The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. | Page 3

perceptible in it. The manuscript of the
fragments was a rough draft from the author's own hand, much blotted

and very confused.
The Third Letter on the Proposals for Peace was in its progress through
the press when the author died. About one half of it was actually
revised in print by himself, though not in the exact order of the pages as
they now stand. He enlarged his first draft, and separated one great
member of his subject, for the purpose of introducing some other
matter between. The different parcels of manuscript designed to
intervene were discovered. One of them he seemed to have gone over
himself, and to have improved and augmented. The other (fortunately
the smaller) was much more imperfect, just as it was taken from his
mouth by dictation. The former reaches from the two hundred and
forty-sixth to near the end of the two hundred and sixty-second page;
the latter nearly occupies the twelve pages which follow.[3] No
important change, none at all affecting the meaning of any passage, has
been made in either, though in the more imperfect parcel some latitude
of discretion in subordinate points was necessarily used.
There is, however, a considerable member for the greater part of which
Mr. Burke's reputation is not responsible: this is the inquiry into the
condition of the higher classes, which commences in the two hundred
and ninety-fifth page.[4] The summary of the whole topic, indeed,
nearly as it stands in the three hundred and seventy-third and fourth
pages,[5] was found, together with a marginal reference to the
Bankrupt List, in his own handwriting; and the actual conclusion of the
Letter was dictated by him, but never received his subsequent
correction. He had also preserved, as materials for this branch of his
subject, some scattered hints, documents, and parts of a correspondence
on the state of the country. He was, however, prevented from working
on them by the want of some authentic and official information, for
which he had been long anxiously waiting, in order to ascertain, to the
satisfaction of the public, what, with his usual sagacity, he had fully
anticipated from his own personal observation, to his own private
conviction. At length the reports of the different committees which had
been appointed by the two Houses of Parliament amply furnished him
with evidence for this purpose. Accordingly he read and considered
them with attention: but for anything beyond this the season was now
past. The Supreme Disposer of All, against whose inscrutable counsels
it is vain as well as impious to murmur, did not permit him to enter on

the execution of the task which he meditated. It was resolved, therefore,
by one of his friends, after much hesitation, and under a very painful
responsibility, to make such an attempt as he could at supplying the
void; especially because the insufficiency of our resources for the
continuance of the war was understood to have been the principal
objection urged against the two former Letters on the Proposals for
Peace. In performing with reverential diffidence this duty of friendship,
care has been taken not to attribute to Mr. Burke any sentiment which
is not most explicitly known, from repeated conversations, and from
much correspondence, to have been decidedly entertained by that
illustrious man. One passage of nearly three pages, containing a
censure of our defensive system, is borrowed from a private letter,
which he began to dictate with an intention of comprising in it the short
result of his opinions, but which he afterwards abandoned, when, a
little time before his death, his health appeared in some degree to
amend, and he hoped that Providence might have spared him at least to
complete the larger public letter, which he then proposed to resume.
In the preface to the former edition of this Letter a fourth was
mentioned as being in possession of Mr. Burke's friends. It was in fact
announced by the author himself, in the conclusion of the second,
which it was then designed to follow. He intended, he said, to proceed
next on the question of the facilities possessed by the French Republic,
_from the internal state of other nations, and particularly of this_, for
obtaining her ends,--and as his notions were controverted, to take
notice of what, in that way, had been recommended to him. The vehicle
which he had chosen for this part of his plan was an answer to a
pamphlet which was supposed to come from high authority, and was
circulated by ministers with great industry, at the time of its appearance,
in October, 1795, immediately previous to that session of Parliament
when his Majesty for the first time declared that the appearance of any
disposition in the enemy to negotiate for general peace should not fail
to be met with