power, even by the ordinary operation of human passions, must join with that society, and cannot long be joined without in some degree assimilating to it. Virtue will catch as well as vice by contact, and the public stock of honest, manly principle will daily accumulate. We are not too nicely to scrutinise motives as long as action is irreproachable. It is enough (and for a worthy man perhaps too much) to deal out its infamy to convicted. guilt and declared apostasy.

This, gentlemen, has been from the beginning the rule of my conduct; and I mean to continue it as long as such a body as I have described can by any possibility be kept together, for I should think it the most dreadful of all offences, not only towards the present generation but to all the future, if I were to do anything which could make the minutest breach in this great conservatory of free principles. Those who perhaps have the same intentions but are separated by some little political animosities will I hope discern at last how little conducive it is to any rational purpose to lower its reputation. For my part, gentlemen, from much experience, from no little thinking, and from comparing a great variety of things, I am thoroughly persuaded that the last hope of preserving the spirit of the English constitution, or of reuniting the dissipated members of the English race upon a common plan of tranquillity and liberty, does entirely depend on their firm and lasting union, and above all on their keeping themselves from that despair which is so very apt to fall on those whom a violence of character and a mixture of ambitious views do not support through a long, painful, and unsuccessful struggle.

There never, gentlemen, was a period in which the steadfastness of some men has been put to so sore a trial. It is not very difficult for well-formed minds to abandon their interest, but the separation of fame and virtue is a harsh divorce. Liberty is in danger of being made unpopular to Englishmen. Contending for an imaginary power we begin to acquire the spirit of domination and to lose the relish of honest equality. The principles of our forefathers become suspected to us, because we see them

animating the present opposition of our children. The faults which grow out of the luxuriance of freedom appear much more shocking to us than the base vices which are generated from the rankness of servitude. Accordingly the least resistance to power appears more inexcusable in our eyes than the greatest abuses of authority. All dread of a standing military force is looked upon as a superstitious panic. All shame of calling in foreigners and savages in a civil contest is worn off. We grow indifferent to the consequences inevitable to ourselves from the plan of ruling half the empire by a mercenary sword. We are taught to believe that a desire of domineering over our countrymen is love to our country, that those who hate civil war abate rebellion, and that the amiable and conciliatory virtues of lenity, moderation, and tenderness to the privileges of those who depend on this kingdom are a sort of treason to the state.

It is impossible that we should remain long in a situation which breeds such notions and dispositions without some great alteration in the national character. Those ingenuous and feeling minds who are so fortified against all other things, and so unarmed to whatever approaches in the shape of disgrace, finding these principles, which they considered as sure means of honour, to be grown into disrepute, will retire disheartened and disgusted. Those of a more robust make, the bold, able, ambitious men who pay some of their court to power through the people, and substitute the voice of transient opinion in the place of true glory, will give in to the general mode; and those superior understandings which ought to correct vulgar prejudice will confirm and aggravate its errors. Many things have been long operating towards a gradual change in our principles. But this American war has done more in a very few years than all the other causes could have effected in a century. It is therefore not on its own separate account, but because of its attendant circumstances that I consider its continuance or its ending in any way but that of an honourable and liberal accommodation as the greatest evils which can befall us. For that reason I have troubled you with this long letter. For that

reason I entreat you again and again neither to be persuaded, shamed, or frighted out of the principles that have hitherto led so many of you to abhor the war, its cause, and its consequences. Let us not be among the

first who renounce the maxims of our forefathers.

I have the honour to be, gentlemen, your most obedient and faithful humble servant,

BEACONSFIELD, April 3, 1777.

EDMUND BURKE.

P.S.-You may communicate this letter in any manner you think proper to my constituents.

LETTER TO DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

August, 1781.

DEAR SIR, I feel as an honest man and as a good citizen ought to feel, the calamities of the present unhappy war. The only part, however, of those calamities which personally affects myself is, that I have been obliged to discontinue my intercourse with you; but that one misfortune I must consider as equivalent to many. I may, indeed, with great truth, assure you, that your friendship has always been an object of my ambition; and that, if a high and very sincere esteem for your talents and virtues could give me a title to it, I am not wholly unworthy of that honour. I flatter myself that your belief in the reality of these sentiments will excuse the liberty I take, of laying before you a matter in which I have no small concern. The application I make originates wholly from myself, and has not been suggested to me by any person whatsoever.

I have lately been informed with great certainty, and with no less surprise, that the congress have made an application for the return of my friend General Burgoyne to captivity in America, at a time when the exchange of almost all the rest of the convention officers has been completed. It is true that this requisition has been for the present withdrawn; but then, it may be renewed at every instant; and no arrangement has been made or proposed, which may prevent a thing on all accounts so very disagreeable, as to see the most opposite interests conspiring in the persecution of a man, formed, by the unparalleled candour and moderation of his mind, to unite the most discordant parties in his favour.

I own this proceeding of the congress fills me with

astonishment. I am persuaded that some unusually artful management, or very unexampled delusion, has operated to produce an effect which cannot be accounted for on any of the ordinary principles of nature or of policy. I shall not enter into the particulars of the convention under which this claim is made, nor into the construction of it, nor the execution. I am not, perhaps, capable of doing justice to the merits of the cause; and if I were, I am not disposed to put them upon any ground of argument, because (whatever others might and possibly ought to do) I am not pleading a point of strict right, but appealing to your known principles of honour and generosity, with the freedom and privileges of an old friendship; and as I suppose you perfectly acquainted with the whole history of the extraordinary treatment General Burgoyne has met with, I am resolved not to show so much distrust in so sound a memory and so good a judgment as yours, as to attempt to refresh the one or to lead the other.

I am ready to admit that General Burgoyne has been and (as far as what is left him will suffer) is a very affectionate and a very jealous servant of the crown; and that in America he acted as an officer of the king (so long as fortune favoured him) with great abilities, and distinguished fidelity, activity, and spirit. You, my dear sir, who have made such astonishing exertions in the cause which you espouse, and are so deeply read in human nature and in human morals, know better than anybody, that men will and that sometimes they are bound to take very different views and measures of their duty from local and from professional situation; and that we may all have equal merit in extremely different lines of conduct. You know that others may deserve the whole of your admiration in a cause, in which your judgment leads you to oppose them. But whatever may be our opinions on the origin of this fatal war, I assure you, General Burgoyne has the merit of never having driven it on with violence, or fostered or kept it alive by any evil arts, or aggravated its natural mischiefs by unnecessary rigour; but has behaved on all occasions with that temper which becomes a great military character, which loves nothing so well in the pro