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LETTER MISSIVE
TO
LORD HOLLAND.
S. GoMiell, Printer, Little Queen Street, London.
LETTER MISSIVE
»o»
SIR PHILIP FRANCIS, K. B.
TO
LORD HOLLAND.
EX ABUNDANT!.
Dated 10th June,
Published 1st July.
\ 1816.
* »
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR RIDGWAYS, 179, PICCADILLY.
1816.
•
1 .v':: \m
■
5V37<>
to
LORD HOLLAND.
E.v abundanti.
After some severe warnings to quit this te-
nement of clay, and with sundry good rea-
sons to be as willing to change my state as
a virgin turned of forty, there is but one
thing left to reconcile me to a removal. For
my own credit and nothing else, I should
like to leave a memorial to those, who are to
follow me in my own line, and to their chil-
dren, legitimate or natural, as it may hap-
pen, that, since" I have had an opportunity
of observing others, and knowing you, a
voluntary attachment grew with my know-
ledge of you. This affection was not plant-
ed or trained, but came of itself and has
thriven of its own accord. But when, with
a sight sharpened by experience, t examined
your principles and conduct as a public per-
il
son, though possibly subject to deviations,
which have escaped me, impression changed
into conviction and is now the final act of
my understanding. Some men have pas-
sions in their heads and no where else;
mine are in my heart and from that source
all the ebbing intellect I pretend to is de-
rived. The Roman language thought, as I
do, that true wisdom, inseparable from ge-
nerous action, is not a native of the brain,
and is much more likely to die in the skull
than to live there. The exact sciences be-
long to intense thought and undisturbed me-
dilation. For a wise man, in the sense of
active zeal for the good of others, the Ro-
mans had an expression of their own, and
could not have a better than homo cordatus.
For a fool or a madman, the appropriated
term was vceors. For peace and harmony
on earth, their supplications and sacrifices,
prescribed by Lawgivers and Magistrates,
not by Priests, were offered to their gods in
the Temple of Concord. As a demand on be-
lief, or a tax on credulity, that mere mytho-
logy was full as extravagant as any other ;
still there was some sense and meaning at
the bottom of it. It is not quite an act of
vulgar ignorance or superstition to deify the
virtues, by which the faculties of eminent
men have been instructed, as well as animat-
ed, to inform and enlighten mankind. You
see I am giving you the pedigree of your
abilities. As to myself, I am old enough
to be my own ancestor. My actions can dis-
grace nobody else, except a Select Committee
of the House of Commons, who signed the
record of my conduct in India, with the
names of Burke and Fox, and Grey at the
head of it. We all wish to live somewhat
longer than our lives, more or less, accord-
ing to the measure of our merits or preten-
sions. My name can be of no use to you,
but yours will sustain it. That argument,
though I have many others, would be enough
to make me adhere to you. The feeble pa-
rasite clings to the supporting power, and,
when it drops off, leaves the noble stem un-
injured. I feel and know too well that my
disposing mind is in disorder as well as de-
cay, and least of all equal to the regular
rules of method and connexion. You are
too good a Spaniard, however, to dislike an
Olla, or not to relish some of its ingredients.
Take the following items by themselves, and
jb 2
4
not as if they led or belonged to one ano-
ther. On the whole, though you are not a
party to the bargain, I entreat you to make
the best of it, as you would do of the last
testament of an old friend, who had left his
affairs in confusion, and appointed you to be
his executor.
In the ordinary union of two individuals
of a different rank in life, there can be no-
thing very noxious to either of them, ex-
cepting the partial or mutual effect of evil
communication. When unequal nations
profess, what only one of them intends and
expects, to unite on even terms, it must be,
as it has been, by fraud and compulsion,
acting more or less on special profligacy and
public weakness. No contract between a
dupe and an impostor can bind them very
long, no form of marriage can make them
one flesh. Their embrace, while it lasts, is
misery to one of them, if not to both. In
the first instance, the stronger party strangles
the weaker, then dies slowly of the dead
bodv. Such a nominal union could be no-
thing but a real surrender to superior power,
with a quantum sitfficit of individual sale and
purchase, by direct corruption, under the
3
equivalent name of compensation. Having
sold their honour as well as their Country,
some for a title, some for a sinecure with
a salary, and others for a pension with-
out a service or an office, to be paid by the
very country they have sold ; they desert the
victim of their vices, to court another resi-
dence, where excepting those, who attend a
public duty, a majority of the rest must stoop
for admission into common societv, or be
left to live with one another. Of this Island
it is still generally true that, whether you
look up to the top or down to the bottom,
whether vou mount with the froth or sink
with the sediment, no factitious character, no
titular rank can support a perfectly degraded
name. But what is this contract, and how
has it been executed ? In other treaties, if
a doubt arises, it is generally decided in
favour of that contracting party, which has
confided most in the good faith of the other,
and reserved no means of righting itself. In
this, the superior is the interpreter and con-
strues as he pleases. He cannot find Eman-
cipation in the bond, and he looks for it no
where else. As if the imprescriptible rights
of millions, and all the hopes of equality,
B 3
held out to five-sixths of the population of
Ireland, were annihilated by the omission of
a word in a union on equal terms. Then
comes the misery, which drives to madness,-
and the ultimate argument for the suppression
of despair ; not to relieve or console, not to
cure the disorder, not to soften the symptoms
or assuage the pain, but to abate a nuisance by
pulling down the building, and extirpating,
as vermin, the native owners of the House.
But these labours are in vain. I hope and
I believe so. The eternal claim of right
against wrong may be suspended, but cannot
be extinguished. The debt of honour, not
the less due because it is not recoverable by
process of law ; the silent condition, for
which the equivalent has been paid, and
binding in the sense, in which it was
understood and accepted ; — the mute pro-
mise, to which you say there is no appeal,
because it was not engrossed on parchment,
with your hand and seal to the deed, and
witnesses to the delivery ; — these moral obli-
gations belong to the essence of our nature.
For a time you may discard or forget, but to
efface them from the human mind is impos-
sible. In Ireland, they are only in abey-
ance. The weapons of power without con-
science cannot finally prevail, but by the
utter destruction of its object. To vacate the
demand, you must extirpate the being. But
there is a power above yours. The com-
mand, which you torture and crucify every
day, will rise again and against you. The
letter liilleth, but the Spirit givcth life.
To complete the mockery, as well as the
breach of faith among men, a question of
civil right and common justice is decided by
a religious distinction. " You believe in the
~ real presence. We believe only in dogmas,
* which we all understand, since they fall
1 within the range of common sense and
\ the compass of right reason. Ergo, you are
\ not fit to be trusted by us, in the higher
( offices of Society, though we trust you in
' many others, which require as full a con-
' fidence in your good faith, and fidelity to
' the established government, as those, from
e which you are excluded. You acknow-
' ledge the spiritual jurisdiction of a foreign
* tribunal over questions of faith only, or in
' cases exclusively subject to that con-
* science, which the Deity has not given to
' his creatures for nothing ; therefore, you
B4
<( cannot be loyal subjects to the King, to
" whom you are bound by all the oaths and
" by all the moral obligations, whjch are
f held sacred in your own religion, and in
C( every religion that exists on earth, and
" which we are very well contented to pro-
" fess."
I will not submit to hold a trembling ba-
lance between the extremes of suffering right
and triumphant wrong; to blink the true ques-
tion, or to spare, the aggressors. — These are
the pretences of hypocrisy, not the motives
or result of honest conviction — the principles
of devils, pursuing their prey with whips of
scorpions, and fighting and destroying still,
under the pretended banners of religion. At
sight of such audacious profligacy with such
means to enforce it, the human heart, if there
be a human feeling left in it, recoils with ab-
horrence.
If the happiness or even the repose of
Ireland were your object, the road to it, as
you well know, is open and direct, with or
without what you call Emancipation. By
that very term, which will not give way, if
you understand your own language, you have
made a voluntary engagement, a strict union.
9
with five or six millions of Slaves, and von
refuse to set them free. But that is not the
question now. In this country, the truth
about Ireland is little spoken out of Parlia-
ment ; and, if it were generally spoken, not
at all likelv to be listened to or understood.
A few honourable men allude to facts with a
caution, which it is in vain to call prudence.
They give you their opinions honestly and
firmly too, but still with a useless reserve of
discretion without hope ; not, as the case
demands, by arguments, in the last resort,
appealing to despair. What they say is true ;
but none of them, as far as my information
reaches, tell vou the whole truth ; not even
Henry Grattan, who, quoad hoc, is oracular;
and who assuredly never shrinks from his
purpose for want of tenacity, or of Spartan
fortitude to meet any question or any adver-
sary in front. Newport and Ponsonby would
speak out, if they thought it, as I do, safe to
their object and not hazardous to their cause,
to go the full length of their knowledge.
These men, I well know, are not to be awed
or restrained by self-interest or apprehension.
But their language, e're long, must be suited
to the exigency. The necessity of the case
10
will overtake and compel them. They are
too wise to wait till the horse himself takes
the bit in his teeth and refuses the curb ;
when no alternative will be left to the rider,
but to be thrown from his seat or to kill or
cripple the noble animal that carries him.
Let Government begin with giving or
paying a moderate Salary to the Catholic
Clergy of Ireland, who are, more or less,
mere beggars. That measure would cost
very little, and would be well worth the pur-
chase at any expense. Compare it with that
of a standing army, sufficient to compel sub-
mission, and you will soon find that, besides
wasting the object, an armed government
squanders more money in a day, than pru-
dent laws and a just administration cost in
twenty. This motion, smooth gliding with-
out step, would go a great way, and with
the concurrence of another act, sine qud non,
would secure to you the peaceable attach-
ment of Ireland. You expect me to say Eman-
cipation. No. Not that I mean to violate
or abandon that moral obligation, that poli-
tical wisdom, that real though unwritten
contract. I cannot build as the bees do.
Good government, with all its sweetness, is
11
a house, not a comb, and must be raised from
a foundation. I say that tranquillity may be
established in Ireland, without Emancipation,
but never, never without the abolition or
abatement of Catholic tithes to pay a Pro-
testant Establishment, for no service in return,
adverse to their faith, to their prejudices, to
their religious madness if you will. I know
the objections and the difficulties, particularly
how to provide that the owner shall not in-
crease the rent in proportion to the relief
given by the Legislature to the tenant.
My answer is, that, when wrong is to be
done, no objections are regarded, no difficul-
ties are insurmountable. Speak, out. Have
you deliberated, and are you resolved to
murder these tenants of hogsties, which you
call cabins, if when they have fed their own
Clergy they should refuse to pay tithes to a
Protestant parson, whom they never see and
seldom hear of but on the day of exaction,
and then only by his true representatives,
who glean all when they can gather no more.
You sav, and I admit, there are exceptions.
Then you help me to prove by irresistible
inference the truth of the proposition, which
you deny in terms.
I pass in silence over the deplorable mi-
12
sery, the food taken from famine, from which
the tribute is extorted, though I have seen
it, quce ipse miserrima. The tyranny, I
mean, is inflicted on the mind, the torture
that penetrates to the heart, where it sinks
and rankles, till the vessel can hold no more
and bursts of itself. Why ? because the
Catholics, the many not the very few, right
or wrong, are sincere. If the principle, a
name too often given to barbarous injustice,
of forcing the same tenant of a few acres of
bogs and potatoes, to maintain two Church
Establishments, could be endured on any
terms, the mode of the exaction would excite
horror, in England at least, or any where but
in Ireland. For mc to enter into this part
of the case, as I intended, would now be
superfluous. As well might a feeble ray be
added" to the meridian sun as to the light, in
w 7 hich the collection of Catholic tithes in
Ireland is exhibited, in a letter to Lord Cas-
tlereagh lately published here, called Ireland,
not England. Of the Author, who is un-
known to me, I shall only say what I am
sure of, no common man could have written
such a tract. Ovx o ru%ftjv ctvr^.
You will not, I think, suspect me of caring
one farthing for the trompery of either side.
13
Still the difference between the parties, as
objects of opinion, is material. I cannot
laugh at a cruel impostor. Nevertheless I
am no determined enemy of ceremonials :
as human nature has been moulded, I believe
them to be necessary. " The quarrels and
" divisions about religion were evils un-
" known to the heathens. The reason was,
" because the religion of the heathen con-
" sisted rather in rites and ceremonies than
" in any constant belief."
In a spiritual sense, I know as well as
you, that our faith has made us whole.
Whether, in every other, it may not have di-
vided or resolved the quiescent whole into
hostile parts, is more than I know. On this
question I hope, and intend (scilicet before
I die), to consult my own parochial Shep-
herd, Doctor Andrews, of whose charity
and benevolence, as well as of his eloquence,
I have rather a higher opinion than of his
temporal wisdom; and so much the better.
Those qualities are the essence of a Christian
pastor, who instructs and takes care of his
dock, and, on that account certainly, ex-
cites no envy, provokes no emulation in
other Shepherds. I should dwell longer on ^
his virtues, if I had no reason to suspect
14
that it might injure his preferment. They,
who fatten by their faith, have a laudable
antipathy to lean sheep.
I see you are at a loss for the tendency
of so much preface. What relation has it to
the title and subject of your Letter ? My
answer is, that similarity is not included in
connexion. Without a visible resemblance,
cause and effect are strictly related and be-
long to one another. An exorbitant price
and a real scarcity in one year may be traced
back to a ruinous abundance and cheapness
in the preceding. We know, or w T e shall
soon know it by experience, that the pro-
position, so stated and understood, does not
involve a contradiction. To understand me,
you must listen for a moment to the history
of my mind for some years past ; a branch
of knowledge, which, I believe, Lord Ba-
con, if he had thought of it, would not
have omitted among the desiderata in
science. Time has not yet made me garru-
lous, whatever it may do hereafter. My
recital concerning myself shall be inflicted
on you, as if it were an operation, with
compassion for the patient ; with the brevity
of impatience and the rapidity of youth ;
15
for I fee), or fancy that I am gradually
growing young again, in my way back to
infancy. The taper that burns into the soc-
ket, flashes more than once before it dies.
I would not long outlive myself if I could
help it, like some of my old friends, who
pretend to be alive, when, to my certain
knowledge, they have been dead these seven
years.
The fact is, my mind sickens and revolts
at the scenes of public depravity, of personal
baseness, and of ruinous folly, little less
than universal, which have passed before
us, not in dramatic representation, but in
real action, since the year 1792, in the go-
vernment of this once flourishing, as well as
glorious kingdom. In that period, a deadly
revolution has taken place in the moral cha-
racter of the nation, and even in the instinct
of the gregarious multitude. Passion of any
kind, if it existed, might excite action.
With still many generous exceptions, the
body of the country is lost in apathy and in-
difference ; sometimes strutting on stilts, for
the most part grovelling on its belly — no life-
blood in the heart ; and, instead of reason
or reflection, a caput mortuum for a head-
m
piece. Of all revolutions, this one is the
worst, because it makes any other impos-
sible. Of the events I allude to, of which
you and they, who survive me, will be the
victims, 1 consider myself now as nothing
but a witness, competent if not credible;
and, though careless of life, certainly de-
sirous that my testimony should not be in-
tercepted by sudden death: The warning
conveyed in it, I believe, will come too
late. In a case, however, which, to others,
may appear not utterly desperate, any chance
is to be taken. On my own account, I have
no interest in the result. I look back with
disgust, and forward with dismay, not for
mvself. but for some who are to succeed me.
Of the retrospect I know the worst, but
not of the prospect ; but the gloom is not
lessened by its obscurity. No eye, lit to
measure and estimate, as well as see, can
look steadfastly at such a view without
terror. A few instances in evidence, then
to consolation and repose among the monu-
ments of science and fragments of art, by
which ancient Greece still excites the curio-
sity, and confirms the admiration of man-
kind. This little island, too, after a lapse
17
of ages, may possibly be visited, not by artists
in search of falling temples and broken sta-
tues, but by statesmen and philosophers, from
another hemisphere or some distant land,
whose curiosity shall be excited by moulder-
ing manuscripts, in a language dead and for-
gotten, or by vague unauthenticated tradition,
to inquire and discover, if it be possible,
what the extinguished character of England
once was, and what proofs of it have been
saved from the wreck of time, or escaped
from the armed force of a Vandal. If, then,
their deep laborious researches should be
rewarded with success, what can it amount
to, but to recover some traces of broken
laws, of mutilated institutions, of violated
charters, of rights and principles buried in
oblivion, and the whole fabric of an an-
tiquated constitution degraded and sunk into
unintelligible ruin?
In my long intimacy with Edmund
Burke, to me a great and venerable name, it
could not escape me, nor did he wish to con-
ceal it, that Cicero was the model, on which
he laboured to form his own character, in elo-
quence, in policy, in ethics, and philosophy.
With this view, he acted on a principle of
IB
general imitation only, and, in my opinion,
infinitely surpassed the original. Yet, in the
year 1790, when the French revolution had
taken effect, the first thing he did was to
discard one of the wisest political maxims to
be found in his archetype, and by him at
least to be revered as the instruction of a
master : " Pere^ritil qfflc'mm est minime in
" aliend esse republied cuiiusum." As long
as the French were content and desirous, as
they were assuredly at that period, to settle
their own future constitution among them-
selves, and within the limits of their own
territory, we had neither right nor interest
to meddle with their proceedings, much less
to coerce them. Under various pretences
abroad, it was determined in the closet, that
there should be a war, nominally of kings
against a republic, but really of military
despots against the freedom of Europe.
So we have had the war with all its con-
sequences; ex Uldfonte. But the weather-
beaten vessel has weathered the storm, kept
afloat by the pump, and driving under jury-
masts. Existence on terms, on which, in
other times, the nation would have refused
to exist, is said to be triumphant. We have
military fame to show for the loss or surren-
19
der of real honour, of general happiness, of
personal liberty, and national independence.
On the extending scale of the war, taxation
to support it grew with the demand, and se-
verity, equivalent to inquisition, to enforce
the levy and ensure the collection. All other
security gave way to the security of the re-
venue. And how could it be otherwise,
when England undertook to pay the com-
ponent members of a venal alliance for fight-
ing their own battles and defending their
own cause ? At this day, the most illustrious
House of Austria, by loan, without subsidy,
owes us fourteen millions sterling, with full
as much inclination as means to repay it. At
all events, her gratitude in future may be of
just as much use to us as it has been hereto-
tore. These, and many others, were only the
incipient evils of the war. Increase of taxes,
wherever a source or an object could be dis-
covered; a thousand millions of debt, gather-
ing like an imposthume; a voluntary war
with America, which the clamour of your
manufacturers forced you to abandon; the
industry of the country unpaid; the. la-
bourer and artist converted into beggars,
and driven to the parish, that is, to the land,
c 2
20
for support ; an act of bankruptcy incurred
by the avowed authority, if not command,
of Mr. Pitt, under the misnomer of an order
in council, and certainly in collusion with
Government ; the whole metallic currency
of the united kingdom annihilated or car-
ried out of it ; and finally a deluge of paper,
immoderately inflaming the nominal price of
every thing saleable, without which, how-
ever, the interest of the debt could no more
have been even nominally liquidated than
the capital, much less could the ravenous ex-
penses of the war have been provided for.
At last came peace, armed at all points, and
issuing like Pallas, without her wisdom, from
an empty skull, with all and singular the
furniture and properties of war, pride, pomp,
and circumstance, except one, a singular
omission of an indispensible ingredient—
icithout a foreign enemy! Now, admitting,
as I do, that a standing army of 150,000
men, for the service or security of an island,
cannot be kept up, in peace at least, without
some hostile object : if that object be not
foreign, it must be domestic ; not, perhaps,
to be accomplished per solium, or at once ;
for I have kept too much company with can-
21
dour, not to have got a trick of it myself;
but more effectually and securely by mea-
sured and unsuspected gradations. Whatever
may be the present purpose or future appli-
cation of such a formidable pacific establish-
ment, it is against my nature to suspect, as
it shakes my reason to believe, that any
army, composed only of men born on Bri-
tish or Irish ground, would advisedly concur
in the execution of a foreign plot, if it were
fairly open to their view, or submit to a word
of command to enslave their country, by
laying it prostrate at the feet of a right en-
tirely military king, who, with a passionate
propensity to fighting, may be always out of
danger, and know nothing of a battle but by
hearsay from his equerries, or a report of the
Tower guns. On these terms, personal
bravery is one of the safest and most inno-
cent ingredients in the physical composition
of a king.
" Louis les animant du feu de sou courage.
" Se plaint de sa grandeur, qui I 'attache an rivage."
But time is the greatest innovator ; and who
is there now to calculate or compute how
soon, or how late, the once generous mind
c 3
22
of England may be trained by military forms
to military principles, by the habits of an
exclusive society, and the empty discourses
>
of a profession ; by gaudy dresses ; by trum-
peters with the subsistence of a parish on
their backs ; by martial music from Ger-
many ; and, beyond all other causes of hu-
man degradation, by the deadly disuse of
reason; by the substitution of discipline for
volition ; fixed fate, instead of ,free will ;
and, by the origin of all evil, personal re-
straint without a rational occupation ? He,
who has served his time to his trade, and
learned to perfection how to kneel, stoop,
and stand, has received his education, and
will never be called upon or disposed to
practise any thing else. The evident tend-
ency, if not the purpose of the peace, as
well as the war, was to change the natural
appropriated character of Britain, the vital
principle of her existence in safety as well as
eminence, ever since Providence commanded
Nature to confine us to an island, and to
make this island an appendage to Germany ;
to renounce or abandon the insulated station
of a power, maritime nar ifyxw ; to exchange
the native dignity and security of our sepa^
23
ration from the continental world, tor the
sake of an unnatural, though delightful, con-
nexion with a softer climate, the sweets of
which are wafted to us every day by gentle
gales from the north-east, and for the tender
mercies of a military government ; to sacri-
fice our island a living victim on a barbarous
altar in a Black Sea ; or, in the sonorous
language of Lord Chatham,
" Whose voice divine still vibrates in niv ear,"
Qsivj h \uv a.p<p-yj)T o^p-/i....to ] chain Britain, like
Prometheus, to a rock, ivhile a vulture, by
settlement ivithout icings, gnawed Iter to the
heart, and devoured her vitals. Nay, pos-
sibly, at last, or falling still, to make her a
province or a principality, a verbal difference,
in a republic of princes, counts, and barons,
and in a land of graves. I see no reason
why, in your time, if not in mine, Great
Britain, or little Britain if you will, should
despair of falling into the rank of a tenth
or twentieth electorate.
No man, that I know of, has ever doubted
the animal courage of a British soldier, much
less of a British army. That quality in gene-
ral is connected with habit, society, and po-
C 4
24
sition. I know they are at all times ready
enough to fight with any enemy, in the at-
tack or defence of any cause. But the dis-
cipline of this army, on foreign service, has
been quoted for an example to the Martinets
of Europe, and elevated almost to a compa-
rison with the Spartan virtue, that died at
Thermopylae in obedience to the laws of
Sparta; the only motive that I can conceive
for the sacrifice of Leonidas, and of the noble
band of voluntary victims, who marched and
perished with him,
" Firm and unmoved,
" In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood."
The Commander-in-chief, I believe, has
done his utmost to efFect what no human
skill has yet accomplished, or ever will, to
teach an English army to excel in any mili-
tary virtue but fighting — I mean out of this
island. On the part of II. R. H. the Duke
of York, I admit the intention and the merit.
I respect him as a gentleman, in the honour-
able English sense of that character. The
question of fact concerning the discipline of
the army is, whether the best intentions and
erlbrts on his part have succeeded or not.
25
On one side, a complimentary vote affirms *;
on the other, the authentic records of the
war pronounce and publish such sentences
of shame and dishonour, as never were
exhibited against any army, since the pha-
lanx, or the legion, or the battalion, or any
other mechanical form of arrangement has
existed, in which soldiers have been drilled
by commissioned officers, not much happier
than their men, to murder one another. Do
you remember the landing at Ferrol of the
expedition under Sir William Pulteney ? I
cannot now state the particulars ; but the
general impression adheres to my memory,
and can never be effaced. Have you forgot
'•' when the kingdom of Ireland f was pro-
" claimed to be in a state of open rebellion,
" and with difficulty kept down by a great
" army paid by England, which ought to
" have been employed against France, but
" which was then in such a state, as to be
"formidable to every one but the enemy* !
" Specific evidence is unnecessary. The state
" of the army is sufficient to prove what the
* Vide Appendix.
f Question, in March J 798, p. 91.
X Public orders of Sir Ralph Abercromby.
20
Y condition of the country must be, where
" soldiers range at large, not only exempt
" from civil authority, but from their own
*' discipline. But the groans of Ireland are
" too distant to be heard. Her sorrows are
¥ not seen."
The name of Abercromby was not made
to be mentioned and passed by
** Without the meed of some melodious praise."
He died on the shores of Egypt, not, like
Pompey, by the order of a royal assassin, or
by the sinister hand of a mutilated lord of the
bedchamber, unqualified for office until he
ceased to be a man, but in the arms of vic-
tory over veteran troops commanded by
the pupils and successors of Buonaparte,
who had left them to their despair and Egypt
to its fate. The wisdom of reserving him-
self for greater achievements in Europe,
has been proved by the event. The mag-
nanimity of providing for his own escape
is not quite so apparent. It required the
whole force of the house of Bourbon to
reconcile me, for a moment, to a cessa-
tion of abhorrence of that man. Whe-
ther I viewed him in the base subversion
of the liberty of France, in the treachery
2;
of a Consul, who degrades and crushes a
commonwealth intrusted to his care into a
furious military despotism for himself; or
under the infernal visage of war, with Ate
by his side, laying Europe waste in carnage
and desolation from the Seine to the Volga,
for the pitiful rage of being talked of, which
he thought was ambition; — what was he,
even to eyes that admired him most, but a
glaring meteor driven by some mad projec-
tile power, crossing the system of Europe
in every direction, destroying or disturbing
the constituted spheres within its vortex,
and on all the rest shaking pestilence and
war ? What could he be in my mind but a
frantic idiot, wielding a force irresistible with
the desperate animation of a daemon, or a
compound out of both? Take the being
and his existence, not by a sample or an
instance, but collected in their mass — look
at what he is, and consider what he might
have been — then show me, if you can, a
particle, I will not say of wisdom, but of
common sense in his plan, if he had any, or
of genius in the execution. I cannot suf-
fer the flights or flashes of a disordered
imagination to be imposed upon me for
genius. Nee ilium invemsse puto, qui
28
noyi jndicavit. Compare him on his own
principles, not generally, for that would
be to make a wolf or a jackal a pendant
to a lion because they are all beasts of prey ;
but in similar circumstances, with an im-
measurable superiority of physical force in
the scale of Buonaparte — compare him with
the character of Julius Caesar drawn by a
mastermind: " Voluntateet appetitu is erat,
" qui nunquam partis acquiescebat, sed ad ul-
" teriora semper tendebat; ita tamen ut non
" immaturo fastidio, sed legitimis spatiis,
" transitus actionum gubernaret. Semper
" enim perfectissimas clausulas actionibus
'* imponebat. Itaque ille, qui, post tot victo-
" rias et tantam partam securitatem,reliquias
" belli in Hispania non contempsit, sed prae-
H sens subegit; post illud bellum confectum
" et omnia undique pacata, expeditionem in
$i Parthos continuo moliebatur."
Observe, however, that my idea of
Buonaparte was drawn, or had painted it-
self on the retina of my mind, from a period
beginning not long after the battle of Ma-
rengo, and ending with his banishment to
Elba; from which our magnanimous go-
vernment, acknowledging him still to be a
sovereign sni juris, quietly suffered him to
?9
take wing and pounce again upon his prey*
For all the slaughter, for all the miseries,
which have been inflicted on France and her
allies since that day, they are infinitely
more criminal than the man himself! Till
then, I saw nothing in him but a falling de-
vil. The pacific march to Paris, and the
rapid conquest of France, revive him from
his ashes, and place his figure on a higher
pedestal, and in a more imposing attitude
than ever. But, then, you must divide your
admiration between the enterprise and the re-
sistance; between vigour invading apparently
without hope and attacking without means,
and imbecility in possession, with all the
weapons to defend it except a manly heart,
or nerves to make use of them. Great battles
are won by a lucky incident, commonly called
chance, full as often as by skill ; or, in some
cases, recovered by the hand when the head
has been lost. To distinguish and resolve at
a glance, in a question instant of life and
death, between extreme difficulty and posi-
tive impossibility, i$ the surest indication of
a superior mind. Then I said, what for the
first time I thought, This is no common man.
The mutinies in the fleet in 1797, were
enough to appal not the mere generality,
30
but many of the firmest individuals amongst
us; especially when we saw the then great-
est and most resolute of our leaders on the
ocean, the immortal Howe, bend to the
seamen. In the course of that transaction
there was another incident, the only act for
which I have envied any man, and never to
be defrauded of its fame. History is good
for nothing, but when it penetrates into
character, as it delineates the mind, as it
furnishes examples and excites emulation.
On me there is no call to appeal to the tro-
phies of Marathon. What interest have /
in the battles and follies of the Iliad? But,
when the Father of Eloquence, with the
voice of virtue, swears by the recorded tri^
umphs of his country that the Athenians,
though defeated, had not erred — when Hec-
tor tells the silly soothsayer,
" Mi/ only omen is my country's safety,"
'E/f oiuivog a^ia-rog ciy.vvs<rQoti. tupi irwrmc,
the generous lesson wants no argument to il-
lustrate or narrative to sustain it. In the heat
and fury of that formidable conflict, an Admi-
ral hoisted his flag in his barge, rowed up to
the Marlborough, one of the principal ships in
the mutinv, and went on-board with a few
31
of his officers. He then seized their leader
with his own hand, and told the senseless
crew that he feared them not, tho' his
life was at their disposal; he did not believe
they would murder their admiral; but, at
all events, the first pistol fired on board
would be a signal to the batteries on shore to
open instantly on the ship and sink them
directly and himself along with them. This,
I know by its impression, was an act not an
effort of intrepid genuine resolution, of the
highest order in morals as well as fortitude,
and brilliant without a flaw; — not inflamed
or encouraged by the ardour and confusion
of a battle, not animated by action, but
proceeding in cold determined blood to a
deliberate sacrifice, if it should be necessary,
of the insulated being to the safety of the
community. It is difficult to want courage,
and madness to betray it, in the presence of
many witnesses. But who can positively
answer for himself in the face of imminent
danger, unless he has been tried? When
the first emotions of delight and admiration
had subsided, a flattering idea occurred to
me, for so we are Constituted, to think it
possible that, in parallel circumstances, I
•
32
might have acted like Keith Elphjnstone.
His titles add little to his name, and nothing
to my early esteem and long- established
friendship for him.
Cedite Romani victores, cedite Graii!
I despise and laugh at the vulgar preten-
sions of commonplace heroes; but not at an
indiscriminate profusion of titles and ho-
nours, though invariably bought by desert.
Knowing well that the foundation of the
commonwealth is undermined, and that the
temple totters, though / shall not live long-
enough to be crushed by its ruins, I cannot
see without grief and resentment the ancient
ornaments of the country torn down and
defaced by vanity and folly, or worse than
defaced by distribution. One order stood
eminent and alone in the history of English
chivalry. Look at it now.
The barbarous maniac, who sacrificed
his last faithful friends at Bender, was a
hero !
Hide, blushing glory, hide Pultozva's day.
What was he, when he broke the pa-
triot of Livonia on the rack and mangled
him alive? What was Alexander before he
3
38
Was intoxicated by wine and utterly de-
praved and brutified by flattery and adora-
tion ? What was the pupil of Aristotle,
when he dragged the living governor of
Gaza at his chariot- wheels round the city,
because that brave man had done his duty
in defending it? What was his ambition ?
Not to imitate but to surpass Achilles,
Whose brutal fury was confined to a dead
body. Such was the instruction he derived
from Homer in heroics. The original va-
nishes before the copy.
If it were possible to exalt the making
genius of Shakespeare above the station it
occupies in the brightest heaven of inven-
tion, I should say that the character of a
hero in terms does not exist in any of his
plays, nor even the title or the word, as far
as I am able to recollect. The beauties of
the French stage are formal and factitious, as
if the steps of a minuet were the march of
genius. Versification indeed, and perfect
in Racine, a great animal fettered and ba-
lancing on a tight rope with marvellous
skill, and never making a false step. Vol-
taire and D'Alembert have faiijy confessed
that their theatre is ci la glace. Instead of
D
34
great men, as nature makes them, it exhibits
none but des heros de thidtre, puffed beyond
human dimensions and strutting on stilts. —
As to making Frenchmen comprehend Shake-
speare, even if they understood his language,
the thing is impossible. It is not in their
hearts, or ever can be until they are free,
as I hope they will be, though they were un-
fortunately to pay for it by the utter extinc-
tion of the House of Bourbon.
In naming the house and omitting the
family, there is more purpose than you think
of. The same house may have had many
tenants, of very different extraction. The
chastity of Anne of Austria, and the produce
thereof; the Iron Masque, and his brethren ;
the frolics or vagaries of the Duchess of
Burgundy ; the Orgies of the Regent and his
daughter; and, in our time, the Germanic
levities, for they are all cousins german, of
another Lady, lost, though not forgotten, in
the savage brutal barbarity, which pursued
her to the scaffold. Such a series of equi-
vocal generation, of spurious claims to inhe-
ritance by divine right, is quite enough to
make filiation an enigma, and pedigree ridi-
culous. He is said to be a wise son, who
35
knows who his father was. On that ques-
tion, some of the ladies alluded to might
have been puzzled to make their sons any
wiser than themselves. If, in a case of this
extreme delicacy, you feel an inclination to
be better informed, you may safely consult
Lord Chesterfield, who, I presume, had no
thoughts of deceiving his son. He knew
what he was saying, and has left his disco-
veries on record*, without ambiguity or re-
serve, ita me dii ament. Whether the old Pre-
tender, whom Lewis XIV. acknowledged as
King of Great Britain, in order to defeat the
Act of Settlement and the positive succession
to the Crown, granted by Parliament to the
family of Hanover, was or was not the son
of that miserable bigot James the Second, I
care no more than he does now. The here-
ditary relation of their minds is indisputable.
In that line of succession, one fool begets
another, and they are all legitimate. Sed
revocare gradum. These excursions are too
inviting ; the descent is too easy.
On the 20th of February 1798, Sir
Ralph Abercromby declared, in public or-
* Vol. iii. p. SOQ. Vol. iv. p. 324-
D 2
36
ders, " that the very disgraceful frequency
" of Courts-Martial and the many complaints
er of irregularities in the conduct of the
" troops in that kingdom (Ireland) had too
" unfortunately proved the army to be in a
<e state of licentiousness, ivliich must render
u it formidable to every one but the enemy.'*
The posthumous fame of Sir John Moore
cannot die, while there is life in this land ;
but he deserved a better fate. I knew him,
and never shall I look back to his hard lot,
without a pang of grief and indignation.
Desperate as it was, the man himself was
equal to his situation. To be deserted and
sacrificed at home, to be unassisted and
counteracted by the Spaniards ; to be dis-
obeyed by his own mutinous army, and ex-
posed to a superiority of force, gathering
round him, which it would have been mad-
ness to encounter— in this trial of the human
mind and all its faculties, the General was
never lost. His orders published at Bena-
vente, on the 27th of December 180S, tell
us more than enough of the rabble he had
to deal with. A Roman Senate would have
decimated those Legions, and disbanded the
rest.
s;
" The Commander of the forces has ob-
** served with concern the extreme bad con*
" duct of the troops at a moment, when they
" are about to come into contact with the
" enemy, and when the greatest regularity
" and the best conduct are the most requi-
H site.
" The misbehaviour of the troops in the
" column, which marched by Valderas to
*' this place, exceeds ivhat he could have be-
t* lieved of British soldiers. It is disgraceful
w to the Officers, as it strongly marks their
". negligence and inattention.
" He can feel no mercy towards Officers,
" who neglect, in times like these, essential
¥ duties ; or towards Soldiers, who injure
" the Country they are sent to protect, &c."
But perhaps the army, under Lord Wel-
lington, was better instructed, or His Grace
has been more fortunate and more re-
spected in his command. Colonel Palmer, in
his evidence on the trial of Mr. Quentin *,
avers that, " in an hour after the troops
« entered Tafalla, after the battle of Vic-
tl toria, Lord Wellington came in with his
* Page 24 1.
P 3
38
n Staff, and they (the Regiment) were
" obliged to change their quarters ; and it
'.' was a most disgraceful scene. When the
" regiment turned out, there were three-
" fourths of the men rolling on their horses
" quite drunk" This is but a special in-
stance — what says the Noble Duke himself
in his circular letter of the 28th of November
1812, promulgated to the whole army ?
" Besides these objects, I must draw
" your attention in a very particular manner,
" to the state of discipline of the troops. I
" am concerned to observe that the army
" under my command has fallen off, in this
" respect, in the late campaign, to a greater
" degree than any army, with which I have
«' ever served, or of which / have ever read!
" Yet this army has suffered no disaster, &c."
In effect, the whole letter is a satire, and
ought to have been a scourge, quatiente ani~
mo tortore flagellum.
It is indeed to be regretted that such
censures of English troops on service should
have been found necessary by those persons*
who best knew how well they were applied^
and how much more might have been added.
Yet, even in the cause of this regret, there
is some mixture of consolation. The disci-
pline to me would be as formidable as the
numbers, as well as, for its own principal
purpose, useless ; since victories we see may
be obtained without it. What is a highly
disciplined standing army, on the principles
of our Constitution, or of any rational Go-
vernment, of which the defence of liberty
and property is the main object, but an im-
plicit submission to the Chief, who com-
mands it ? With that weapon in his hand, an
hereditary Monarch is a perpetual dictator,
if he pleases. In the tactics of Prussia, a sol-
dier was a slave, who could not escape, who
repined at the freedom of others, and was
ready to destroy what he could not partake of.
Let us float in our own element. A powerful
navy cannot be any thing but an honour and a
defence to an Island. In its nature it cannot
be an instrument of any other purpose. But,
if these principles were false and the reverse
were true in both instances, the conduct of
Ministers in proposing, and of Parliament in
submitting to vote a peace establishment of
15o,ooo men, would still be defenceless. If
they have made peace without a security of
its duration for any period ever so short, as
D 4
40
their own act in continuing such an army,
confesses, they have betrayed their country
and their trust in making it. If the peace be
secure, then how is this enormous military
force to be employed ? The answer is in-
volved in the question. Since you have no
foreign enemy, your object must be do-
mestic. The dilemma admits of no escape,
tPwyavTK ovvzTouri. I cannot argue with the
deaf, or enlighten the blind. To me all other
national calamities and dangers vanish in the
comparison with that of an overwhelming
military power. Debts, taxes, bankruptcy
and ruin, a nation flying from itself — the na-
tives expatriating themselves by deserting
their country, a frightful emigration, a flight
of anti-locusts, who desolate by quitting, and
nourish where they settle; disorder and dis«.
tress in the heart and head of the system,
and in every branch of it, and followed by
an endless train of minor miseries, pursuing
existence into its last recesses, making life
a persecution, non v\ sed s(Epe cadcndo, and
death an asylum ; the silent afflictions, that
cannot be imparted; the sense of slights or
injuries, which take care to preclude com-
plaint; the cowardly offences, which skulk or
strut out of the reach of resentment; the
41
latent sorrows of poverty and shame :—
these evils, until they finally crush the being,
may be endured, because they leave it still
within the limits of possibility that they may
end or be repaired ; — what are they all in the
comparison with an abject existence under
the power of the sword in the hand of a
foreigner! What signify your dead letter
laws, your antiquated rights, and all the
knots you can tie to bind the executive ma-
gistrate against the trenchant sabre, which
you leave in his hands ?
If principles are above your notice, and
common sense beneath it, look at facts. If
that fails, whether you laugh or cry, the
game is up.
The fiercest military despotism, which
has yet afflicted Europe, never assumed a
lawless power of at once cashiering, and,
to the utmost of that power, dishonouring
five and twenty officers, distinguished by
their bravery on service, without a trial,
without an inquiry, without putting them
pn their defence, nay, without asking any
one of them what he had to say for himself.
Has the army no law but will and pleasure?
Have we a Mutiny Act for nothing ? Or is,
there 3 prerogative in the Sovereign to dis*
42
pense with common justice as well as law,
when officers are to be punched, and to go-
vern 150,000 men in arms by arbitrary
caprice? The wise King of Prussia, with
absolute power in his hand, never exercised
it over his troops ; he governed them by
rule and compass, and made it, what it was
in the seven years war, the admiration of
the world. He knew that if he treated
them as an ignorant Sultan does his Spahis
and Janissaries, they, in return, would treat
him as their Sultan, and murder, blind, or de-
pose him, whenever they were weary of him,
or of his minions. Of all the lives in Turkey,
Indostan, or Persia, that of the tyrant him-
self was always the least secure. At that
risk you may certainly enlist a rabble, as
numerous as you will, and call it an army,
but neither to be commanded in war, nor
governable in peace. Under the strictest
and most severe martial law, the only crime,
that demands and justifies instant punish-
ment by instant death, must be ignominious
as well as capital. Palpable cowardice in
the presence of the enemy ought to be cut
down upon the spot ; especially where an
officer, high in command, gives an infamous
48
example to his men, and, unless they follow
it, takes care of himself and leaves them
to follow any body else. Exulting, as I do*
in the honour of my country, I state an im-
possible case of a British army, or of any
native officer belonging to it.
In assisting, as I did, within my own
narrow sphere, to relieve my neighbours and
myself from the exaction of the Property
Tax in time of peace, I did not go the
length of my principles and conviction, be-
cause I knew it would be in vain io struggle
against the stream, and to attempt it might
be hazardous to that half of my object,
which might be obtained. Speaking now
for myself only, I would no more submit
to that mode of exaction in war than in
peace. This upas is not a native of our
soil. As a root of taxation, it is not indige-
nous, nor can it ever be planted here, while
there is a third estate in this once limited
monarchy, who really give and grant. In
an extreme case, necessity itself can demand
nothing but the amount. For that purpose
only, it is not necessary (including, as it does,
vi termini, the qualities of irresistible and
unavoidable, which constitute necessity), to
44
force every man to lay open the state and cir-»
cumstances of his domestic affairs, of his for-
tune or misfortunes, of his credit or his debts,
to the prying scrutiny of an impoverished Go*
vernment, of rapacious ministers, and of all
their basest instruments and spies. To raise
money by inquisition is a Spanish tyranny,
new to us, and unknown to that Catholic
religion, of which we truly dislike nothing,
but those who believe in it in Ireland. Ne-
cessity is the plea, and these are its effects.
If all human power be a trust, received from
the community, and held only for its benefit,
the Legislature cannot go this length without
a palpable breach of trust. Were the bur-
den, as a tax, so light or inconsiderable as
not to be regarded, the forms of the impo-
sition are not congenial with the Constitu-
tion of this island, nor fitted to an English
mind. But the mind, and with it the Con-
stitution, may be strained or contracted to
fit the imposition. Time and friction are
great wasters of impression. The rough
original character of the coin, once called
sterling, is melted down, or smoothed away
by use, until at last nothing is left for circu-
lation but ragged notes, which promise and
45
never pay, and base shillings of pretended sil-
ver from the mint of Birmingham. If these
are the conditions of being permitted to live
under the dominion of the sword, life itself
is not worth its preservation. I would not
submit to hold it on such terms ; nee prop'
ter vitam vivendi perdere causas.
My head is still pregnant, and labours to
be delivered of two other subjects, to which
I am attached by many vexations, and pos-
sibly the more for the pangs they have cost
me : the Slave Trade and our empire in In-
dia. The first is still debated, or talked of,
more than enough. The second seems to
be lost and out of sight, or seen only in mi-
niature, through a telescope reversed. The
moral principle, which finally forced an act
of abolition, is not to be disputed, nor was it
ever, that I know of, denied by any man, who
did not deserve a halter for his instruction.
They, who promoted and carried the mea-
sure, saw it clearly with one eye, and, in
my opinion, very dimly with the other.
The affairs of this world must be governed
by prudence. The highest authorities and
the most elevated abilities, in this enlighten-
ed empire concurred, and were exerted, in
4rt
abolishing our share in a trade, which I shall
not now attempt to criminate or qualify,
since all the epithets, which abhorrence can
provoke or eloquence can supply, have been
exhausted on it in vain. Neither am I call-
ed upon to prove or impeach the wisdom of
a benevolent intention, which has utterly
failed in its attempt. With many others, I
yielded to authority, and, in proportion to
my abilities, went as far as any man, in
promoting an experiment, which, to my
own internal conviction, had no chance or
possibility of success. If it were of mo-
ment to any body but myself, I could easily
prove that this persuasion, or this language,
if you will, is not assumed from the event.
Long before the year 1 806, when every plan
proposed for direct abolition had been reject-
ed by the House of Commons, I submitted
my opinion to Mr. Wilberforce, and repeat-
edly to Mr. Fox, that the abolition of the
Slave Trade could not be effected by an Act
of Parliament, or any other act of power. On
the contrary, the law, which passed in 3 8oO,
has made the case worse in its operation on
that part of the traffic, as they call it, which
a law of England might be expected to com-
■
u
mand,. than it was before. Difficulties un-
doubtedly were thrown in the way of those
persons who continued it, which could only
be surmounted or evaded by concealment; —
of what ? of a live contraband cargo of black
persons, full as human^as ourselves, whose
colour is, where it ought to be, on the sur-
face, not in the heart. Imagine, if you can,
how that concealment is provided for. How
man should have a property in man, other-
wise than by consent or agreement between
the parties, and then only in his labour, not
in his being, I know not, nor will I ever in-
quire. Admitting, nevertheless, that the law,
as to British Colonies and subjects, had an-
swered its purpose, what would it avail to the
general benefit of Africa, if Spain and Portu-
gal are open and at liberty to receive as
many Negroes as they can buy, or as can be
bought for them ? They will have slaves
from Africa, to be buried in their mines, and
at best to work for their owners above-
ground. So will the French, and Dutch,
and Swedes, and Danes, as long as Negroes
can be bought, and sugar can be sold. Is it
sure that these neutrals will not be a channel
ot supply to the British Islands ? Do you
know who furnishes them with a present
48
capital, or who alone has it to furnish ? — Is
there no remedy, then ? Must this infernal
dealing proceed for ever ? No ; there is, or
there was, a remedy within your reach, and
attainable with common perseverance, not
by amputation, but $y so training the dis-
ease that it might die of itself.
On the eleventh of April 179&, I sub-
mitted to the House of Commons the ge-
neral principles and scheme of a measure,
by which the importation of slaves from
Africa to America must have gradually di-
minished, and, in a few years, been aban-
doned, and the purpose of abolition accom-
plished *. No man, whose malignity leaves
him in possession of his senses, would pay
an exorbitant price for foreign labour, when
what he wants of it is growing under his
care, and costs him nothing, or only some
trouble at the outset. Mr. * * * *, 3
character, capable of a better eminence,
merged in elevation, and Mr. Whitbread,
crossed me while I was speaking, and went
out of the House y being engaged to dinner.
I think of these things now, as they did
then, with profound indifference. Not so,
* Vkle Appendix, No. III.
4g
in transitu. A few of the petty tormentors
I have met with in a life, which, if it were
not transitory, would be little worth endur-
ing, have been men of acute natural abi-
lity, with a slighting manner, an air of
guarded importance and supreme ignorance,
under a perverse debating power. You
must date with me as you go on. We are
mutable beings, and do really change our
principles as well as our habits and opinions,
when time and other company make us
wiser or worse than we used to be. Mr.
Fox attended and applauded me, and I am
sure he thought as I did. On so clear a ques-
tion, I cannot believe it possible that his pa-
ramount sagacity should have misled him to
any other conclusion. But he was pledged
to Mr. Wilberforce, who had pledged him-
self to abolition. They know nothing of
Mr. Fox, who think that he was what is
commonly called ivell educated. I know it
was directly or very nearly the reverse. His
mind educated itself, not by early study or
instruction, but by active listening, and rapid
apprehension *. He said so in the House of
Commons, when he and Mr. Burke parted.
* Vide Appendix, No. IV.
E
50
His powerful understanding grew like a
forest oak, not by cultivation but neglect.
Mr. Pitt was a plant of an inferior order,
though marvellous in its kind, a smooth bark,
with the deciduous pomp and decoration of a
rich foliage, and blossoms, and flowers, which
drop off of themselves, and leave the tree
naked at last to be judged of by its fruits. He,
indeed, as 1 suspect, had been educated more
than enough, until there was nothing natu-
ral and spontaneous left in him. He was too
polished and accurate in the minor embel-
lishments of his art, to be a great artist in any
thing. He could have painted the boat, and
the fish and the broken nets, but not the two
fishermen. Ungues exprimet et molles imita-
bitur cere capUlos. On one occasion only he
was sublime, but never, in my hearing, pa-
thetic. He knew his audience, and, with or
without eloquence, how to summon their
generous passions to his applause. The hu-
man eye soon grows weary of an unbounded
plain, and sooner, I believe, than of any
limited portion of space, whatever its di-
mensions may be. There is a calm delight,
a dolce riposo, in viewing the smooth-shaven
verdure of a bowling-green as long as it is
new. You must learn from repetition, that
those properties are inseparable from the
idea of a flat surface, and that flat and tire-
some are synonymous. The works of nature,
which command admiration at once, and
never lose it, are compounded of grand in-
equalities. At last, I perceive that the judge-
ment of wise and honest men is coming
round to me. If they had taken the same
turn ten years ago, we might now have been
in sight of our object, and I might have
lived to see it accomplished. They, who
still say that their principles ivill not permit
them to negotiate until guilt, or to compound
with crimes, ivhile they forget or abandon
the suffering subject of the argument and
victim of the debate, are more magnanimous
than I am.
You have a dominion over India, which
is said to extend, in one way or other,
to a population of fifty or sixty mil-
lions. From this territory and its natives
the East India Company receives, or did re-
ceive, a net revenue, clear of all charges of
collection, and of all the fortunes of collectors,
which, if fairly accounted for, would raise the
annual amount levied from the said natives to
twenty millions, more or less. I say what I
£2
52
believe ; and probably not so much as others
know. Between the receipt and the expen-
diture, the balance, or deficit against the
receipt, has, for many years, and, I doubt
not, does still amount annually to two
millions sterling, sometimes to much more*
for which the said trading company has
regularly applied to Parliament for reim-
bursement, and never, that I know of, been
refused. A war in India is the common
pretence, or the sufficient reason, or the
plausible plea for spending so much more
than they receive, and incurring a debt
of many millions, which they have no
thoughts of paying, nor could they if they
thought of it. When a great or powerful
enemy is not to be fpund, a little or a weak
one will do just #S{%ell. The greatest part
of the military feree of India has been sum-
moned to repel some formidable aggression
committed by a Rajah of Napaul, whose
elevated dominions lie to the north of the
mountains of JBootan, six hundred miles
from Calcutta. This great chief has at
last been reduced to reason ; but not until
many of our best officers had perished in
the conflict, and a multitude of European
soldiers as well as sepoys. In the established
58
phraseology of England in Bengal, there
could be no peace, no security for our pos-
sessions, while that formidable power, that
restless vicinity, that desperate aggressor,
was permitted to exist in force to disturb
our frontier, to hang on our skirts, and to
threaten us with invasion. Now, if you had
heard that every soldier in Britain, including
the militia, had been assembled to repel or
subdue a Jcing of the Isle of Man, or of the
Isle of Dogs, and that, after an infinite or
indefinite loss of men and money (for the
truth of the amount is not to be spoken at
all times, nor is it exactly known here at any
time), we had subdued these crowned heads,
and made them pay costs of suit, by a sur-
render of half their noble dominions, you
might form a confused idea of the dignity
and importance of a contest between the
British empire in India and a petty prince
beyond the extremity of our provinces, whose
rocks and mountains were his territory as
well as his defence. Who made or con-
trived this war I know not ; but Lord
Moira put an end to it, and has had no thanks
for his pains.
e 3
54
The subject, which I meant for a preface
or a prologue to this Letter, comes in last
and must take its place at the lower end of
the table. My thoughts stand not upon the
order of their going, but go as they come,
and are not worth marshalling. Even to
this preface there is a prelude fit to be consi-
dered, though not essential to the merits of
the principal question, whether the remains of
ancient statuary, brought from Athens by
Lord Elgin, and now in England, deserve to
be kept here for the service or credit of the
nation, and at the public expence. How it
is practicable to fix a positive money price on
an ideal value, I confess is beyond my com-
prehension. When the Pitt diamond was
offered to the Regent of France, for two mil-
lions of livres, or 90,000/. sterling, he re-
fused to treat for it, because the kingdom
was in distress, and their finances in dis-
order. It was no time to throw away or to
exchange so much real value for a pebble,
however brilliant and rare. The Due de
St. Simon, a very honest person with some
peculiarities, nevertheless persuaded him by
arguments, or incentives, derived from mere
ostentation, to make the purchase. Taking
the circumstances together, the advice he
gave, in my opinion, was not to be defended.
Stultitiam pat'mntur opes. A very rich man
may squander his wealth on trifles, or throw
it away with impunity. In a person so qua-
lified, the purchase of a bauble, at any rate of
estimation, might not be an act of folly,
though, in another, it would be madness.
To a diamond it is impossible to annex the
remotest idea of real use or intrinsic value.
Yet nobody is censured for buying jewels
or any thing else of mere ornament, if he
can afford it. Mr. Fox had a singular par-
tiality for a phrase or a maxim of his own,
which I have often heard him insist upon,
" That he knew of nothing worth fi&hfiffs
" for but honour." The proposition is not
self-evident, and ought to have been accom-
panied with a definition of its terms, In
some senses, and with certain conditions, or
where an individual determines onlv for him-
self, it may have a rational meaning, but
not, as it stands, without explanation, We
are speaking of national not personal honour,
and then I affirm that there are manv things
much better worth the risque of a battle, a
the hazard of life, than pure honour ab-
S 4
m
stracred from some properties or ingredients,
which possibly Mr. Fox might have included
in his definition. Liberty, property, national
independence, and, above all the rest, the
salus populi are to be provided for, in the
first instance and at all events, not only
without but at the expence of honour com-
monly called so, if the substance and the de-
coration are not to be had together. A
shirt without ruffles may answer its purpose,
and satisfy a plain man. But ruffles without
a shirt is simple foppery, and used to be the
farcical attribute of a French petit maitre.
Between two nations, no act of submission
is usually deemed more disgraceful, than
when one of them pays a tribute to the
other. Yet this disgrace has been volun-
tarily incurred, for the sake of a solid advan-
tage, by wise and powerful princes, who
weighed the candle against the game. In the
transactions between Lewis the Eleventh,
and our Edward the Fourth, France consent-
ed to pay a real, not a declared tribute to
England ; and if a question, arising from
calamitous events in war, had occurred in
our time, whether we should leave Ports-
mouth in the hands of a French army or get
57
them out of the island by agreeing to pay
them in return a round sum annually, if that
were the option offered and we had no other,
is it possible to doubt about the choice ? In
short, it seems to me that, with this and
similar cases, I could have puzzled Mr. Fox
and his proposition out of their respective
senses. A prudent nation, having a will of
its own, will not trust any government with
a power to involve it in war, on their own
speculation, real or pretended, of national
honour. Had he said that few things were
worth paying for but honour, and that
honours are bought and sold every day, we
should soon have approximated, and, with a
few qualifications,, have come to an agree-
ment. Now I confess that my temper is so
impatient and my judgement so infirm, that
I could not endure to listen to a money
debate, whether England shall keep and pre-
serve the sublime remains of Phidias and of
all. the wonderful artists of his time, as if it
were about a tax upon lobsters or the toll of a
turnpike ; and that too in an assembly, where
it has been deemed equally wise and noble to
vote a hundred millions a year to establish
the descent of despotism every where in a
right line, to make tyranny legitimate, to
58
tupply war with the means of carnage, and
to propagate desolation over the surface of
the world. Remember the intrepid answer
of Pericles to the Athenians, when some of
their rhetoricians charged him with wasting
the fortune of the Republic, in temples and
statues to gratify his own vanity. First, he
asked the people, in their public assembly,
whether they thought the expence excessive.
They said yes. " Then let it be charged to
" my account; take my estate, and my name
" shall be inscribed on these monuments, not
" yours." What was the reply of the whole
assembly ? An exclamation, with one voice,
worthy of Athens, and of the elevated station
she still holds in the history of nations. " No,
take what you ivill out of the public trea-
sury, apply it, spend it, and spare nothing"
Observe that this incident happened in the
midst of the Peloponnesian war. The frag-
ments of such a nation are venerable. The
magnanimity of Athens lives in her ruins.
M But while the industrious people of
" England, for want of employment are
" actually in want of bread, you have no
*\ right to waste so many thousand pounds,
<i particularly in bank-paper, on the pur-
2
59
•< chase of foreign marbles, let their ima-
" ginary value be what it may." Here
again 1 feel a return of my reputed impa-
tience, which deprives me of expression, and
would make a better argument than mine
unintelligible. Still there are cases, in which
a confused impression may be trusted, and
stuttering passion may be in the right. Away
with all that sort of reason, which banishes
the affections. The objection is factitious,
and as false in its application as it would be
mean and pitiful, if it were in earnest. Is
there one human being in the three king-
doms, united now in their sorrows and
hereafter in their resentment, would eat ano-
ther morsel of bread by a saving of this mo-
ney ? On such a question, I will not appeal
to the multitude, because they are no judges
of it. I would serve the people, but I would
not court them, and least of all for popu-
larity. Much less would I appeal to them
for any judgement, but in a free choice of
their representatives. They are no fools,
and sooner or later find out, who are, and
who are not in earnest to serve them. If
England, as a nation, were to sutler these
marbles to be taken away, the nation itself
Oo
ought to follow them, and complete the
emigration, which, as it now proceeds, is not
to be distinguished from expatriation. J do
not say that there are no excusable cases, or
none of necessity for a temporary removal to
other climates. Let those, who are rigorous
economists for the public, consider and cal-
culate, if they can, how many millions are
remitted to the continent for the support of
expences, worse than thrown away, that is,
wasted on foreigners, to animate the arts and
encourage the industry of rival nations. I
know that emigration cannot be generally
prevented by power ; though, in special in-
stances, it may be so by collusion with
foreign courts ; but, at least, the Legislature
might shelter those, who stay at home, from
making good all the taxes, which emigrants
can evade, and compel them to contribute
to the protection of whatever property
they leave behind them. At last .what
have you to show for so much active wealth
extracted from England, and squandered
among strangers, who make you no return
for it, but in redoubled fraud, insolence, in-
gratitude, and scorn ? This drain is formi-
dable in all its present effects and remoter
61
consequences, of servants turned adrift and
many into thieves, of labourers and artists
unemployed, of houses untenanted, and all
the burthens of the country accumulated on
those, who do not desert it. I am sure the
vessel is settling to rights. You have wea-
thered the storm. Are you equal to the
swell ? Can you weather the calm ? Look
to it.
A few worthy and honourable persons*
obnoxious to their own flagitious govern-
ments, may seek for personal safety in Eng-
land, and here they ought to find it ; for here
alone they can be protected. All other
aliens, from the continent, come hither to
save money or to make it, at the expence of
our domestic industry, not to spend it.
Prince Esterhazy, one of the wealthiest indi-
viduals in Germany, a few years ago travelled
over England on the box of a stage coach,
that he might at once have a better view of
the country, and enjoy the conversation of
the coachman.
On the use and value of the Elgin mar-
bles as models for imitation I will not appeal,
as I might do with advantage and protection
to my opinion, to the unanimous evidence of
62
the great artists, with Mr. West at the head
of them, of the admirers of the arts, and of all
the learned men, who have been consulted
and examined by a Select Committee of the
House of Commons. I would not let the ex-
pectation of an equivalent, or of a quid pro
quo, in any form, into my consideration of
the subject. I would not ask how soon we
should be reimbursed, or how much, per cent.
we should receive on the dormant capital. I
do not know how to strike a balance be-
tween profit and reputation. The security
of national honour is not provided for by the
law of merchants. Firmly believing every
thing the witnesses say on this point, I strike
it out of my account; because I would equally
buy the marbles, if I were sure that there
would never be another sculptor or statuary
in England. I would pay for the honour of
preserving them, and look for no other re-
imbursement.
In reading the Report of the Committee,
one of their first propositions, including an
historical assertion, seems to me a paradox,
the truth of which however I am not bound
or disposed to deny, viz. " that the date of
" these works must be referred to the ori-
63
ff ginal building of the Parthenon, and to
ft the designs of Phidias, the dawn of every
" thing, which adorned and ennobled
" Greece." From this position, compared
with what we know of the architecture and
statuary of Athens, it follows that the first
productions of those arts were at once per-
feet, without previous defect or gradual im-
provement. The dawning light is in the me-
ridian. Birth and maturity have but one date.
This discovery is new in the natural history
of man. In all other attainments of human
skill, the arrival at perfection is by progres-
sion. Were there no temples or statues in
Athens or in Greece, before Phidias P By
whom, and when was the temple of Jupiter
built at Olympia ; or the temple of Theseus
at Athens ? On questions of date it is in vain
to look for accuracy in the Greek historians,
nor is it always safe to rely on their vera-
city. On this point I speak with more
moderation than I think. A peremptory
language, in matters of opinion, is always
offensive, and never in its place, but when it
is called upon to command. In me, who
court instruction because I want it, a tone of
authority would be worse than unbecoming.
(54
Grcecia mend ax was proverbial among th£
Romans. Plutarch and others speak of the
Hecatompedon and the Parthenon, as of one
and the same building. Now it appears to
me that either this must be a mistake, or the
text is not correct, or^a mere epithet care-
lessly used. The Hecatompedon was a
square temple of a hundred feet, and if it
were fifty feet high, would make half a cube.
Mr. Wilkins says that the area embraced by
the uppermost step of the Parthenon, is little
more than two hundred and twenty-seven
feet in length and one hundred and one in
breadth. The former then must have been
a. moderate building compared with the latter.
But Herodotus affirms that Xerxes burnt
the citadel, and with it the temple of the
Goddess, of which last he repented ; and that
the utter destruction of the whole city was
completed by Mardonius. Yet Mr. Stuart
says " The temple of Minerva in the Aero-
" polis was called the Parthenon and Heca-
" tompedon" Toweit is plain, that they were
different temples, on the same site, with very
different dimensions. The former was built
about fifty years after the Hecatompedon was
destroyed. Be all this as it may, I shall
leave it to the learned to discover the mean-
m
ing of Plutarch's words, and proceed to other
questions in my mind of much greater inte-
rest and curiosity, concerning the two cele-
brated statues of Minerva and Jupiter, un-
doubtedly the works of Phidias, and placed
by him in their respective temples at Athens
and Olympia *. Here again we have a sin-
gular proof of the inaccuracy and careless-
ness of Grecian historians. Pausanias and
all of them say that these two statues, one
of which was fifty-four feet high, sitting,
the other thirty-nine feet, standing, were
positively made of ivory and gold. Of the
latter Pausanias says, umo h ex. ts sXsQoivtos to
ccyuX^a, xai y^vcov TrzTrowrczi. (p. 41.) Some,
of these careless writers, quoted by Meursius,-
describe the Minerva as made all of pure
gold ; others, as all of ivory without a qua-
lification, abatement, or explanation of any
kind. Even Pliny, on this point, is full as
inaccurate and obscure, as if he had never
seen the two statues, or never considered or
inquired what they were made of. He says
(liber 34. cap. 8), " Phidias, pneter Jovem
" Olympium, quern nemo emulatur, fecit et
" ex ebore cequd Minervam Athenis, quas est
P Vide Appendix, No. V.
F
60
s< in Parthenone adstans :" which words, as
long as words express meaning, affirm that
both the statues were made of Ivory. Now
my conviction is that every one of these
writers, in the literal and indisputable sense
of their own language, assert a gross, ridicu-
lous falsehood. Such enormous statues
neither were nor could be made of gold or
ivory, in their solidity, as they might have
been of marble. A quantity of gold or ivory
or both, sufficient for the purpose, could not
have been found in all Greece, much less in
Attica; and, even if it hadexisted, Phidias and
Pericles, and indeed the people of Athens
and Elis must have been frantic to lavish and
waste such precious materials on the inside
of such statues. The fact is they were
hollow, and covered in some parts with
lamince, or thin plates applied of ivory, in
others of gold, which on occasion might be
and actually were taken off. All the gold,
furnished by Pericles to Phidias for the statue
of Minerva, amounted only to forty-four
talents of pure gold, equal to about 8525/.
in our standard. The intrinsic value of the
Attic talent is by no means ascertained by
comparison with any modern coin, much
less is it a clear case among the learned.
6 7
This quantity might be sufficient to cover as
much of the statue as was not plated with
ivory, but would go a very little way to fill
it. The outside, so formed, was supported
by an internal construction or machinery
of brass and cedar wood. As far as I have
been able to trace this question, the first
person, who discovered the fallacy imposed
upon us by the Greek writers, and swallow-
ed without hesitation or inquiry by the mo-
derns, was M. de Paiav, a merciless inqui-
sitor into literary frauds, and a fatal foe to
learned impostors. The following extract
from his Rechcrches Philosophiques sur les
Grecs (Vol. ii. p. 1 12), printed at Berlin in
1/88, ought to excite the reader's curiosity.
After proving to demonstration that the
ivory and gold in question consisted of plates
laid on, or appliques, pa?" pieces rapportees,
&c. he says,
" Pour communiquer a toutes ces pieces
" rapportees le degre de consistance dont
" elles avoient besoin, il faut que la Minerve
" de Phidias ait ete intcricurement soutenue
" par un corps prodigieux de fer ou d'airain,
ct revetu dans sa principale longueur de
\* lames de bois de cedre, qui formoient
F 2
OS
" Tame de ce colosse, dont toute la capacite
" etoit vuide ; et Lucien avoue que ces
" ouvrages d'ostentation, si riches en ap-
" parence, et oii Ton ne voyoit briller que
" J'or et l'ivoire, etoient inte'rieurement
" garnis de toiles d'araignees, et servoient
<c d'asyle aux insectes et aux animaux im-
M mondes, qui frequentoient les temples et
** les autels de la Grece."
Lucian's words, to which M. Pauw re-
fers, are, <c The richest of these statues
" were covered with ivory, and here and
" there fyXr/ov oa-ov) glittered with gold.
*' Withinside they were supported by frames
'* of wood (•jVcJuAc/), in which whole troops
" of mice took shelter, and formed their
" commonwealth." {piyMt ^.vuv) *.
It seems to me remarkable that it is not
stated by Pausanius or Pliny that the statue
of Victory, of four cubits high (therefore
not a VkloriolaJ , stood, or was placed stand-
ing, on the extended right hand of the Mi-
nerva, which must include the arm, or there
would be no extension. But Epictetus-f does
say so distinctly. Now, if the Victory were
* In the Jupiter Tragoedus. f Lib. ii. cap. 8.
<5g
solid of any metal, it must weigh down the
arm, or break it, unless the inside of the
limb were of brass, and that too attached to
a metallic frame supporting the statue.
Supposing this state of the case, as
far as relates to the outward appearance and
internal machinerv of the statues, to be in-
disputable, a question remains, which he,
who can answer it in plain intelligible lan-
guage and not in terms of art, must have
much more skill and sagacity than I can pre-
tend to. My own superannuated thoughts
have been wasted on it in vain. The figures
of the god and goddess must have been
composed and formed on a covered frame of
some kind or other, and that frame support-
ed thro'out by internal bars of brass or
wood. I ask what was the composition of
that frame, and of the figures or shapes,
which were supported by it, and how, or
by what medium or contact they were sup-
ported by the inside machinery. To me it
appears that the forms, at least, of the sta-
tues must have been finished, before the
lamincc of gold and ivory could be applied
to those forms, by way of ornament or
dress. Here I shall conclude this part of my
f 3
meditations, with one note of admiration
more to the statues. Is it possible, or is it
conceivable, that Pausanias, Plutarch, and
Pliny, should not have known the internal
construction of these colossal statues, or
that they should have believed or imagined
that they were literally made of solid gold
and ivory ! On the subject of these won-
derful works of art, there remains still one
consideration, worthy of your taste and ge-
nius, and then you shall be at liberty, porta
mittendus cburnd.
The enormous disproportion of the size
of these statues to the temples, which held
them, must have been obvious to every eye.
Nay, I should think, it must have been the
first impression made upon the spectator,
the moment he entered the temple. Yet, if
my utmost researches have not failed or mis-
led me, it is certainly true that no ancient
writer has taken notice, or, if at all, very
slightly, of this manifest and striking dis-
proportion, except Strabo, much less to ac-
count for it. The geographer says only that
" The greatest of all was the ivory statue of
" Jupiter (sXstpavTivcv %cewov) made by Phidias,
" of such a magnitude that, although the
71
'* temple was of the greatest size, the artist
" seemed to have missed the mark, or failed,
" of symmetry (between the statue and the
" templej. He made the statue sitting, yet
" almost touching the roof with the summit
f i of its head, giving an impression on the
" eye that, if the God were to rise and stand
" upright, he must unroof the temple." In
this place it is natural to ask a question,
which, as far as my little learning reaches,
has never been answered, why, of all the
single statues of the heathen celestial gods,
the Jupiter alone is represented sitting?
Because he was their supreme divinity. The
others, even the Minerva, or Goddess of
Wisdom, were his ministers or agents, and,
as his inferiors, stood in his presence, when-
ever they were personified. He alone is not
in action. His power is in repose, serene
and majestic, and executes his pleasure, not
by motion or command, but by pure voli-
tion.
Is it to be believed that Phidias was not
aware of a palpable violation of the laws of
symmetry between his own work and thecase,
which contained it ? or that, seeing the fact,
he should not have intended it ? or that, with
F 4
72
that intention, he should have had no ra-
tional purpose to be answered by it ? I '11
not believe it. The dimensions of so great
an artist are not to be measured by the mere
visual faculty of vulgar eyes. The altitude
of such a being must be taken with a qua-
drant. First, undoubtedly he meant to mag-
nify his statue at the expcnce of the temple;
and, so meaning, the disproportion he re-
sorted to could not fail of its effect. So far,
a common caviller might accuse him of va-
nity. A critic of a higher order might con-
tent himself with subscribing to the accurate
and enlightened conclusion of Quintilian,
who illustrates the statue of Jupiter by its
moral impression ; " cujus pulchritudo adje-
" cisse aliquid etiarri receptae religioni vide-
" tur, adeo majcstas operis deum ajquavit."
Was that all ? Had he no theory, of a
more elevated ascent, in contemplation ?
Yes : I swear bv the Genius of Phidias
himself, he had another purpose worthy of
him, which he has left it to the statue to
denounce. The Deity I represent fills
HIS OWN TEMPLE, AND LEAVES NO ROOM FOR
ANY OTHER GOD.
By Lord Bacon I was taught long ago,
7z
that " leves gustus in philosophic ad atheis-
" mum fortasse movere, sed pleniores haus-
" tus ad religionem reducere."
The true God extends through all extent;
and, by his own plenitude, occupies all
space.
This is my profession of faith. My creed
is immovable, and will accept of no autho-
rity to confirm it. Were it otherwise, it is
not to the refuse of religion, to priests or
friars, to Jesuits or barefooted Carmelites,
to establishments or to sectaries, that I
would submit to appeal. I should call on
the greatest luminaries of science and medi-
tation, of piety and wisdom, which have
enlightened the world: on Bacon, Gassendi,
Sydenham, Descartes, Newton, Locke, and,
on this subject, the equal, as he was the
pupil of them all, Maclaurin, to be my
compurgators.
Vive ct vale.
PHILIP FRANCIS.
APPENDIX.
No. I. referred to in Page 25.
HOUSE OF COMMONS.
July 4,tk, 1816.
Resolved — " That the thanks of this House
be given to Field-Marshal His Royal Highness
the Duke of York, Commander in Chief of His
Majesty's Forces, for his continued, effectual,
and unremitting exertions in the discharge of
the duties of his high situation, during a period
of upwards of twenty years, in which the Bri-
tish army has attained a state of discipline and
military science hitherto unknown, and which,
under Providence, have contributed, in a great
degree, to acquire for this empire its present
height of military glory among the nations of
Europe."
No. II. Vide Page 30.
1. Lord and Lady Howe went on board the
mutinous fleet at Portsmouth, accompanied by
the Delegates, on the 15th of Mav 1797.
2. Lord Keith went on board the MarU
borough, at Plymouth, on the 6th of July 1797.
76*
No. III.
HOUSE OF COMMONS.
April lltli, 1796.
Extract of Sir Philip Francis's Speech on the
Slave Trade, p. 57.
" With all these transactions in mv view, I
declare now, on the principles and in the lan-
guage of Lord Chatham, that I rejoice that
America resisted. I rejoice that America re-
sisted with success, because it was a triumph of
unquestionable right over outrageous wrong, of
courage and virtue, over tyranny and force ;
because the issue of that contest has provided a
refuge and left an asylum, when existence in
Europe, perhaps even in England, can no longer
be endured. The nations crushed by taxes for
the support of powers that oppress, and of wars
that destroy them, have still the consolation of
knowing that peace and freedom and plenty
are to be found in America; that there is still a
country in the world, where every man enjoys
the fruits of his industry and the produce of his
labour. Who is there, who can pronounce with
certainty that a period is not approaching, when
no other refuge may be left to us ?"
No. IV.
A friend of Mr. Fox, observing that be
listened attentively to Doctor Laurence, at
000 564 009
*7S
that time a slow benumbing Speaker, though full
of information, asked him, " How can you endure.
" him?" Answer. " I intend to speak the Doc-
" tor's speech again, and let nobody know it."
No. V.
Pausanias says that the temple of Jupiter at
Olympia was built, but not when, by a native
architect called Libo ; that it was sixty-eight
feet high, ninety-five feet wide, and two hundred
and thirty feet long. He says that the God,
sitting on a throne, was made of gold and ivory.
Lib. 5. p. 504-5-6*. The temple must have been
built long before the Peloponnesian war !
No. VI. Vide Page 73.
6'
I nunc, et die casu id factum, quod non
potuerit fieri sapientius, quodque, si factum
aliter fuisset, in hunc, quo jam se habet, modum,
ut recte haberet, restituendum fuisset. Gassendi
in Epicurum, 1 . 359- Vide, vide.
Quoties naturam nomino, toties causarum
naturalium complexnm quendam significari volo ;
qua3 quidem causa? brutse licet, atque omni con-
silio destitutae, non tamen sine summo consilio
reguntur, dum suas qureque operationes edunt,
suosque efTectus exequuntur. Nimirum supre-
mum illud Numen, cujus vi producta sunt omnia
et a cujus nutu dependent, infinita sua sapientia
sic disponit omnia. Vide Sydenham, p. 92.
-78
No. VII. Vide Page 62.
After a long search, I cannot discover with
certainty, by whom or when the temple of
Theseus was built. On the whole, however, it
seems probable that it was erected by Cimon, or
in his time, or about forty years before Pericles.
I leave it to the learned to consider, whether
that date of such a temple, with such statuary,
can be consistent with the assertion of ths
Committee.
THE END.
ERRATUM.
Page 5, line 9, for stoop read have dooped.
3. Oosnell, Printer, Litcte Queen Street, London.