第61章 LETTER 8(3)

The history of Edward the Third,however,and of the first twelve or fifteen years of Henry the Sixth might have taught us some general but useful lessons,drawn from remote times,but applicable to the present.So might the example of Henry the Eighth,who squandered away great sums for the profit of talking a town,or the honor of having an emperor in his pay;and who divided afterwards by treaty the kingdom of France between himself and Charles the Fifth,with success so little answerable to such an undertaking,that it is hard to believe his imperial and English majesty were both in earnest.If they were so,they were both the bubbles of their presumption.But it seems more likely that Henry the Eighth was bubbled on this occasion by the great hopes that Charles held out to flatter his vanity:as he had been bubbled by his father-in-law Ferdinand,at the beginning of his reign,in the war of Navarre.But these reflections were not made,nor had we enough considered the example of Elizabeth the last of our princes who had made any considerable figure abroad,and from whom we might have learned to act with vigor,but to engage with caution,and always to proportion our assistance according to our abilities,and the real necessities of our allies.The frontiers of France were now so fortified,her commerce and her naval force were so increased,her armies were grown so numerous,her troops were so disciplined,so inured to war,and so animated by a long course of successful campaigns,that they who looked on the situation of Europe could not fail to see how difficult the enterprise of reducing her power was become.difficult as it was,we were obliged,on every account and by reasons of all kinds,to engage in it:but then we should have engaged with more forecast,and have conducted ourselves in the management of it,not with less alacrity and spirit,but with more order,more economy,and a better application of our efforts.But they who governed were glad to engage as at any rate;and we entered on this great scheme of action,as our nation is too apt to do,hurried on by the ruling passion of the day.I have been told by several,who were on the stage of the world at this time,that the generality of our people believed,and were encouraged to believe,the war could not be long,if the king was vigorously supported:and there is a humdrum speech of a speaker of the house of commons,I think,who humbly desired his majesty to take this opportunity of reconquering his ancient duchy of Aquitain.We were soon awakened from these gaudy dreams.In seven or eight years no impression had been made on France,that was besieged as it were on every side:and after repeated defeats in the Low Countries,where king William laid the principal stress of the war,his sole triumph was the retaking Namur,that had been taken by the French a few years before.Unsustained by success abroad,we are not to wonder that the spirit flagged at home;nor that the discontents of those who were averse to the established government,uniting with the far greater number of those who disliked the administration,inflamed the general discontents of the nation,oppressed with taxes,pillaged by usurers,plundered at sea,and disappointed at land.As we run into extremes always,some would have continued this war at any rate,even at the same rate,but it was not possible they should prevail in such a situation of affairs,and such a disposition of minds.--They who not by the war,and made immense fortunes by the necessities of the public,were not so numerous nor so powerful,as they have been since.The moneyed interest was not yet a rival able to cope with the landed interest,either in the nation or in parliament.The great corporations that had been erected more to serve the turn of party,than for any real national use,aimed indeed even then at the strength and influence which they have since acquired in the legislature;but they had not made the same progress by promoting national corruption,as they and the court have made since.In short,the other extreme prevailed.

The generality of people grew as fond of getting out of the war,as they had been of entering into it:and thus far perhaps,considering how it had been conducted,they were not much to be blamed.But this was not all;for when king William had made the peace,our martial spirit became at once so pacific,that we seemed resolved to meddle no more in the affairs of the continent,at least to employ our arms no more in the quarrels that might arise there:and accordingly we reduced our troops in England to seven thousand men.

I have sometimes considered,in reflecting on these passages,what I should have done,if I had sat in parliament at that time;and have been forced to my own self,that I should have voted for disbanding the army then,as I voted in the following parliament for censuring the partition treaties.