The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 05 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
History
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 05 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
29. Had Mr. Fox's disgraceful proposal been complied with, this kingdom
would have been stained with a blot of perfidy hitherto without an
example in our history, and with far less excuse than any act of perfidy
which we find in the history of any other nation. The moment when, by
the incredible exertions of Austria, (very little through ours,) the
temporary deliverance of Holland (in effect our own deliverance) had
been achieved, he advised the House instantly to abandon her to that
very enemy from whose arms she had freed ourselves and the closest of
our allies.
30. But we are not to be imposed on by forms of language. We must act on
the substance of things. To abandon Austria in this manner was to
abandon Holland itself. For suppose France, encouraged and strengthened
as she must have been by our treacherous desertion,--suppose France, I
say, to succeed against Austria, (as she had succeeded the very year
before,) England would, after its disarmament, have nothing in the world
but the inviolable faith of Jacobinism and the steady politics of
anarchy to depend upon, against France's renewing the very same attempts
upon Holland, and renewing them (considering what Holland was and is)
with much better prospects of success. Mr. Fox must have been well
aware, that, if we were to break with the greater Continental powers,
and particularly to come to a rupture with them, in the violent and
intemperate mode in which he would have made the breach, the defence of
Holland against a foreign enemy and a strong domestic faction must
hereafter rest solely upon England, without the chance of a single ally,
either on that or on any other occasion. So far as to the pretended sole
object of the war, which Mr. Fox supposed to be so completely obtained
(but which then was not at all, and at this day is not completely
obtained) as to leave us nothing else to do than to cultivate a
peaceful, quiet correspondence with those quiet, peaceable, and moderate
people, the Jacobins of France.
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