systems of balance, England was the power to whose custody it was thought it might be most safely committed.
Without question, she had been long the security for the balance of Germany, and, under her auspices, the system, if not formed, had been at least perfected.
Before men can transact any affair, they must have a common language to speak, and some common, recognized principles on which they can argue; otherwise all is cross purpose and confusion.
What could be more fair than to lay open to an enemy all that you wished to obtain, and the price you meant to pay for it, and to desire him to imitate your ingenuous proceeding, and in the same manner to open his honest heart to you?
Here was no want of fair dealing, but there was too evidently a fault of another kind: there was much weakness,--there was an eager and impotent desire of associating with this unsocial power, and of attempting the connection by any means…
In the name of wonder, what has inspired our ministry with this hope any more than with their former expectations?
What is there to encourage them, in the conduct or even in the declarations of the ruling powers in France, from the first formation of their mischievous republic to the hour in which I write?
Is it from these men that we are to hope for this paternal tenderness to their country, and this sacred regard for the peace and happiness of all nations?
But it seems there is still another lurking hope, akin to that which duped us so egregiously before, when our delightful basis was accepted: we still flatter ourselves that the public voice of France will compel this Directory to more…
But the world knows that in France there is no public,--that the country is composed but of two descriptions, audacious tyrants and trembling slaves.
Politicians like Edmund Burke
