character, should be able to govern the country and its armies, with an authority which the most settled senates, and the most respected monarchs scarcely ever had in the fame degree? This, for one, I confefs I did not forefee, though all the reft was present to me very early, and not out of my apprehenfion even for several years.

I believe very few were able to enter into the effects of mere terrour, as a principle not only for the support of power in given hands or forms, but in those things in which the foundest political speculators were of opinion, that the least appearance of force would be totally destructive, -such is the market, whether of money, provifion, or commodities of any kind. Yet for four years we have seen loans made, treafuries supplied, and armies levied and maintained, more numerous than France ever shewed in the field, by the effects of fear alone.

Here is a state of things of which, in its totality, if history furnishes any examples at all, they are very remote and feeble. I therefore am not so ready as fome are, to tax with folly or cowardice, those who were not prepared to meet an evil of this nature. Even now, after the events,

all the causes may be fomewhat difficult to afcertain. Very many are however traceable. But these things history and books of speculation (as I have already faid) did not teach men to forefee, and of course to resist. Now that they are no longer a matter of sagacity, but of experience, of recent experience, of our own experience, it would be unjustifiable to go back to the records of other times, to instruct us to manage what they never enabled us to foresee.

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX.

EXTRACTS FROM

VATTELL'S LAW OF NATIONS.

[The Titles, marginal Abstracts and Notes, are by Mr. BURKE, excepting such of the Notes as are here diftinguished.]

CASES OF INTERFERENCE WITH INDEPENDENT

POWERS.

BOOK II. CHAP. IV. § 53.

F then there is

I

any where a nation of a restless

and mischievous disposition, always ready to injure others, to traverse their defigns, and to raise domestick troubles,* it is not to be doubted, that all have a right to join in order to repress, chastise, and put it ever after out of its power to injure them. Such should be the just fruits of the policy which Machiavel praises in Cæfar Borgia. The conduct followed by Philip II. king of Spain, was adapted to unite all Europe against him; and it was from just reasons that Henry the Great formed the design of humbling a power, formidable by its forces, and pernicious by its maxims.

$ 70. Let us apply to the unjust, what we have faid above ($ 53), of a mischievous, or maleficent nation. If there be any that makes an open profession of trampling justice under foot, of defpifing. and violating the right of others,* whenever it finds an opportunity, the interest of human fociety will authorize all others to unite, in order to humble and chastise it. We do not here forget the maxim established in our preliminaries, that it does not belong to nations to ufurp the power of being judges of each other. In particular cafes, liable to the leaft doubt, it ought to be supposed, that each of the parties may have fome right: and the injustice of that which has committed the injury, may proceed from error, and not from a general contempt of justice. But if, by constant maxims, and by a continued conduct, one nation shews, that it has evidently this pernicious disposition, and that it confiders no right as facred, the safety of the human race requires that it should be fuppreffed. To form and fupport an unjust pretenfion, is to do an injury not only to him who is interested in this pretension, but

to mock at justice in general, and to injure all nations. To fuccour $56. If the prince, attacking the fundamental laws, gives his subjects a legal right to resist him;

againft Tyranny.

* The French acknowledge no power not directly emanating from the people.

if English Re

if tyranny, becoming insupportable, obliges the nation to rife in their defence; every foreign power has a right to fuccour an oppreffed people who implore their afsistance. The English justly complained of James the Second. The nobility, and the most Cafe of diftinguished patriots, refolved to put a check on his volution enterprizes, which manifeftly tended to overthrow the constitution, and to destroy the liberties and the religion of the people; and therefore applied for afsistance to the United Provinces. The authority of the prince of Orange had, doubtless, an influence on the deliberations of the states-general; but it did not make them commit injustice; for when a people, from good reasons, take up arms against an oppreffor, justice and generosity require, that brave men should be assisted in the defence of their liberties. Whenever, therefore, a civil war is Cafe of kindled in a state, foreign powers may afsist that party which appears to them to have justice on their fide. He who assists an odious tyrant; he who An odious declares FOR AN UNJUST AND REBELLIOUS PEOPLE, Rebellious offends against his duty. When the bands of the people. political society are broken, or at least fufpended Sovereign between the fovereign and his people, they may people then be confidered as two distinct powers; and tinct fince each is independent of all foreign authority, nobody has a right to judge them. Either may be in the right; and each of those who grant their assistance may believe that he supports a good caufe.

Civil War.

Tyrant.

when dif

powers.