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

friends saw no security
for keeping things in a proper train after this excursion of his, but in the
reunion of the party on its old grounds, under the Duke of Portland. Mr.
Fox, if he pleased, might have been comprehended in that system, with
the rank and consideration to which his great talents entitle him, and
indeed must secure to him in any party arrangement that could be made.
The Duke of Portland knows how much I wished for, and how
earnestly I labored that reunion, and upon terms that might every way
be honorable and advantageous to Mr. Fox. His conduct in the last
session has extinguished these hopes forever.
Mr. Fox has lately published in print a defence of his conduct. On
taking into consideration that defence, a society of gentlemen, called
the Whig Club, thought proper to come to the following
resolution:--"That their confidence in Mr. Fox is confirmed,
strengthened, and increased by the calumnies against him."
To that resolution my two noble friends, the Duke of Portland and Lord
Fitzwilliam, have given their concurrence.
The calumnies supposed in that resolution can be nothing else than the
objections taken to Mr. Fox's conduct in this session of Parliament; for
to them, and to them alone, the resolution refers. I am one of those who
have publicly and strongly urged those objections. I hope I shall be
thought only to do what is necessary to my justification, thus publicly,
solemnly, and heavily censured by those whom I most value and
esteem, when I firmly contend that the objections which I, with many
others of the friends to the Duke of Portland, have made to Mr. Fox's
conduct, are not calumnies, but founded on truth,--that they are not few,
but many,--and that they are not light and trivial, but, in a very high
degree, serious and important.
That I may avoid the imputation of throwing out, even privately, any
loose, random imputations against the public conduct of a gentleman
for whom I once entertained a very warm affection, and whose abilities
I regard with the greatest admiration, I will put down, distinctly and

articulately, some of the matters of objection which I feel to his late
doctrines and proceedings, trusting that I shall be able to demonstrate to
the friends whose good opinion I would still cultivate, that not levity,
nor caprice, nor less defensible motives, but that very grave reasons,
influence my judgment. I think that the spirit of his late proceedings is
wholly alien to our national policy, and to the peace, to the prosperity,
and to the legal liberties of this nation, according to our ancient
domestic and appropriated mode of holding them.
Viewing things in that light, my confidence in him is not increased, but
totally destroyed, by those proceedings. I cannot conceive it a matter of
honor or duty (but the direct contrary) in any member of Parliament to
continue systematic opposition for the purpose of putting government
under difficulties, until Mr. Fox (with all his present ideas) shall have
the principal direction of affairs placed in his hands, and until the
present body of administration (with their ideas and measures) is of
course overturned and dissolved.
To come to particulars.
1. The laws and Constitution of the kingdom intrust the sole and
exclusive right of treating with foreign potentates to the king. This is an
undisputed part of the legal prerogative of the crown. However,
notwithstanding this, Mr. Fox, without the knowledge or participation
of any one person in the House of Commons, with whom he was bound
by every party principle, in matters of delicacy and importance,
confidentially to communicate, thought proper to send Mr. Adair, as his
representative, and with his cipher, to St. Petersburg, there to frustrate
the objects for which the minister from the crown was authorized to
treat. He succeeded in this his design, and did actually frustrate the
king's minister in some of the objects of his negotiation.
This proceeding of Mr. Fox does not (as I conceive) amount to absolute
high treason,--Russia, though on bad terms, not having been then
declaredly at war with this kingdom. But such a proceeding is in law
not very remote from that offence, and is undoubtedly a most
unconstitutional act, and an high treasonable misdemeanor.
The legitimate and sure mode of communication between this nation
and foreign powers is rendered uncertain, precarious, and treacherous,
by being divided into two channels,--one with the government, one
with the head of a party in opposition to that government; by which

means the foreign powers can never be assured of the real authority or
validity of any public transaction whatsoever.
On the other hand, the advantage taken of the discontent which at that
time prevailed in Parliament and in the nation, to give to an