The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V | Page 5

the Duke of
Portland's friends in the House of Commons, for the purpose of taking

their opinion on the conduct to be pursued in Parliament at that critical
juncture. He concerted his measures (if with any persons at all) with the
friends of Lord Lansdowne, and those calling themselves Friends of the
People, and others not in the smallest degree attached to the Duke of
Portland; by which conduct he wilfully gave up (in my opinion) all
pretensions to be considered as of that party, and much more to be
considered as the leader and mouth of it in the House of Commons.
This could not give much encouragement to those who had been
separated from Mr. Fox, on account of his conduct on the first
proclamation, to rejoin that party.
5. Not having consulted any of the Duke of Portland's party in the
House of Commons,--and not having consulted them, because he had
reason to know that the course he had resolved to pursue would be
highly disagreeable to them,--he represented the alarm, which was a
second time given and taken, in still more invidious colors than those in
which he painted the alarms of the former year. He described those
alarms in this manner, although the cause of them was then grown far
less equivocal and far more urgent. He even went so far as to treat the
supposition of the growth of a Jacobin spirit in England as a libel on the
nation. As to the danger from abroad, on the first day of the session he
said little or nothing upon the subject. He contented himself with
defending the ruling factions in France, and with accusing the public
councils of this kingdom of every sort of evil design on the liberties of
the people,--declaring distinctly, strongly, and precisely, that the whole
danger of the nation was from the growth of the power of the crown.
The policy of this declaration was obvious. It was in subservience to
the general plan of disabling us from taking any steps against France.
To counteract the alarm given by the progress of Jacobin arms and
principles, he endeavored to excite an opposite alarm concerning the
growth of the power of the crown. If that alarm should prevail, he knew
that the nation never would be brought by arms to oppose the growth of
the Jacobin empire: because it is obvious that war does, in its very
nature, necessitate the Commons considerably to strengthen the hands
of government; and if that strength should itself be the object of terror,
we could have no war.
6. In the extraordinary and violent speeches of that day, he attributed all
the evils which the public had suffered to the proclamation of the

preceding summer; though he spoke in presence of the Duke of
Portland's own son, the Marquis of Tichfield, who had seconded the
address on that proclamation, and in presence of the Duke of Portland's
brother, Lord Edward Bentinck, and several others of his best friends
and nearest relations.
7. On that day, that is, on the 13th of December, 1792, he proposed an
amendment to the address, which stands on the journals of the House,
and which is, perhaps, the most extraordinary record which ever did
stand upon them. To introduce this amendment, he not only struck out
the part of the proposed address which alluded to insurrections, upon
the ground of the objections which he took to the legality of calling
together Parliament, (objections which I must ever think litigious and
sophistical,) but he likewise struck out that part which related to the
cabals and conspiracies of the French faction in England, although
their practices and correspondences were of public notoriety. Mr.
Cooper and Mr. Watt had been deputed from Manchester to the
Jacobins. These ambassadors were received by them as British
representatives. Other deputations of English had been received at the
bar of the National Assembly. They had gone the length of giving
supplies to the Jacobin armies; and they, in return, had received
promises of military assistance to forward their designs in England. A
regular correspondence for fraternizing the two nations had also been
carried on by societies in London with a great number of the Jacobin
societies in France. This correspondence had also for its object the
pretended improvement of the British Constitution. What is the most
remarkable, and by much the more mischievous part of his proceedings
that day, Mr. Fox likewise struck out everything in the address which
_related to the tokens of ambition given by France, her aggressions
upon our allies, and the sudden and dangerous growth of her power
upon every side_; and instead of all those weighty, and, at that time,
necessary matters, by which the House of Commons was (in a crisis
such as