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Edmund Burke and International Relations

Edmund Burke and International Relations

EDMUND BURKE AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Edmund Burke and International Relations The Commonwealth of Europe and the Crusade against the French

Jennifer M. Welsh Cadieux Fellow, Policy Planning Staff Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Canada

M in association with St. Martin's Press ST ANTONY'S COLLEGE, OXFORD © Jennifer M. Welsh 1995

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First published in Great Britain 1995 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world

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First published in the United States of America 1995 by Scholarly and Reference Division, ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010

ISBN 0-312-12202-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Welsh, Jennifer M. Edmund Burke and international relations / the commonwealth of Europe and the crusade against the / Jennifer M. Welsh. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-312-12202-0 1. Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797—Views on international relations. 2. . 3. European cooperation. 4. —Revolution. 1789-1799. I. Title. JX2223.B87W45 1995 320.5,2,092—dc20 94-7204 C1P "There is no wise man in , with an important decision to make, who would not do well to refresh his mind by discussion with Burke's mind." Harold Laski, Address at Trinity College, , March 1947

Contents

Acknowledgements ix Sketch of Burke's Life xi Introduction 1 PART I BURKE'S THEORY OF INTERNATIONAL Introduction 23 1 Constitutionalism 25 2 Medievalism 49 3 The Commonwealth of Europe 70 PART II THE CONSERVATIVE CRUSADER Introduction 89 4 Burke's Reaction to the French Revolution 93 5 Interventionism 115 6 Holy War 141 Conclusion 167 Notes and References 181 Bibliography 233 Index 242

Vll

Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without the assistance of the Rhodes Trust and the and Humanities Research Coun• cil of Canada. I am especially grateful to the former for giving me the generous opportunity to study at Oxford. I would also like to thank my thesis directors, Dr Sudhir Hazaree- singh and Dr Andrew Hurrell. The latter took over as my supervisor mid-way through this project, and offered insightful and considered advice throughout. I am equally indebted to Dr Paul Langford, who eased my descent into the eighteenth century, provided helpful hints on the original sources, and kindly lent me editions of Burke's Writings and Speeches. It is through his guidance that I have started to become a as well as a political scientist. I also express my gratitude to a number of colleagues and friends who have read parts or all of this manuscript: Manjeet Ramgotra, who led me through the Skinner debate; Richard and Hanson, who detected some of my many mistakes; David Fidler, who shares my interest in Burke and who sharpened my style and presentation; Dr Iver B. Neumann, who added a "good European" perspective to Chap• ter 3; Dr Ngaire Woods, who provided constant encouragement and improved my powers of persuasion; and Tim Dunne, who tirelessly read through the entire manuscript and gave indispensable comments on Wight's Three . Most importantly, I thank Anne-Sophie Andre, who has been there from the very beginning with a much needed "French angle" and a shoulder to lean on. Because, as Burke would say, we "begin our affections in our fami• lies", I must also send my heartfelt thanks to my parents, who have offered unwavering and unconditional support from afar. Finally, I dedicate this book to the late Dr John Vincent. It was his article on Burke and seminar series on Classical Theories that pro• vided the original impetus for my project. Moreover, it was his good humour which helped to sustain my interest during those dark and dreary "middle years"of thesis preparation. Those who know his work will detect his imprint in the pages that follow. My only hope is that according to John's standards, this book at least goes "half-way to• ward a good idea".

JENNIFER M. WELSH ix

Sketch of Burke's Life

1729 Born in Dublin, Ireland 1748 Received BA degree from Trinity College 1750 Began legal studies at the in London 1756 Abandoned legal studies and published his first work, A Vindication of Natural Society 1757 Married Jane Nugent in London Achieved fame through his first theoretical treatise, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the and Beautiful 1759 Co-founded the Annual Register and began work on a larger project, the History of (published posthumously as An towards an Abridgment of the English History) Entered Politics as private secretary to William Gerald Hamilton 1760-65 Began (but did not complete) Tract on the Popery Laws in Ireland 1765 Became private secretary to the Marquess of Rockingham and was elected to Parliament in December 1770 Defended the brief Rockingham administration in his Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents 1770-75 Served as agent for the New York Assembly to the British . 1774 Elected Member of Parliament for 1774-75 Entered the debate over British policy toward America with his Speech (1774) and Speech on Conciliation with America 1780 Delivered his Speech on the Economical Reform After controversy with his Bristol constituents, accepted election in the borough of Malton 1782 Joined Rockingham's second administration Initiated proceedings against the Governor General of Bengal, 1790 Published his most famous work, Reflections on the Revolution in France, launching his crusade against the French Revolution

xi Xll Sketch of Burke's Life

1791 Defended his crusade in An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs 1791-5 Challenged the foreign policy of the British government toward France in Thoughts on French Affairs (1791), Remarks on the Policy of the Allies (1793) and Letters on a Regicide Peace 1794 Mourned the death of his son Richard and retired from Parliament 1795-6 Continued to comment on political and economic affairs through his Thoughts and Details on (1795) and A Letter to a Noble Lord 1797 Died at his country home in Introduction

WHY BURKE?

The mind of Edmund Burke challenges all those who enter into the "great mine"1 of his work. His writings and speeches have had a profound and lasting legacy, resonating beyond the events and crises which characterised the late eighteenth century, and giving rise to numerous and often contending interpretations. As one scholar of Burke puts it, one "need only mention his name today to suggest an attitude, a stance, an entire world view".2 The great range and depth of Burke's thinking is matched by the vast scholarly literature which exists on various aspects of his political thought: the British Consti• tution, the role of political parties and the nature of representation, the , and the French Revolution. In addition, we now have the benefit of a comprehensive and up-to-date biography of Burke's life, compiled by one of his greatest admirers.3 A brief glance at these secondary sources reveals that Burke has been claimed as a source of inspiration for a variety of causes and political traditions. He has been interpreted as a prophet of liberal , and as the father of modern ; a spokes• person for British , and an adherent of ; an apologist for British , and a crusader against the corrup• tion of the British . Despite this plethora of opinion on Burke and his legacy, his per• spective on international relations has yet to attract detailed exami• nation. While some commentators have hinted at the importance of Burke's attitude toward international politics,4 none have systemati• cally attempted to provide a framework through which to understand his views on international relations. Moreover, though considerable attention has been given to Burke by biographers, , literary theorists, and political , few scholars of international relations have considered his works as relevant to our practical or theoretical understanding of international politics. This neglect of Burke as an international theorist seems strange, given that many of the concerns which dominated his political career - British rule in India and America, the partition of , the French Revolu• tionary Wars - were questions of "foreign policy". In commenting on such issues, Burke reflected on some of the central themes of

1 2 Edmund Burke and International Relations international relations: empire, trade, the balance of power, war and revolution. Those scholars who have addressed the international dimension of Burke's thinking have tended to do so selectively, with a particular agenda in mind. Vilho Harle, for example, focuses on the Man- icheanism of Burke's war against the French Revolution, and "his influence on the later Cold War images of the enemy".5 It is not enough, however, to emphasise the counter- features of Burke's conservatism; equally important to understanding his inter• national theory is his account of international society in "normal times". Similarly, draws on Burke for a specific theo• retical purpose: to illustrate the interplay of his traditions of interna• tional theory, and to present Burke as an archetype for his school of "Historical ."6 But while Boucher is correct to highlight Burke's "self-conscious attempt to balance and synthesise", what is more interesting is the apparent contradiction between this general con• servative predilection for harmony, and Burke's extremist response to the French Revolution. Most importantly, neither Harle nor Boucher have examined the implications of Burke's ideas for our understanding of the nature of international order. In this regard, a more useful starting point for an examination of Burke's international theory is the article by the late John Vincent, which poses a number of interesting theoretical ques• tions about Burke's depiction of European international society and endeavours to situate Burke within existing traditions of thought about international relations. The goal of this book is to build and expand on Vincent's overview, by setting Burke firmly within his intellectual and historical context, by providing a more comprehen• sive and systematic account of Burke's theory of international soci• ety, and by assessing Burke's significance in terms of competing views on the nature of international order. A clue to the neglect of Burke's international theory can be found in Vincent's observation that Burke treated international politics "as a branch of all politics".7 Thus, an additional aim of this book is to address a curiosity raised by Martin Wight in his seminal article, "Why is there no International Theory?" In this work, Wight defines international theory as a " of speculation about the relations between states, a tradition imagined as the twin of speculation about the state to which the name 'political theory' is appropriated".8 He then goes on to postulate that the three most powerful upheavals in the history of the modern states system - the , the French Introduction 3

Revolution, and twentieth century communist revolution - have not made any concrete contribution to that body of theory. Though ex• ponents of all three found themselves operating in the international sphere, Wight claims, "it requires wide reading and considerable discrimination to elicit the principles or theories of in• ternational politics by which they believed they were guided".9 By implication, these frustrations can also be expressed regarding con• servative thinkers concerned with combatting revolutionary change.10 I intend to challenge the claim that such a gap in theory exists by studying the ideas of the first great conservative thinker on revolution. In one sense, the endeavour to elicit the international theory of a status quo thinker such as Burke should be easier than that of a revolutionary . Rather than wishing to transcend the present international system of states to construct a "universal church of true believers",11 conservatives often possess clear notions about the international institutions (e.g. diplomacy, international law, the balance of power) which they are striving to preserve. Indeed, the fact that many of Burke's publications deal directly with these phe• nomena has led Wight to remark that the "only political philosopher who has turned wholly from political theory to international theory is Burke".12 Furthermore, the number of references to Burke in Wight's lectures suggests that Wight considered Burke an important source in his own quest for international theory.13 But as this book will show, Burke's response to the French Revo• lutionary challenge reveals a hierarchy of values and principles in which the "usual relations of peace and amity"14 play a secondary role. While institutions such as international law and the balance of power form part of his theory of international order, it is his more specific conception of the Commonwealth of Europe, and the nature of the consensus which underlies it, which makes his conservatism of interest to the student of international relations. The main focus of my theoretical inquiry will be Burke's conserva• tive conception of international legitimacy. Burke can be said to adhere to a particular, substantive view of international legitimacy, defined by Wight as the consensus on "the rightful membership of the family of nations; how sovereignty may be transferred; and how state succession is to be regulated "15 More specifically, what I refer to as Burke's substantive conception of international legitimacy is premised upon an underlying "homogeneity"16 in the international system - an agreement on the acceptable domestic social and political composition of states. In other words, it is an infra-national 4 Edmund Burke and International Relations conception of legitimacy, with an eye to "the principles that prevail ... within a majority of the states that form international society, as well as in the relations between them".17 This substantive understanding of international legitimacy differs from the procedural definitions which have been offered by Realist conservatives. Henry Kissinger, for example, defines international legitimacy as "no more than an international agreement about the nature of workable arrangements and about the permissible aims and methods of foreign policy".18 The consensus required for a pro• cedural conception of international legitimacy is of a weaker nature; heterogeneity in domestic social and political orders is tolerable, provided such procedural agreement can still be reached. As Stanley Hoffmann explains, adherents of this variant confine themselves to evaluating a state's external behaviour, and whether it is acceptable in terms of the standards outlined in international rules and institu• tions.19 By contrast, proponents of the substantive definition hold that the kinds of states which play the game are just as important as the rules of that game. In fact, they contend that agreement on these more basic issues is needed before the game can begin. As one scholar of legitimacy has phrased it: "order cannot be interpreted in terms of rules of the game only, since this will not account for the layout of the playing-board, nor will it tell us who is entitled to play, and why".20 As subsequent chapters will argue, it is only when one ac• counts for Burke's substantive conception of legitimacy, which in• volves a consideration of domestic social and political factors, that one can explain his response to the French Revolution and his sus• pension of the "ordinary" rules and institutions that serve to main• tain international order.

This book proceeds through two main stages. Part I focuses on Burke's conservative international theory in "normal times". Hence, it presents his general views concerning international relations as they emerge in relation to the international issues that marked the late eighteenth century. These ideas are best conveyed through two theoretical con• cepts: 1) constitutionalism, defined as a "moderating disposition" which seeks the golden mean between extremes;21 and 2) medievalism, defined as "diversity within an overall unity".22 Chapter 1 shows that Burke's approach to issues such as war, the balance of power, and international law indicates that he believes in the existence of an international society which is based on sovereign states, but which places moral and legal restraints on its members.23 This perspective Introduction 5 straddles a middle line between Realism, which emphasises interna• tional anarchy and conflict rather than co-operation, and Revo• lutionism, which looks beyond sovereign states to the moral unity of humankind.24 Chapter 2 demonstrates that Burke subscribes to a medieval vision of international society, drawing on the example of the of Western Christendom. This medievalism combines a toleration of diversity and respect for with a collective commitment to the maintenance of international order.25 Finally, Chapter 3 argues that Burke's understanding of international society is dominated by his particular vision of the Commonwealth of Europe. This historical and cultural collective of states is characterised by the ties of cultural and economic interdependence, and is sustained by an underlying homogeneity with respect to , manners, law, and dynastic right. Part II deals with the French Revolutionary threat to the cohesion of this European Commonwealth, and Burke's "conservative crusade" to combat it. It briefly outlines the British government's Realist and non-interventionist foreign policy toward Revolutionary France in order to provide a contrast for Burke's more radical alternative. Chapter 4 then goes on to discuss how Burke's interpretation of the Revolutionary threat diverges from that of his contemporaries. In particular, it explains how Burke perceives the Revolutionary pro• motion of , Jacobinism, and Regicide as a social as well as political revolution; hence, the challenge it poses is not the tradi• tional one of military arms, but rather one of subversive and conta• gious doctrine. Chapters 5 and 6 describe Burke's proposed means for safeguarding the pillars of European order against this new kind of revolutionary assault. Particular emphasis will be given to his call for preemptive intervention in the affairs of the French state, and to his advocacy of an unlimited "Holy War" against the . The conclusion to this book addresses the theoretical themes which emerge from the overview of Burke's perspective on international relations. First, it highlights the apparent paradox between Part I and Part II - between Burke's conservative goal of maintaining order, and his radical undermining of that order through interventionism and Holy War. In addition, it attempts to reconcile this tension through Burke's substantive conception of international legitimacy. For Burke, it will be argued, the procedural trimmings which help to sustain international order, such as nonintervention, international law, and diplomacy, are minimalist achievements which might naturally arise in any states system. They are therefore ranked below the more 6 Edmund Burke and International Relations substantive underpinnings of order in the Commonwealth of Europe, which apply beyond borders, and which incorporate domestic polit• ical and social considerations. If the latter are threatened by an event such as the French Revolution, the rules and institutions which flour• ish in "normal times" must be sacrificed. Thus, Burke's conservatism is directed toward preserving not just any international order, but an order based on a particular set of values and assumptions. Second, my conclusion suggests that the apparent contradiction in Burke's international theory is symptomatic of a larger tension in conservative thinking on international relations. Indeed, the debate between Pitt and Burke on the nature of the French Revolution is one that has continued to divide conservatives in subsequent cases of social revolution. More generally, Burke's crusading approach to international order has been in constant conflict with Pitt's Realist perspective. Where crusaders adhere to a substantive conception of international legitimacy and strive to maintain homogeneity within the international system, Realists subscribe to a procedural concep• tion of international legitimacy, based on a differentiation between international and domestic politics and a pluralist toleration of heterogeneity. In the final section, I return to Wight's query concerning the rela• tive paucity of international theory. Burke's marginalisation of the traditional conventions of international relations, and his treatment of 1789 as a domestic issue for the Commonwealth of Europe, may help to account for his neglect by scholars of international relations. But at the same time, it will be contended that the limited state- centric definition of international theory must be challenged if a thinker such as Burke is to be fully understood and appreciated. By characterising international theory in the way he does - as a field of inquiry distinct from political theory - Wight threatens to exclude the potential contribution of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary thinkers to our understanding of international order.26

BURKE AND THE TRADITIONS OF INTERNATIONAL THEORY

Any discussion of Burke's significance for international relations begs the question of where he "fits" in terms of existing traditions of thought. One approach is to consider whether Burke is an exponent Introduction 1 of one of Martin Wight's categories of Realism, and Revolutionism.27 Although Wight's traditions can serve as a point of departure for analysing Burke's writings and speeches on international affairs, it is debatable whether his triad is the most appropriate framework with which to characterise Burke's international theory. As the following chapters will demonstrate, Burke does not sit comfortably in any one of these categories. Instead, his writings exhibit features of all three traditions.28 Wight himself notes that while Burke "is apparently marching sturdily along the road" of Rationalism, "his movements are erratic".29 Therefore, while in certain instances I will use the benchmarks of the three traditions to clarify Burke's position on some of the main issues of international relations, I will not endeavour to place him definitively within one school of thought. This is not to deny the usefulness of Wight's traditions as such. Despite the criticisms which have been levelled at his categories,30 they serve an important peda• gogical function. Focusing on the traditions themselves, rather than on the place of any particular within them, helps to isolate the fundamental and perennial questions of international relations. Hedley Bull suggests that this was in fact Wight's goal in establishing the three traditions: "The essence of his teaching was that the truth about international politics had to be sought not in any one of these patterns of thought but in the debate among them."31 Moreover, he "saw the three traditions as forming a spectrum, within which at some points one pattern of thought merged with another, as infra• red becomes ultra-violet."32 Consequently, in his own lectures Wight discussed the tendency of his categories to slide into their polar opposites, and suggested that many of the classical thinkers "straddle the frontiers" dividing the traditions. In this sense, Burke's thought is a perfect field in which to play with Wight's schools of thought.33 Rather than labelling Burke as a Realist, Rationalist, or Revo• lutionist, I propose two alternative theoretical concepts to organise and juxtapose the two contrasting elements of his thought. Part I - Burke's general theory of international society - will draw on Wight's notion of "constitutionalism". This approach, which Wight detects in thinkers such as Grotius, , Gentz and Castle-reagh, is marked by scepticism, prudence, and a tendency to findth e via media between extreme positions.34 For the constitutionalists, the key to international order is proportion, expressed through law and guaran• teed by equilibrium. Burke's constitutionalism is exemplified by his 8 Edmund Burke and International Relations general prudential approach to politics, and by his views on war, the balance of power, and international law and . While constitutionalism is in many ways similar to Wight's cat• egory of Rationalism, the former is a better term for capturing Burke's perspective on international relations in "normal times". First, as Vincent has noted, given Burke's deep philosophical aversion to abstract reasoning - his "anti-rationalism" - it seems perverse to describe his thought as Rationalist, even in light of Wight's use of the term to classify thought about international relations.35 Second, the term "constitutionalism" helps to underline Burke's own attachment to constitutional government and his praise for the mixed British .36 Finally, and most importantly, Burke criticises the Rationalists of his day (the international lawyers) for placing too much emphasis upon the formality of "treaties and compacts" when accounting for order in international society. While his theory incor• porates many of the Rationalist tools - international law, diplomacy, the balance of power - he considers these "instrumental" facets of the "intercourse between nations" as less important than the "corre• spondence in ... customs, manners, and habits of life"37 among the members of his Commonwealth of Europe. The organising concept for Part II - Burke's response to the French Revolution - is Martin Ceadel's notion of "crusading". Ceadel de• scribes the distinctive feature of crusaders as a willingness to use aggressive war to promote order or . In other words, they combine idealistic or substantive ends with coercive means.38 Con• servative crusaders maintain that war is necessary in exceptional cir• cumstances, "in the same way that surgical operations are required to excise cancerous growths in otherwise healthy bodies".39 Burke perceives the French Revolution as one such exceptional circum• stance. While he adheres to the conservative goal of preserving inter• national order, he is prepared to use force to safeguard the foundations of that order from a revolutionary challenge. The term "conservative crusader" is analytically more meaningful in conveying the essence of Burke's reaction to the French Revolu• tion than Wight's notion of Revolutionism. First, while the means of Burke's crusade are extreme, its ends are conservative. As will be shown, his crusade for the restoration of the ancien regime does not involve the kind of perfectionism, or doctrinal uni• formity which characterises the Revolutionists.40 Second, in light of Burke's reputation as the "source of modern Conservatism",41 it is instructive to keep the conventional domestic ideologies in full view. Introduction 9

In fact, as Ceadel indicates, international theory could benefit from an interpretative framework of the ideological sort which has long been used in political theory.42 The use of the term conservative also draws attention to the important links between the international and the domestic in Burke's thought. Third, Ceadel's framework allows for a differentiation between conservative thinkers - between those who advocate crusading and those who espouse the traditional Re• alist approach to international order. I shall return to this debate between these two strands of conservative thought in the conclusion. Finally, wedding the idea of conservatism to the notion of crusading hints at the destabilising implications of Burke's philosophy. In short, the very title "conservative crusader" serves to convey the tensions and subtleties in his international theory. Nonetheless, while I use the terms constitutionalism and conserva• tive crusading to characterise and organise Burke's ideas, I do not purport to examine the status of these concepts as "traditions". In the final analysis, the goal is not to develop a coherent Burkean tradition of thinking about international relations which can be traced through history, or to posit him as an archetype of any existing cat• egory of thought. Instead, the objective is to identify the theoretical assumptions which he held about the pertinent issues of international relations - international society, order and legitimacy - and to sug• gest where and how his ideas have been re-examined by later think• ers concerned with the particular question of revolution, and the more general question of the nature of international order. It is the recurrence of the debates on these fundamental themes, more than any specific invocation of Burke's name, which will be the focus of my attention.

METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS

Before proceeding with this treatment of Burke's international theory, two general objections to such a study must be confronted. The first deals with the tension between Burke's theory and practice, and the second with the "textual" interpretation of classical thinkers.

Theory Versus Practice: Burke's Anti-rationalism

The first methodological challenge is the commonly held view that Burke was first and foremost a practical politician, not a theorist, and 10 Edmund Burke and International Relations that any attempt to systematise his work is nothing more than selec• tive or wishful thinking. This sentiment is captured by Burke's Eng• lish contemporary, William Cobbett: How amusing it is to hear the world disputing and wrangling about the motives, and principles, and opinion of Burke. He had no no• tions, no principles, no opinion of his own... He was a poor, needy dependant of a Boroughmonger, to serve whom, and please whom, he wrote; and for no other purpose 43 Proponents of this view argue that Burke's writings are heavily influ• enced by partisanship rather than dedicated scholarship. Sir Lewis Namier describes Burke as nothing more than an opportunistic party "hack", who concealed partisan self-interest behind a facade of noble political principles.44 Even those sympathetic to Burke's ideas ac• knowledge the problems inherent in analysing the theoretical contri• butions of a political practitioner. As puts it: "Even his prescient understanding of the character, importance, and future of the French Revolution is obscured by the extreme partisanship to which his understanding compelled him. He loses credit for his fore• sight because he acted on it."45 It is true that Burke wrote many of his works while sitting as an Opposition Member of Parliament in the British House of Commons. Consequently, his thoughts are integrally linked with the salient political events of his day. Furthermore, since "politicians are rarely, if ever, disinterested philosophers",46 one should not be hypnotised into thinking that Burke is always working on the elevated plane of pure theory. The majority of his writings and speeches are devoted to promoting and justifying the policies of the short-lived Rockingham administration (1765-66), of which he was a prominent participant, or in outlining his alternative prescriptions to those offered by Pitt's government. His ideas do not appear in dispassionate arguments but in polemical form. More significantly, Burke's sceptical disposition - what refers to as "anti-rationalism"47 - makes him inherently distrustful of all reasoning not inspired by affection for what is "near and dear". In his satirical work on the analytical reasoning of Lord Bolingbroke, A Vindication of Natural Society (1756), Burke warns of the implications of too much theorising: The editor is satisfied that a mind which has no restraint from a sense of its own weakness, of its subordinate rank in the creation, Introduction 11

and of the extreme danger of letting the imagination loose upon some subjects, may very plausibly attack everything the most ex• cellent and venerable.48

Such scepticism places Burke firmly within the ranks of conserva• tism, an ideology noted for its empiricism and its denunciation of metaphysical discussions of what constitutes "the good".49 This critique of rationalism is rooted in two typically conservative postulates. First, as with his predecessor Montesquieu, Burke ac• knowledges the complexity of society and its institutions, and stresses the difficulty of foreseeing their receptivity to any grand or abstract political programme. And second, he calls into question the Enlight• enment faith in the power of reason by asserting that an individual's capacity to understand and speculate is severely limited: "We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock or reason; because we suspect that this stock in each man is small w5° As Chapter 1 will show, Burke believes there are large areas of human experience which do not derive from the exercise of reason. He therefore gives credence to other possible motivations for action, such as imagination, habit, or prejudice. Does all of this anti-rationalist sentiment suggest that one should abandon the task of eliciting Burke's theory of international rela• tions? Are his ideas nothing more than political pamphleteering? Such conclusions are premature. First, as Alfred Cobban points out, Burke does not maintain his denunciation of theory consistently. He speaks out only against "fallacious, unfounded, or imperfect theory" and stands ready to accept those doctrines which have stood the test of time and experience.51 Second, the speculations of his rationalistic contemporaries lead Burke to overstate his empirical bias. What he protests to most is not theory as such, but that "blind and furious spirit of "52 which applies metaphysical schemes to polit• ical problems without considering practical realities. And third, Burke's repudiation of rationalism is in itself theoretical. As Vincent has observed, his position is "a theory of politics which exalts prac• tice above every other thing".53 His principles of politics are princi• ples of action. However, one can also step beyond this exaltation of practical politics in assessing Burke's theoretical contributions. Although his writings are directed at specific historical problems, they are also interspersed with more general formulations. To cite Mansfield: "[Burke's] rhetoric and his absorption in timely issues were directed 12 Edmund Burke and International Relations by philosophical reflection and supported by vast learning. Burke wrote for the moment, but with all men and all time under his eye."54 This position is shared by one of Burke's recent biographers, Stanley Ayling. From the vast array of Burke's reflections on particular events and crises, Ayling argues, "a and politics and religion, of life itself, may be roughly assembled".55 Michael Free• man, for example, argues that in responding to the particular chal• lenge of upheaval in France, Burke forwards a general theory of the causes and consequences of revolution. According to Freeman, one can appeal to Burke's general principles when analysing subsequent revolutionary situations.56 In a similar fashion, I hope to demonstrate that by considering Burke's reaction to the issues of his day - particularly the French Revolution - and his policy prescriptions for the British government, we can derive his general theory of international relations. We can then refer to his vision of European international society, with its substantive brand of international legitimacy, in discussions concern• ing the nature of international order in periods of stability as well as revolutionary upheaval.

Text Versus Context: the Challenge from Skinner

A second challenge to my treatment of Burke as a theorist of inter• national relations emerges from the methodological debate between "textualists" and "contextualists".57 The controversy surrounds the assertion of Quentin Skinner that any "textualist" study, such as the present one, can never yield a complete understanding of a classical thinker. The main threads of his attack can be reduced to two arguments. First, Skinner questions the impartiality of the analytical frame• work that a textualist scholar brings to a work, asserting that it will consist largely in the search for what the interpreter's own outlook dictates as important. In particular, Skinner opposes attempts to place the "past masters" into modern intellectual schools or categories, the content of which are predetermined. In fact, he believes that judging classical texts with such abstract criteria commits not merely a meth• odological fallacy, but a kind of moral error.58 Second, Skinner doubts the very existence of any persistent problems or issues on which textual scholars can base their investigation. Rather than perennial problems, he argues, "there are only individual answers to individual Introduction 13 questions, and as many different questions as there are questioners". Furthermore, he suggests that there is an "overwhelming element of contingency" in the answers that classical philosophers have given to such questions.59 For Skinner, all systems of ideas correspond to specific historical phases of experience, and it is futile to try to gen• eralise about them. Skinner also highlights certain "mythologies" which characterise a textual approach to the history of political thought. The first, the "mythology of doctrines", occurs when an interpreter gathers to• gether the scattered or incidental remarks by a thinker on a certain subject and arranges them into a "doctrine".60 A second pitfall, the "mythology of coherence", ascribes to a thinker a logical consistency which he himself never attained or desired to attain, frequently dis• counting from the analysis entire works that would impair the al• leged coherence.61 A final methodological sin is Skinner's "mythology of parochialism", in which a modern-day interpreter sees something apparently familiar in the course of studying an alien argument and provides a misleadingly familiar-looking description. For Skinner, simply because the same word appears does not mean it conveys the same idea, or that it is used with the same intention. In his words: "[There] is no determinate idea to which various contributed, but only a variety of statements made with the same or approximately equivalent words by a variety of different agents with a variety of intentions "62 Even if one could avoid all of these pitfalls, Skinner believes the very idea of concentrating solely on a text is an inadequate and faulty methodology. Instead, the aim of his "new history school" is to treat the classical works of political thought as historical events, within a particular context.63 This "contextual" approach requires the interpreter to look outside the text itself and strive for a redescription of "the more general social and intellectual matrix" out of which it arose.64 Crucial to setting these contextual parameters are not only the inherited assumptions about political society accepted by a par• ticular theorist, but also the normative vocabulary and rules of com• munication prevalent in her time. Hence, it is necessary to examine the writings of lesser known personalities to understand fully how political thinking and discourse were conducted during that period of history.65 This focus on language stems from Skinner's conviction that works of literature and philosophy are social acts, rather than abstract state• ments which can be proven right or wrong.66 Consequently, one must 14 Edmund Burke and International Relations look beyond the surface meanings of words and sentences to the intentions behind them: the "illocutionary force" with which they were said and the questions to which they were addressed. In so doing, the interpreter can ascertain whether the author was accept• ing, repudiating, or perhaps even polemically ignoring the prevailing assumptions and conventions of his time.67 In sum, Skinner believes there are two questions involved in the meaning and understanding of a text: first, what the text means; and second, what its author may have meant. To fully understand a work of philosophy, both questions must be answered. For my purposes, some attention to Skinner's methodological demands is certainly requisite. Indeed, Burke's own empiricism and anti-rationalism suggest that one should not attempt to divorce his ideas from their living political and social environment. Therefore, the important political crises of his age - the , the Irish Question, the partition of Poland, the impeachment of Warren Hastings, and the war against France - will be discussed in some detail to provide a better understanding of the development of his international theory. In fact, there is a great deal of clarity to be gained from Skinner's assertion that any classic work is an act of political argument. Burke's Vindication, while commonly thought to be a defense of raison d'etat, is in reality a parody written to mock the political ideas of Lord Bolingbroke.68 Secondly, a proper contextual study of Burke must address the intellectual milieu in which he operated. Accordingly, a considera• tion of international relations thinking in the late eighteenth century with respect to issues such as the balance of power, non-intervention and international law, also forms part of this study. Attention will be paid both to Burke's political counterparts, such as William Pitt and Charles Fox, and to more theoretical figures, such as Emer de Vattel and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Chapter 3 compares Burke's notion of the Commonwealth of Europe with the ideas of Europe advanced by his Enlightenment contemporaries, Chapter 4 summarises the gen• eral foreign policy debate which occurred in Britain over the appro• priate response to the revolutionary events in France, and Chapters 5 and 6 refer to the writings of the eminent international lawyers of his age on questions of intervention and the balance of power.69 This comparison of Burke with his political and intellectual counterparts, which does not appear in any previous study of his thinking on inter• national relations, accentuates the distinctiveness of Burke's views on revolution, international legitimacy and the nature of international Introduction 15 order. In some cases, the very fact that his ideas were not endorsed by his peers is itself worth exploring. An examination of Burke's linguistic universe can also produce a richer understanding of his writings and speeches, and help to clarify their theoretical implications. Therefore, in order to reveal what Burke himself had to say about issues of international relations, I often allow the full flavour of his prose to shine forth without interruption. In a similar fashion, I frequently cite passages from the works of his intellectual predecessors and the speeches of his political rivals.70 By acquiring a taste of the vocabulary and style of argumentation used in Burke's period, one is better able to determine when he is accept• ing conventional wisdom, attempting to stretch it, or seeking to chal• lenge it. Chapter 5, for example, will illustrate how Burke tries to legitimate his strategy of intervention against France by extrapolat• ing the conventional language of international law. This contextual exercise, which underscores the degree to which Burke feels bound by established wisdom, reminds us that his "radical" response to the Revolution must be understood within the context of his larger con• servative disposition. At the same time, however, it will indicate that he was attempting to address an entirely new phenomenon - social revolution - with old and inadequate concepts. Thus, it improves our understanding of some of the inconsistencies and paradoxes in his thought. Finally, in order to avoid Skinner's "mythology of coherence", it is crucial to recognise that Burke's ideas evolved over time, and that his responses varied in terms of the particular issue he was address• ing. While Burke has been dubbed the father of conservatism, he is also the man who espoused such liberal reforms as relief for Catholics, abolition of the Slave Trade, limitation of Royal patron• age, and reform of the British East India Company. Rather than gloss over the tensions in Burke's thought and suggest some kind of all-encompassing whole, I will try to account for such curiosities and suggest why his international theory made them inescapable. It is precisely this tension and ambiguity, I would argue, that make Burke relevant and interesting for international relations theory. Nonetheless, while accepting Skinner's warnings about proper his• torical inquiry, I will not replicate his contextual methodology in its entirety. In fact, I believe it is possible to contest his project on a variety of fronts. First, although a thorough understanding of a classical thinker demands consideration of her particular context, it is arguably an 16 Edmund Burke and International Relations additional task of the historian to make the past accessible to the present and to throw light on current problems. In the words of : "only an interest in the life of the present can move one to investigate past fact."71 Skinner's preoccupation with method threatens to lose sight of why the subject matter is important. But even if one were to reject this argument about the purposes of history, it is still possible to object to Skinner's mode of investigation. To assume that the intentions of authors can be re-enacted fully by an uninvolved observer is to subscribe to a positivist model of his• torical interpretation, now largely in disrepute. In short, we cannot be the selfless chroniclers or "recording angels"72 that Skinner would wish us to be. Historical interpretation inevitably involves a "fusion of horizons"73 between the original author and the interpreter. And in carrying out this fusion, historical materials will be dealt with in terms of certain modern-day perspectives and organising tools. In other words, it is not just contemporary concerns which will colour an inquiry, but also contemporary procedures for thinking, writing, and speaking.74 If interpreters wish to be understood by their peers, they must draw upon the prevailing instruments of their linguistic and academic universe. This phenomenon is particularly true for scholars of a young discipline such as international relations, who invariably refer to tracts of history with a largely twentieth century vocabulary. Second, in the hands of some, Skinner's contextual methodology can become excessively sociological. Strict emphasis on social con• text threatens to "cannibalise" each ; she is represented only by those aspects of her thought which appear to be relevant to prac• tical problems of her particular place and time.75 This reductionist tendency frequently leads to the conclusion that a writer is merely the epiphenomenon of deeper tensions in society (e.g. as an apologist for the ; Hobbes as a legitimator of possessive ). Previous studies of Burke have often erred in this capacity, by focusing on one part of his circumstances to the exclu• sion of all others.76 But as Freeman has argued, such an application of Skinner's method threatens to marginalise the importance of the individual author.77 There is too much emphasis on the parameters of thought and action, and not enough on the thinker or the actor. Third, while most support the aspiration to achieve a sound his• torical method, Skinner's strategy narrows the spatio-temporal boundaries of historical inquiry. It is crucial to remember that the subjective intentions of the author are only half of the story; there is also an objective dimension to an author's utterances. To put it Introduction 17 another way, language and ideas have a life of their own. Many thinkers simply did not comprehend the full theoretical or logical implications of what they said or wrote. As interpreters we seek to understand not only the specific, transitory event - the written or spoken word - but also the "surplus meaning"78 of the text which endures. As John Keane has noted, it is the fate of any text that its meaning will be dependent on an indefinite number of readers from one generation to the next.79 My final critique of Skinner flows from this phenomenon of "sur• plus meaning". Ultimately, it is possible to challenge his thesis that there is no enduring body of political thought to which a textualist scholar can appeal. It is true that ideas and questions do not fall like manna from heaven; as with all aspects of human activity they are produced in given circumstances. Nonetheless, there are situations and dilemmas common to - and to groups of individuals - remote from one another in space and time. Therefore, provided they are phrased abstractly enough, there are persistent questions or concerns which have demarcated political theorising, and which can be validly applied across historical boundaries: who should rule? why? in what manner? Though the form of those questions will be deter• mined by the particular culture or period, the issues are fundamen• tally the same.80 More importantly, there is a sense in which the answers that the past masters have offered to these enduring questions can still "speak to us". While philosophers should not be arbitrarily detached from their context, Skinner's contention that we should "learn to do our own thinking for ourselves"81 threatens to devastate their philosophi• cal legacy. If the answers offered by the classical thinkers seem ar• chaic to our culture and period, it may be possible to reformulate their lessons in relation to contemporary needs. Even if relevancy cannot be established, there may still be value in the thought pro• cesses which are required to determine why. In addition, examining past solutions may motivate us to search for new questions and an• swers, or to conduct our analysis on a different level or in a new direction. In sum, our philosophical predecessors can help us "to think for ourselves". In this sense, Skinner's suggestion that a good contextual study should seek out the unknown compatriots of more famous figuresseem s to miss the point. Our attention is turned to the classical theorists, rather than their more pedestrian contemporaries, precisely because of the sharpness of their thought processes. In Friedrich Meinecke's words: 18 Edmund Burke and International Relations

[The] ideas which guide historical life, do certainly not indeed spring solely from the intellectual workshop of the great thinkers; on the contrary, they have a much broader and deeper origin. But it is in this workshop that they are condensed and solidified; it is there, in many cases, that they first assume the form which will have an effect on the of events and the actions of men.82

One does not have to go as far as , who imparts super• human qualities of detachment to these philosophers,83 to recognise that they were not just ordinary men and women and that they some• how stand out from their peers in terms of intellectual and oratorical capacity. Most importantly, they distinguish themselves through their ability to justify their views on principle rather than on pure expedience. To conclude, I do not deny the salience of Skinner's historical method.84 I simply contend that his exercise in uncovering authorial intentions is not in itself enough. While the historical and contextual specificity of a thinker's ideas should be conveyed, we are not obliged to cease our investigation at that point.85 We can also address their continuity and "surplus meaning". This sense of legacy is especially suited to a study of Burke, given that he was a strong proponent of the "accumulated wisdom of the ages" and a sceptic of progressivist theories of moral and material advancement. In the following, Martin Wight captures the essence of this argument for continuity:

One of the main purposes of education, is to escape from the Zeitgeist, fromth e mean, narrow, provincial spirit which is constantly assuring us that we are the summit of human achieve• ment ... It is a liberation of the spirit to acquire perspective ... to learn that the same moral predicaments and the same ideas have been explored before.86

This is not to suggest that there are no predicaments or problems without historical precedents. It is merely a call to consider when and how the classical thinkers may be incorporated to address the recur• ring issues and problems of international relations. In essence, it is to accept that there is more than one way of thinking and learning about international politics.87 Thus, in common with those subscribing to the "classical approach"88 to international theory, my study will focus on continuities - on the Introduction 19 fundamental questions which are endemic to any system of sovereign states. Such perennial issues include: does a collectivity of states constitute a society? to what degree does that society presuppose a common culture? how is order maintained within international soci• ety? how does revolution threaten the basis of that order? how should international society respond to a revolutionary challenge?89 Burke's writings and speeches take us to the very heart of these recurring questions. While his answers undoubtedly reflect the specific social, political and linguistic context of the eighteenth century, they are grounded in principle rather than pragmatism or opportunism. Hence, they can rise above such historical horizons to inspire modern de• bate. Burke's acknowledged stature as a powerful thinker and a persuasive orator make him an indispensable resource for those con• cerned with the particular challenge of modern social revolution, and the more general question of the nature of international order. To reiterate the words of Laski, anyone interested in such questions would do well to "refresh his mind by discussion with Burke's mind".

SOURCES

The methodological challenges discussed above have direct implica• tions for my selection of sources. Given Burke's hesitations about theory, and his active participation in political affairs, any attempt to present his international theory must draw upon his reactions to the issues and crises of his time. As Cobban has noted, many interpreters of Burke have erroneously attempted to split his thought into "water• tight compartments"90 by considering these events in isolation. As a result, I have found it necessary to consult all the mediums of Burke's thought - personal correspondence, parliamentary speeches, official pamphlets, and theoretical essays - rather than any one philosoph• ical work. In particular, while previous studies of Burke and the French Revolution have tended to centre on his Reflections, I have found some of the lesser-known pamphlets, such as the Thoughts on French Affairs and the Remarks on the Policy of the Allies, to be equally fruitful for elaborating his international theory. In addition, the published collection of Burke's private letters, which has only recently been made available in its entirety, is a rich treasury for Burke's views on domestic and international politics. As Mansfield remarks, "we cannot read Burke's correspondence without being constantly reminded that the private Burke lives for the public stage".91 20 Edmund Burke and International Relations

The absence of one definitive philosophical tract is indicative of Burke's practical disposition. According to recent literary analysts, there is a certain "dramatic quality" to Burke's ideas, which makes it more appropriate to talk of his "political wisdom" than his "polit• ical doctrine".92 Moreover, the diversity of mediums in which Burke operates reflects the absence of a "division of intellectual labour"93 in the late eighteenth century. The range of activities required of a writer and political figure in this period was generally wider than we would expect today. However, this sheer weight of material can also pose logistical hurdles for anyone seeking to interpret Burke's ideas. Thomas Copeland, who edited Burke's correspondence, highlights the poten• tial difficulties in dealing with such a "Jack of all trades":

[Burke] was an orator, a pamphleteer, a political philosopher, an aesthetician, a historian and a journalist - if we go no farther. Naturally such multifariousness increased the difficulty of passing judgments upon him. Unless the critic is as protean as Burke, he will find it impossible to judge in all fields at once *

In addition, given the public and political nature of much of this material, authorship is not always easy to ascertain. Burke's work on parliamentary committees, for example, is part of a collective enter• prise; therefore, it is difficult to isolate his particular contribution.95 Similarly, while I have referred to passages from the Annual Register as evidence of Burke's views, there is some controversy over whether all of these extracts came from his pen.96 And finally,th e accuracy of Parliamentary History is a matter of dispute, given that the written records were frequently taken from second-hand newspaper or peri• odical accounts.97 Notwithstanding these caveats, Parliamentary His• remains an invaluable resource for the study of Burke's ideas.98 In fact, James Joll contends that the House of Commons was the most important place for the discussion of international affairs in late eighteenth century Britain.99 Finally, a brief word should be said about the choice of editions for Burke's Works. As this book was being written, a new collection of Burke's writings and speeches have gradually emerged under the editorial direction of Dr Paul Langford. Wherever possible, I have made use of these latest volumes. For those texts which have yet to be encompassed by the Langford editions, I have referred to the Bohn series of Burke's Works. This edition most faithfully reflects Introduction 21 the original eight volume collection of Burke's Works (edited by F. and C. Rivington) which was begun in his lifetime, and has been the standard set of volumes used by interpreters of Burke's political theory.

Parti Burke's Theory of International Society

INTRODUCTION

A good starting point for an investigation of Burke's ideas on inter• national relations is the fact that he recognises no analytical discon• tinuity between domestic and international politics. In John Vincent's words: "His style was to write 'as with individuals, so also with na• tions'."1 In a very medieval spirit, Burke depicts the state as part of a greater hierarchy of allegiance, with at the top and individuals at the bottom: To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we pro• ceed towards a love to our country and to mankind.2 Moreover, as part of the Stoic-Christian Natural Law tradition,3 he insists that human beings have moral obligations to one another which are more profound than their separation into states, and that it is possible to make judgments about, and take action within, the realm of another sovereign. Thus, to borrow Andrew Linklater's phrase, Burke makes little distinction between "men and citizens".4 His rel• evant moral community incorporates a wider "range of persons to whom the common good is common".5 As a result of this link between the domestic and the international, any treatment of Burke's international theory must examine his re• actions to both domestic and international issues. Accordingly, Part I of this book will discuss Burke's larger conservative political phi• losophy, focusing particularly on his conception of human nature and his understanding of what constitutes a healthy and well-ordered society. In addition, it will outline Burke's views on some of the prominent questions of international relations which characterise the late eighteenth century, such as the balance of power, the use of force, international law and morality, and relations with the non- European world. In the process, I will argue that Burke diverges

23 24 Edmund Burke and International Relations from a purely Realist understanding of international relations, which holds the state as the ultimate unit of political life,6 and instead posits the existence of a wider European international society to embrace and restrain sovereign entities. Chapter 1 illustrates that Burke's prudential approach to political questions, which strives for equilibrium and moderation in the con• struction of , justifies describing his international theory in terms of Martin Wight's notion of "constitutionalism": the propen• sity to seek the golden mean. In international affairs, this constitu• tionalism can be seen in Burke's views on the legitimacy of war in international society, his conception of the balance of power, his weak (as opposed to strong) sense of sovereignty, and his belief in the restraining force of international law and morality. Chapter 2 elaborates the "medieval" nature of Burke's philoso• phy, by highlighting his predilection for , diversity and decentralisation. This medievalism is manifest in Burke's veneration for the past, his non-contractarian theory of the state, his hierarchical understanding of social order, in which the intermediate institutions of play a crucial role, and his elevation of the "spirit of religion". It is most evident in Burke's vision of a unified yet decen• tralised British Empire, which respects the diverse traditions of the colonies and grants them a substantial degree of local autonomy. Chapter 3 addresses the nature of the order which underpins Burke's international society, by examining in greater detail his no• tion of the "Commonwealth of Europe". It demonstrates that Burke sees European international society as based upon a transnational consensus with regard to religion, law, manners and prescriptive right, and held together by the material ties of interdependence and the emotional bonds of sentiment and affection. More importantly, this underlying homogeneity has a crucial "reinforcing effect" on the maintenance of order among and within the members of his Com• monwealth. Finally, I will suggest that Burke's strong commitment to preserving homogeneity and solidarity in Europe can have destab• ilising consequences for the traditional rules and procedures which regulate state relations. 1 Constitutionalism

THE PRUDENTIAL APPROACH TO POLITICS

Prudence: The First of Virtues

The key to Burke's conservative philosophy lies in his advancement of the prudential approach to politics. As noted in the Introduction, Burke rejects any application of metaphysics to political life, insisting that prudence, rather than abstract principles, should have "entire dominion over every exercise of power committed into its hands."1 For him, prudence is "the first of Virtues" and the director, regulator and standard of all others.2 In Burke's writing, prudence refers not to the Hobbesian notion of raw expediency, but to the practical means by which more general goals can be fulfilled and harmonised with the concrete circumstances of human life. It is this "moral prudence"3 which the statesman must employ in designing social institutions. Burke's ideal head of state is one who can discern the golden mean between extremes: "[He] forms the best judgement of all moral disquisitions, who has the greatest number and variety of considerations in one view before him, and can take them in with the best possible consideration of the middle results of all."4 Prudence therefore leads the statesman to acquiesce in a "qualified plan that does not come up to the full of the abstract Idea", rather than to "push for the more perfect, which cannot be attain'd without tearing to pieces the whole contexture of the Commonwealth "5 Because the subject matter of politics - humanity - is complex and imperfect, all government is ultimately founded on "compromise and barter".6 Almost every aspect of Burke's thought breathes this predilection for the juste milieu.7 In a conservative fashion, he holds moderation and stability as the standards of virtue, and discord and excess as the essence of evil. Indeed, the brunt of his infamous attack on Jean- Jacques Rousseau deals precisely with the issue of extremism. In Burke's words: "He (Rousseau) seldom can discover that precise point in which excellence consists, where to exceed is almost as bad as to fall short, and which every step you go beyond you grow worse and worse."8 By contrast, Burke infuses all political thought and action with the "conciliating" and "cementing Virtue" of moderation.9 In

25 26 Edmund Burke and International Relations the conclusion to his best-known work, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), he describes himself as one who "when the equi• poise of the vessel in which he sails, may be endangered by overload• ing it upon one side, is desirous of carrying the small weight of his to that which may preserve its equipoise."10 Burke's elevation of prudence flows from a deeper aesthetic pref• erence for "harmonious proportion".11 As argued by C.P. Courtney, while Burke's thought is often associated with the ideas of the Ro• mantics, who rebelled against the rationalism of the Enlightenment, his theoretical venture into the realm of the should be seen as standing between the neo-classical obsession with reason and the later Romantic preoccupation with emotion.12 His definition of taste, for example, is a compromise between these two poles, defined with an eye to both the rational and the sensual faculties.13 In one of his earliest works, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1756), Burke applies these aesthetic ideas to the question of what constitutes a healthy and balanced social order. In this tract, relates to "female" prin• ciples, such as harmony, love, sympathy and community, while the sublime reflects "male" notions such as self-preservation, individual• ism, assertiveness, and power. Both qualities, Burke maintains, are essential to a well-ordered society. While the sublime virtues ensure respect for authority, the qualities of beauty play a more indirect role in fostering social cohesion: "There is something so over-ruling in whatever inspires us with awe, in all things which belong so remotely to terror, that nothing else can stand in their presence. There lie the qualities of beauty ... exerted to mollify the rigour and sternness of the terror, which is the natural concomitant of greatness."14 Although the beautiful virtues are weaker and less visible, they remain a crucial element in Burke's overall political theory. As Christopher Reid phrases it, they simply operate at a different level - horizontally as opposed to vertically: "they appear to establish a series of 'lateral' alliances, while the political relations of the sublime are essentially those of subordination."15 Nonetheless, as Part II will show, Burke believes that when the stability of society is ruptured, beautiful qualities must be overruled and the "magisterial sublime" must "exercise its powers unqualified and undiminished".16

Burke's Theory of Human Nature

Burke's spirit of prudence is clearly evident in his attitude toward human nature. According to B.T. Wilkins, Burke's theory of human Constitutionalism 27 nature strikes a compromise between particularism and universalism.17 While he acknowledges the distinctions among individuals which arise from geography, culture, history and religion, he also allows that human nature remains in some respects constant: "Human Nature ever was, and ever will be the same. It only takes different methods of displaying itself according to the genius of the people, the auster• ity or licentiousness of time and place."18From a moral point of view, human beings are unchanging: they possess a capacity for good as well as evil. But from the political point of view, society can be arranged so as to alter the amount of good or evil at any given time. "Society cannot exist," Burke states, "unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without."19 In other words, Burke shares neither the Realist view that human nature is evil or irredeemable, nor the Revolutionist faith in the basic goodness and perfectibility of human beings. Instead, his Rationalist theory of human nature stands somewhere in between.20 For him, the most effective institutions are not those which try to mold individuals into perfection, but those that accept their flaws and build on their moral potential. Any ambition to regenerate human nature is a form of impiety, which threatens to place the love of an ideal above the love of human beings. Of the French Revolutionaries, he remarks: "By hating vices too much, they come to love men too little."21 By contrast, Burke's concern is always with "man in the concrete ... with common human life and human Actions "22 As he remarks in the Reflections: "I have endeavoured through my whole life to make myself acquainted with human nature: otherwise I should be unfit to take even my humble part in the service of mankind."23 For Burke, the "science of constructing a commonwealth"24 neces• sitates a recognition of two basic laws of human nature. The first is that individuals are primarily creatures of their emotions: "Politics ought to be adjusted, not to human reasonings, but to human nature; of which the reason is but a part, and by no means the greatest part."25 In fact, he insists that "the influence of reason in producing our passions is nothing near so extensive as is commonly believed." "Men often act right from their feelings", he continues, "who after• wards reason but ill on them from principle".26 Thus, in contrast to many of his rationalist eighteenth century contemporaries, reason frequently plays a subordinate part to senti• ment and emotion in Burke's political theory.27 He describes reason as an "unfeeling" faculty, which simply selects, rejects, and arranges ideas, and which lacks "the life-giving impulse of the emotions". 28 Edmund Burke and International Relations

Reason alone, he insists, has no force to rule; "manners" and "public affections" must supplement it.28 Consequently, Burke urges men to follow their "nature" rather than their "speculations" when building social institutions.29 The second law in Burke's theory is the basic social impulse of human beings.30 This conviction is manifest in his critique of contract theory and its depiction of "a-social" human beings in the "state of nature": The state of ... is a state of nature; and much more truly so than a savage and incoherent mode of life. Art is man's nature. We are as much, at least, in a state of nature in formed manhood, as in immature and helpless infancy.31 Hence, for Burke the term "nature" is more applicable to the social state. Human institutions, far from placing artificial restraints on individuals, build on their inherent sociability. It follows that Burke does not subscribe to "pre-social" such as rebellion or resistance to authority. Because he cannot con• ceive of human beings independently of society, he does not believe in rights existing prior to or above society: What were the previous to his entering into a state of society? Whether they were paramount to, or inferior to social rights, he neither knew nor cared. Man he had found in society, and that man he looked at - he knew nothing of any other man - nor could he argue on any of his rights.32 As for abstract rights, they are "too airy a diet" and ill suited to the "mixed constitution of man, which [is] composed of speculation and practice, of mind and body " Such rights "might be discussed in some other state", he continues, "but they were totally unfit for this life, and consequently could not be fit for argument.33 Instead, Burke's theory gives credence to social rights, such as the right to property by descent, the right to education, or the right to justice. Civil rights, he concludes, are what constitute the "real rights of men".34 Despite the "radical infirmity"35 marking human nature, Burke maintains that the basic sociability of human beings allows statesmen to channel individual passions in a positive and orderly direction. "As our Creator has designed we should be united by the bond of sympathy," he writes, "he has strengthened that bond by a propor• tionable delight."36 The statesman must accentuate the non-rational Constitutionalism 29 aspects of humanity, for it is these "beautiful" virtues that encourage social and orderly behaviour. In particular, Burke insists that social institutions must build on the sentiment of prejudice - that tendency in human nature to attach itself to people, things, and ways of living that are immediate and familiar: All creatures love their offspring; next to that they love their home; they have a fondness for the place where they have been bred, for the Habitations they have dwelt in, for the stalls in which they have been fed, the pastures they have browsed in, and the wilds in which they have roamed.37 As John Lester observes, Burke's philosophy of the state and of society demonstrates a "strong feeling for the close fabric of affec• tions which bind men first of all to their kin, and progressively to their kind".38 For Burke, the individual is "a creature of habit" and opinions, and "of sentiments growing of them".39 As will be shown, he holds these prejudices and sentiments to be as crucial for order in European international society as he does in domestic society. In addition, given the mystery and complexity of human nature, Burke advises rulers to be guided by the "wisdom of the ages" - the general prejudices, habits and customs transmitted by our ancestral past. This "permanent sense of mankind", he claims, "is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision " Burke prefers to put his faith in this "general bank and capital of nations, and of ages", rather than one individual's "stock of reason".40

The Mixed British Constitution

In Burke's opinion, the British Constitution's balance of monarch• ical, aristocratic, and popular principles of government embodies the virtues of prudence and moderation. "The whole scheme of our mixed constitution", he explains, "is to prevent any one of its principles from being carried as far, as taken by itself, and theoretically, it would go."41 He therefore describes the British state as a hereditary , directed by the , and balanced by both the wealth and dignity of the realm, and "the feeling" of the people.42 In short, the British Constitution epitomises Burke's golden mean. It is a testament to the "wisdom of the ages" and to the "happy effect 30 Edmund Burke and International Relations of following nature" in the construction of social institutions.43 "Our Constitution", he remarks, "is like our Island, which uses and re• strains its subject Sea; in vain the waves roar. In that Constitution I know... both that I am free, and that I am not free dangerously to myself or to others."44 Nonetheless, Burke believes this constitutional balance is a deli• cate one, which can only be preserved by prudential and vigilant statesmanship. In fact, his early parliamentary career was dominated by resistance against the increasing "Court Influence" of the King's friends, and their efforts to deprive the aristocracy of its traditional role in taming the power of the Crown.45 Similarly, during the Regency Crisis of 1788, Burke sought to prevent the popular element of the constitution from overshadowing the monarchical element by sup• porting the Prince's hereditary right to assume full powers as Regent.46 "The constitution alone", Burke proclaims, "cannot defend itself. It required all the manly efforts of those who were its guardians to repel every storm which menaced its overthrow."47 Indeed, as Part II will demonstrate, Burke is prepared to use armed force to defend it.

Burke's Political Economy

A final example of Burke's prudential disposition is his pragmatic approach to economic policy. Although Burke is often interpreted as a pure laissezfaire ,48 his perspective reflects prudence rather than dedication to abstract principle. "I never ask what Government may do in theory", he writes, "except theory be the Object; when one talks of Practice they must act according to circumstances".49 While Burke often appropriates the ""50 imagery of , his affinity with the latter's economic philosophy should not be overstated.51 Like Smith, Burke exhibits a penchant for bal• ance, equipoise and harmony. However, he believes these virtues must be actively cultivated by prudential statesmanship. One cannot guarantee that they will result from God or nature. Thus, the simi• larity with Smith's idea of a harmonious natural order is more in the realm of action than theory. Burke's concern is to replicate the method of nature - seeking the golden mean - in the conduct of state affairs.52 Furthermore, though Burke has been described as "the first great English statesman to preach ",53 his policy recommenda• tions stem more from a pragmatic desire to preserve the solidarity of the British Empire than any firm commitment to liberal principles. Hence, for example, he justifies on grounds of "imperial defense" Constitutionalism 31 those measures in the Navigation Acts which regulated trade be• tween Britain and America.54 Moreover, in contrast to Smith, he does not support schemes to replace the East India Company's monopoly on trade with a system open to other British or foreign merchants.55 Most importantly, as Chapter 3 will demonstrate, Burke does not subscribe to the Enlightenment faith in the "civilising" effects of free trade,56 or in its ability to guarantee peace among nations. Finally, though Burke prefers to rely on the market to settle "the balance of wants"57 in society, he is primarily a moderate Whig who acknowledges a positive role for government in economic and social policy. Thus, while there is a clear strand of non-interventionism in Burke's economic thought,58 there are also cases in which he wel• comes government involvement. In his writings on the slave trade, for example, he calls on the government to inspect ships, license trade, and set guidelines for the treatment of slaves.59 As James Coniff puts it, Burke believes "that where the purpose was just the power must be sufficient."60 The occasion and amount of intervention de• pends on the more general moral and political goals to be served. In sum, Burke's economic views exemplify his prudential approach to policy making. In matters of trade and commerce, as in all other aspects of his thought, he considers each case on its own merits and strives to attain the golden mean: "Nothing, certainly, can be laid down on the subject that will not admit of exceptions, - many per• manent, some occasional."61 He regards political economy as an in• strument at the service of the statesman rather than as a set of doctrines to be rigorously applied. Prudence is the higher value, and non-intervention and free trade the consequences of its application. As he states in a Letter to a Noble Lord: "Oeconomy in my plans was as it ought to be, secondary, subordinate, instrumental... I found a great distemper in the commonwealth; and, according to the nature of the evil and of the object, I treated it."62

THE VIA MEDIA

Burke's theory of international order also exhibits the virtue of pru• dence. Once more, his conservative disposition leads him away from extreme positions and toward the via media. As shown below, Burke's writings on international affairs tread a line between Realism, which depicts international relations as a raw state of war, and 32 Edmund Burke and International Relations

Revolutionism, which views international relations as the chrysalis for a peaceful community of humankind. Instead, his constitutional• ist63 approach conceives of a European international society which embraces sovereign states in a larger whole and endows them with collective duties as well as rights. Burke's constitutionalism is best represented by his writings on war, the balance of power, state sov• ereignty, and international law and morality.

War and International Society

At times, Burke appears to assume a Realist posture in his accept• ance of war as a legitimate means of achieving foreign policy goals. As he writes in the Annual Register: Wars, however it may be lamented, are inevitable in every state of human nature; they may be deferred, but they cannot be wholly avoided; and to purchase present quiet, at the price of future security, is undoubtedly a cowardice of the most degrading and basest nature.64 But while he admits to the reality of war as "the sole means of justice among nations", he maintains that its causes and effects should be tempered through legal and moral regulation. "[It] is one of the great• est objects of human wisdom", he declares, "to mitigate those evils which we are unable to remove".65 By characterising war as a necessary evil, Burke more closely ap• proximates the position of the Rationalists.66 For him, war is "a se• rious matter" - not an "idle frolick" - and "never to be entered into without mature deliberation."67 "A War", he writes, "may be neces• sary, and we know what are the Rights of War. But before we use those Rights, We ought to be clearly in the state which alone can justify them."68 As with Vattel and Grotius, Burke believes war should be used only for specific and well-defined purposes. Nevertheless, Burke ultimately views force in moral rather than legal terms. While he entreats that war should be waged only for "just" causes, his perception of what is "just" is much less restrictive than the Rationalist international lawyers: "The blood of man should never be shed but to redeem the blood of man. It is well shed for our family, for our friends, for our God, for our country, for our kind. The rest is vanity; the rest is crime." For Burke, the justice of war is determined by "moral prudence", not by the "light of philosophy" or the "disquisitions of councils".69 Constitutionalism 33

Notwithstanding his expansive view on the just causes of war, Burke does follow the lead of the international jurists in suggesting that war should be a rule-governed activity. According to Burke, "the pru• dence and the policy of [a] war were not less important points to be examined than its justice." In other words, he supports ;MS in bello as well as jus ad bellum. "[It] was a maxim generally established and agreed to", he insists, "that the rights of war were not unlimited."70 Hence, during the St. Eustatius Affair (1781), Burke decries Brit• ain's violation of neutrality and confiscation of as "contrary to the laws of nations, and to that system of war which civilised states had ... by their consent and practice, thought proper to introduce." Instead of "pushing war to its extremes", he instructs, Britain ought "to moderate its horrors, and to commit no other dep• redations than such as were necessary to public success".71 Similarly, during Britain's battle with America, Burke pleads for moderation in the conduct of the war and condemns attempts by Parliament to brand as pirates the commanders of ships belonging to the colonies. If the English are seeking to teach their "rebellious children" a les• son, he warns, they must be sure that the punishment fits the crime: "Such executions may indeed satiate our revenge; they may harden our hearts, and puff us up with pride and arrogance. Alas! this is not instruction!"72 If war is to serve a purpose, it must be waged with prudence and moderation. In sum, simply because the international system is anarchical, and lacks a common sovereign to enforce rules, does not mean that the international sphere is devoid of moral and legal regulation. Indeed, in A Vindication of Natural Society, Burke satirically renounces the Realist account of the international "state of nature" offered by think• ers such as Rousseau and Bolingbroke, and its accompanying ethic of raison d'etatP By contrast, his international theory postulates the existence of a larger international society which exercises restraint upon its members. Such a conception does not necessarily derogate from the moral claims of states, or challenge their political authority. Nor does it suggest that international society is somehow ready to supersede domestic society. Instead, as Wight explains, this international soci• ety perspective sees states "as relatively, not absolutely perfect, and as parts of a greater whole."74 As a result, Burke characterises his international society of states as both co-operative and conflictual. While some forms of war are outlawed by that society, other kinds may be sanctioned by it or undertaken on behalf of it. As subsequent 34 Edmund Burke and International Relations chapters will argue, Burke is prepared to resort to force in response to certain kinds of threats to the stability of his international society.

The Balance of Power

In a Realist fashion, Burke confesses that power factors into all political life. "You might change the names," he remarks, but "the things in some shape must remain. A certain quantum of power must always exist in the community, in some hands, and under some ap• pellation."75 Nonetheless, as a constitutionalist, Burke does not see power as unaccountable, unlimited or self-justifying. Instead, the goal is to legitimate power with reference to some source outside or beyond itself, thereby transforming it from mere domination into "authority".76 Burke's theory therefore seeks to control, direct and balance power, so that it functions as a source of order rather than disorder. Inter• nationally, this regulation is achieved through the balance of power, an institution Burke praises as "the known common law of Europe at all times, and by all powers".77 In fact, he asserts that it "is owing to this system, that this small part of the western world has acquired so astonishing (and otherwise unaccountable) a superiority over the rest of the globe".78 While other civilisations had perished "for want of any union or system of policy of this nature", or had folded under the weight of excessive conquest,79 Europe owed its pre-eminence to the vigilant maintenance of the balance of power. Burke sees the overall equilibrium of Europe as comprised of four different balances: 1) the great middle balance of Britain, France, and ; 2) the balance of the north; 3) the internal balance be• tween the Habsburgs and Brandenburg-Prussia in ; and 4) the balance of . Within this scenario, France is the "linch-pin", securing - or endangering - the general equilibrium.80 He describes France as the "author of the treaty of Westphalia" and the "natural guardian" of European stability. Consequently, the French state must remain a prominent player in the game of European international politics. As will be shown later, Burke reiterates this position even in the heated context of the French Revolution. "It is always the inter• est of Great Britain", he states, "that the power of France should be kept within the bounds of moderation. It is not her interest that the power should be wholly annihilated in the system of Europe."81 Burke therefore differentiates between the Revolutionary regime, and the French state over which it rules. Constitutionalism 35

In attributing such pride of place to the balance of power, Burke echoes many eighteenth century theorists and politicians.82 Nonethe• less, it is important to emphasise that his version of that balance is more Rationalist than Realist. First, following thinkers such as Vattel and , Burke does not consider the balance of power merely as an expedient rule to be followed in a process of permanent struggle between rivals.83 As F.H. Hinsley notes, by the mid eighteenth century European statesmen not only accepted the physical reality of a balanced distribution of power, but consciously sought to manufacture and maintain it as the "first principle of a European public law".84 In other words, the bal• ance of power had moved beyond a maxim of individual state policy to become a collective goal of European international society. States were to limit the pursuit of national interest to a point that was consistent with the maintenance of the stability of Europe as a whole. In a similar vein, Burke perceives the balance of power as an inter• national social good, worthy of the vigilant attention of all European sovereigns: The same principles that make it incumbent upon the patriotic member of a republic to watch with the strictest attention the mo• tions and designs of his powerful fellow citizens, should equally operate upon the different states in such a community as Europe, who are also the great members of a larger commonwealth.85 To put it another way, Burke is more in keeping with thinkers such as Fenelon, for whom the balance was a contrived means of preserv• ing the stability of the whole against the preponderance of one of the parts, than with those like Rousseau, who envisaged the balance as an automatic and haphazard system of weight and counter-weight. According to Wight, Burke's language emphasises the balance of power as a moral objective rather than an objective relationship of forces.86 Burke's commitment to a conscious policy of restraint and balance is witnessed in his response to the conflict between Britain and Spain over Nootka Sound in 1790.87 In his speech to the Commons during the crisis, he urges Britain to practise moderation by limiting her claims against Spain in the Western Hemisphere: In a great, gallant, and spirited nation, he hoped that there would be as much cause for moderation, as there was ground for satisfac• tion in our ability and our resources. That was the moment when 36 Edmund Burke and International Relations

a country did itself most honour, and proved its magnanimity the most clearly, by adopting moderation in proportion to its power.88 Any efforts to throw the Pacific territories of Spain "into the scale of England", he warns, would not only endanger the European balance, but also "prove to us, what it was at this moment to Spain; we should be the weaker for our accumulation of distant dominion".89 In this instance, then, Burke appeals to self-interest as well as to social responsibility. Second, although Burke applauds the balance of power for pro• tecting the of European states against any hegemonic bid for empire, he laments that it has failed in a second objective: securing Europe a lasting peace. Due to the inevitable increments and losses of power in international politics, the states of Europe were con• stantly being "enlarged or abridged". As a result, the balance of power had also been "the original of innumerable and fruitless wars" and the "cause of infinite contention and bloodshed".90 In addition, he asserts "that the idea of supporting a balance of power has in some cases been carried to an extreme", and that "by artfully em• ploying it to operate upon the passions and jealousies of mankind, it has been made an engine subservient to the designs of interested and ambitious persons".91 In short, statesmen can manipulate the bal• ance, using it as a pretext for expansionism or the destruction of smaller powers. This recognition of the darker side of balance of power politics is evident in Burke's disgust over the firstpartitio n of Poland in 1772.92 Though a supporter of the principle of balancing power, Burke be• lieves the dismantling of the Polish state marks "a revolution as unexpected as important, in that general system of policy".93 He mourns what he sees as the demise of the old system, which had depended on a commitment to co-operation and restraint, and warns against the ascendance of a new and sinister style of politics: The present violent dismemberment and partition of Poland, with• out the pretence of war, or even the colour of right, is to be con• sidered as the first very great breach in the modern political system of Europe. It is not... sapping by degrees the constitution of our great western republic, it is laying the axe at once to the root, in such a manner as threatens the total overthrow of the whole.94 More specifically, Burke accuses Austria and Prussia of shirking their responsibilities to the larger European collective in the interests of Constitutionalism 37 enhancing their respective power positions. As indicated above, Burke sees the liberty of Germany, and thereby the stability of Europe, as resting on a subtle tension between these two powers. With pro• phetic wisdom, he suggests that the Austrian and Prussian support for partition is not only immoral, but also counterproductive, since it will eliminate Poland "as the natural barrier of Germany... against the overwhelming power and ambition of Russia". Thus, he predicts that the "ruinous effects of this cruel, unjust, and short-sighted policy" may also "revert upon the two powers, who have so unnaturally entered into the combination".95 Whereas the previous balance of power involved the careful and "unremitting attention" of sovereigns to potentially disturbing devel• opments in any part of Europe, the balancing strategy initiated in 1772 threatens to atomise and estrange the members of European international society: The surprize of a town, the invasion of an insignificant province, or the election of a prince, who had neither abilities to be feared, nor virtues to be loved, would some years ago have armed one half of Europe, and called forth all the attention of the other. We now behold the destruction of a great kingdom, with the consequent disarrangement of power, dominion, and commerce, with as total an indifference and unconcern, as we could read an account of the exterminating one horde of Tartars by another, in the days of Ginghizan or Tamerlane.96 Burke singles out Britain as the worst perpetrator of the new spirit of selfishness and isolationism: "[It] has been at all times the lan• guage of a voluptuous and frivolous age, that while a state is flour• ishing within itself, and suffers no immediate injury from others, it has no concern in the quarrels, interests, or misfortunes of its neigh• bours." By cultivating this "insular situation", Britain was weakening those "enlarged ideas ... of general justice" that preserved stability within European international society.97 It is evident, then, that a Realist strategy of partitioning is not endorsed by Burke's conception of the balance of power. In the words of James Davidson, "[what] saved Burke from a Hobbesian view of international affairs was his belief in the existence of a com• munity beyond the nation capable of a moralizing influence".98 For Burke, the balance of power is to serve not as a pretext for individual aggrandisement, but as an instrument for the European powers to express their unity against potential disintegrating forces.99 As a 38 Edmund Burke and International Relations result, statesmen must keep both their own power political interests and the larger social and moral order in view. In the end, the inter• connections and obligations among the members of Burke's interna• tional society mean that the well-being and survival of one cannot be sacrificed for another.100

A Weak Sense of Sovereignty: Order Before Independence101

Burke's first requisite of a healthy society is some means to restrain human liberty. According to his constitutionalist sensibilities, unfet• tered is the "greatest of all possible evils":102 The extreme of liberty... obtains no where, nor ought to obtain any where. Because extremes, as we all know, in every point which relates either to our duties or satisfactions in life, are destructive both to virtue and enjoyment. Liberty too must be limited in order to be possessed.103 In accordance with his theory of human nature, the idea of liberty which Burke champions is not a "solitary, unconnected, individual selfish Liberty" but rather a "social freedom" - a "state of things in which Liberty is secured by the equality of Restraint".104 As he indi• cates in the Reflections, individual liberty should be restricted to those activities which society considers desirable: "The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please: We ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risque congratulations."105 While the Enlightenment rationalists were convinced that the pur• suit of individual freedom did not conflict with the larger goals of society, Burke stresses the need to balance liberty with other ingre• dients of social order. For him, liberty has no a priori value; it is useless unless exercised in the context of an orderly community. Hence, he does not view individual human action as random or iso• lated, but as part of a greater interdependent social matrix: Men are never in a state of total independence of each other. It is not the condition of our nature: nor is it conceivable how any man can pursue a considerable course of action without it's having some effect upon others; or, of course, without producing some degree of responsibility for his conduct.106 In his theory, liberty can never be absolute, for the interdependence of individuals in society endows them with duties as well as rights. A parallel can be drawn between this weak and qualified sense of Constitutionalism 39

freedom, and a constitutionalist conception of state sovereignty. In• deed, one of Grotius' greatest fears was that within his infant modern states system, the relations among individual sovereigns would be imcontroUed and uninspired by imifying ideals.107 Hence, Grotius insisted that larger societal goals were needed to elicit the submission of the sovereign will and soften the potentially violent spirit of na• tional independence.108 So too with Burke. Just as he refuses to assume the absolute free• dom of individuals, so he refuses to assume the absolute autonomy of states. For him, states are not isolated moral enclaves, but associ• ates in a larger, interdependent society or "Commonwealth of Eu• rope".109 Within this community, states possess duties as well as rights, and must balance the pursuit of individual objectives against the more general requirements of social order. Consequently, as will be seen in Part II, Burke denies the impregnability of borders and reserves the right to judge both the external and internal affairs of sovereign states. It is this tendency to value the social order among states over their sovereign independence that leads Vincent to describe Burke's international theory as "solidarist" rather than "pluralist".110

The Great Ligament of Mankind: the Role of Law in Burke's International Theory

Burke and Natural Law Burke's constitutionalism is also manifest in his confidence in the ability of law to improve and consolidate society. "We may bite our chains if we will", he proclaims, "but we shall be made to know... that man is born to be governed by law".111 For Burke, law is a fundamen• tal component of international as well as domestic order. A heated debate has raged in political theory literature as to whether or not Burke adheres to a notion of Natural Law.112 Frank O'Gorman, for example, contends that Burke's invocation of Natural Law "is usually a polemical technique", designed to enhance the status of the particular principle or idea he is addressing "rather than to illustrate the workings of Natural Law".113 Alternatively, positivist scholars such as C.E. Vaughn assume that because Burke disparages "The Rights of Man" he is also abandoning any Natural Law foun• dation for his theory. The true basis of his thought, they continue, is a form of conservative utilitarianism, as witnessed by his frequent appeals to utility and expediency.114 Nevertheless, as Stanlis and Wilkins are persuasive in arguing, 40 Edmund Burke and International Relations

Burke is in fact an ardent defender of Natural Law. Although he opposes the rationalism of the Enlightenment Natural Rights school, he is not entirely dismissive of the idea of an objective standard of justice. Efforts to study Burke's writings solely as a "manual of prac• tical statesmanship"115 tend to conceal his more fundamental moral philosophy. The case in favour of regarding Burke as a proponent of Natural Law can be made in three parts. First, though his theory does incor• porate the idea of expediency, it is not narrowly utilitarian. For Burke, expediency entails "that which is good for the community, and good for every individual in it."116 Thus, as Wilkins argues, expediency is given a collective, long term and comprehensive meaning. In addi• tion, Burke does not assess policies or laws solely in terms of their utility, but also insists on the criteria of cogency and equity.117 Hu• man or positive law must be tested firstagains t the reasonableness of individuals, and then against a higher, unalterable standard. In Burke's words: "All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they may alter the mode and application, but have no power over the substance of original justice."118 Second, despite the fact that Burke often elevates prejudice above reason, he differentiates between "just" prejudice - prejudice in ac• cordance with Natural Law - and "unjust" prejudice. This distinction can be illustrated by comparing his assessments of the political crisis in Ireland and the Revolution in France. In Ireland, Burke opposes the Protestant minority which is exploiting a Catholic majority and seeking to institutionalise such prejudice into law; in France, he con• demns a revolutionary minority which is attempting to destroy reli• gious belief, the grand prejudice of society.119 Such thinking implies the influence of some overarching rule or measure. Third, although Burke may not concur with the general programme of the Enlightenment Natural Law thinkers, most notably their em• phasis on abstract rights, he does assume that individuals can have knowledge of an objective standard - certain constants of human nature and principles of morality. His understanding of that Natural Law, however, is a conservative one, more in the tradition of Aris• totle and Cicero120 than the modern doctrine of Natural Law and Natural Rights expounded by Hobbes and Locke. As Leo Strauss explains, the former tradition sees Natural Law as an objective rule and measure, prior to and independent of the human will, while the latter views it primarily as a series of subjective claims, originating in the individual will. The older conception emanates from a notion of Constitutionalism 41

community norms, with a view to duties as well as rights; the modern notion exalts an asocial and egocentric view of human beings, mini• mising the force of social obligation.121 Consequently, as Cobban contends, when Burke appeals to Natural Law it is in the form of a supra-rational standard, rather than a dictate of right reason. Under Burke's stewardship, Locke's idea of Natural Law, which had been a ground of revolution, is transformed into an essentially conserva• tive doctrine.122 Burke most powerfully expresses his Natural Law perspective in his writings on British rule in India. As he declares in his speech opening the impeachment proceedings against Warren Hastings: We are all born in subjection, all born equally, high and low, gov• ernors and governed, in subjection to one great, immutable, pre- existent law, prior to all our devices, and prior to all our contrivances, paramount to our very being itself, by which we are knit and connected in the eternal frame of the universe, out of which we cannot stir.123 Burke therefore renounces Hastings' slogan of "geographical moral• ity"124 - the idea that one standard of right held for Britain while another applied in India - by proclaiming that the laws of morality and justice are the same everywhere. "I impeach him in the name and by the virtue of those eternal laws of justice, which ... pervade every age, condition, rank, and situation in the world." While Burke's adherence to an idea of Natural Law cannot be denied, the specific nature of his appeals to that law should be em• phasised. First, Burke's affinity with the larger Natural Law heritage needs to be clarified. In this regard, Stanlis' efforts to portray Burke as a disciple of read too much into Burke's texts. When Burke appropriates Natural Law vocabulary, he is contribut• ing towards a secularisation of the term. His Natural Law formula replaces the Enlightenment tool of reason not with the religious concept of , so crucial to the Christian school of Natural Law, but with custom or the "wisdom of the species". Thus, though he maintains that Natural Law is binding because it ultimately re• flects God's will,125 he discerns its content through human custom and precedent: "Profound thinkers will know it in its reason and spirit. The less enquiring will recognize it in their feelings and their experience."126 Such reliance on custom is yet another instance of Burke's search for the via media, this time between Naturalism and .127 42 Edmund Burke and International Relations

Second, it should be noted that Burke's invocations of Natural Law are primarily in the realm of action rather than principle. It is the mode and application of Natural Law, rather than the substance, which concerns him. In his theory, the laws of nature serve as guide• lines for the statesman in formulating laws, conventions and policies. More specifically, he upholds the "method of nature" - that process which seeks balance and harmony, and which seeks to preserve as well as to change128 - as the model for social and political reform. As Mansfield describes it, for Burke the laws of nature are laws of "refraction": they prevent the ends of politics from appearing as ab• stract goals "unrefracted by materials and circumstances".129 Third, the salience which Burke accords to Natural Law is part of his more general legalistic style of discourse. As Christopher Reid has noted, the use of legal language is an important element in Burke's rhetorical art of persuasion. His Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, for example, is written in the form of a juridical defence, while his Observations on the Conduct of the Minority adopts the style of a legal impeachment.130 Furthermore, as later chapters will illustrate, Burke endeavours to justify and bolster his policy prescrip• tions regarding the French Revolution by referring to the writings of eminent scholars of international law such as Vattel. Part of the rea• son for this legalistic discourse is undoubtedly Burke's own training as a lawyer,131 and his familiarity with the legislative procedures of the House of Commons. However, Burke's incorporation of jurispru- dential idiom and imagery also conforms to the norms and conven• tions of his age - an age in which law was viewed as an authoritative medium for political and literary argument.132 To reiterate, the ap• peal to law is often more important than the kind of law Burke appealed to. More importantly, Burke's legalistic references to crime and pun• ishment can be seen as another manifestation of his solidarism. According to Hedley Bull, solidarism is characterised by the belief that order in international society is maintained by a firmconsensu s among its members in upholding the collective will.133 But as Wight points out, this premise leads directly to the idea that there can be a lawless or delinquent state, worthy of punishment by the larger community: "If there is an international society at all, then its mem• bers have duties, and the duties are enforceable."134 Hence, in his De Jure Praedae, Grotius suggests that within international society there might appear a "robber" or "bandit" whose crime thwarts the established law of nations and calls for retribution. Burke exhibits a Constitutionalism 43 similar tendency to portray poUtical events within the framework of crime and punishment.135 However, keeping in mind Burke's aesthetic ideas, it is interesting to note that his writings on crime and punishment frequently accen• tuate his prudential values of restraint and balance. To quote Reid: "Punishment itself must observe a kind of decorum if order is to be restored."136 Consequently, when commenting on the proposed exe• cutions of the perpetrators of the (1780), Burke presses for a judicial balance between mercy and terror, and condemns any acts of "injudicious severity" on the part of Government. "Justice and Mercy", Burke states, "have not such opposite interests as peo• ple are apt to imagine."137 Nonetheless, as later chapters will show, when the nature of the crime becomes more barbarian - threatening the customs and institutions of international society he most values - his recommendations for collective punishment become increas• ingly coercive.

Burke and the Law of Nations For Burke, the Law of Nations is the first qualification of Natural Law in the process of applying its universal moral imperatives to the concrete affairs of individuals and nations.138 As with Grotius, he diverges from a purely positivist view of international law as merely the sum of those rules which sovereign states have ex• pressly consented to regard as obligatory.139 This recognition of a Natural Law source for international norms of behaviour is a fur• ther indication of Burke's constitutionalism and weaker sense of sovereignty. Although Burke's understanding of the Law of Nations ultimately depends upon the overarching laws of nature, its origins are found most immediately in the accumulated wisdom of state practice:

Perhaps it might be said, there was no positive law of nations, no general established laws framed and settled by acts in which every nation had a voice. There was not indeed any law of nations estab• lished like the laws of Britain in black letter, by statute and record: but there was a law of nations as firm, as clear as manifest, as obligatory, as indispensable There were certain limited and defined rights of war recognised by civilised states, and practised in enlightened Europe They were established by reason, in which they had their origin ... by the convention of parties ... by 44 Edmund Burke and International Relations

the of writers, who took the laws and maxims ... from the consent and sense of ages; and lastly, from the evidence of precedent.140

Hence, there is also a strong element of Positivism in his thinking. As with the earlier discussion of Natural Law, it is crucial to underscore the weight Burke gives to custom in his treatment of international law. When he appeals to the Law of Nations against irresponsible or expedient acts, he directs his argument toward the force of custom and tradition among "civilised" European nations, and the obligation of their leades not to discredit themselves in the eyes of their peers. As James Davidson explains, Burke's reliance on customary law is the international counterpart of his appeal to consult the "wisdom of the ages" in matters of domestic politics.141 As a result, while Burke believes the universal precepts of Natural Law should govern Britain's relations with the non-European world, he develops a particular "public law of Europe" to regulate relations among the members of European international society. In this way, he again follows in the footsteps of Grotius, who recognised an outer circle of mankind governed by Natural Law, and an inner circle of international society (Christendom) which is subject to the Law of Nations.142 It is this more customary and positive international law, which he dubs the "great ligament of mankind",143 that Burke usually has in mind when using the term Law of Nations. As Stanlis writes: "In considering the individual differences and circumstances of man• kind at large, India excepted, this common law of the European commonwealth is the broadest frame of reference Burke ever made."144 In fact, as Chapter 3 will make clear, it is the broader Roman-Christian-Germanic civilisation of Europe, whose common inheritance transcends the claims of any of its national or religious parts, that is Burke's greatest focus of attention. By incorporating elements of both Positivism and Naturalism into his Law of Nations, Burke straddles the same line as his eighteenth century contemporaries, Christian Wolff and Emer de Vattel. Wolff establishes a volitional Law of Nations as a link between Natural and Positive Law, and locates its content in the body of rules he saw working among states in their international affairs.145 Similarly, while Vattel acknowledges the immutable rules of the "necessary" Law of Nations, which derive from Natural Law, he also develops a "volun• tary" law of convention and custom to support his society of states.146 Burke's theory of the Law of Nations, which builds on the ideas of Constitutionalism 45 these eminent jurists, strikes the same mean between Naturalism and Positivism.

Political Trusteeship: Burke's View of International Morality

The Natural Law ethic of constitutionalism is also at the heart of Burke's disdain for the ReaUst denial of international morality and its doctrine of raison d'itat. The latter, which pronounces the right of a sovereign to create his own morality and to take whatever measures are judged necessary for self-preservation, shatters any moral claims of international society on its members. Although morality may have force in domestic society, the Realists argue, the anarchy of interna• tional politics makes it impossible to impose moral restrictions on the actions of states.147 The following quotation from A Vindication is representative of the kind of Realpolitik which Burke abhors: All writers on the science of policy are agreed, and they agree with experience, that all must frequently infringe the rules of justice to support themselves; that truth must give way to dis• simulation: honesty to convenience; and humanity itself to the reigning interest. The whole of this mystery of iniquity is called the reason of state.148 As shown above, it is this obsession with individual state interest that he finds so contemptible in international actions such as the partition of Poland. Burke, by contrast, has a much greater sense of humility and hesi• tation concerning state power. "Among precautions against ambi• tion", he writes, "it may not be amiss to take one precaution against our own. I must fairly say, I dread our own power, and our own ambition; I dread our being too much dreaded."149 He therefore re• jects what Andrew Linklater calls the "internal" concept of moral and political obligation, which holds that the morality pertinent to the conduct of foreign relations is somehow different from that ob• served by citizens in their domestic relationships. Alternatively, he adopts an "external" perspective, by acknowledging a "moral frame• work which extends beyond the one surrounding insiders" and which calls for "ethical as opposed to merely pragmatic orientations to• wards relations with outsiders".150 Given Burke's role as a practitioner of politics, his theory of inter• national morality is more forceful when formulated at the level of the individual. This conception of individual morality does not mean, 46 Edmund Burke and International Relations however, that Burke should be interpreted as an exponent of Revolutionism. For the Revolutionists, the ultimate subject of inter• national relations is the individual rather than the state; therefore, international morality should be understood not in terms of "the rules that required states to behave as good members of the society of states, but the revolutionary imperatives that required all men to work for human brotherhood".151 While Burke repudiates the amo- rality of the Realists, he also stops short of advocating a single world community where the moral obligations of states are replaced by the moral obligations of individuals. His theory retains the sovereign state as a mediating moral influence. Instead, Burke's understanding of international morality applies primarily to rulers rather than to subjects - to what Wight calls the "conscientious objection of politicians".152 It is most apparent in his famous precept of political trusteeship: the notion that governments are stewards for their peoples and for future generations, with duties analogous to those of trustees. In Burke's words: "All persons pos• sessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awefully im• pressed with an idea that they act in trust; and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to the one great master, author and founder of society."153 Moreover, such trusteeship can easily extend to the idea that duties are owed, not only by each government to its subjects, but by one government and people to another. Burke's political morality occupies a middle ground between a purely personal or private morality - recognising that the moral du• ties of subjects and rulers do differ - and the "double morality" of raison d'etat - which exaggerates the difference between individuals and rulers so as to make the latter morally unaccountable. As Wight puts it: "It follows that the whole conception of policy is broadened and capable of being suffused with moral value. Political expedience has to consult the moral sense of the politician. In the process, it is softened into prudence, which is a moral virtue."154 For Burke, then, the true relevance of international morality lies in the spirit of re• straint which he hopes it will inspire in statesmen. Again, it is not so much the intricacies of the ethical doctrine which interest him, but rather the "ethical temper" which leads rulers to accept the moral significance and the moral context of all political action.155 This emphasis on the individual statesman reflects the fact that Burke belongs to an era of politics which still champions personal responsibility, accountability, and dedication to public service. Per• haps this is why so much of his international theory rests on less Constitutionalism 47 tangible factors - prudence, sentiment, manners - as opposed to for• mal rules or institutions. In his eyes, it is not crucial to establish hard and fast laws of behaviour, for he can rely on the shared values, restraint, and sound judgment of sovereigns to maintain order in international society.156 Nonetheless, it can be argued that his vision of an enlightened cadre of leaders is an idealistic one, even in the context of the late eighteenth century. Moreover, his understanding of trusteeship is limited, focusing primarily on the responsibility of rulers, rather than on the rights of subjects to question their leadership. To conclude, Burke's philosophy champions the virtue of prudence in all spheres of political life. His moderating disposition, which stems from an aesthetic preference for harmony, leads him away from theo• retically pure positions and toward compromise. This prudential style of politics can be illustrated through his theory of human nature, his respect for the mixed British Constitution, and his pragmatic ap• proach to economic policy. In terms of international theory, a similar spirit of prudence - or constitutionalism - can be detected in Burke's ideas on war, the balance of power, sovereignty, law and international morality. As demonstrated above, Burke renounces the Realist premise that in• ternational relations resembles a raw state of nature, where foreign policy is self-regarding and where order is based on consent and self- help. Nor, on the other hand, does he subscribe to any strong sense of the "domestic analogy", which seeks to supersede the sovereign state or to transfer the institutions of domestic society onto a world scale.157 Instead, he posits the existence of an international society, where states share in the working of common rules and institutions, and where sovereigns are governed by a rule of law and by standards of political morality. In addition to this constitutionalist premise of a society of states, Burke's writings advocate collective responsibility for the mainte• nance of international order. His solidarist belief in a larger will beyond the individual wills of sovereign states leads him to accept the right of international society to override the autonomy of the parts in the name of preserving the interests of the whole. As John Vincent puts it: "The system [works] within a society; pluralism [works] because of a deeper solidarity."158 But as hinted above, this solidarist logic can also sanction actions of punishment on the part of the community against a delinquent member. In other words, Burke's international theory is inspired by prudence and moderation, except 48 Edmund Burke and International Relations in relation to those he perceives as standing outside the borders of his moral and social frame of reference. As shown in Part II, Burke's policy regarding the French Revolution seems to be a deviation from the constitutionalist fold. 2 Medievalism

Burke's writings and speeches on European international society frequently draw upon the model of solidarity exemplified by Western Christendom. For him, individuals, groups and states are part of one cosmic "chain of being" that holds all creation together.1 Yet, at the same time, his idea of an orderly community involves a respect for diverse traditions and a substantial degree of devolution and decen• tralisation. In short, Burke shares the medieval goal of "diversity in ideal unity".2 His theory of social order is based not on equality and independence, but on hierarchy, "overlapping authorities" and "criss• crossing loyalties".3 In this chapter, Burke's medievalism will be high• lighted in five ways: his veneration of the past; his non-contractarian theory of the state; his promotion of hierarchy; his aversion to cen• tralised power, as manifest in his writings on the British Empire; and his emphasis on religion as a component of social order.

THE ACCUMULATED WISDOM OF THE AGES

Burke's respect for established tradition is one of the hallmarks of his conservative philosophy. His works are dominated by caution regarding schemes for reform, and a predisposition to consult history and experience in all matters of domestic and international politics. As he observes in the Reflections: "In history a great volume is un• rolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind."4 In a Realist style,5 Burke asserts that history is found not in a linear, chronological story of change, but in the persistence and cu• mulation of structures, communities, and habits from one generation to the next. In contrast to many of his Enlightenment contemporar• ies, who were infused with a desire to advance the human condition through the exercise of reason,6 he maintains that the great moral and political truths have long ago been discovered. Indeed, Burke warns that attempts to improve upon these lessons in the name of some future ideal are not only futile, but dangerous. Thus, as explains, "whereas the progressive-rationalists see the present as the beginning of the future", Burke sees it "as the latest point reached by the past in a continuous, seamless growth".7

49 50 Edmund Burke and International Relations

Within this Realist framework of recurrence and cumulation, the past suddenly comes to life as a critical resource. "Veneration of antiquity", Burke declares, "is congenial to the human mind."8 In fact, Nisbet credits Burke with sparking the conservative fire against the prevailing philosophy of progress with his suggestion that feudal Europe had in some ways been more civilised than the late eight• eenth century.9 Burke recalls the time-tested institutions of the Mid• dle Ages with nostalgia, and suggests that modern European owe their cohesion to "the old feudal and chivalrous spirit of Fe- alty"10 He condemns his century for having strayed from this tradi• tional medieval wisdom, referring to his age as "the least qualified for legislation that perhaps has been since the first formation of civU society".11 As a result, Burke frequently argues in terms of a society and civilisation which was already passing away. Alfred Cobban, in Edmund Burke and the Revolt against the Eighteenth Century, aptly captures Burke's attraction for the :

What appeal more suitable, then, than from an age of unbelief to the Age of faith, from an age of rebellion and self-assertion to the age of subordination and caste, from an age of the breaking of all bonds and loosening of all ties... to the age of fixed and feudal hierarchy and unalterable law?12

In fact, at times Burke asserts that any real possibility of future im• provement has come to an end. "I am persuaded, that the world is threatened with great changes", he writes to the Earl Fitzwilliam. "I say threatened, because I do not think them likely to be changes for the better."13 Most importantly, although Burke concedes to the reality of ma• terial and technological progress, he draws the line at moral progress. He voices this scepticism in one of the more famous passages from the Reflections:

We know that we have made no discoveries; and we think that no discoveries are to be made, in morality; nor many in the great principles of government, nor in the ideas of liberty, which were understood long before we were born, altogether as well as they will be after the grave has heaped its mould upon our presump• tion, and the silent tomb shall have imposed its law on our pert loquacity.14 Medievalism 51

Though Europe had advanced from the Middle Ages to a higher material state of civilisation, Burke believes it still has much to learn from an appreciation of the past. This non-linear view of history and veneration for antiquity is encapsulated in Burke's well-known principle of prescription.15 Burke lauds prescriptive right as "that grand title, which supersedes all other title, and which all my studies of general have taught me to consider as one principal cause of the formation of states".16 Under his stewardship, this rule of private Roman law (that property could be granted without a deed by long and continued use) is trans• formed into a tenet of Natural Law, applicable to .17 In other words, just as title to property comes from long use rather than a formal deed, so government is bound by long-continued practices rather than by abstract principles. The end result, as shown below, is that government no longer requires a founding theory.18 In Burke's theory, prescription serves the same function which Natural Rights serve for the eighteenth century : it legitimises possession and authority. Moreover, he does not challenge the man• ner in which such possession may have been acquired - even if it involves . "[That] which might be wrong in the beginning," he writes, "is consecrated by time, and becomes lawful."19 He there• fore accepts the arbitrary by-products of prescription as the price to be paid for continuity, stability and social order.

BURKE'S THEORY OF STATE AND NATION

Given this dedication to prescription, Burke is disinclined to inquire too deeply into the origins of the state. In his eyes, "[there] is a sacred veil to be drawn over the beginnings of all governments".20 This predisposition to accept rather than account for political author• ity sets his political theory apart from that of many of his contempo• raries. As Harvey Mansfield puts it: "Founding, which prior to Burke had been considered by all political thinkers to be the essential pol• itical act, is for him a nonevent."21 Because the state is a prescriptive as well as a divine institution, it must be treated with caution and reverence. He therefore warns against permitting citizens to question their engagements to their leaders. In fact, he intimates that such questioning may prove counter-productive, since in the process citi• zens may "teach governours to think lightly of their engagements towards them".22 52 Edmund Burke and International Relations

Neither does Burke wholly revert to the notion of divine right in order to explain the rise of the state. While he suggests that govern• ment ultimately emanates from divine will, he also seeks to endow it with a human dimension. Consequently, he adopts the contract lan• guage of , an essential part of the British Whig tradition and a dominant element in eighteenth century political discourse. But as Cobban observes, although Burke frequently uses the termi• nology of contract theory, "inside his mind it was to undergo a strange metamorphosis".23 In Burke's opinion, the contractarian disciples of Locke drew too sharp a distinction between "nature" and "art". More specifically, he questions their portrayal of the state as a man-made artifice designed to compensate for the imperfections of human na• ture. For Burke, this conception of the state as a "necessary evil"24 strips it of any historical grandeur or traditional reverence. As a result, the origins of the state are located not in the ties of a common past, or in the presence of shared institutions and practices, but "in the rational, expedient wUl of autonomous individuals expressing their enlightened self-interest".25 What troubles Burke most is the implication drawn from this contractarian doctrine: that government is the product of the arbit• rary choice of individuals. Though he shares Locke's premise that all political power is ultimately held on trust, and can therefore be ren• dered accountable,26 his version of trusteeship focuses on only one half of this equation. His interest is in rulers - and the ethic of ruling responsibly - rather than political subjects. Consequently, while Burke harbours a respect for the notion of consent, he denies any abstract right of rebelUon and denounces Locke's revolutionary postulate that each separate individual must decide anew whether or not to accept the . Such an idea, he contends, "supposes in any strong combination of men a power and right of always dissolving the social union" and renders them "a mere unconnected multitude".27 As Burke conceives it, a nation is a product of historical choice, not a temporary inclination: [A] nation is not an idea only of local extent, and individual mo• mentary aggregation, but it is an idea of continuity, which extends in time as well as in numbers, and in space. And this is a choice not of one day, or one set of people; it is a deliberate election of ages and generations M In short, the nation is more permanent than the fleeting individuals who comprise it. "Individuals pass like shadows", he states, "but the Medievalism 53 commonwealth is fixedan d stable."29 Thus, even if there had been an original covenant, it has now been woven into the fabric of society and has gained prescriptive right. In Burke's theory, then, the social contract is transformed from a basis of resistance into a "bulwark of conservatism".30 In perhaps the most famous passage of the Reflections, Burke enunciates his unique understanding of contract by equating society with a historical partnership: Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure - but the state ought not to be considered nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, callico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partner• ship cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a part• nership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.31 In sum, Burke views history - not individual consent or divine inspi• ration - as forming the basis of political authority. Past and future partners in the contract take the place of God in ensuring that gov• ernments govern with a sense of responsibility and moderation. And in Burke's logic, it follows that each separate social partnership is but "a clause in the great primaeval contract of eternal society" which "holds all physical and all moral natures, each in their appointed place".32 As Raymond Williams has aptly pointed out, in the course of this passage Burke shifts his terminology from society to state. In other words, "the essential reverence for society is not to be confused ... with that particular form of society which is the State at any given time".33 For Burke, it is the underlying civil society which is impor• tant, not the physical artifice of the state. In a similar way, Burke challenges the contractarian premise that a nation can be defined solely in geographical terms. "Mere locality", he remarks, "does not constitute a body politick... Nation is a moral essence, not a geographical arrangement, or a denomina• tion of the nomenclator".34 A nation is identified not by its posses• sion of a particular piece of territory, but by its throne, nobility, clergy, and magistracy, all of which have evolved over time. "All 54 Edmund Burke and International Relations these particular moleculae united", he concludes, "form the great mass of what is truly the body politick in all countries."35 As will be shown in Part II, this portrayal of the nation allows Burke to argue that the "real" France - the pre-1789 society and culture - still exists, even though it is stripped of territorial possession by the Revolutionaries.36 Burke's vision of the nation as a continuous and historical commun• ity stands between what F.H. Hinsley calls a territorial and institu• tional concept of nation, which grew out of contract theory, and the later idea of the nation as a cultural and ethnic collective, which can be found in the writings of the German romantics. In Burke's day, European states, regardless of their particular form of government, increasingly became anchored to, or "national in", the communities which they already governed. As a result, there was a tendency to define the nation in procedural terms: as a body of associates living under a common law and represented by shared institutions.37 With the French Revolution, a new and rival definition of the nation was formulated on the basis of national self-determination. Henceforth, the former institutional and territorial criteria were overshadowed by the assertion that the political nation - and state - ought to be co• ordinated with a distinctive cultural, ethnic, or linguistic community. As Hinsley explains, the nation was conceived as "prior to history, not the product of it. It formed common institutions, as it formed common history, language, customs or religion, rather than arising from them."38 Burke occupies an intermediary stage in this evolution of thinking about nationhood. His view of nation is more than territorial or administrative, but stops short of the ideas associated with the doc• trine of national self-determination. Instead, he recognises that each nation possesses a certain distinguishable "character". It is national• ity, as opposed to nation, that influences his thinking.39 Moreover, these national characters are the product of history - the outcome of living under shared institutions and social practices - rather than objective or preordained facts. In acknowledging "national character", Burke's writings approxi• mate those of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau also suggested that each political nation possessed its own distinctive spirit, expressed in particular social, cultural, and political institutions which had been developed over time.40 Similarly, Burke shares Rousseau's view of patriotism - as distinct from our modern sense of - as a noble and laudable sentiment.41 While cosmopolitan Medievalism 55 such as Voltaire ridiculed patriotism as an uncivilised emotion which implied a "hatred of humanity",42 Burke believes the sentiment of nationality brings a certain dynamism to political communities.43 Despite these similarities between Rousseau and Burke, significant differences remain in their conceptions of nation. Burke's depiction of the nation as historical rather than consent-based tends to margin- aUse any democratic or popular element - something that is associated with Rousseau's legacy. Hence, for example, his opposition to the par• tition of Poland is based not on the violation of self-determination, but on the abrogation of its national character and its historically generated laws and liberties.44 In this sense, Burke's theory is more akin to modern communitarian theories of the state, put forward by thinkers such as .45 Indeed, as succeeding chapters will argue, Burke is a staunch opponent of ideas of and popular legitimacy. Thus, in the words of Cobban, he only "admitted the existence of a nation while it remained faithful to its privileged classes and historic constitution."46

THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING

Burke's medievalism is further evident in his defence of a hierarch• ical social order. Once more, he challenges the Enlightenment pre• sumption of the fundamental equality of humankind and its critique of the "unnatural" divisions imposed upon individuals in society. Instead, Burke unabashedly justifies inequality, and condemns all attempts at "levelling" or equalization: "The levellers ... only change and pervert the natural order of things; they load the edifice of so• ciety, by setting up in the air what the solidity of the structure re• quires to be on the ground."47 In his estimation, social order must approximate the symmetry of natural order, which he perceives as fundamentally unequal: I am, for one, entirely satisfied that the inequality, which grows out of the nature of things, by time, custom, successions, accumulation, permutation, and improvement of property, is much nearer that true equality, which is the foundation of equity and just policy, than anything which be contrived by the tricks and devices of all human skill.48 For Burke, then, a stable society is one divided into ranks. In discussing this hierarchy, he often appeals to the common eighteenth 56 Edmund Burke and International Relations century image of the "chain of being", where all levels of society are taught to find comfort and happiness in their designated station in the social order. Moreover, as suggested above, he conceives of this "chain of subordination"49 as connecting the peoples of one genera• tion with those of the past and future. At the top of Burke's social edifice is an enlightened and bene• volent nobility. "NobUity", he declares, "is a graceful ornament to the civU order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society."50 Accordingly, he rejects democracy as the "foodful nurse of ambi• tion",51 and advocates rule by the propertied and hereditary class: The occupation of an -dresser, or of a working tallow-chandler, cannot be a matter of honour... Such descriptions of men ought not to suffer oppression from the state; but the state suffers op• pression, if such as they, either individually or collectively, are permitted to rule.52 Burke believes the nobility has been given a special function in the direction of state affairs not only by virtue of its possession of property, but also by its life-long conditioning to rule. He enunciates this idea of the "spirit of a gentleman"53 in a letter to the Duke of Richmond: Persons in your Station of Life ought [to] have long Views. You people of great families and hereditary Trusts and fortunes are not like such as I am, who whatever we may be by the rapidity of our growth... yet still we are but annual plants that perish with out Season and leave no sort of Traces behind us. You if you are what you ought to be are the great Oaks that shade a Country and perpetuate your benefits from Generation to Generation.54 Burke argues that ranking within society is not only natural, but conducive to order and justice as well. Due to its material stake in the status quo, the aristocracy can be relied upon to preserve existing institutions and relationships. And further, through their wisdom, aristocrats recognise that the more they respect and enhance the rights of their inferiors, the more secure will be their own position. In short, their understanding of self-interest and duty is closely iden• tified with the good of society as a whole.55 For the sake of stability, then, Burke urges calm acceptance of the "natural" hierarchy of social order. Although his society cannot offer economic or political equality, he insists that it guarantees the only true form of equality - moral equality.56 Each individual is designated Medievalism 57 his place in the chain, along with the feelings and attitudes appropri• ate to that place. The result is a society which is less competitive, and a citizenry which is less prone to envy and discontent. As John Vincent indicates, this endorsement of aristocratic privi• lege in domestic society can serve as an analogy with the acknowl• edgement of the special role of the Great Powers in the maintenance of international order. Burke's understanding of international soci• ety clearly assumes the existence of a club. In addition, he counsels these powers to cultivate prestige in order to enhance their capacity for leadership within international society: I do not deny that in small, truckling states a timely compromise with power has often been the means, and the only means, of drawling out their puny existence: But a great state is too much envied, too much dreaded, to find safety in humiliation. To be secure, it must be respected.57 In this recognition of Great Power status and responsibility, Burke is expressing an accepted reality of his time. In the words of diplomatic historians McKay and Scott: "By 1700 there was a generally recog• nised hierarchy both of states and of the level of diplomats exchanged. It was agreed that the European states were not all equal in rank - irrespective of their political power."58 Moreover, as Hinsley notes, it was in the late eighteenth century that the idea of collective manage• ment of the international system by the oligarchy of European Pow• ers first rose to prominence.59 If international society is oligopolistic in character, it follows that any alteration of regime in one of the central powers can have sig• nificant effects on the style and the course of international relations. As Part II will illustrate, Burke's anxieties over the French Revolu• tion reflect a fear of this possibility. Because France is a key player in his Great Power club, any internal change in that state has poten• tially far-reaching consequences for the stability of European inter• national society as a whole.

DECENTRALISATION: RECONCILING AUTHORITY AND LIBERTY The Little Platoons According to Robert Nisbet, a fundamental feature of the feudal political structure was its attempt to synthesise authority and liberty. 58 Edmund Burke and International Relations

This reconciliation was achieved through a dissolution of power and a toleration for intermediate sources of authority, such as the Church, the guild or the famUy.60 FeudaUsm was fed by a belief in the need for a variety of social institutions, each capable of providing for some aspect of an individual's weU-being. Conservative theorists, Nisbet observes, are also preoccupied with preserving this triangle of the individual, state, and intermediate institutions. In their philosophy, governments are considered corrupt or despotic61 when mediating groups become powerless, leaving the individual alone to face the cold and arbitrary rule of the state. Burke's conservatism shares this medieval attraction for diversity and decentralisation. For him, it is in the intermediate, more acces• sible institutions - the "little platoons" - that individuals first expe• rience community. It is here where the sentiment of prejudice exerts its greatest influence. "To be attached to the subdivision", he states, "is the first principle ... of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country and to mankind."62 In Burke's eyes, human beings relate to one another not simply as citizens of the state, but also as associates within these local, specialised groups. It is this reality, he believes, which the Enlightenment notion of contract overlooks. In focusing solely on the individual and her consent, the Natural Rights philosophers are unable to appreciate the mediating influences between the individual at one extreme, and the artificial institutions of the state at the other.

The Law of Detached Empire

Burke's aversion to centralised power is manifest internationally in his image of the British Empire. While Burke certainly shares the imperialist ethic of paternalism prevalent in his time, his colonial policy also displays a respect for diverse traditions, a toleration for local autonomy, and a preference for decentralised mechanisms of control. His model of Empire is an "aggregate of many states under one common head", where the "subordinate parts have many local privileges and immunities".63 Burke's perspective on Empire stands between the Realist approach of expansion and exploitation, and the Revolutionist penchant for assimilation.64 Instead, his doctrine of prescription leads him to ac• cept the British Empire as it stands, and to refrain from investigating the means of its acquisition. "When I first came into a publick trust", Medievalism 59 he remarks to his Bristol constituents, "I found your parliament in possession of an unlimited legislative power over the colonies. I could not open the statute book without seeing the actual exercise of it, more or less, in all cases whatsoever. This possession passed with me for a title. It does so in all human affairs."65 In addition, he shows no particular desire to expand Britain's holdings abroad beyond what had been acquired through the Seven Years War. As Georg Fasel notes, he approaches "imperial questions as a student of good gov• ernment, seeking to consolidate rather than to enlarge."66 Hence, it is not the propriety of imperial power which interests Burke, but rather the exercise and preservation of that power.67 "[There] we are placed by the Sovereign Disposer", he concludes, "and we must do the best we can in our situation."68 For Burke, "doing the best we can" means ruling prudently and responsibly, in accordance with his maxims of traditionalism, diversity and decentralisation. Much of Burke's proclivity for devolution stems from practical considerations. As he explains to his fellow Parliamentarians about their relationship with the Americans: "Three thousand miles of ocean lie between you and them. No contrivance can prevent the effect of this distance in weakening government. Seas roll, and months pass, between the order and the execution "69 Burke therefore posits an "eternal law, of extensive and detached empire", which flows from the constraints of nature and circumstance. "In large bodies", he observes, "the circulation of power must be less vigorous at the ex• tremities. Nature has said it."70 On grounds of practicality, physical distance makes it difficult to rule with an iron fist. Burke's obedience to the law of detached empire is also informed by his general philosophical preference for diluted authority. While he accepts the premise of the "boundless" powers of the British parliament, he does not view the relationship between members of the Empire as one of domination and submission. This imperial vi• sion is given fullest expression in his Speech on American Taxation:

The Parliament of Great Britain sits at the head of her extensive empire in two capacities: one as the local of this island, providing for all things at home, immediately, and by no other instrument than the executive power. - The other, and I think her nobler capacity, is what I call her imperial character; in which, as from the throne of heaven, she superintends all the several inferior , and guides, and controls them all without annihilating any... .71 60 Edmund Burke and International Relations

Though it might at times be necessary for Britain to "coerce the negUgent, to restrain the violent, and aid the weak and deficient", her power is "never to intrude into the place of the others, whilst they are equal to the common ends of their institution".72 Most importantly, British rule over the Empire must conform itself to the "character and circumstances" of the people who comprise this "strangely diversified mass": I never was wild enough to conceive, that one method would serve for the whole; that the natives of Hindostan and those of Virginia could be ordered in the same manner; or that the Cutchery court and the grand of Salem could be regulated on a similar plan. I was persuaded that government was a practical thing, made for the happiness of mankind, and not to furnish out a spectacle of uniformity, to gratify the schemes of visionary politicians.73 Thus, Burke urges respect for diverse local customs and traditions, rather than a wholesale imposition of British civilisation. As with Grotius and Montesquieu, he denies the precept that conquest permits dictatorial rule. Instead, it carries with it moral duties and obligations to "observe the laws, rights, usages and customs of the natives, and to pursue their benefit in all things."74 Ultimately, Burke relies on the ties of sentiment, rather than legal contract or forcible submission, to bind the colonies to their mother country. "My hold of the colonies", he states in his Speech on Con• ciliation with America, "is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties, which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron."75 Consequently, as Vilho Harle explains, Burke's imperial system is one of mutual help, where it is in the interests of both core and periphery to ensure that all parts of the Empire are fairly treated: "For Burke, England was the eldest brother who guards the family possessions for a number of younger brothers, on whose help he also depends."76 Burke recognises that "disputes" and "ill blood" might arise in his imperial family, but he is confident that such conflicts can be tem• pered through restraint and prudence on both sides of the equation. In particular, the longevity of the imperial relationship will depend on Britain's ability to detect unrest and to know when to yield rather than coerce. Timely concessions will prevent small quarrels from growing into irreparable schisms. At bottom, Burke's concern for the cohesion of the Empire and Medievalism 61 the happiness of the colonies reflects his larger desire to preserve the health of the British Constitution. In other words, he believes that the Constitution can be dislocated externally as well as internally. For Burke, Fasel remarks, "colonial misrule was a malignancy at the outer limits of the constitution" which threatened "to creep close to the British isles".77 Just as British prosperity and wealth is ensured by a thriving and expansive overseas trade, so the strength of the British Constitution is enhanced by a tolerant and progressive governing of the colonies. Burke's views on maintaining the solidarity of the British Empire can be illustrated in relation to the three main colonial issues of his day: America, India and Ireland.

America Burke's propensity for diversity and decentralisation is clearly evid• ent in his policy prescriptions for British rule in America. It is crucial to note that Burke is not a heroic supporter of American independ• ence. Indeed, he holds fast to the theoretical sovereignty of British Parliament to govern American affairs.78 Nonetheless, he sharply con• demns attempts by the British government to overstep the bounda• ries of its authority, and seeks to preserve British rule through conciliation rather than oppression. Burke's prime objective is to restore the "former unsuspecting confidence"79 of America in the mother country. This old and friendly imperial relationship, he be• lieves, was based on sentiment rather than coercion, and on tolera• tion rather than dictatorial control. Consequently, Burke denounces Grenville's Stamp Act as an un• warranted exertion of arbitrary power.80 His own solution is to allow the Americans to tax themselves to bear the costs of government, but to require them to make grants to Britain in times of necessity.81 It is important, however, to underscore the conservative nature of this compromise. Burke's plea is to consult the "ancient policy and prac• tice of the empire" - the status quo ante of 1765 - rather than the "speculations of innovators".82 He is convinced that the Americans will be appeased by such measures, and will limit their demands for further reform: "Recover your old ground, and your old tranquillity - try it -1 am persuaded the Americans will compromise with you."83 Moreover, this reversion to the old policy meets with his more gen• eral conservative requirements of balance and harmony. "[On] these grounds", he concludes, "I think subordination and liberty may be sufficiently reconciled through the whole."84 If concessions were not 62 Edmund Burke and International Relations offered, and coercion adopted, the entire future of the Empire would be placed in peril. Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America echoes these themes of restraint, toleration and compromise. From the outset, he repeats the conservative character of his proposals for preserving the unity of the Empire: "It is simple peace; sought in its natural course, and in its ordinary haunts."85 This speech is also significant for its strong case against the use of force as a means of controlling the colonies. Given that he later advocates armed force against the French Revo• lution, it is instructive to examine his case against it for America. Burke's prohibition on the use of force is based on five main arguments. First, Burke maintains that force can only be a temporary solution to the deeper colonial problem: "It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered."86 Second, he highlights the uncertainty which necessarily accompanies any coer• cive enterprise:

Terrour is not always the effect of force; and an armament is not a victory. If you do not succeed, you are without resource; for, conciliation failing, force remains; but, force failing, no further hope of reconciliation is left. Power and authority are sometimes bought by kindness; but they can never be begged as alms by an impoverished and defeated violence.87

Third, Burke contends that force is potentially counterproductive, since "you impair the object by your very endeavours to preserve it". "The thing you fought for is not the thing which you recover; but depreciated, sunk, wasted, and consumed in the contest."88 Fourth, he points to Britain's lack of experience in applying military means against its colonies. "Their growth and their utility", he observes, "has been owing to methods altogether different." Consequently, to deviate from this trend would be to ignore the established wisdom on this subject. Finally, Burke stresses the difficulty of ruling the Ameri• can population with coercion. British policy towards America, as in all matters of imperial rule, should match the "temper and character" of the people in question. In the case of the Americans, Burke fo• cuses on their "fierce spirit of liberty", which is greater for them than for "any other people of the earth". Hence, they are likely to Medievalism 63

"become suspicious, restive, and untractable, whenever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by force, the only advantage worth living for."89 Thus, Burke declares his partiality for "prudent management", describing force as "a feeble instrument" for keeping the Americans "in a profitable and subordinate connexion with us".90 Most impor• tantly, he brings the analysis back to Britain, and the health of its Constitution. Americans are devoted not merely to liberty, he re• minds his fellow Englishmen, "but to a liberty according to English ideas, and on English principles".91 As a result, to deny their freedom would be to deny English freedom as well: "in order to prove that the Americans have no right to their liberties, we are every day endeavouring to subvert the maxims which preserve the whole spirit of our own."92 In Burke's opinion, the key to solving the American problem lies in "keeping up the concord of this empire by a unity of spirit, though in a diversity of operations... ."93 In this instance, that unity of spirit is to be found in the "principles of freedom", as enshrined in the British Constitution. He does not go as far as to advocate repre• sentation for the colonies in parliament, but rather returns to "the ancient constitutional policy of this kingdom with regard to represen• tation". His alternative is to "mark the legal competence of the colony assemblies for the support of their government in peace, and for publick aids in time of war".94 Burke continues his strategy of timely concession until the end of 1775, when events in America become irreversibly bent on revolu• tion. At this point, he pragmatically calculates that to concede inde• pendence would damage Britain less than a war,95 and decides to throw his support behind America: "I cannot help thinking, that we should have far more Glory, and far more advantage too, in letting them govern themselves under the protection of England as friends, than to attempt a conquest over them as Enemies "% It is crucial to note that he favours the American cause not because he conceives of the colonists as having an abstract "right" to rebel, but because he fears the continued effects of the exercise of arbitrary power. Britain would benefit more "from the affection of America ... under a sepa• rate establishment", he reasons, "than from her perfect submission to the crown and parliament, accompanied with her terrour, disgust, and abhorrence. Bodies tied together by so unnatural a bond of union, as mutual hatred, are only connected to their ruin."97 64 Edmund Burke and International Relations

India Burke interprets the issue of British rule in India in the same light as he does the situation in America: the arrogance of the metropolitan power in relation to its imperial possessions, and the need to restore a relationship of mutual benefit and friendship among the parts of the Empire. As a result, one sees in his arguments on India a reitera• tion of the themes of traditionalism, diversity and decentralisation. More specifically, the same dislike for arbitrary power dominates Burke's treatment of the British East India Company. Burke ac• knowledges the prescriptive right of the British East India Company to rule98 - much as he recognises the prescriptive right of govern• ments to govern. Nonetheless, in Burke's eyes the Company's pow• ers are not unlimited, but held on trust. Hence, as with every trust, they can and must be rendered accountable.99 In this case, not only has the EIC broken the derivative trust granted to it by Parliament, but Britain has violated the original trust given to it by Providence to rule over the Indian people.100 To allow such breaches to go un• punished, he argues, would "break the faith" and the "indispensable oath" to which he was bound, "by the eternal frame and constitution of things, to the whole human race."101 In addition, Burke's writings on India reinforce the precept of respect for local diversity. The institutionalisation of British presence in India, through its administration of Bengal, had revealed that the Hindu people possessed an established religion, property conven• tions, and an ancient legal system. For Burke, these serve as symbols of prescriptive traditions which the British have no right to overrule:

This multitude of men does not consist of an abject and barbarous populace; much less of gangs and savages ... but a people for ages civilized and cultivated; cultivated by all the arts of polished life, whilst we were yet in the woods.102

In India, Burke observes "princes ... of great dignity, authority, and opulence", an "antient and venerable priesthood", and a "nobility of great antiquity and renown".103 Given these established social insti• tutions and the steadfast nature of the indigenous Indian spirit, a nation which tried to "conquer" India would find it impossible, short of tyranny, to introduce new structures of power.104 Thus, during the proceedings on the Bengal Judicature Bill (1781), Burke urges Par• liament to give laws to India which are in accordance with "the gen• ius, the temper, and the manners of the people", and to restore to Medievalism 65 them the enjoyment of their ancient laws, usages, rights, and privileges.105 Burke's call to honour Indian tradition is not solely altruistic. As always, he is concerned with the larger questions of the continued viability of the Empire and health of the British Constitution. There• fore, in his Speech on Fox's India Bill, he claims "that every means, effectual to preserve India from oppression, is a guard to preserve the British constitution from its worst corruption."106 These objec• tives can only be secured, he maintains, if there is a coinciding inter• est between the foreigner and the native. In addition, it should be underlined that his aspirations for the indigenous people are more Rationalist than Revolutionist. For Burke, the Empire should restrict its activities to developing trade and commerce for the mutual ben• efit of the core and periphery. Any social, moral, political and eco• nomic changes to the native culture should go only as far as necessary to achieving that aim.107 Burke's efforts to reform British rule in India come to a climax in 1786, when he moves for the impeachment of the Governor General of Bengal, Warren Hastings. In his Speech to Parliament, Burke makes clear that his pursuit of Hastings is not a personal matter, but an exposition of the fundamental principles upon which imperial policy in India, and everywhere, should be founded.108 For him, the corrup• tion propagated by Hastings challenges the principles of individual, national and universal justice. First, by asserting that a different in• dividual and national morality prevailed in India, Hastings was argu• ing that servants of the Empire could ignore the precepts of moderation enshrined in the British Constitution. Second, and more importantly, Hastings was denying the existence of "the law of na• ture and nations, the great and fundamental axioms on which every form of society was built."109 Burke outlines his alternative picture of the unbreakable unity of the British Empire - and of an undifferentiated justice within it - during his speech opening the trial. The underlying message through• out is the equality of the Indian people with European civilisation: "[The] sun, in his beneficent progress round the world, does not behold a more glorious sight than that of men, separated from a remote people by the material bounds and barriers of nature, united by the bond of a social and moral community."110 For Burke, then, Britain must "enlarge the circle" of justice to match the extent of the Empire it has obtained. While in the American case justice could be rendered by extending the British Constitution to the American 66 Edmund Burke and International Relations colonists, the justice required for the Indian colonists is of a more universal kind: the "immutable" principles of Natural Law.111

Ireland A third example of Burke's compromise between central authority and local autonomy can be seen in his approach to the Irish question. Despite his cultural affection for his native Irish112, he should be viewed as a promoter rather than a champion of Irish reform. Even at what Conor Cruise O'Brien labels Burke's most radical phase, his propensities remain essentially conservative.113 In 1773, for example, Burke opposes moves by the Dublin Parlia• ment to tax absentee English landlords by appealing to the British Empire as one all-embracing society. While he admits that large sums of Irish money are flowing toward the metropole, he sees this situ• ation as "unavoidable", and adds that "these inconveniences are ... fuUy balanced, perhaps more than, balanced, by the united strength of a great and compact body". To impose such a tax, he reasons, is to denote England as a "foreign country" and to "destroy the happy arrangement of the entire Empire".114 Similarly, while Burke presses for an end to the harsh against Irish Catholics,115 there are limits both to his policy recom• mendations, and to the level of Irish agitation he is willing to endorse. He asks for neither the dissolution of the Protestant establishment, nor any substantive change in the structure of Irish society. Instead, he counsels the Irish people to remain loyal to the throne and to petition peacefully for a relaxation of the restrictions against them. "The web has been too long weaving", he insists, "to be unraveled in an instant."116 Above all, Burke despairs of those in Ireland who believe that the only way to battle is to fol• low the lead of French radicals. Indeed, as will be shown later, his position regarding Ireland becomes more liberal once the French Revolution comes to dominate his thinking. Finally, in terms of Irish independence, Burke is predisposed to keeping the Empire intact and working within the existing constitu• tional framework.117 His eyes remain fixed on those measures which will safeguard the "tranquility of the Country" and the "strength of the Empire".118 In particular, he hopes to prevent Ireland from tak• ing the same path as America: "There is a dreadful schism in the British nation. Since we are not able to reunite the empire, it is our business to give all possible vigour and soundness to those parts of it which are still content to be governed by our councils."119 His Medievalism 67 preference is a treaty between the two islands, which grants Ireland the power of local legislation, but binds her to Britain on issues of peace and war. As Burke sees it, Ireland "cannot be separated one moment from England without losing every source of her present prosperity and every hope of their future."120 To conclude, Burke's conservative vision of the British Empire, based on the maxims of traditionalism, diversity and decentralisa• tion, has a decidedly medieval ring.121 It strives to reconcile the presiding power of Britain and the liberty of her dependencies by permitting local autonomy and drawing on intermediate institutions of authority. Moreover, it posits a familial relationship of mutual dependence, rather than one of domination and submission, and holds ties of affection and sentiment as more important than legal rules or compacts. As the next chapter will show, it is this same diversity within an overall unity - plurahsm based on a foundation of solidarism - that characterises Burke's conception of the Commonwealth of Europe.

THE SPIRIT OF RELIGION

A final instance of Burke's medievalism is his attachment to the "spirit of religion".122 For Burke, human beings are not only social creatures, but religious ones as well: "We know, and it is our pride to know, that man is by his constitution a religious animal; that athe• ism is against, not only our reason, but our instincts."123 He therefore describes religion as the "basis of civil society"124 and suggests that Church and State must be inextricably linked:

An alUance between church and state in a Christian commonwealth is, in my opinion, an idle and a fanciful speculation. An alliance is between two things, that are in their nature distinct and independ• ent, such as between two sovereign states. But in a Christian com• monwealth the church and the state are one and the same thing, being different integral parts of the same whole.125

Despite these pious proclamations, Burke's own faith commitment should be described as firm rather than ecstatic. His admiration for religion is based more on its contribution to social order, than on any strong personal conviction: 68 Edmund Burke and International Relations

My particular religious sentiments are not of much importance to anyone but myself. I am attached to at large; much from conviction; more from affection. I would risque a great deal to prevent its being extinguished any where or in any of its shapes. As to the Sects and parties, that... divide that religious common• wealth, I do not perceive any thing in any of them so very evil as to induce a man, reasonably and conscientiously, to give his hand to the destruction of the publick happiness, and to the breaking up the foundations of social order, for the sake of destroying this or that description.126

Hence, as John Vincent has phrased it, Burke was a "sociologist of religion before he was a theologian".127 For Burke, religion is especially valuable for its disciplinary effect, and for its ability to persuade individuals to accept their station in his hierarchical social order. He therefore condemns attempts to eradi• cate that which "consoles the misfortunes of human nature, by break• ing off that connection of observances, of affections, of hopes and fears which bind us to the Divinity".128 Without the warm cloak of religion, Burke contends, human beings are left shivering in the face of the harsh realities of social life.129 In keeping with this institutional appreciation of religion, Burke is tolerant of diverse forms of worship, provided they contribute to social stability. In other words, he is not a "distinguished Zealot" for any particular national Church. "I should think myself, irrational and inconsistent", he remarks, "if I refused to apply my Ideas of Civil to religious Liberty."130 As James Davidson points out, in discussing religion within the European states system, Burke is more interested in promoting faith as an element of political unity than in outlining any specifics of doctrine. As with all elements of his political theory, the governing factor in evaluating a particular religion was whether it had been established through long usage. "All the principal reli• gions of Europe", he observes, "stand upon one common bottom. The support that the whole or the favored parts may have in the secret dispensations of providence it is impossible to tell; but, humanly speaking, they are all prescriptive ."131 Burke also concedes that he "would give a full civil protection... to Jews, Mahometans and even Pagans; especially if they are already possessed of any of those advantages by long and prescriptive usage; which is as sacred in this exercise of Rights, as in any other."132 Thus, Burke regards a firm religious tradition as an important ingredient of European society. Medievalism 69

More interestingly, Burke extends this toleration of diverse forms of worship to the prescriptive religions of the non-European world: "We must not think to force [Hindus] into the narrow circle of our ideas... God forbid we should go to pass judgment upon people who formed their Laws and Institutions prior to our insect origin of yesterday."133 Judging these foreign religions with his prescriptive criteria, Burke finds that they possess many formal structures, doc• trines, and ceremonies akin to those of Christianity, and generate the same beneficial social effects, such as charity, frugality, and a resig• nation to one's status in society. As he proclaims during the trial of Hastings, "wherever the Hindoo Religion had been established, that Country has been flourishing".134 In sum, Burke holds religion as a crucial component of not only European, but aU civilisations. What matters is not the kind of reli• gion as such, but rather the existence of an established religion. In fact, it is the French attack on the institution of religion that Burke sees as leading to the fall of French social and political institutions. Hence, as Part II will make clear, his religious toleration does not extend to atheists.135 The above treatment of Burke's medievalism, complete with its veneration of the past, its non-contractarian philosophy, its advocation of both hierarchy and decentralisation, and its religious foundation, suggests that his theory strives for the goal of diversity within an overall unity. As John Vincent contends, Burke's vision of interna• tional society tends to look back to the community of medieval Christendom rather than forward to the plurality of sovereign states.136 While this society permits a measure of local autonomy, such plural• ism is possible only within the context of a broader cultural and political whole, established through custom, sentiment and history. The precise nature of the order underlying this larger collective is the subject of the next chapter. 3 The Commonwealth of Europe

As demonstrated through the concepts of constitutionalism and medievalism, Burke posits the existence of an international society, sustained by institutions such as the balance of power, and regulated by legal and moral standards. While this society is marked by a de• gree of autonomy and decentralisation, Burke believes any diversity of interests is possible only because of an underlying sense of com• munity. For him, the "love to the whole is not extinguished by this subordinate partiality"1 for there is a solidarist consensus among the parts in fostering and maintaining order. This chapter will investigate the substantive bases for order in Burke's conception of international society. For Burke, it is not just order which is part of the "immutable nature" of things. It is a par• ticular order - the political and social order of Europe. Though Burke recognises the importance of "national character", and is intensely patriotic about Britain, he is also a good European, dedicated to preserving the long-standing traditions of Christian European civil• isation. Thus, he speaks of Europe as a "vast commonwealth", the "several parts being distinct and separate, though politically and commercially united".2 The firstpar t of this chapter will elaborate on the defining features of Burke's Commonwealth of Europe: religion, monarchy, Roman law, and feudal manners. In addition, it will demonstrate how his definition of the Commonwealth relies on his differentiation of Eu• ropean civilisation from the outside world. In the second section, Burke's portrayal of European international society will be situated within a more general context of theories concerning the nature of international order. Particular attention will be given to Burke's substantive definition of international legitimacy, which requires an underlying cultural homogeneity among the members of international society. Indeed, it is only on the basis of this deeper consensus - or "social consciousness"3 - that the more procedural hallmarks of Burke's international society (diplomacy, international law, the bal• ance of power) can function. Throughout this discussion, Burke's ideas will be set against other visions of European international society expressed in his day. Such

70 The Commonwealth of Europe 71 comparisons illustrate that while Burke builds on the theoretical contributions of thinkers such as Rousseau and Vattel, his conserva• tive vision of the European Commonwealth is a unique one, which combines elements of pluralism and solidarism, and which frequently looks back to the Middle Ages for its inspiration.

DEFINING THE COMMONWEALTH

The Ties That Bind

In his Letters on a Regicide Peace, Burke describes Europe as "vir• tually one great state", marked by the "same basis of general law; with some diversity of provincial customs and local establishments".4 However, as with his idea of the nation, his European Common• wealth has cultural and historical connotations which transcend physi• cal boundaries. Europe refers to a way of life, rather than a territorial or legal construct.5 In particular, Burke accentuates the cultural "si• militude" throughout Europe of the Christian religion, the monarchi• cal principle of government, the Roman law heritage, Germanic and Gothic custom, and feudal institutions. Though there are local vari• ations on these themes, he declares, "[at] bottom, these are all the same."6 The first element of commonality in Burke's Commonwealth of Europe is the Christian religion. He sees all states of Europe as based upon some variation of Christianity, "agreeing in the funda• mental parts, varying a little in the ceremonies and in the subordi• nate doctrines".7 As argued in Chapter 2, while Burke tolerates diverse forms of worship, a respect for religious institutions, and the social functions which they perform, is a crucial component in any good polity. Accordingly, to highlight this common religious heritage, he frequently uses the medieval term "Christendom" when referring to Europe. This tendency to confound the newer political entity of Europe with the older cultural notion of Christendom was not an uncommon practice in Burke's time. While the idea of a Christian Europe had few supporters when defined in purely papalist terms, in a broader, cultural sense it still found adherents.8 Hence, Rousseau remarked that "Europe, even now, is indebted more to Christianity than to any other influence for the union... which survives among her mem• bers."9 Likewise, even the anti-clerical Voltaire acknowledged the 72 Edmund Burke and International Relations

"common religious foundation" which underlay the European "republic".10 Second, Burke observes that all European states share a basic attachment to the monarchical form of government. While he recog• nises that some states have formally cast off Monarchy, he insists that "the spirit of European Monarchy" survives even in these self- professed republics: "Those countries still continued countries of States; that is, of classes, orders, and distinctions, such as had before subsisted, or nearly so."11 What is most important, then, is the pres• ervation of the monarchical form of government, which balances all of the ranks and orders of life. Provided this underlying social hier• archy is preserved, he writes, one can "ingraft any description of repubUc" onto this base.12 Third, Burke highlights the common custom and legal heritage which connect the parts of the European collective: "The whole of the polity and oeconomy of every country in Europe has been de• rived from the same sources," he writes. "It was drawn from the old Germanic or Gothic custumary; from the feudal institutions which must be considered as an emanation from that custumary; and the whole has been improved and digested into system and discipline by the Roman law."13 As with Montesquieu, Burke sees Europe as founded on the same spirit of Roman law. Fourth, Burke points to the mores or "manners" shared by all peoples in the European Commonwealth. It is this "antient system of opinion and sentiment", he contends, which distinguishes modern Europe "from the states of Asia" and "from those states which flourished in the most brilliant periods of the antique world".14 Such manners, which grew out of the feudal traditions of nobility and chivalry, "softened, blended, and harmonized the colours of the whole", providing a foundation for all other religious, political and legal institutions.15 In fact, he insists that manners are ultimately more significant than laws: "Upon them, in a great measure the laws de• pend. The law touches us but here and there, and now and then. Manners are what vex or sooth, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in."16 Hence, in addition to the spirit of religion, Burke holds the "spirit of a gentleman" as crucial to the maintenance of order among European states. Pivotal in perpetuating this set of manners is the similar structure of education which exists for Europeans: "There was little difference in the form of the for the education of their youth, The Commonwealth of Europe 73 whether with regard to faculties, to , or to the more liberal and elegant kinds of erudition."17 As a result of all these resem• blances, Burke concludes, "no citizen of Europe could be altogether an exile in any part of it... When a man travelled or resided for health, pleasure, business or necessity, from his country, he never felt himself quite abroad."18 Here, there are echoes of Voltaire's "citizen of the world", born and raised on a standard humanist education.19 Indeed, Burke's era was marked by an unprecedented degree of interaction among European scholars and the formation of an inter• national intellectual class.20 Finally, Burke describes the members of his European Common• wealth as united by free trade and economic interdependence. To deny these links, and to cultivate self-sufficiency, is to embrace pov• erty and stagnation. Of Britain, he declares: If we look to nothing but our domestick condition, the state of the nation is full even to plethory; but if we imagine that this country can long maintain it's blood and it's food, as disjoined from the community of mankind, such an opinion does not deserve refuta• tion as absurd, but pity as insane.21 For Burke, as for many of his Enlightenment contemporaries, the economic interconnections between European states are to be ap• plauded and expanded, for they bind states together in a community of interests.22 As put it: "not only as a man, but as a BRITISH subject, I pray for the flourishing commerce of GER• MANY, SPAIN, ITALY, and even FRANCE itself'.23 Burke's encouragement of increased economic contact distances him from Rousseau, who views interdependence as a source of sus• picion and incompatibility rather than harmony.24 It is interesting to compare Burke's and Hume's praise for the blurring of national boundaries with Rousseau's lament that "there are no longer any Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, or even Englishmen; there are only Europeans."25 Rousseau's denigrating comments about cosmo• politanism - which he reduces to the "passion for gold" and "lust for women"26 - suggest that he is singularly unimpressed by the political, civil, religious and economic ties which constitute Burke's European Commonwealth. Instead, his desire to preserve the purity of the General Will from outside contagion leads him to counsel economic autarky, political independence and diplomatic isolationism.27 Because Burke subscribes to a much weaker sense of state autonomy, he does not fear the cultivation of interdependent relationships. In contrast 74 Edmund Burke and International Relations to Rousseau, who believes that Europe is gobbling up the nation, Burke is confident that "national character" can survive and be strengthened by participation in this larger collective. Thus, in Burke's Commonwealth of Europe, the forces of cultural and economic transnationalism penetrate the rigid frontiers of sover• eign states. In his theory, the ultimate glue which consolidates all of these interactions is the bond of "sympathy", born of familiarity. Once more, he minimises purely legal or geographical considerations in favour of more intangible factors. Though there is no formal pact uniting the nations of the Christian-Roman-Germanic tradition, there is a deep bond of affection arising from their "similitude". Burke's thoughts on this affection are worth citing in full: In the intercourse between nations, we are apt to rely too much on the instrumental part. We lay too much weight upon the formality of treaties and compacts... Men are not tied to one another by papers and seals. They are led to associate by resemblances, by , by sympathies. It is with nations as with individuals. Nothing is so strong a tie of amity between nation and nation as correspondence in laws, customs, manners, and habits of life. They have more than the force of treaties in themselves. They are ob• ligations written in the heart. They approximate men to men, with• out their knowledge, and sometimes against their intentions. The secret, unseen, but irrefragable bond of habitual intercourse, holds them together, even when their perverse and litigious nature sets them to equivocate, scuffle, and fight about the terms of their written obligations.28 In sum, it is the substantive horizontal links of culture which ultimately hold Europe together, rather than the more procedural aspects of international relations, such as diplomacy or international law. As intimated above, by emphasising the role of cultural and eco• nomic intercourse, Burke shares several tenets of the Enlightenment cosmopolitanism that dominated the late eighteenth century. As with Burke, the cosmopolitanists sought to overcome chauvinistic national loyalties, aspired to a familiarity with many parts and peoples of the world, and encouraged economic and political interdependence. Moreover, as Felix Gilbert observes, it was common for cosmopoli• tan writers "to say that the various nations belonged to 'one society'" or that "all states together formed a 'family of nations'".29 Although Burke concurs with this depiction of sovereign states as part of a larger collective, his vision of international society also The Commonwealth of Europe 75 differs significantly from his progressivist Enlightenment counterparts. First, in professing the goals of increased interdependence and soli• darity, cosmopolitanism was aspiring to much more than internation• alism. As one scholar describes it, internationalism is primarily a political doctrine which advocates "the friendly association of all nations on a basis of equality and without sacrifice of national char• acter".30 CosmopoUtanism is a broader and deeper notion, which seeks not only to dilute state sovereignty, but also to transcend it. Burke's theory retains a mediating role for the state, and posits a more com• plex relationship between the whole and its parts. Second, the cosmopolitan ideal was precisely that - an ideal. It was often more symbolic than real, theorising about the ties that ought to bind nations together, rather than elaborating on the traditional links that already connected them. As a result, Enlightenment cosmo• politanism frequently protested against the existing social, religious and political institutions that Burke was so fond of.31 Indeed, it was a common practice for cosmopolitanists to criticise prevailing inter• national institutions, such as the balance of power or international law. Burke, by contrast, is inclined to work from these established traditions and procedures.32 Third, Enlightenment cosmopolitanism tended to presuppose hu• man solidarity and uniformity.33 Burke's Commonwealth of Europe, while frequently idealistic, contains greater tensions and ambiguities. He reflects not only on the historical links joining European states, but also on their distinct national characters and on the conflicting national interests that continue to divide them. In addition, his soli• darity and uniformity exist primarily at an elite level - the gentlemen of Europe - rather than at the level of "the People". Finally, whereas most Enlightenment philosophes strove for universalism in their cosmopolitanism, reaching out to all parts of the globe,34 Burke fixes his attention on Europe. While he is an informed observer of non-European peoples, he does not endorse the Revolutionist notions of "world citizenship" or the "Common Rights of Mankind". Instead, he confines his sense of solidarity to the exist• ing international society of Europe. His cosmopolitanism is at bot• tom conservative, looking to consolidate rather than to enlarge.

External Differentiation

Having outlined the defining features of Burke's European interna• tional society, it is necessary to establish its limits. As Wight explains, 76 Edmund Burke and International Relations because most international societies have covered less than the en• tire surface of the globe, they have always been aware of other so• cieties which exist outside themselves. More specifically, international societies have tended to delineate the boundaries of their moral, political and cultural community through a sense of "external differ• entiation" from the "barbarian" or "savage".35 Accordingly, an inte• gral part of Burke's definition of the Commonwealth of Europe is his attempt to distinguish it from non-European societies in Asia, the New World, and the Ottoman Empire. As with many of his European peers, he uses the existence of an external "Other" to highlight and reinforce those qualities which are unique to the European identity.36

Asia and the New World Burke's tendency to juxtapose European and non-European cultures is part of a more general Enlightenment fascination with the outside world.37 Science and technology had enabled late eighteenth century Europeans to develop a truly global perspective, by increasing their physical knowledge of non-European societies. In turn, the detailed reports of "savage" and "barbarian" practices which were transmit• ted by explorers and travel writers helped to consolidate an aware• ness of those elements of "civilisation" which united Europeans.38 In the words of two recent scholars of this period: "To a greater degree than ever before Europe was compared to other societies. Such com• parisons could stimulate revision of Europe's view of itself; much more commonly, however, they served to give greater weight to concepts already formed in Europe."39 Burke's own reflections on Europe owe much to this exercise in comparison and contrast. Most of his writing before the French Revolution is directed at non-European societies, such as those of Asia and South America. In fact, P.J. Marshall claims that "Burke's study of India was probably more intensive and more prolonged than any study of a non-European people undertaken by any of his great contemporaries ,M0 In commenting on William Robertson's His• tory of America, published in 1771, Burke suggests that it is possible to enhance one's understanding of society and human nature by observing the different stages of "civilisation" which exist all over the world:

I have always thought with you, that we possess at this time very great advantages towards the knowledge of human Nature. We need no longer go to History to trace in all its stages and periods The Commonwealth of Europe 77

... But now the Great Map of Mankind is unrolld at once; and there is no state or Gradation of barbarism, and no mode of refine• ment which we have not at the same instant under our View. The very different Civility of Europe and China; The barbarism of tartary, and of arabia. The savage State of North America and of New Zealand.41

Following the "natural history of man" approach of the , Burke believes that the descriptions of human beings in non-European societies can be used as evidence to speculate on what early Europeans may have been like.42 This reflects his more basic view that human nature is everywhere constant, and that variations which exist among individuals are due to their different circumstances.43 From their observations of the outside world, Burke and his con• temporaries accumulated a mass of detailed differences to add to the religious distinctions drawn between Europe and non-Europe.44 En• lightenment political thought emphasised Europe's distinctive politi• cal organisation, incorporating 's term "despotism" to refer to the political institutions of alien societies. In addition, theorists such as Montesquieu postulated that Europe's advanced status in art, science, and industry was due to its superior natural endowments and favourable climatic conditions.45 And finally,politica l like Adam Smith used the data collected from observations of the non-European world to construct a ladder of economic progress, positing a different level of "civilisation" for each different mode of subsistence.46 Nevertheless, as illustrated earlier, Burke does not share the pro- gressivist spirit that was characteristic of so much Enlightenment thinking. In particular, he diverges from the tendency to depict Eu• rope as moraUy and culturally advanced, and Asia and native America as doomed to stagnation.47 Most importantly, he rejects the "mission• ary" implications which flow from this sense of superiority. Instead, Burke is still willing to regard non-European peoples with a certain awe and wonder. While he recognises that these societies are quali• tatively distinct, he directs his observations to a different, more con• servative end. Whereas the heirs to the Enlightenment adopted theories of ethnology to prove that progress was possible and inevit• able, Burke's reaction to the gradations of "civilisation" is to preach toleration of diversity and respect for established tradition. To re• peat, it is not the kind of institutions in such societies which matter, 78 Edmund Burke and International Relations but the fact that such institutions are prescriptive and match the character of their people. In this respect for the diversity of the non-European world, and its "imperviousness to change", Burke is not entirely out of step with his age. It can be argued that it was only at the turn of the nineteenth century, when the spirit of gave way to fully-fledged im• perialism, that those considered stagnant were condemned to con• quest.48 Burke therefore mediates between thinkers like Hume and Smith, who championed the effects of progress in wealth and indus• try, and Rousseau, who voiced scepticism about the alleged technical and economic advancements of the eighteenth century and professed admiration for the simple and uncorrupted lifestyle of the "noble savage".49 While Burke is often critical of modernising trends in contemporary European society, he is also aware of the difficulties of transferring the conventions of a distant, simpler age to the complex problems of the present.50

The Ottoman Empire The boundaries of Burke's Commonwealth of Europe clearly ex• clude the non-Christian society of the Ottoman Empire. He expresses this sentiment most fully during the Ochakov Crisis of 1791, when he vociferously opposes Pitt's plan to aid the Turks in their campaign to halt Russian advances: He had never before heard it held forth, that the Turkish empire was ever considered as any part of the balance of power in Eu• rope. They had nothing to do with European power; they consid• ered themselves as wholly Asiatic... They despised and condemned all Christian princes, as infidels, and only wished to subdue and exterminate them and their people. What had these worse than savages to do with the powers of Europe, but to spread war, de• struction, and pestilence among them? ... I am not for favouring such barbarians and oppressing Christians, to the detriment of civi• lization and hindrance of human refinement.51 In proclaiming this hostility toward the Ottoman Empire, Burke echoes many seventeenth and eighteenth century thinkers on Euro• pean international society.52 During this period, the Ottoman Empire, though a functional part of the European diplomatic system and a crucial weight in the balance of power, was considered outside the realm of European international society.53 In other words, while 'the Turk' could participate in the politico-military structures of the The Commonwealth of Europe 79 international system, it was barred from what calls the deeper "transnational community of culture".54 As the quotation from Burke suggests, the root of this continued exclusion of the "barbarian" was the alien religious tradition of Is• lam. As shown above, although the passion of the medieval had passed, many European contemporaries continued to hold Chris• tianity as a defining feature of "civUised" Europe. Hence, while dip• lomats were prepared to use the old enemy of "the Turk" as an ally against one another in their power political machinations, they were quick to deny the logical consequences of their actions.55 Instead, the language of treaties continued to maintain such phrases as "the com• mon enemy", "the Christian republic", or "the provinces of Christen• dom".56 Moreover, as Gerrit Gong notes, despite the evolution in legal thinking away from the "law of Christian nations" to the "law of civilized nations", this process of secularisation did not become entrenched until well into the nineteenth century.57 Finally, the schemes for a peaceful federation of European states put forth by men such as William Penn, Gottfried Leibniz and the Abb6 de Saint Pierre followed their medieval predecessors in excluding "the Turk". In fact, for many of these theorists, the primary reason for uniting European states was to provide greater security to Christians against the Ottoman peril.58 Nonetheless, while Burke's tirade against the "barbarian" Otto• man Empire is not uncharacteristic for the eighteenth century, it is a striking departure from his precepts of traditionalism and diversity. In short, there appears to be a tension between his toleration of difference, and his basic requirements for social order. In the case of North America, the question of toleration does not really arise, for "savages" are perceived to lack established institutions. Furthermore, because they are in an early stage of existence, they appear less threatening. Indeed, as shown earlier, Burke claims that Europeans can "see themselves" - albeit a primitive version of themselves - in the "savage Other". In the case of India, toleration poses no di• lemma, for Burke perceives the ancient traditions and institutions of this society as conforming to the "natural order of things". Further• more, there is no physical threat from India's cultural difference and no suggestion that India is somehow "part of Europe". In the case of the Ottoman Empire, however, Burke's delicate balancing act between order and diversity breaks down. As a result, his phrasing in the above passage is confusing. On the one hand, he uses the conventional notion of "barbarian" to refer to the Ottomans, 80 Edmund Burke and International Relations acknowledging their established political and social institutions, but judging them as "uncivUised" and inferior.59 Yet, he also contends that this "cruel and wasteful empire" is worse than savage. This does not mean that Burke views the Ottoman Empire as less developed than the New World. Rather, it suggests that he considers it a particularly menacing "Other", given the strength of its religious animosity, its physical proximity to Europe60 and its historically threatening mili• tary posture. Hence, the Ottoman Empire forces Burke to reveal his hand in a way that India and the New World do not. For him, the "turban'd Turk"61 has contravened Europe's "civilised" standards and is wholly unsuited for membership in his Commonwealth. Part II will show that Burke also perceives the challenge of the French Revolution as an affront to the "civilised" maxims of Euro• pean international society. Therefore, he uses much the same im• agery as he adopts here in relation to the Ottoman Empire. More significantly, it will be shown that such exclusivist views towards "the Other" have important ramifications for the Rationalist rules and institutions of international society.

BURKE'S THEORY OF INTERNATIONAL ORDER

Homogeneity and International Legitimacy

As the above discussion illustrates, Burke defines European interna• tional society as much more than a legal, geographical, or political construct. In his mind, it is a historical and cultural collective, which unites its members in a common commitment to monarchical rule, established religion, Roman law, and feudal custom. Similarly, though his theory of international order invokes all the Rationalist instru• ments for maintaining stability among states - international law, di• plomacy, the balance of power - such procedural rules of coexistence are of secondary importance. Of more significance is the underlying homogeneity of his Commonwealth of Europe with regard to domes• tic political and social considerations. To put it another way, Burke's international society presupposes a common culture.62 In presuming this basic homogeneity for his international society, Burke's perspective should not be confused with more radical "second image" approaches to international order.63 This approach, embodied in figures such as , asserts that world peace between states can be achieved only by creating "doctrinal uniformity"64 within The Commonwealth of Europe 81 them. In Paine's case, this requires throwing off the shackles of monarchical rule and adopting the institutions of . Burke's line of argument eschews this second image approach, for it would place him in the company of some of his greatest enemies. Instead, the key to his stand on homogeneity lies in his substantive understanding of international legitimacy. In essence, while Burke admits the possibility of some diversity in religious, social and polit• ical organisation, he cannot tolerate heterogeneity regarding the prin• ciples of legitimacy which underlie European international society. For him, "rightful membership in the family of nations"65 is premised on with the standards of European"civilisation". Before 1789, international legitimacy was grounded in the princi• ple of dynasticism - the status and claims of existing rulers. The reigning monarch was the unquestioned sovereign within the state, and subject peoples belonged to the political unit which that sover• eign dictated. As Aron explains: "It was assumed that the desire of men to obey one master rather than another did not count and, most of the time, did not exist."66 Further, this right of sovereignty was acknowledged by other states, as international law incorporated the principle of prescription into its mechanisms for recognition. As a result, "[prescriptive] rights were sacrosanct, and power politics were conducted in a litigious and not a doctrinal or ideological idiom."67 Collectively, the prescriptive dynasties of Europe formed a ruling class: alliances were consolidated by dynastic marriages; territorial aggrandisement was justified by dynastic claims. But although this dynastic system was characterised by feelings of community and soli• darity, it did not exhibit the kind of homogeneity advocated by sec• ond-image theorists. While there was homogeneity regarding the hierarchical social order which underpinned the state, the interna• tional system remained heterogeneous in terms of both state struc• ture and precise constitutional arrangements. As Burke notes, there was a similarity in form but local variations on that theme. Hence, the system encompassed multi-national like Austria and Britain and national monarchies such as France, but also over-grown city-states like and confederations such as Switzerland.68 Moreover, while some states remained ruled by hereditary monar• chies, others had procedures for elected monarchy (e.g. Poland, Denmark, and Sweden) and still others referred to themselves as republics (e.g. the Dutch and Swiss republics).69 Once the spirit of the French Revolution took hold, self- 82 Edmund Burke and International Relations determination - the claims and consent of the governed - replaced dynasticism as the basis for international legitimacy. While previ• ously citizenship had been limited to a small number, the ideas of the French Revolution brought juridical equality to all members of the coUectivity and led to an aspiration on the part of the governed to belong to a community of their choice.70 Henceforth, legitimacy could no longer be based on custom; it now had to be based on ideas which could be supported by the masses. With the smashing of the principle of dynastic right and the elevation of the principle of popular sover• eignty, there were also calls for a greater degree of homogeneity in the European international system, directed at the structure of both government and society. In the process, the criteria for legitimacy became much more ideological: all that was not popularly based was considered illegitimate.71 Burke, in his mistrust of popular sovereignty72 and nostalgia for monarchy, clearly subscribes to the dynastic school of legitimacy and rejects the version of homogeneity espoused by his liberal contempo• raries. It is true that he conceives of Europe as a homogeneous "in- group of states"73 which excludes "uncivilised" countries. In addition, he regards this cultural consensus as indispensable to the smooth functioning of international institutions such as international law or the balance of power. But it is important to set the conservative limits to his idea of "similitude". Burke's goal is international order, not international perfection. The prerequisites European states must meet to achieve this order are respect for the monarchical form of government, adherence to a common legal heritage, and some meas• ure of Christian piety. Beyond these fundamentals, Burke's medi• evalism accepts some "diversity of forms".74 More significantly, Burke's conservative scepticism diverts him from the more radical doctrine of ideological homogeneity. The difference between this Revolutionist notion and Burke's constitutionalist posi• tion has been set out by Hedley Bull:

The vision of a states system that achieves order or harmony through the triumph in all countries of the true ideology is differ• ent from the Grotian or solidarist vision, for the latter assumes that conflicts of interests will continue to exist among states, and seeks to curb them through the overwhelming power of the collectivity, whereas the former maintains that when the true ide• ology is universally enthroned, conflicts of interest will not exist or wiU only be of slight importance.75 77ie Commonwealth of Europe 83

Thus, Burke does not share the views of the "New Diplomacy"76 proponents of the eighteenth century, who asserted that the interna• tional problem of war would be alleviated once the domestic prob• lem of a corrupt ancien regime had been eliminated. Because Burke accepts the imperfections of human nature, he does not share the radical Enlightenment faith that the masses are somehow more inter• nationalist or pacifist than their rulers.77 Because he refuses to sup• port rationalist programmes for change, he denies that one particular ideology is necessarily the messiah of world peace. And because he retains a Realist aversion to progressivist philosophy, he insists that war can never be completely eliminated from international relations. In the end, then, Burke's notion of homogeneity is much more conservative, and much less ambitious. He admits that Europe's so• cial, political and cultural solidarity will not do away with all conflict - much in the same way as Christendom continued to experience war among Christians.78 However, he believes the underlying homogene• ity of his Commonwealth will prevent dynastic and commercial dis• putes from becoming irreparable schisms:

The conformity and analogy of which I speak, incapable, like every• thing else, of preserving perfect trust and tranquillity among men, has a strong tendency to facilitate accommodation, and to produce a generous oblivion of the rancour of their quarrels. With this similitude, peace is more of peace, and war is less of war.79

Nevertheless, even Burke's conservative version of homogeneity can have serious ramifications for the stability of the international system and the traditional rules and institutions which regulate state relations.80 Burke's substantive conception of international legitimacy creates a hierarchy of values, which places the underlying consensus on domestic social and political orders above the agreement on the "ordinary" procedures which regulate international society. As suc• ceeding chapters will argue, this hierarchical relationship implies that the latter can be thwarted or suspended if this more fundamental homogeneity is threatened. Furthermore, it suggests that any chal• lenger to the substantive bases of order should confront retaliation from not merely its immediate victim, but European society at large.81 The result is a crusade on behalf of international society to restore its former homogeneity. 84 Edmund Burke and International Relations

Homogeneity and the "Reinforcing Effect"

As argued above, while Burke shares the Enlightenment emphasis on the transnational ties which unite European states, the cosmo• politanism which characterises his Commonwealth of Europe is fundamentally conservative. This conservatism also informs his understanding of international legitimacy. More specifically, Burke's commitment to maintaining a consensus on the principles of legiti• macy stems from the important "reinforcing effect" which that homo• geneity has on each member of international society. For him, the poUtical and social orders of Europe are integrally linked, and rely on each other for survival: [I] consider the conservation in England of the antient order of things, as necessary to preserve order every where else, and ... the general conservation of order in other countries, as reciprocally necessary to preserve the same state of things in those Islands.82 In Burke's perspective there is an inter-relationship between a homo• geneous and stable international society and the maintenance of the domestic status quo. Indeed, he demands that the former maintain a vigilant interest in the latter. This solidarist theory of international order distinguishes Burke from the more pluralist eighteenth century philosophers of interna• tional society like Vattel, who sought to shift away from the medieval concern for the "right ordering of Christendom".83 Rather than view• ing Europe primarily in terms of its unity - as a fallen empire or a faded federation - such thinkers conceived of Europe first in terms of its separation into sovereign states, and only secondly as a volun• tary association of those states into an international society. This emphasis on division, as opposed to unity, was reflected in the devel• opment of a positive international law to regulate and codify inter• state relations. In the process, the internal orders of states became subordinate to the maintenance of external order among them. In elaborating his idea of European international society, Burke often appeals to these "writers on the public law of Europe" for inspiration.84 In particular, Vattel's description of Europe as "une espfece de r6publique", where states "se r6unissent pour y maintenir l'ordre et la libertd",85 is clearly relevant for Burke's own idea of the Commonwealth of Europe. While Vattel's theory endows states with independent rights, it also gives them societal obligations and regu• lates their relations with a higher law of nations. As a result, even if The Commonwealth of Europe 85 there is no world government to enforce rules, it is still possible to achieve a "confederation perp&uelle",86 based on the voluntary as• sociation of sovereign states. Nonetheless, in the battle between Europe's historical and cultural unity and its political division into separate states, Vattel's work has been more instrumental in furthering the cause of state liberty than of international society.87 Although his law of nations rests upon Natural Law principles, he believes these postulates are insufficient to ensure order and must be augmented by "voluntary" agreements and commitments among states. Moreover, as one recent scholar has argued, Vattel's legal theory limits the social obligations of the state so that a sovereign can ignore the universal dictates of Natural Law without violating the law of nations.88 In the end, by delegating im• portant issues concerning peace, war, and neutrality to the "con• science" of the sovereign, Vattel implicitly promotes the interests of state liberty over the larger interests of international society.89 The fact that Vattel gives ultimate discretion to the sovereign state, rather than to the objective standards of Natural Law, suggests that he hoped sovereigns would act on the basis of "enlightened self- interest" to maintain peace and order.90 This faith flowed from his observations of the economic and diplomatic integration of Europe in the eighteenth century.91 Nevertheless, the links which connect the component parts of his European Republic, such as diplomatic meet• ings and trade, are more pragmatic than the ties which bind the members of Burke's Commonwealth of Europe. In fact, they can be reduced to those requirements which Wight isolates as necessary for the working of the balance of power.92 While there is reference to an "int^rSt commun" in Vattel's writings, it does not involve a consen• sus on the substantive issues which underpin Burke's European in• ternational society. In short, Vattel forwards a procedural rather than a substantive conception of international legitimacy. As we have seen, Burke's Commonwealth of Europe is founded on an international legitimacy which incorporates the domestic pol• itical and social properties of states, as well as their external diplo• matic machinations. In spite of his claims to be drawing on the "writers of public law", his international theory looks back to the solidarist ideas of the peace theorists, such as William Penn and the Abb<§ de Saint Pierre, rather than forward to the pluralist ideas of interna• tional lawyers such as Vattel. Although peace among princes was the ultimate aim of these thinkers, they did not base their organisational proposals upon the sovereignty of states per se. Rather, they sought 86 Edmund Burke and International Relations to revive and re-institutionalise a medieval notion of a united Chris• tendom in a more secular guise.93 As Hinsley puts it: "They had not yet decided whether the need was for the better organisation of a single community which was losing its ancient bonds or for the im• position of a new organisation upon individual and component states.94 Burke's theory of international society walks the same line be• tween division and unity. On the one hand, his attachment to the older conception of Christian Europe runs counter to the trend to• ward pluralism in the late eighteenth century. Yet, as his writings on nation and nationality indicate, he also acknowledges the vitality of independent states and the extent to which European order must be built upon them. As Cobban remarks: "Nationality, the only basis on which he was prepared to build internationalism, was to be recon• ciled with it by a very idealized version of European polity."95 There• fore, the two opposing demands of European international society in his day - national independence and cosmopolitan unity - are con• stantly weaving in and out of his thought. Where Burke's Commonwealth of Europe most approximates the ideas of the peace theorists, however, is in its desire to preserve a territorial, political and social status quo. In essence, the Europe Burke writes about is the Europe established at the Treaty of Utrecht. This fits with the general movement away from the search for pre• eminence in Europe and toward an acceptance of equilibrium based on the existing power and territorial configuration.96 Thus, for ex• ample, Saint-Pierre's scheme for a European union also sought to preserve the territorial settlement achieved during the Utrecht negoti• ations, thereby eUminating further causes for dispute or conflict among princes.97 More importantly, Burke's Commonwealth of Europe shares the desire of such federal thinkers to guarantee dynastic rulers a political and social status quo within their frontiers. Given .that most of these schemes sought to avoid the use of force in establishing federations, their success depended on the "enlightened" willingness of sover• eigns to temper their ambitions.98 In order to persuade sovereigns to accept what they already had, figures such as Penn and Saint-Pierre adopted the medieval strategy of an international guarantee for inter• nal sovereignty.99 In other words, Kings and Queens would no longer need to fear internal strife in their dominions, for they could call upon neighbouring sovereigns for aid in suppressing rebellion.100 The European federation would offer a double-edged security against civil and international war.101 The Commonwealth of Europe 87

This coupling of domestic and international order underscores the conservative nature of these schemes. The door was closed both to the territorial ambitions of a sovereign who might wish to increase her dominion, and to those subject peoples who might seek to change their sovereign or their form of government. While such projects sought to temper the external face of sovereignty by subjecting princes to third-party arbitration and communal decision-making, they com• pensated for this dilution of state autonomy by giving greater assur• ances to the internal sovereignty of the Crown.102 Like the medieval designs which preceded them, these federations were based on an "idea of confederating kings, not peoples".103 As with Burke, the peace theorists saw the problem of interna• tional order as involving both internal and external elements - both substantive and procedural solutions. They recognised the interde• pendence of the domestic and the international sphere, and the de• gree to which problems of legitimacy in one could be compounded or relieved in the other. Society could not function within, they rea• soned, if there was not some degree of society without.104 Hence, an international consensus on upholding orderly domestic arrangements was viewed as equally critical in avoiding the scourge of war. The substantive notion of international legitimacy, and its accom• panying external guarantee for domestic stability, has direct implica• tions for the manner in which international society responds to a revolutionary challenge in any of its members. Because of the intri• cate link between domestic and international politics, revolutionaries are regarded as common enemies of all rulers; if they were to win in one state, the social orders in all others would also be shaken. Thus, as Burke's crusade will demonstrate, the commitment to maintaining homogeneity translates into a common defence of the established order and a collective repression of revolution. Equally significant, however, is the "reinforcing effect" of homogeneity in "normal times". In this case, the fear of potential revolution incites leaders to rein• force one another and to limit their claims against each other. In fact, homogeneity can play a role in warding off rebellious demands in their infancy, by making the domestic order seem "natural" and "immutable". In sum, Burke shares the common eighteenth century vision of European international society, united by the links of economic and cultural exchange and committed to the smooth functioning of in• ternational rules and institutions. However, his solidarist vision of the Commonwealth of Europe is also sustained by agreement on 88 Edmund Burke and International Relations domestic social, cultural and political questions: Christian religion, Roman law, feudal custom, and monarchical government. In his view, it is this deeper consensus which sets his Commonwealth apart from the non-European world, and which enables it to develop the more procedural mechanisms for regulating state relations. In addition, this underlying social, political and cultural homogeneity of European international society helps to reinforce the domestic status quo for each of its members. As my conclusions will demonstrate, Burke's recognition of the role of homogeneity and its "reinforcing effect" has important theo• retical ramifications for international relations. Most importantly, his writings underscore that homogeneity is a crucial variable of interna• tional order in times of peace and stability as well as in times of crisis.105 Indeed, it is only by identifying the preexisting role of homo• geneity in "normal times" that one can appreciate both the nature of the revolutionary threat of heterogeneity to the stability of the inter• national system, and the crusading responses that this threat can generate from proponents of the status quo. It is to this challenge of heterogeneity - in the form of social revolution in France - that my discussion of Burke will now turn. Part II The Conservative Crusader

INTRODUCTION

We are in a war of a peculiar nature. It is not with an ordinary community, which is hostile or friendly as passion or as interest may veer about; not with a State which makes war through wan• tonness, and abandons it through lassitude. We are at war with a system, which, by it's essence, is inimical to all other Governments, and which makes peace or war, as peace or war may best contrib• ute to their subversion. It is with an armed doctrine that we are at war.1 From all this, what is my inference? It is, that this new system of robbery in France cannot be rendered safe by any art; that it must be destroyed, or that it will destroy all Europe; that to destroy that enemy, by some means or other, the force opposed to it should be made to bear some analogy and resemblance to the force and spirit which that system exerts; that war ought to be made against it, in its vulnerable parts.2 The above excerpts from Burke's Letters on a Regicide Peace seem to present a stark contrast to the man of prudence and toleration depicted in Part I. In contrast to his earlier writings on aesthetics, empire or the British Constitution, his works from the French Revo• lutionary period are characterised less by harmony and conciliation than by "rigorous virtues".3 Yet it is this aspect of Burke's thought - the "Rage of Edmund Burke"4 - that first drew attention to his work and brought him the greatest recognition. It is his "crusading", rather than his "constitutionalism", for which he is best remembered. The controversial legend of Burke began in his own time. Within a year of its publication, his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) sold 19,000 copies and sparked 100 pamphlet replies.5 The work immediately filtered through the grapevine of the British estab• lishment. King George III is reputed to have remarked that "Burke's Reflections is a good book, a very good book; every gentleman ought to read it." The famous romantic poet, Coleridge, was moved to

89 90 Edmund Burke and International Relations speak of Burke as a man of "transcendent Greatness" and "of meas• ureless superiority to those about him".6 Similarly, in describing his translation of the book into German, Friedrich Gentz wrote to Burke: "I'll think myself arrived at its glorious aim, if my name should be found worthy to be traced at the pedestal of Your statute."7 On the other hand, the early feminist writer called the Reflections a "theatrical performance", while Burke's po• litical rival, William Pitt, asserted that the work contained "abso• lutely nothing to agree with".8 Thomas Paine, who was disillusioned with Burke's apparent shift from reformism to conservatism, was even less charitable: "Among the incivilities by which nations or individuals provoke and irritate each other, Mr. Burke's pamphlet on the French Revolution is an extraordinary instance." Upon receiving his copy of the Reflections, wrote that the "Revo• lution in France does not astonish me so much as the revolution of Mr. Burke."9 Thus, whether it generated praise or condemnation, Burke's impassioned plea against the French Revolution did not go unnoticed. Burke's writings and speeches are still capable of provoking such intense feelings of hostility or admiration. As Christopher Reid ob• serves, the "debate on Burke, disputed with sufficient heat during his own lifetime, has never quite been allowed to settle down or to re• solve itself into a comfortably academic affair".10 The Edmund Burke of the Reflections and the Letters on a Regicide Peace has provided a powerful image for conservatives and counter-revolutionists right up to the present day. In their "rediscovery" of Burke's thought, American conservatives of the 1950s found a welcome ideological support for the Cold War against Soviet . To cite Peter Stanlis: "If the Commonwealth of Christian Europe is to survive and form the ethical norms of civilization throughout the world, all men, but particularly Americans, will have to learn the great lessons in Burke's philosophy."11 While Part I explored the entity which Burke's conservative inter• national theory seeks to preserve - the Commonwealth of Europe - Part II will discuss his proposed means of preservation: counter• revolution. In the process, we will see a tension between Burke's constitutionalist commitment to harmony and stability, and his ex• tremist prescriptions for war against the revolutionary regime in France. In short, there is a coercive edge to his international theory. Chapter 4 sets out Burke's theory of the causes of the French Revolution and his perception of the French Revolutionary threat. Introduction 91

First, it illustrates that Burke conceives the Revolutionary postulates of Atheism, Jacobinism and Regicide as undermining the very foun• dations of order in his Commonwealth of Europe. Second, it argues that Burke views this challenge not as a physical one, premised on military might, but as an ideological one, based on subversive and contagious doctrine. Chapters 5 and 6 analyse Burke's call for a collective intervention to destroy the Revolutionary contagion, and the "Holy War" means which he advocates for waging it. I will argue that Burke's understanding of international order, which rests upon a substantive conception of international legitimacy, justifies - and indeed demands - an unlimited war against the "armed doctrine" of the Revolution. In his eyes, the have initiated a civil war in Europe in which the "usual relations of peace and amity"12 no longer apply. Throughout these chapters, Burke's philosophy of counter• revolution will be portrayed in Martin Ceadel's vocabulary as the ideology of "crusading". More specifically, it will be shown that Burke wages both an international and a domestic crusade against the French Revolution.13 His campaign is designed to address not only the exter• nal behaviour of Revolutionary France, but also its internal rotten• ness. For Burke, the social upheavals of 1789 have blurred the traditional distinction between domestic and international politics, giving all of Europe a "close and connected concern in what is done in France".14 Nonetheless, it will also be argued that Burke's crusade remains a "negative" one. While he insists that the internal affairs of France are a matter of concern for all European states, he does not seek to impose new values or to construct a more perfect system. Instead, the objective of his counter-revolution is to "root out and destroy an existing evil"15 and to restore the pillars of the ancien regime: "First, therefore, restore property and afterwards let that property find a government for itself."16 Before proceeding with this investigation of Burke's crusade, it is necessary to set the historical context by outlining the general policy debate in Britain over the appropriate response to the French Revo• lution. Burke's hostile reaction to 1789 represents only one end of a spectrum of opinions on the nature and potential impact of the Revolution which emerged in Britain following the fall of the .17 At the other end of the continuum was the pro-Revolutionary inter- ventionism of radicals such as Thomas Paine, whose 1792 publication The Rights of Man became a rallying point for pamphleteers and reformers who were calling for an adoption of the French model.18 In 92 Edmund Burke and International Relations between these two extremes lay the sympathetic neutrality of Whig liberals like Charles Fox, who predicted that the transformation of France from a despotism to a republic would usher in a new era of progress and peaceful international relations,19 and the unsympathetic and Realist neutrality of Prime Minister Pitt, who voiced the hope that the "present convulsions of France" might "render her less obnoxious as a neighbour".20 Burke's calls for military intervention increasingly came into con• flict with the official stance of the British Government, which exhib• ited a certain "majestic insularity"21 regarding affairs on the European continent. Under Pitt's leadership, British foreign policy toward the Revolution was informed by a dedication to safeguarding traditional national interests, which by the time of the Revolution had been defined to include the following objectives: the maintenance of supe• rior navy and maritime power; the security of colonial interests and safe trading routes; the preservation of a balance of power on the continent to prevent any European state from becoming a hegemon; and finally,continue d vigilance regarding the lands lying on the North Sea and the Channel Coast. It was the latter goal that would prove most decisive for the French Revolutionary Wars, as it was deemed essential to British security that the Low Countries (Belgium and Holland) remain in neutral or friendly hands.22 Contrary to Burke, Pitt's approach was reactive rather than pre• ventive. It promised to use force defensively, only when aggression had clearly taken place, and that aggression was narrowly defined as an attack on vital British interests.23 Hence, Pitt continued Britain's non-interventionist pattern of distinguishing between the external and internal affairs of states. In John Vincent's words, Britain would intervene in response to "a political threat, but not a social threat supposed to derive from the domestic arrangements about govern• ments that one of the members of the system chose to make."24 The essence of Pitt's Realist foreign policy ensured that the Revolution would be opposed not for its assault on the ancien regime, as Burke would advocate, but for its attempt to interfere with the settled state system on the Continent.25 Thus, when in 1793 Britain finally did become engaged in the Revolutionary Wars, the official casus belli was not the malus animus2* of the French Revolution, but rather France's "contempt for the law of nations" and its attack on British continental and colonial interests.27 4 Burke's Reaction to the French Revolution

Having briefly outlined the official policy of the British government regarding the Revolution, I now turn to an examination of Burke's more radical alternative. This chapter will show that Burke's con• servative crusade is fueled by a particular understanding of the Revo• lutionary threat and its wider implications for the stability of the Commonwealth of Europe. For Burke, 1789 signifies more than a mere shift in personnel within the French state which other Euro• pean powers can watch with impartiality. Unlike the Glorious Revo• lution of 1688 or the American Revolution of 1776, both of which Burke supports as revolutions "within a tradition", he conceives the French upheaval as a complete "revolution in sentiments, manners, and moral opinions".1 In its proclamation of Jacobinism, Atheism, and Regicide, the French Revolution seeks to undermine the very foundations of European civilisation, as outlined in Chapter 3. Fur• ther, the transnational character of its ideological challenge means that the Revolution will necessarily expand beyond the borders of its country of origin to infect all other members of the Commonwealth. And finally,becaus e the revolutionaries adopt the non-military means of sedition and subversion to propagate their principles, the "exam• ple of the conduct of France during peacetime" is even more danger• ous to the European powers "than a state of open war".2 It is this perception of the threat as social rather than purely political - as one of ideas rather than arms - that motivates Burke to advance his intervention and Holy War.

BURKE'S THEORY OF REFORM AND REVOLUTION

Conservative Versus Radical Revolution

To comprehend fully Burke's interpretation of the French Revolu• tion, it is essential to remember that he is not opposed to all forms of change. In fact, he counsels obedience to "the great law of change" as "the most powerful law of nature", and asserts that a "state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation."3

93 94 Edmund Burke and International Relations

On topics such as India, Ireland, and the Abolition of the Slave Trade, Burke proves that he is no enemy to reform. Indeed, for much of his parliamentary career he stands out as a "liberal" element within the Whig opposition lending his approval to both the of 1688 in England and the American Revolution of 1776. Why, then, does 1789 spark his violent reaction? For Burke, both 1688 and 1776 are conservative revolutions, which adhere to his pru• dential laws on change and reform, while 1789 is part of a new spirit of innovation, which seeks to apply metaphysical rules and formulas in its approach to social change. According to Burke's philosophy, one can have change, but it must "be confined to the peccant part only; and even then it is to be effected without a decomposition of the whole civil and political mass "4 As argued earlier, Burke accentuates the "sacredness" of the state, warning that one must approach its faults "as to the wounds of a father, with pious awe and trembling sollicitude".5 In the Revo• lutionaries, he detects a lack of such reverence and a dangerous propensity to evade difficult problems or ambiguities. "Rage and phrenzy will pull down more in half an hour", he writes, "than pru• dence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years."6 In place of this "blind and furious spirit of innovation",7 Burke pro• poses a strategy of reform based on the "method of nature", in which "the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young, but in a condition of unchangeable constancy". By "preserving the method of nature in the conduct of the state," he concludes, "in what we improve we are never wholly new; in what we retain we are never wholly obsolete".8 The appropriate image for the reformer, then, is a gardener rather than an engineer. Burke is above all a "gradualist": one who believes that change should "proceed by insensible degrees".9 Such gradualism, he pro• claims during the debate on Catholic Relief, "has all the benefits which may be in change, without any of the inconveniences of mu• tation." On the one hand, it prevents "the unfixing of old interests at once; a thing which is apt to breed a black and sullen discontent, in those who are at once dispossessed of all their influence and consid• eration." And on the other side, it prevents individuals "long under depression, from being intoxicated with a large draught of new power."10 Moreover, as with the method of nature, it is a conception of change which contains within itself a "principle of growth" and a space for future improvement. "[My] idea of reform", Burke ex• plains, "is meant to operate gradually; some benefits will come at Burke's Reaction to the French Revolution 95 nearer, some at a more remote period."11 Thus, as Francis Canavan points out, Burke's cautious attitude does not entail a perpetual toleration of injustice. It is "only a politic toleration of injustice for the purpose of more surely removing it."12 Finally, Burke's ideal of gradual change is preventive. If the keepers of the status quo can offer timely concessions, any resentment will be nipped in the bud. The result is a more stable relationship between reformers and pre• servers: "Early are amicable arrangements with a friend in power; late reformations are terms imposed upon a conquered enemy."13 With Burke's attitude toward change in mind, it is possible to make sense of his responses to the American, English and French revolutions. As Michael Freeman shows, Burke makes a conscious separation between rebellion, which involves an attack upon the constitution; revolution, which marks a change in the constitution; and reformation, which seeks to correct an abuse in the constitution. Under this scheme, reformation may require a revolution, but a revo• lution does not necessarily lead to a reformation.14 The acid test is whether a revolution increases or decreases social liberty. In Burke's assessment, 1688 and 1776 were conservative revolutions, which had respected the basic institutions of society and defended ancient lib• erties against arbitrary power (in the first case, the corrupt monar• chy; in the second, the arbitrary rule of British Parliament). Both were revolutions within a tradition: revolutions to conserve and cor• rect, rather than to destroy. 1789, by contrast, is a radical revolution, which has destroyed monarchy, religion and property - the very pil• lars of European civilisation and liberty - and left human beings more enslaved than before.15 More importantly, Burke maintains that the following conditions must exist before any revolution is justified: 1) there must be a "sore and pressing evil"; 2) a great good must be probable almost to a certainty; and 3) there must be no other way of "settling a govern• ment fit to obtain its rational ends".16 Although these are stringent criteria, Burke admits they can be fulfilled in cases of "extreme tyr• anny" or "absolute necessity". But unfortunately, he erects no con• crete signposts to help in defining such cases: "The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end, and resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable. It is not a single act, or a single event, which determines it."17 Because of the fragile na• ture of society, and the contractual duties of its members to future generations, revolution must always be "the very last resource of the 96 Edmund Burke and International Relations thinking and the good".18 While a "positively Vicious and abusive Government ought to be changed, and if necessary, by Violence", it must first be shown that reformation is entirely impossible.19 In essence, Burke's theory of reform and revolution is a plea against unwarranted innovation: "As to Government, if I might recommend a prudent caution... it would be to innovate, as little as possible, upon speculation, in establishments, from which as they stand, they experience no material inconvenience to the repose of the Country. Quieta non movere"20 Instead, the virtues necessary to ensure positive and timely change are those set out in Chapter 1: prudence, in order to "recognize what is good and what is possible in the circumstances", and moderation, "to qualify oneself for the use of power".21 And, just as the British Constitution is the epitome of prudence and modera• tion, so the Glorious Revolution of 1688 is Burke's model of a healthy revolution. There had been no attempt to impair the institutions of monarchy, the nobility or the Church; instead, the reformers had kept the same ranks, orders and privileges of social life: In truth, the circumstances of our revolution (as it is called) and that of France, are just the reverse of each other in almost every particular, and in the whole spirit of the transaction . .. With us we got rid of the man, and preserved the constituent parts of the state. There they get rid of the constituent parts of the state, and keep the man.22 Thus, in contrast to the menacing example set by France, the Glori• ous Revolution made England a beacon for all to follow: Europe under her respired and revived. Every where she appeared as the protector, assertor, or avenger of liberty... The states of Europe lay happy under the shade of a great and free monarchy, which knew how to be great, without endangering its own peace, at home, or the internal or external peace of any of its neighbours.23

Burke and the Causes of the French Revolution

Burke believes neither "extreme tyranny" nor "absolute necessity" obtained in late eighteenth France on the eve of the French Revo• lution. Indeed, he frequently alleges that the French Monarchy was at the "acme of human prosperity and greatness" just before the fall of the Bastille.24 He expresses little sympathy for the Revolutionary Burke's Reaction to the French Revolution 97 cause, for he is convinced that the French constitution could have been repaired, in the same way that Britain's had: You might, if you pleased, have profited of our example ... Your constitution, it is true, whilst you were out of possession, suffered waste and dilapidation; but you possessed in some parts the walls, and in all the foundations of a noble and venerable castle. You might have repaired those walls; you might have built on those old foundations.25 How, then, does Burke account for the convulsions of 1789? Michael Freeman has admirably summarised Burke's thesis on the causes, progression, and consequences of the French Revolution. In so doing, he refutes the arguments of writers such as and Alfred Cobban who allege that Burke's theory resorts to a kind of "conspiracy theory".26 Though it is true that Burke gives consid• erable weight to the subversive role of ambitious career-seekers and speculators,27 he does not hold conspiracy as the sole explanation for the Revolution. For him, subversive doctrines are only effective in a society already rendered unstable by other factors.28 Burke's polemical assault upon the conspirators forms part of a more sophisticated account of the Revolution than either Plamenatz or Cobban is willing to concede. First, as Nisbet suggests, Burke can be credited with formulating a of the rise of the intellectual class in France.29 This cadre of philosophers and specu• lators, Burke argues, is the product of political and economic change in post-medieval Europe The dilution of social distinctions and the rise of a new economic middle class had created a niche which "root• less" intellectuals - intellectuals without a material stake in society - were eager to fill. To determine the source of such transformations, Burke points to excessive prosperity in pre-Revolutionary Europe.30 His thoughts on these deep causes are worth reproducing at length: In the long series of ages which have furnished the matter of his• tory, never was so beautiful and so august a spectacle presented to the moral eye, as Europe afforded the day before the revolution in France. I knew indeed that this prosperity contained in itself the seeds of its own danger. In one part of the society it caused laxity and debility. In the other it produced bold spirits and dark designs. A false philosophy passed from academies into courts, and the great themselves were infected with the theories which conduced to their ruin ... General wealth loosened morals, relaxed vigilance, 98 Edmund Burke and International Relations

and increased presumption. Men of talent began to compare, in the partition of the common stock of public prosperity, the propor• tions of the dividends, with the merits of the claimants Religion, that held the materials of the fabrick together, was first systemat• ically loosened. All other opinions, under the name of prejudices, must fall along with it; and Property, left undefended by principles, became a repository of spoils to tempt cupidity, and not a maga• zine to furnish arms for defence.31 A "silent revolution in the moral world [had] preceded the political", clearing away old opinions and prejudices to make way for the new philosophy of the French Revolutionaries. It was the less visible vir• tues of the "beautiful" - affection, sentiment, and loyalty - which had crumbled first, paving the way for the dissolution of the "sub• lime" virtues of power and authority. In the process, the "chain of subordination ... was broken in it's most important links,"32 shatter• ing Burke's traditional, hierarchical social order. To fill the void, the new and spirited middle classes, "swelled far beyond their former proportion", had "got between the great and the populace" and had stolen the hearts and minds of the lower classes.33 Second, Burke does acknowledge that the Revolution is a response to a widespread grievance. He denies, however, that his other two requirements (listed above) have been observed. In a situation of discontent, the disaffected can be co-opted by sober, rational indi• viduals, or manipulated by artful persons who exaggerate their irri• tations. The discontented will turn to the latter, he predicts, if the ruling group is in a state of disarray, or if it appears complacent and unsympathetic to the grievance. Both conditions, he claims, apply to pre-Revolutionary France. Burke relies, then, on a "blocked-channels- of-reform" explanation for 1789. His antagonism toward the Revolu• tionaries has led many to forget that he holds the leaders of the ancien regime partially culpable for the events of 1789.34 In particular, Burke blames Louis XVI and his advisers for dis• rupting the intricate balance which had been achieved among the various components of social order in France. The King had been erroneously persuaded to "humble and reduce" his nobility and clergy, in favour of the alleged wishes of "the People".35 As Burke explains to the French emigre leader, the Chevalier de la Bintinaye: To strengthen itself the Monarchy had weakened every other force: To unite the Nation to itself, it had dissolved all other ties. When the chain, which held the people to the Prince was once broken, Burke's Reaction to the French Revolution 99

the whole frame of the commonwealth was found in a state of disconnection. There was neither force nor union any where to sustain, the Monarchy or the Nobility, or the Church.36 For Burke, all three of these pillars of the Commonwealth of Europe must be kept in equilibrium to ensure social stability. With his own hand, Louis XVIth had "pulled down the pillars which upheld his throne ... and was taught to consider as low and degrading, that mutual dependence which providence has ordained that all men should have on one another."37 Hence, he insists that the Revolution was not inevitable, and that more prudent leadership could have pre• vented it. "Louis the XVIth was a diligent reader of history" he writes, "but nobody ever told him... that the world of which he read, and the world in which he lived, were no longer the same."38 Third, and finally, Burke's writings highlight more general, inter• national causes of the Revolution. In his Letters on a Regicide Peace, he alludes to the increasing dissatisfaction over France's relative power position in Europe which was voiced by members of the diplomatic corps in the decade preceding the Revolution.39 Due to this frustra• tion with French weakness, he explains, these "diplomatic politicians began to complain of Monarchy itself; as a system of Government too variable for any regular plan of national aggrandizement". Armed with the observations of Machiavelli on and Montesquieu on the Roman Empire, they compared "the systematic proceedings" of other forms of government with the "fluctuations of a Monarchy".40 From such questioning and comparison, he concludes, it was only a small step to call for the overthrow of the ancien regime: "What cure for the radical weakness of the French Monarchy . . . but in a republick? Out the word came; and it never went back."41

THE ORIGINS OF BURKE'S CRUSADE

There are essentially two stages in Burke's response to the French Revolution. Up until February of 1790, he remains an interested but detached observer of the Revolution, and focuses his attention chiefly on its domestic effects. At first sight he does not seem to differ sig• nificantly from the majority of British politicians, who reacted to the events of 1789 with a mixture of "enthusiasm and indifference", and with little foretaste of the impact it was to have on European politics and society.42 In fact, while information about the conditions 100 Edmund Burke and International Relations in France was still inadequate for the formation of any sophisticated judgment, the early stages of unrest tended to generate more praise than contempt. At the very least, John Ehrman writes, "few could seriously condemn a programme which, so frequently and flat• teringly, proclaimed a debt to the Glorious Revolution of a century before."43 Burke's firstwritte n reaction to the French Revolution, a letter to the Earl of Charlemont in August 1789, exhibits this same kind of fascination and curiosity with events in France: As to us here our thoughts of every thing at home are suspended, by our astonishment at the wonderful Spectacle which is exhibited in a Neighbouring and rival Country - what Spectators, and what actors! England gazing with astonishment at a French Struggle for Liberty and not knowing whether to blame or to applaud!44 Burke's tone in his early observations is largely one of caution.45 He fears, for example, that the French National Assembly will not be able to function as an effective government, and forecasts that the new democracy in France is likely to give way to mob rule. At this point, his aim is to dissuade his fellow British citizens from rushing to imitate the French experience. In international terms, Burke initially shares the assessment of many foreign policy observers that the Revolution has weakened France's power position and might therefore offer prospects for British ascendancy.46 Consequently, his earlier analysis is frequently phrased in Realist, balance of power, terms: France is, at this time, in a political light to be considered as ex• punged out of the system of Europe. Whether she could ever appear in it again, as a leading power, was not easy to determine: but at present he considered France as not politically existing; and most assuredly it would take up much time to restore her to her former active existence 47 In fact, as with his contemporaries in Britain, he alleges that the revolutionary "architects of ruin" have wreaked a havoc upon their country that not even the fiercest foreign conquerors could have accomplished.48 Despite these apparent similarities with the conventional British reaction, however, even Burke's initial impressions of the Revolution diverge from those of his peers. First, he does not necessarily share their apparent pleasure in the chaotic state of the French nation. "On Burke's Reaction to the French Revolution 101 the subject of the Relative power of Nations," he remarks, "I may have my prejudices; but I envy internal freedom, security, and good order to none."49 In particular, he intimates that such devastation may work against British and European interests, by destabilising the balance of power. As he warns the Earl Fitzwilliam:

As to France ... I should think it a country undone; and irretriev• able for a very long Course of time. I confess I am very sorry for it. I should certainly wish to see France circumscribed within moderate bounds. The interest of this Country requires, perhaps the Interests of mankind require, that she should not be in a con• dition despotically to give the Law to Europe: But I think I see many inconveniences, not only to Europe at large, but to this Country in particular from the total political extinction of a great civilized Nation situated in the heart of this our Western System.50

It is evident that Burke already sees the potential international rami• fications of the events unfolding in France. In addition, while Burke notes the current malaise in the once mighty French nation, he cautions against assuming that this state of weakness will be permanent. He therefore counsels Britain to "keep our eye on that nation, and to regulate our preparation by the symp• toms of her recovery". More significantly, he hints that the renewed strength of France under the sway of revolution will come from political rather than military sources. He therefore concludes: "France, by the mere circumstance of its vicinity, had been, and in a degree always must be, an object of our vigilance, either with regard to her actual power, or to her influence and example."51 Furthermore, Burke's private letters reveal a counter-revolutionary disposition as early as the autumn of 1789. In this correspondence, Cobban writes, "there is no mistaking the author of the Reflections ... for in it can be traced point by point his reaction to the Revolu• tion and we can find in it attitudes which he sometimes judged it wiser not to reveal to the public."52 Hence, in the same letter to Charlemont cited above, Burke tempers his fascination for the Revo• lution with his characteristic forebodings about the need for restraint:

The spirit it is impossible not to admire; but the old Parisian feroc• ity has broken out in a shocking manner. It is true, that this may be no more than a sudden explosion: If so no indication can be taken from it. But if it should be character rather than accident, 102 Edmund Burke and International Relations

then that people are not fit for Liberty, and must have a Strong hand like that of their former masters to coerce them.53

As he continues to receive word from colleagues in France concern• ing the "precarious situation of all people of property", Burke's hesi• tations about the Revolution are magnified. In September, he expresses relief at the safe return of his friend, , from "a Country where the people, along with their political servi• tude, have thrown off the Yoke of Laws and morals".54 Similarly, in a November letter to Charles-Jean-Francois Depont (the eventual recipient of his Reflections), Burke previews his later critique by railing against the revolutionary attack on the ancien regime institutions of property, religion, nobility and law. As he concludes in this letter: "I must delay my congratulations on your acquisition of Liberty. You may have made a Revolution, but not a Reformation. You may have subverted Monarchy, but not recover'd freedom."55 Thus, by the end of 1789 Burke had already made up his mind about the Revolution and was preparing his intellectual defence of the status quo.56 He only required two more provocations to make a public stand. The first was a sermon given by the English radical, Dr , to the of Britain in November of 1789.57 Burke was particularly troubled by Price's praise for the no• tion of popular legitimacy - "the right of choosing one's own rulers" - and his call to champion its cause against the power of the Crown. "Be encouraged, all ye friends of freedom," Price proclaimed. "Be• hold, the light you have struck out, after setting AMERICA free, reflected to FRANCE, and there kindled into a blaze that lays des• potism in ashes, and warms and illuminates EUROPE!" What pushes Burke over the precipice, however, is the toast offered by the Soci• ety's members to the new French regime, in which they expressed their hope that the Parliament of Britain would soon "become a National Assembly".58 While Burke was already suspicious of 1789 on intellectual grounds, the proceedings of the Revolution Society enlist his emotions, as well as his reasoning power, against the progress of the Revolution.59 The second spark igniting Burke's crusade is a letter he receives from Thomas Paine in January of 1790, in which the latter expresses his support for a revolutionary movement in Europe. As Paine writes: "The revolution in France is certainly a Forerunner to other Revo• lutions in Europe. - Politically considered it is a new Mode of forming Alliances affirmatively with Countries and negatively with Burke's Reaction to the French Revolution 103

Courts."60 This fascination of English radicals with the French Revo• lutionary model, expressed by Price and Paine, confirms Burke's sus• picions that an international revolutionary plot exists. As a result, in February of 1790, Burke announces to a surprised House of Commons his campaign against the Revolutionary faction in England. As the concluding words of this speech reveal, he is already committed to a crusade to fend off any diffusion of the new French Revolutionary model: He was so strongly opposed to any the least tendency towards the means of introducing a democracy like theirs, as well as to the end itself, that much as it would afflict him,... he would abandon his best friends, and join with his worst enemies to oppose either the means or the end: and to resist all violent exertions of the spirit of innovation, so distant from all principles of true and safe reforma• tion 61 Toward the end of that same year, he publishes his famous Reflec• tions, a work directed toward arming virtuous Englishmen against the seductive appeal of Jacobinism. Any former caution is hence• forth abandoned, as Burke depicts the Revolutionaries as engaged in a mission to spread upheaval throughout the European Common• wealth, to sap its will to resist, and to destroy its Christian, feudal, and monarchical foundations. In short, his counter-revolution has begun. Burke's speeches and publications project him to centre stage in the public debate in Britain over the French Revolution. However, they also distance him from his Whig peers, who were more sympa• thetic toward the goals of the Revolution and who were pressing for a series of liberal reforms in Britain. For Burke, every contentious issue - whether foreign or domestic - is now a playing field for the debate over the political and social changes occurring in France. Consequently, when approached in March of 1790 to support the Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, Burke abstains for fear of lending any legitimacy to what he perceives as the revolutionary agenda of the Dissenters. He admits that while he once might have supported the Repeal, recent circumstances now preclude him from doing so. In his eyes, "the dissenting preachers were themselves re• commending the same sort of robbery and plunder of the wealth of the church as has happened in France".62 It is apparent, then, that the constitutionalist picture of Burke set out in Part I is being overshad• owed by the urgency of the crusade against the Revolution. 104 Edmund Burke and International Relations

In a similar fashion, during the debates on Parliamentary Reform in the spring of 1790, Burke counters Fox's call to reorganise the House of Commons to better reflect the views of "the People". As argued in Chapter 1, the British Constitution is Burke's golden mean between aristocratic, popular and monarchical principles of govern• ment; consequently, any attempt to strengthen democratic influences wUl upset this delicate equilibrium. More importantly, however, Burke insists that such schemes for reform cannot be viewed in isolation. For him, they stand as evidence of a larger conspiracy to extol the merits of the French model. After Burke's celebrated fall-out with Fox in May of 1791, he directs his energies toward two main goals: 1) destroying Fox's influ• ence within the Whig Party;63 and 2) persuading Pitt's Ministry to commit England to a war for the restoration of the ancien regime.** While the latter goal is the focus of the remainder of this book, it is important to underscore the link in Burke's mind between these two objectives. As Leslie Mitchell explains: To Burke's way of thinking, the ideals of the French revolution had always been for export... England too was at risk. Fox's be• haviour softened English opinion into a mood receptive to French ideas. To Burke therefore, English and French politics were abso• lutely interdependent, and the reluctance of government to accept this was galling.65 In Burke's perspective, foreign politics are "foreign only in name; for they are not only connected with our domestic Politics, but the do• mestic Politics are actually included in them."66 As one of the first counter-revolutionaries, he drafts his response with an eye to both domestic and international politics.

THE NATURE OF THE FRENCH THREAT

Most commentaries on Burke fail to note that he situates the Revo• lution in this broader international context.67 Part of the revolution• ary essence, Burke maintains, is an "example effect" that necessarily affects other parts of his Commonwealth. "The Stench of such an enormous Carcass as that of France", he declares, "is enough to poison all Europe."68 Furthermore, that expansion appears not in the traditional form of a physical challenge to national interests or the balance of power, but rather as an attack on the fundamental pillars Burke's Reaction to the French Revolution 105 of social order in Europe. For Burke, then, 1789 has inaugurated a civil war in Europe69 - a war "between the partizans of the antient, civil, moral and political order of Europe against a sect of fanatical and ambitious atheists which means to change them all".70

Jacobinism, Atheism and Regicide

Burke sees the French Revolution as driven by three precepts com• pletely alien to European civilisation: Jacobinism, Atheism, and Regicide.71 These phenomena, combined with a new revolutionary system of manners, have imperilled the bases of order in European international society.

Jacobinism Throughout his writings on the French Revolution, Burke decries the "inexpiable War" which the Jacobins have waged against the .72 Through their confiscation of wealth and their challenge to property rights, the Revolutionaries "act more in the manner of thieves who have got possession of a house than of con• querors who have subdued a nation".73 Moreover, Jacobinism rep• resents for Burke the "revolt of the enterprising talents of country against it's property".74 It seeks to abolish the aristocratic pillar of social order, to eradicate prescription and prejudice, and to restruc• ture authority upon a system which separates property and dignity from power.75 The result is an injection of instability and uncertainty into the political system. Authority is weakened through constant assault; immediate self-interest and economic gain become the only public standards of conduct. Burke insists that this attack on property and nobility cannot be confined to the parameters of France. Instead, it threatens to plunge all of Europe into anarchy and turbulence. As a result, "the faithful restitution of property"76 becomes an integral part of Burke's counter-revolutionary crusade. It is the "contempt of Prop• erty", he concludes, "that has led to all the other Evils which have ruined France, and brought all Europe into the most imminent danger."77

Atheism In his critique of Jacobinism, Burke is particularly concerned with its confiscation of Church holdings. The revolutionaries had "laid the axe to the root of all property," he states, "by the principles established, 106 Edmund Burke and International Relations and the example they set, in confiscating all the possessions of the church."78 Burke views this "robbery", coupled with the persecution of the French clergy,79 as symptomatic of a larger campaign by the Revolutionaries to undermine that "grand prejudice" of the Com• monwealth of Europe: established religion. Atheism, he explains, "was the center from which ray emanated their mischiefs and villain• ies, and they proceeded to establish it with the sword."80 Burke portrays the Revolution as waging a war against "all sects and all religions": We cannot, if we would, delude ourselves about the true state of this dreadful contest. It is a religious war. It includes in its object undoubtedly every other interest of society as well as this; but this is the principal and leading feature. It is through this destruction of religion that our enemies propose the accomplishment of all their other views.81 Because Burke holds the spirit of religion as a key source of social harmony and as a fundamental tenet of European civilisation, he perceives the Jacobin onslaught against the Church as a prelude to the collapse of all other institutions. He is therefore "determined to wage eternal war with such abominable principles, which would drive morality out of the world, and cut asunder the bonds which unite man to man, and the creature to his Creator."82 The Christian reli• gion in Europe - the "true foundation of all monarchies" - would remain in peril as long as "fanatical atheism"83 continued to live in France.

Regicide Given Burke's attachment to monarchy, it is not surprising that he is most disturbed by the Regicide practices of the French Revolution• aries. In fact, as Isaac Kramnick remarks, the Reflections "reach their literary, emotional, and theoretical crescendo"84 in the passages de• voted to the French queen.85 Burke views the persecution of the French monarchy as a dangerous precedent for the rest of the Common• wealth of Europe. As he warns his peers in the Commons after the execution of Louis XVIth: "the murder of the king was intended only as a step to the murder of the other kings of Europe".86 Even more threatening than the attack on sovereigns, however, is the popular conception of legitimacy espoused by Revolutionary France. Burke voices particular anxiety over the Revolutionary pos• tulate that all government which is not democratic is a usurpation of Burke's Reaction to the French Revolution 107

authority.87 A commonwealth which enshrines such ideas, he argues, commits "Regicide by establishment",88 jeopardising the delicate balance between monarchical, aristocratic, and popular principles of government, and encouraging subjects to question the authority of their leadership. Ultimately, Burke fears that French efforts to export this notion of popular sovereignty will fracture the agreed political legitimacy in other states, which painstakingly had been pieced together over gen• erations. The result, he predicts, is civil chaos. Moreover, this break• down in consensus on legitimacy would inaugurate a heterogeneous international system, where competing conceptions of legitimacy vie for predominance. In other words, for Burke the contest is not one between Britain and France. It is between legitimate and illegitimate government.

A new system of manners Finally, Burke denounces the French Revolution for corrupting the manners and sentiments which underpin the Commonwealth of Eu• rope. In their place, the Revolutionaries have "settled a system of manners, the most licentious, prostitute, and abandoned that ever has been known".89 As shown in Part I, Burke's theory of social order links the security and tranquility of domestic life - "the nursery of the commonwealth"90 - with the security and tranquility of the nation, and of European society at large. Hence, in a famous passage from the Reflections, he mourns the values of chivalry and honour that have been lost with the fall of the French monarchy: But the age of chivalry is gone. - That of sophisters, oeconomists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extin• guished for ever. Never, never more, shall we behold that gener• ous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom ... But now all is to be changed. All the pleasing illusions, which made power gentle, and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different shades of life, and which, by a bland assimilation, incorporated into poli• tics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason.91 The "savage" French system of manners, he pronounces, "is at war with all orderly and moral society."92 To put it another way, Burke depicts the Jacobin challenge in 108 Edmund Burke and International Relations aesthetic terms.93 For him, the Revolution has undermined not only the "sublime" features of society - its political structure - but also the "beautiful" virtues and codes of behaviour that glue society to• gether. Its objective was to "break all those connexions, natural and civil, that regulate and hold together the community by a chain of subordination", raising "soldiers against their officers; servants against their masters; tradesmen against their customers; artificers against their landlords; curates against their bishops; and children against their parents."94 By destroying the sentiments and affections which had fostered social harmony and veneration for authority, the Revolu• tionaries had "melted down the whole into one incongruous, ill- connected mass",95 leaving no institutions of civil society to mediate between the individual and the raw power of the state. "The State of France is perfectly simple," he concludes. "It consists of but two descriptions - The Oppressors and Oppressed."96 In the final analysis, it is the social rather than political dimension of the French Revolution which strikes Burke as the most ominous. He is preoccupied not only with a formal, constitutional balance of power, or a balance of power among European states, but with a deeper balance of social relationships. He therefore laments most poignantly the loss of the intermediate institutions of order in Euro• pean societies - his little platoons. "What he dreaded, should French principles be introduced into this country, was, the destruction of the whole order of civil life; not only that we should lose king, lords, and commons, but our property, our wives, every thing that was dear and sacred."97 The extreme urgency of Burke's response is prompted by his per• ception that the Revolution in France "bears little resemblance or analogy to any of those which have been brought about in Europe, upon principles merely political".98 It is not just a "revolution in government" or a "victory of party over party" but a "destruction and decomposition of the whole society".99 As he claims in his Letter to a Noble Lord, before 1789 "the annals of all time have not fur• nished an instance of a compleat revolution. That revolution seems to have extended even to the constitution of the mind of man."100

The Fear of Contagion

In Burke's mind, such a monumental defiance of property, religion, monarchy and manners can never be contained in its own country of origin. Hie Revolution of 1789, he pronounces, "violates the right Burke's Reaction to the French Revolution 109 upon which not only the community of France, but those on which all communities are founded".101 In his estimation, the "example of what is done in France is too important not to have a vast and ex• tensive influence".102 As O'Brien has aptly noted, the very title of Burke's work, Reflec• tions on the Revolution in France, indicates that he sees the Revolu• tion as an inherently transnational phenomenon, which happened to manifest itself first in France, but which is not confined to that par• ticular state. "Burke's point, in wording the title as he did, was that this was not just a 'French Revolution', but a general revolution" - not a revolution, but the Revolution.103 Consequently, his writings and speeches frequently separate the revolutionary movement from its geographical country of origin.104 In other words, Burke does not consider the events of 1789 within the conventional framework of sovereignty and inter-state relations: "this last Revolution, whatever name it may assume, at present bears no one Character of a national Act."105 The death of the old order in France, had it been limited to France, might have made Burke weep, but it would not have moved him to the emotional heights presented in the Reflections. As he explains to his fellow parliamentarians: "If the French revolutionists were to mind their own affairs, and had shown no inclination to go abroad and to make proselytes in other countries ... than neither he nor any other member of the House had any right to meddle with them."106 But it is precisely his conviction that the Revolutionary disease is incapable of limitation that drives him to his famous . The dispersion of "these Evil principles", he maintains, "is a thing, not of contingency or speculation, but of absolute certainty".107 As a result, Burke suggests that it is only a matter of time before all the other states of Europe fall to Jacobinism: "If early steps are not taken in some way or other to prevent the spreading of this influence, I scarcely think any of them perfectly secure."108 Indeed, Burke can be considered as an exponent of a kind of "domino theory", predicting that the Jacobin plague will spread to encompass Ger• many, Switzerland, the Italian city-states of Naples and Venice, Lom- bardy, Spain, Sweden, Poland, , Holland, and finallyEngland. 109 But while Burke worries about the survival of the larger European Commonwealth, he is particularly anxious for the safety of Britain, and the vitality of her constitution, in the face of the revolutionary challenge: "To us, it is a Colossus which bestrides our channel. It has one foot on a foreign shore, the other upon the British soil."110 The 110 Edmund Burke and International Relations longer the Revolution stood the test of time, he argues, the greater its contagious effects: "So sure as we have an existence, if these things should go on in France, as go on they may, so sure it is that in the ripeness of their time, the same Tragedies will be acted in England."111 Thus, as Burke reminds Pitt's foreign policy adviser Henry Dundas, Britain has a particular interest in preventing any stabilisation of the Revolutionary system in : "The British constitution will be fought for, and conquerd, not here but in France. There the cause of all Monarchies and of all Republicks too constituted upon antient mod• els, are upon their Trial."112 Ironically, the very interdependence that distinguishes Burke's European Commonwealth only serves to wear down its immunity from the revolutionary disease. Through the ordinary international practices of travel and trade, the Revolution's strength is dispersed and intensified: Let it be remembered that no young man can go to any part of Europe without taking this place of pestilential contagion in his way: and whilst the less active part of the community will be de• bauched by this travel, whilst children are poisoned at these schools, our trade will put the finishing hand to our ruin.113 In addition to underscoring the contagious potential of the Revo• lution, Burke emphasises the non-traditional nature of its threat. This novelty affects both the targets and the instruments of the Jacobin attack. For Burke, the Revolution aims to disturb not only the procedural sources of international order, such as the balance of power, but also the deeper foundations of order and stability in European interna• tional society. The Jacobins seek to obliterate not a town, a fort, or a naval station, but the very essence of British life: its crown, its constitution, and its system of laws.114 The Revolutionaries, he states, seek "to destroy everything which can hold States together by the tie of opinion".115 Furthermore, because a key object of their aggression is the principle of dynastic legitimacy, their war is directed "only against those who assume to be Masters" and to those whom they regard as "usurpers and enslavers of the people". To the population below, they aim to bring peace and liberation.116 Accordingly while at the turn of the century Britain had guarded against the growing military power of France under Louis XI Vth, she now must protect herself from a France overtaken by revolutionary principles: Burke's Reaction to the French Revolution 111

The disease is altered; but the vicinity of the two countries re• mains, and must remain: and the natural habits of mankind are such, that the present distemper of France is far more likely to be contagious than the old one.... In the last age, we were in danger of being entangled by the example of France in the net of a relent• less despotism... Our present danger from the example of a people, whose character knows no medium, is, with regard to gov• ernment, a danger from anarchy; a danger of being led through an admiration of successful fraud and violence, to an imitation of the excesses of an irrational, unprincipled, proscribing, confiscating, plundering, ferocious, bloody, and tyrannical democracy.117

This kind of offensive, Burke cautions, cannot easily be repelled: "Our constitution is not made for this kind of warfare. It provides greatly for our happiness, it furnishes few means for our defence."118 More importantly, unlike previous challenges from the French state, the present danger is a transnational one, emanating from a less tangible, but more potent, revolutionary doctrine. It comes in the form of ideas - the subversive notions of popular legitimacy and the "Rights of Man" - rather than in the form of arms. The real novelty of the French Revolution is its ability to reach the very minds of human beings, whatever state they happen to inhabit. In Burke's formulation, ideas themselves have the capacity to produce anarchic consequences, by introducing, "other interests into all countries than those which [arise] from their locality and natural circumstances"119 As a corollary, individuals "become more attached to the country of their principles, than to the country of their birth."120 Indeed, as John Weston indicates, Burke perceives the transformation of European minds in this revolutionary age profound enough "to make them seem to be products of another civilization".121 In his Thoughts on French Affairs, Burke refers to 1789 as a "Revo• lution of doctrine and theoretick ",112 and compares its pros- elytism to the religious convulsions of the Reformation. At that time, Europe was divided not according to the vertical lines of sovereign states, but along the horizontal and transnational divisions of reli• gious dogma. Consequently, individuals became "more affectionately attached to those of their own doctrinal interest in some other coun• try than to their fellow citizens, or to their natural Government". Such factionalism, Burke continues, "weakened and distracted the locality of patriotism", influencing all treaties which were contracted during the period, and giving "a colour, a character, and a direction 112 Edmund Burke and International Relations to all the politicks of Europe". The late events in France, he believes, exhibit the same tendency to combine the "parties among the inhab• itants of different countries into one connexion".123 In his mind, the Revolution has blurred the traditional lines of international politics, giving rise to treason, subversion, and transnational loyalties. In the war between popular and dynastic legitimacy, individuals no longer desire victory for their own country, but for the particular conception of legitimacy to which they adhere.124 In terms of means, Burke describes the revolutionary program of expansion as drawing upon the instruments of sedition and subver• sion, rather than physical force. "[It] is not with fire and sword they mean to attack their territories, but by what will be more dreadful to them, the introduction of liberty."125 While smaller powers, such as Avignon, would subsequently succumb to territorial absorption,126 Burke foresees something short of annexation for the more estab• lished European states. "As to the greater nations," he writes, "they do not aim at making a direct conquest of them, but by disturbing them through a propagation of their principles, they hope to ... weaken them, and to keep them in perpetual alarm and agita• tion ... whilst they extend the dominion of their sovereign anarchy on all sides." But for him, this new kind of conquest "wrought by change of opinion"127 is no less sinister than a conquest wrought by force of arms. In the process of spreading their subversive dogma, the Revolu• tionaries have discarded all of the 'ordinary' rules and procedures of European international relations. First, by inciting rebellion, they have placed France outside of the traditional "publick law of Eu• rope", demolishing "the whole body of that jurisprudence which France had pretty nearly in common with other civilized countries ... They have not only annulled all their old treaties; but they have renounced the law of nations from whence treaties have their force."128 Second, by inaugurating a "new principle of alliances and wars", they have abandoned the old French responsibility for maintaining the European balance of power:

The treaty of Westphalia is, with France, an antiquated fable. The rights and liberties she was bound to maintain are now a system of wrong and tyranny which she is bound to destroy. Her good and ill dispositions are shewn by the same means. To communicate peaceably the rights of men is the true mode of her shewing her friendship; to force Sovereigns to submit to those rights is her mode Burke's Reaction to the French Revolution 113

of hostility. So that either as friend or foe her whole scheme has been and is, to throw the Empire into confusion... .129

By reversing the "natural operation of things",130 the new French republic has blurred the conventional notions of conquest, war and peace. In fact, Burke insists that a state of friendship with Revolutionary France is worse than a state of war. Being her "neighbour" is worse than being her enemy:

They who are to live in the vicinity of this new fabrick, are to prepare to live in perpetual conspiracies and seditions; and to end at last in being conquered, if not to her dominion, to her resemb• lance ... The influence of such a France is equal to a war, it's example, more wasting than a hostile irruption.131

As a result, any optimistic assessment about France's material weak• ness only projects a false sense of security. As he advises Lord Grenville: "On our part, the Navy of France is not so formidable, that I think we have any just ground of apprehension that she will make war upon us. It is not the enmity, but the friendship of France that is truly terrible."132 What the revolutionaries lack in "material resources", he observes, they make up for by "unity in design and constancy in pursuit".133 The penultimate goal of this Jacobin design, Burke asserts, is to establish "an universal empire, by producing a universal revolution".134 However, it is an empire of an entirely kind - an empire based on ideology rather than on state power. "It is not France extending a foreign empire over other nations", he writes, but rather "a sect aiming at universal empire, and beginning with the conquest of France."135 Moreover, this Revolutionary Empire will not be "grounded on any balance", nor subject to the "publick law of Eu• rope".136 Its limits are to be set "not upon principles of treaty, con• vention, possession, usage, habitude, the distinction of tribes, nations, or languages, but by physical aptitudes."137 Only nature, he concludes, can determine the boundaries of its reach. For Burke, the statesmen of his day face a crucial choice. "This evil in the heart of Europe must be extirpated from that center", he predicts, "or no part of the circumference can be free from the mis• chief which radiates from it "138 His own opposition to this Revo• lutionary peril is unequivocal: 114 Edmund Burke and International Relations

If I had but one hour to live, I would employ it in decrying this wretched system, and die with my pen in my hand to mark out the dreadful consequences of receiving an arrangement of Empire dic• tated by the despotism of Regicide to my own Country, and to the lawful Sovereigns of the Christian World.139 His solution is a crusade on the part of Christian sovereigns to pro• tect the legitimacy, property and religion of Europe from anarchy and atheism. "It is not the Cause of Nation against Nation", he avows, but "the cause of mankind against those who have projected the subversion of that order of things under which our part of the world has so long flourished." Indeed, Burke defines the stake of this con• test as the "Cause of Humanity itself'.140 To meet the social and transnational challenge of the Revolution, Burke proposes a war of an entirely new kind. "We must walk in new ways," he entreats, "or we can never encounter our enemy in his devious march."141 In the process, however, his former affinity with constitutionalism seems to disappear: "In a cause like this, and in a time like the present, there is no neutrality... They who are not actively ... against Jacobinism, are its partisans."142The consequences of this crusading disposition for the traditional rules of international relations - particularly the principle of nonintervention and the laws of war - are the subject of the following chapters. 5 Interventionism

Given Burke's characterisation of the contagious revolutionary dis• ease, it follows that his remedy for dealing with it condemns the neutrality and nonintervention espoused by his British contemporar• ies. "However unexceptionable Burke may have found these maxims as guides to the conduct of international relations in fair weather," Vincent observes, "he thought the French Revolution made non• sense of them."1 For Burke, the Revolution has an exemplary power which explodes geographical limits. Thus, as this chapter will argue, he believes it cannot be overthrown solely from within France. Instead, an intervention must be launched by Britain and its continental allies to prevent its contagion from undermining the Commonwealth of Europe. Furthermore, because Burke perceives the Jacobins as inau• gurating a civil war in Europe, he insists that his counterrevolution is not a foreign invasion, but rather a crusade by neighbouring sov• ereigns on behalf of their beleaguered brethren. This chapter outlines Burke's policy of intervention as it develops from the winter of 1791, through the outbreak of hostilities on the continent in 1792, to the declaration of war against Britain in Febru• ary of 1793. In contrast to Pitt's Ministry, he supports military inter• vention very early on as the best remedy for the revolutionary disease. Second, Burke's arguments in favour of armed force are synthesised into three main theoretical justifications for intervention: the right of preventive war; the right of intervention in civil conflict; and the Laws of Vicinity and Neighbourhood. In the process, Burke's thoughts on intervention are related to other aspects of his international theory, such as his views on state sovereignty and international legitimacy, to show how they form a part of his overall conception of international order.

BURKE'S CAMPAIGN FOR INTERVENTION

The Prelude to the Continental War

While Burke's war against the Revolution on the domestic front is already well under way by early 1790, his advocacy of armed inter• vention against France does not begin in earnest until after the

115 116 Edmund Burke and International Relations completion of the Reflections. His private correspondence from Janu• ary 1791 onward reveals a growing preference for this solution as the only one capable of fighting off the contagion of . As he writes to a French 6migr6e, the Comtesse de Montrond: Alas! Madam, it is not to me, or to such services as can come from me, that the persecuted honour of France must apply. Nothing more can be said. Something must be done. You have an armed Tyranny to deal with; and nothing but arms can pull it down.2 In short, there is a limit to what the reasoning power of private individuals such as he can accomplish. "Nothing else but a foreign force can or will do", he avows. "Nor is it a small military force that can do the business. It is a serious design, and must be done with combined strength."3 Burke more clearly indicates his scepticism for "internal Rem• edies" in a letter to Britain's foreign representative at Turin, John Trevor: I cannot persuade myself that any thing whatsoever can be ef• fected without a great force from Abroad. The predominant fac• tion is the strongest as I conceive, without comparison. They are armed. Their Enemies are disarmed and dispersed. The Army seems hardly fit for any good purpose. But the grand point against all interior attempts, is that the faction are in possession. Unless it be taken by surprize, as the last French Monarchy was, it is not easy by conspiracy or insurrection to overturn any Government.4 The longer the Jacobin faction survives, he continues, "the more it obtains consistency ... and the less the people ... will be disposed to any enterprizes for overturning it." Hence, it is up to France's neigh• bours "to act in concert, and with all their forces" in a campaign for the restoration of the ancien regime.5 Burke's Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, written in January of 1791, gives public expression to these private suspicions that France's salvation has to come from abroad. After recounting the difficulties facing the counter-revolutionary French "patriots", Burke states: This power, to such men, must come from without. It may be given to you in pity; for surely no nation ever called so pathetically on the compassion of all its neighbours. It may be given by those neighbours on motives of safety to themselves. Never shall I think Interventionism 117

any country in Europe to be secure, whilst there is established, in the very centre of it, a state (if so it may be called) founded on principles of anarchy ... The princes of Europe, in the beginning of this century, did well not to suffer the monarchy of France to swallow up the others. They ought not now, in my opinion, to suffer all the monarchies and commonwealths to be swallowed up in the gulph of this polluted anarchy. They may be tolerably safe at present, because the comparative power of France is little. But times and occasions make dangers. Intestine troubles may arise in other countries. There is a power always on the watch, qualified and disposed to profit of every conjuncture, to establish its own principles and modes of mischief, wherever it can hope for success.6

In this passage, one can find the germ of all subsequent arguments made by Burke regarding the need for outside intervention. First, while the other European powers might pity France, Burke insists that the real motive for their combined action must have collective interests at heart: the preservation of European order, founded on principles of dynastic legitimacy. This order is under assault not from the force of French arms, but from the subversive doctrine dissemi• nated by the Revolutionaries. And second, while the danger may not be immediate or obvious, Burke entreats France's neighbours to strike before an actual armed assault occurs. To Burke's chagrin, Britain and her continental allies do not seem to appreciate the gravity of the French threat that he outlines above. Instead, they continue "contending with each other about points of trivial importance, and on old, worn out principles and Topics of Policy "7 For Burke, however, all other conflicts are "child's play"8 in comparison with the Revolutionary crisis facing Europe. If inter• vention could be justified on behalf of the Ottoman Empire - "a barbarous nation... in eternal enmity with the Christian names" - then surely Europe could "employ the same power, to rescue from captivity a virtuous monarch (by the courtesy of Europe considered as Most Christian)."9 As we shall see, the "blindness of the States of Europe",10 and their lack of enthusiasm for counter-revolution, is a consistent source of frustration for Burke in the years to follow. Burke's growing concern over the need for intervention reaches a climax with the Parliamentary Debate on the Quebec Bill in May, 1791. During this debate, Burke condemns the democratic principles of the French Republic by underscoring their subversive potential. The Revolutionaries in France, he proclaims, are "as much disposed 118 Edmund Burke and International Relations to gain proselytes as Louis 14th had been to make conquests."11 Fur• thermore, he intimates that this menacing posture gives other Euro• pean states an implicit right to take precautionary measures. In Burke's mind, the social and doctrinal aspects of the Revolution are sufficiently ominous to warrant such preventive action. Nevertheless, he also warns his fellow parliamentarians of the possible translation of Revolutionary ideas into traditional armed force:

Let it be remembered, that there were 300,000 men in arms in France, who at a favourable moment might be ready to assist that spirit; and though there might be no immediate danger threatening the British constitution, yet a time of scarcity and tumult might come, and in such case it was certainly safer and wiser to prevent the consequences, than to remedy the evil.12

For Burke, then, "the present was the the moment for crushing this diabolical spirit".13 During the spring and summer of 1791, indications that the mon- archs of Europe might heed Burke's advice began to appear. On July 6, 's brother, the Emperor of Austria, issued the Padua Circular and called for combined action against the Revo• lution to restore the liberty of the French royal family.14 This senti• ment culminated in the famous (August 27), in which Prussia and Austria appealed to all European sovereigns to join together to consolidate the bases of monarchical government in France.15 Burke's hopes for counter-revolution were raised by these decla• rations and by the visible signs of military preparation among the emigre community in Coblenz. The Prince de Conde had assembled troops on the frontier with France, with the King of Sweden pledging reinforcements and guidance, and the Austrian Netherlands hinting at the possible use of their border troops for an invasion. Buoyed by these rumours, Burke sends a letter to Charles-Alexandre de Calonne, Condi's military adviser, offering advice on the proper size, compo• sition and mission of the emigre forces. In particular, Burke recom• mends that the army be composed predominantly of those who can speak French.16 This stipulation reflects Burke's desire to portray the interventionist forces as liberators rather than conquerors:

Le Manifeste devroit etre court mais satisfaisant - 'Qu'on n'entre point come Ennemis, mais comme Allies et Amis - pour rendre Interventionism 119

au Roi sa liberty - remettre l'ordre, la paix (ou tranquillite) et Paffluence - pour donner vigeur aux Loix et sfiret6 h la propriety 17

It is Burke's hope that the counter-revolutionaries will be received not as foreigners, but as friendly European neighbours. That same summer, Calonne visited London to request from the British Government a declaration of support for armed intervention in France. When his appeals failed to persuade Pitt's Ministry, Calonne approached Burke.18 Following this interchange, Burke's son Richard was sent to Coblenz to meet with the Emigres and assist in the pro• motion of a military alliance for intervention.19 In subsequent correspondence with his father, Richard reports on the progress of the counter-revolutionary campaign. But while Richard speaks favourably of the military preparations at Coblenz, he raises doubts about the receptivity of the King and Queen of France to such outside assistance. In particular, he questions their acceptance of the new constitution and their apparent willingness to negotiate with the Feuillants.20 Angered by the contents of Richard's messages, Burke drafts an impassioned letter to the Queen of France, urging her to refrain from associating with any domestic forces in France: "The greatest powers in Europe are hastening to your rescue. They all desire it. You can never think that a time for surrendering your• self to Traitors along with the rights of all the sovereigns allied to you, and whose Cause is involved in yours."21 For Burke, it is not only the fate of a particular King and Queen which hangs in the balance, but the fate of all monarchs in Europe: "This is not the Cause of a King, but of Kings; not the Interest of the French Nation but of all nations; Not the Business of this time, but what must de• cide on the Character and of course on the happiness of many Gen• erations. The K. of F. cannot annihilate the monarchy. He holds his power in Trust."22 These excerpts echo the earlier assertion that Burke regards monarchical government as a permanent political and social component of the Commonwealth of Europe - the very basis of international legitimacy - and as something much larger than the individuals who may temporarily comprise it. In September, alarmed by Richard's reports that the European powers were refusing to act without a sign of British acquiescence in the aims of Pillnitz,23 Burke launches a strong appeal to Pitt's Min• istry for a more forthright declaration of support for intervention. In the process, he dismisses the government's strategy of using solely 120 Edmund Burke and International Relations domestic policy to counteract the spread of radicalism: "Very little can be done at home in my opinion ... the root of the Evil is abroad; and the way to secure us at home is to deprive mischievous factions of the foreign alliances."24 Surveying the of European politics, Burke suggests that the present state of Europe affords a golden opportunity for intervention: "All its powers are ... indisposed to this French System. A few months may change a situation and dispositions so rarely found and combined."25 In Burke's opinion, the time has come for Britain to assume the leadership of the anti- revolutionary coalition. The Ministry's reply reiterated "the line of the British Govern• ment to adhere to an honest and fair neutrality ... on the Subject of French affairs."26 As a consequence, Burke intensifies his lobbying efforts by consolidating his musings on the need for a collective European intervention into one coherent tract. The result is his Thoughts on French Affairs, written in December of 1791.27 The precipitating event for this work was Louis XVI's forced ac• ceptance of the constitution, and his notification of that acceptance to foreign courts through two diplomatic circulars. Burke sees these actions as unprecedented in diplomatic history, for they give express attention to matters of domestic politics. In turn, he argues, they give foreign governments both a right and an obligation to judge the internal affairs of France:

[The] circumstance of these two notifications, with the observa• tions with which they are attended, do not leave it in the choice of the Sovereigns of Christendom to appear ignorant either of this French Revolution, or (what is more important) of its principles.28

For Burke the extraordinary foreign policy practices of the have inaugurated a new kind of international relations in Europe, where the old rules and procedures no longer apply. Burke begins his Thoughts by establishing a civil war context in France, and outlining the policy options available to Britain in such a legally defined situation:

She may decline, with more or less formality, according to her discretion, to acknowledge this new system; or she may recognize it as a Government de facto, setting aside all discussion of it's original legality, and considering the ancient Monarchy as at an Interventionism 121

end. The law of nations leaves our Court open to it's choice. We have no direction but what is found in the well-understood policy of the King and kingdom.29

In deciding on their course of action, however, British policy-makers must take account of the "new species" of government which has overtaken France. "The conduct which prudence ought to dictate to Great Britain," he writes, "will not depend ... upon merely external relations; but, in a great measure also upon the system which we may think it right to adopt for the internal government of our country."30 In other words, Britain must adjust her policy to meet the transnational effect of revolutionary principles, and their blurring of the traditional distinction between domestic and international politics. If it is Britain's goal to "assimilate" her government to that of France, Burke continues, then a policy of legal recognition of the new regime in France would naturally follow. Britain could then "wink at the captivity and deposition" of the Prince, and negotiate with the functionaries who act under the new powers in France. As a corollary of this recognition, she would have to eschew all links with the counter-revolutionary community stationed elsewhere in Europe.31 But while a policy of legal recognition may have served Britain well in past revolutionary situations - those which were lim• ited in both "persons and forms" - Burke alleges that the profound and contagious nature of the changes in France demands a new kind of foreign policy. As we have seen, he believes the social revolution in France bears little resemblance to previous revolutions based solely on political change.32 Instead, Burke's anxiety over the vulnerability of France's neigh• bours, coupled with his assessment of the stability of the revolution• ary regime in France,33 leads him to three hypotheses: 1) "that no counter-revolution is to be expected in France from internal causes solely"; 2) "that the longer the present system exists, the greater will be it's strength; the greater it's power to destroy discontents at home, and to resist all foreign attempts in favour of these discontents"; and 3) "that as long as it exists in France, it will be the interest of the managers there... to disturb and distract all other governments."34 In the final analysis, Burke concludes, intervention is the only viable policy available to Pitt and his ministers: "I wind up in a full convic• tion within my own breast... that the state of France is the first consideration in the politicks of Europe, and of each state, externally as well as internally considered."35 122 Edmund Burke and International Relations

British Neutrality in the Revolutionary Wars

In the summer of 1792, following the French declaration of war against Austria and Prussia, Burke's crusade for military intervention enters a new and more urgent phase. As he writes to the Abb6 de la Bintinaye: "Arms, and I am sorry to say, foreign Arms, must decide your fate."36 Henceforth, Burke's mission is to convince Pitt's Ad• ministration to shift Britain from its stance of neutrality, to abandon any plan to recognise or treat with the French Republic, and to join in the continental campaign. As he writes to Lord Grenville:

A more mischievous idea cannot exist than that any degree of wickedness, violence and oppression may prevail in a Country, that the most abominable, murderous and exterminatory Rebel• lions may rage in it, or the most atrocious and bloody tyranny may domineer, and that no neighbouring power can take cognizance of either, or afford succour to the miserable Sufferers.37

Nonetheless, such appeals to Pitt and his Ministers continue to go unheeded.38 In fact, rather than preparing for an eventual war on the continent, the Prime Minister had called for a reduction of the Brit• ish armed forces, claiming that "there never was a time in the history of this country, when, from the situation of Europe, we might more reasonably expect fifteen years of peace".39 As Ehrman concludes, "few people early in 1792, and certainly very few Members - one is tempted to say no Member except Burke - were prepared to become involved in a war over France".40 Even the gathering storm clouds of the autumn - the deposition of the monarch, the September massa• cres, and the French victory at Valmy - did not convince Britain to shift its neutral stance to support Prussia and Austria.41 Burke's calls for decisive action against the Revolution from the continental powers also seem to fall on deaf ears. Indeed, he does not confine his criticisms of foreign policy to the British government alone. While Burke welcomes the outbreak of war in 1792, he sus• pects that the Prussians and Austrians may not share his interpreta• tion of that war as a counter-revolutionary crusade. This suspicion is heightened following the defeat of the Duke of Brunswick at Valmy. For Burke, the Prussian humiliation and subsequent willingness to negotiate with the French regime are fatal blows to the the prospects for a European crusade of restoration: "The United military glory of Europe has sufferd a Stain never to be effaced. The Prussian and Interven tion ism 123

Austrian combined forces have fled before a Troop of strolling Play• ers with a Buffoon at their head."42 More troubling than the military defeats of Austria and Prussia, however, is the limited scope of their war aims. In the Heads for Consideration on the Present State of Affairs, written in November, Burke argues that "the united Sovereigns [had] very much injured their cause by admitting, that they had nothing to do with the interiour arrangements of France".43 In Burke's eyes, this policy was "in con• tradiction to the whole tenour of the publick Law of Europe, and to the correspondent practice of all it's States."44 Though he agrees that there "never were more solid, more substantial, more convincing reasons given for attacking any country"45 than those offered by the Prussians and the Austrians, he maintains that these Realist pretexts for war do not go far enough. Instead, the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria must proceed so as "to secure the Monarchy as principal in the design".46 For Burke, then, not just any military ac• tion will do; it must be a campaign consistent with upholding the pillars of his Commonwealth of Europe. Although Burke continues to monitor the progress of the conti• nental war, his overriding objective is to persuade politicians at home of the need for British intervention. He therefore concludes his Heads for Consideration by asserting that there is no "rational hope of making an impression on France by any Continental powers, if Eng• land is not a part, is not the directing part, is not the soul, of the whole confederacy against it".47 As he laments to the Earl Fitzwilliam:

[My] greatest dread of all is from the Conduct of the Kings Serv• ants; - who when the very being and principle of the Christian Religion in every nation, the existence of Monarchy in every state in the world, and the whole body of the Laws, institutions, man• ners and morals, as well as the very groundwork of the publick Law, which held all States, as well as all Societies together are attacked at once, and by the wickedest and most perilous of all Hostilities - think themselves bound to so strange a Neutrality... .^

While Pitt's Ministers believe that Jacobin principles can "overturn other states" without posing any danger to Britain, Burke insists that both the "Quality" of such principles "and the means by which they are supported" constitute an immediate threat to the "whole fabrick of the British Constitution".49 For those politicians who worry that a move away from neutrality 124 Edmund Burke and International Relations will disrupt Britain's trade ties with France, Burke has the following reply: "[Should] we be deterred by our wealth from resisting these outrages? ... shall we live in a temporary, abject state of timid ease, to fatten ourselves like swine to be killed tomorrow, and to become the easier prey to our enemies?"50 Those who assume that England can escape the fate which has beset its neighbours, he declares, seem to speak "as if England were not in Europe".51 To enhance his argument in favour of intervention, Burke also draws on the traditional Realist desire to protect British interests abroad. In particular, he makes a firm bid for British assistance to Spain, which was in a perilous position after the French victory at Valmy. He contends that "it is as much for the interest of Great Britain to prevent the predominancy of a French interest in that kingdom, as if Spain were a province of the Crown of Great Brit• ain".52 Preventive action now, he reasons, while Spain "is yet in a condition to act with whatever degree of vigour she may have", is preferable to waiting until she has "received material blows", when we shall have her "wounded and crippled body, to drag after us, rather than to aid us".53 To wait for the traditional pretext of war is not only theoretically unsound, but practically disastrous as well. Such pleading on behalf of the Spanish, however, is overshadowed by Burke's concern for Europe as a whole. "[We] must put Europe before us", he proclaims, "which plainly is, just now, in all it's parts, in a state of dismay, derangement and confusion; and very possibly amongst all it's Sovereigns, full of secret heart-burning, distrust, and mutual accusation."54 In fact, Burke suggests that England is more fit for leadership of this European coalition than any other power, given that she has "less of crossing interest, or perplexed discussion with any of them."55 Moreover, he adds, only England has the naval ca• pacity to balance that of France. And finally,fo r any doubting Thomas who remains, Burke tugs on the strings of pure self-interest. If Eng• land were to show herself indifferent to a European action against France, he warns, she would have to "look with certainty for the same indifference on the part of these Powers, when she may be at war with that nation".56 More important than this Realist case for intervention is Burke's anxiety that Pitt's Administration is severing Britain's deeper con• nection with European affairs:

The Ministers by their neutrality ... had broken the continuity and chain of their connexions with the continent... A universal Interventionism 125

weakness appeared to me to be the result of that neutrality, which by taking away the connexion with Great Britain, took away the cement which held together all other States.57 Thus, it is a societal consideration - Britain's role in preserving the foundations of the larger Commonwealth of Europe - which is Burke's primary preoccupation. In Burke's mind, the French military successes of the autumn of 1792 have simply added a new dimension to British vulnerability. His case for intervention does not hinge on evidence of physical aggres• sion. Consequently, during the Parliamentary debates of December, he recites excerpts from the proceedings of the French which he interprets as tantamount to a "declaration of war against every government". The Revolutionaries' proclamations against dynastic legitimacy, he argues, are provocative enough to justify a British military response: "He wanted to make the people see that France had already declared war against them, and that the two states might be considered as actually engaged in it."58 In sum, it was impossible for the British to avoid war "when France had denounced destruction against all the kings of Europe. We were forced, on principles of self-defence, into a confederacy with all the sovereigns of Europe."59

BURKE'S THEORY OF INTERVENTION

Burke's support for intervention can be seen not only in the context of the British foreign policy debate of his time, but also as part of his more comprehensive theory of international society, outlined in Part I. As these chapters indicate, Burke adheres to a weak and qualified idea of sovereignty, which elevates the goals of international societal cohesion and order above those of absolute liberty or independence. In addition, because Burke looks beyond the confines of the state to conceive of individuals, groups and states as part of a wider moral domain, he claims that it is permissible to make judgments about, and to take action within, the sovereign realm of another state. And finally, given his solidarist vision of the Commonwealth of Europe, which is sustained by an underlying social and cultural homogeneity, he believes the powers of Europe have not only a right, but "an indispensable duty"60 to counteract forces of disorder within any of its parts. It is from these aspects of his international theory that 126 Edmund Burke and International Relations

Burke builds his case for intervention against the French Revolution. As the following section will demonstrate, he maintains that such intervention should not be conceived as a foreign action, but as part of a larger, European civil war. In the course of his writings and speeches, Burke uses three main theoretical arguments to justify intervention in the affairs of the French state. The first is the pretext of preventive war, derived from his understanding of the relationship between intervention and the balance of power. The second is the right of intervention in civil conflict, which stems from his reading of eighteenth century interna• tional law. The third moves beyond existing conventions of the law of nations and applies the civil law notions of Vicinity and Neigh• bourhood to the war raging within the Commonwealth of Europe.

Preventive War and the Balance of Power

Burke's promotion of intervention can be interpreted as an exten• sion of his particular views on the balance of power. As M.S. Anderson explains, war and intervention were considered by many eighteenth century theorists and politicians to be legitimate means of maintain• ing the balance, despite prevailing norms concerning state sovereignty and non-interference: "If the balance were [an] overriding good, it followed that lesser goods, however desirable in themselves, must be sacrificed if necessary for its preservation."61 In fact, minor revisions of the existing equilibrium often required war or intervention and were accepted as part of the balance of power system.62 There were two main sources for this hierarchical relationship between the balance of power and the principle of nonintervention. The first was the common tendency among thinkers of the eighteenth century to describe the balance of power as something which ought actively to be sought, as opposed to a phenomenon which was spon• taneously generated.63 The second was the lingering fear of universal monarchy. As Michael Walzer remarks, when eighteenth century leaders intervened in response to a state's sudden acquisition of power, "they thought they were defending, not national interest alone, but an international order that made liberty possible throughout Europe".64 Burke's thinking on the balance of power draws on both of these logics. First, as Part I illustrated, Burke conceives of the balance of power in normative rather than mechanistic terms, and describes the existing equilibrium among European states as the result of prudent Interventionism 111 collective management. As he sees it, Britain's true interpretation of the balance of power is not a laissez-faire policy of nonintervention, but rather a conscious and vigilant commitment to the common defence of Europe.65 Indeed, he insists that such cases of interven• tion "fill half the pages of history".66 In particular, he refers to the "several Treaties of Guarantee to the Protestant Succession" which "affirm the principle of interference" and which form "the basis of the public Law of Europe".67 In Burke's perspective, Britain owes its laws and its liberties - and King George "the Throne on which he sits" - to a timely and well-placed policy of interference.68 Second, Burke asserts that prudent balance of power politics may require intervention to combat not only de facto aggression, but also an "imminent threat" of attack. He finds support for this notion in Vattel's statement that wherever there is a "Nation of a reckless and mischievous disposition", all other states "have a right to join in order to repress, chastise, and put it ever after out of its power to injure them".69 Hence, Burke concludes that established international law allows for intervention not only in self-defence against injury received, but also in cases of hostile intention. In his interpretation, the interference of the revolutionaries in the affairs of neighbouring states, coupled with the bellicose foreign policy posture of the French regime, clearly justifies such preventive action.70 Burke then extends the sanctioning of preventive intervention to encompass political and social as well as military threats. He does so by analysing a further extract from Vattel: If there be any that makes an open profession of trampling Justice underfoot, of despising and violating the right of others* wherever it finds an opportunity, the interest of human society will authorize all others to unite, in order to humble and chastise it... To form and support an unjust pretention, is to do an injury not only to him who is interested in this pretension, but to mock a justice in general, and to injure all Nations?1 From this passage, Burke reasons that while a principle of noninter• vention exists in international law, there is both a right and a duty on the part of members of international society to respond to those who violate the rights of others. For him, that violation need not come in the form of "formidable forces" - i.e., an overt military threat - but may also exist in the form of "pernicious maxims" - i.e., a challenge to existing conceptions of international legitimacy.72 In his theory, the Revolutionary maxim of popular sovereignty is sufficiently 128 Edmund Burke and International Relations dangerous to mobilise other European states. Thus, the commitment on the part of his fellow countrymen to wait for physical evidence of danger is for Burke tantamount to leaving Britain as a "sitting duck".

Intervention in Civil Conflict

Choosing the Just Side While Burke clearly acknowledges the legitimacy of intervention in certain instances, he insists that a state does not have an abstract right of intervention which can be delineated by absolute rules. As with all matters of politics, he remarks, circumstances are "perpetu• ally variable". Any policy of intervention must continually attend to context and consequences: It depends wholly on this, whether it be a bona fide charity to a party, and a prudent precaution with regard to yourself, or whether under the pretence of aiding one of the parties in a nation, you act in such a manner as to aggravate its calamities, and accomplish its final destruction. In truth it is not the interfering or keeping aloof, but iniquitous intermeddling, or treacherous inaction which is praised or blamed by the decision of an equitable judge.73 It is not intervention per se which must be evaluated, but rather the nature, aims and effect of any particular interventionist action. Rather than holding to a steadfast maxim, Burke prefers to judge each case on its merits. As in the case of preventive war, Burke's treatment of civil conflict draws on the writings of the established international jurists.74 The notes which accompany his Thoughts on French Affairs reproduce Vattel's statement that whenever "a civil war is kindled in a state, foreign powers may assist that party which appears to them to have justice on their side".75 Extrapolating from Vattel, however, Burke suggests that this legal maxim allows "abundant liberty for a neigh• bour to support any of the parties according to his choice".76 In other words, he does not limit the "just side" to the forces of rebellion. As a result, Burke pays particular attention to Vattel's assertion that "he who declares FOR AN UNJUST AND REBELLIOUS PEOPLE, offends against his duty" and violates the law of nations.77 In keeping with his views on reform and revolution, Burke shows little sympathy for subject peoples in situations short of "insupportable tyranny".78 Thus, in his analysis of the civil war in Revolutionary France, Burke extends Vattel's right of intervention to the benefit of the ancien Interventionism 129 regime rather than the Jacobin rebels. In a letter to his son Richard, Burke shows how careful manipulation of the policy of recognition can lend assistance to this Royal cause in the French civil war: [All] the alliances with France are with the King, and suppose a monarchy the legal Government of their Country. Above all they ought to be highly cautious how they acknowledge this National assembly or call it by any other Name than that part of the King's subjects who are in Rebellion against him 79 Provided there is no recognition by outside powers of the National Assembly as a legitimate government, and provided the revolution• aries continue to be treated as rebels, European states can freely and legally intervene on behalf of the King. To answer his noninterventionist critics in the House of Commons, such as Charles Fox, Burke alleges that his policy of aiding the forces of the ancien regime is completely consistent with historical and legal precedent. Fox and his compatriots, he explains, have confused the law of nations by failing to differentiate between two kinds of inter• ference: 1) stirring up dissension in another country; and 2) taking part in a civil war already commenced: In the first Case there is undoubtedly more difficulty than in the second, in which there is clearly no difficulty at all. To interfere in such dissensions requires great prudence and circumspection, and a serious attention to justice and to the policy of one's own Coun• try, as well as to that of Europe. But an abstract principle of public law, forbidding such interference, is not supported by the reason of that law, nor by the Authorities on the Subject, nor by the practice of this Kingdom, nor by that of any civilized nation in the World.80 This distinction enables Burke to support collective intervention against the Revolution as a legitimate action to preserve the Com• monwealth, while opposing the activity of French cabals in neigh• bouring states as a contravention of the conventions of European order.

The European Civil War While Burke endeavours to demonstrate the legality of intervention in France within the terms of the existing law of nations, he also moves beyond conventional interpretations of civil war and the right of intervention when arguing for his crusade against the Revolution. 130 Edmund Burke and International Relations

For Burke, the former case of intervention cited above - Jacobin conspiracy - is a matter of unlawful subversion in the affairs of a sovereign state. The latter - intervention by the European powers against the Jacobin regime - is an actual state of war, not against the French state, but against a revolutionary faction which has thrown all of Europe into civil turmoil. Consequently, a campaign by the Euro• pean powers on behalf of the French monarchy does not constitute foreign intervention; instead, it is a legitimate act of assistance within the broader parameters of the Commonwealth of Europe. To back up this thesis, Burke again invokes Vattel's description of Europe as "a kind of Republick", whose members are united in the "mainte• nance of order and liberty".81 In Burke's mind the French revolutionaries have inaugurated a civil war in Europe, dividing it into the forces of order and forces of rebellion. The forces of order, in whatever states they happen to find themselves, must join together to defend the monarchical status quo which is under siege in France. He turns to historical precedent to argue that supporters of the ancien regime should be characterised not as external invaders, but as friends coming to the aid of a neigh• bouring Prince: "Foreign Powers have hitherto chosen to give to such wars as this, the appearance of a civil contest, and not that of an hostile invasion."82 As examples, he cites German assistance to the Protestant Princes, English support for Henry IV, and English and Dutch intervention to support Charles Vlth of Spain.83 This crusade on behalf of European thrones, Burke contends, is also implicitly endorsed by Vattel. While the latter proclaims the principle of nonintervention, he adds that this rule does not preclude states "from espousing the quarrel of a dethroned King, and assisting him, if he appears to have justice on his side".84 In addition, Burke interprets Vattel's musings on the subject of Alliances as asserting a duty of European monarchs to support their fellow sovereigns. When asked whether an alliance subsists with a King who has suffered revolution, Vattel replies: "the King does not lose his quality merely by the loss of his kingdom. // he is stripped of it unjustly by an Usurper, or by rebels, he preserves his rights, in the number of which are his alliances."85 By way of example, Burke refers to the 1717 Treaty of between France, England, and Holland, which stipulates that if "the kingdoms, countries, or provinces" of any of the Allies are disturbed by rebellion or threats to their successions, "the Ally thus in trouble shall have full right to demand of his Allies the succours above-mentioned."86 An intervention in Interventionism 131 support of the ancien regime, Burke maintains, is in the same spirit as this monarchical guarantee. In his Remarks on the Policy of the Allies, Burke returns to this theme of the right and duty of European sovereigns to assist one another in the maintenance of their domestic authority. In fact, he seems to suggest that the pretext of preserving thrones is somehow more noble than all other justifications for intervention in France. "No considerate Statesmen", he states, "would undertake to meddle with it upon any other condition."87 It is on the rock of international legitimacy, then, that Burke's penultimate rationale for intervention rests: The Government of that kingdom is fundamentally Monarchical. The publick law of Europe has never recognized in it any other form of Government. The Potentates of Europe have by that law, a right, an interest, and a duty to know with what government they are to treat, and what they are to admit into the federative Society, or in other words, into the diplomatick Republick of Europe. This Right is clear and indisputable.88 For him, the monarchical form of government is a defining principle of international legitimacy and a fundamental pillar of order in Euro• pean international society.

Burke's Interventionism and International Law

As the above treatment of preventive intervention and civil war shows, Burke consistently seeks endorsement for his ideas from the current writings and practice of international law. Indeed, the legal language of crime and punishment is a frequent feature of his writings and speeches. Despite the homage paid to eminent jurists, however, it can be argued that Burke is making selective use of international law to rationalise his crusading position. This extrapolation can be illus• trated through a closer examination of the writings of Grotius and Vattel on the Just War. As Hersch Lauterpacht indicates, the works of Grotius vehemently deny the right of preventive war in the interests of maintaining the balance of power.89 For Grotius, the possibility of being attacked did not confer the right to attack. Before that right could be justified, there had to be evidence of not only an adversary's power, but also its "animus". In his words: "fear with respect to a neighbouring power is not a sufficient cause."90 In addition, as Hedley Bull suggests, in 132 Edmund Burke and International Relations

Grotius' time "the concept of the balance of power had not yet achieved the prominence it was to attain early in the next century ... Grotius makes no mention of the balance of power, and his clear rejection of the concept of preventive war is at loggerheads with balance of power thinking."91 Finally, while Grotius does advocate "collective" enforcement of the law of international society, the injuries which justify this right must be "excessively" dangerous to the law of nature, involving ab• horrent acts such as cannibalism or piracy.92 It would therefore seem that his ideas do not give credence to Burke's collectivist crusade against the spread of French revolutionary principles. Similarly, though there is compelling evidence that Vattel supports some forms of preventive war, his language does not give licence to the kind of offensive envisaged by Burke. Throughout his treatise, Vattel is predisposed to honour the Grotian precept that a "just" cause must be one of self-defence. As a result, he claims that if one nation is perceived to be too strong, other states have the right to form a defensive alliance against it.93 Furthermore, as Walzer points out, Vattel opposes the maintenance of standing armies for the even• tuality of an armed attack and denounces any tendency to assume the malign intentions of one's neighbours. Hence, after applying his criteria for a just preventive action - "signs of injustice, rapacity, pride, ambition, or of an imperious thirst of rule" - Vattel condemns the Allied action against Louis XIV during the War of Spanish Suc• cession as "too suspicious".94 Turning to Vattel's writings on intervention in civil war, the same charges of selective interpretation can be levelled at Burke. While Vattel recognises the right to intervene on the 'just' side of a civil war, this right is not considered immediate or automatic. Vattel is adamant that in situations of civil war it is illegitimate for foreign powers to decide between citizens who have taken up arms, or be• tween the sovereign and his subjects. Only when the interposition of good offices has failed can other states "decide for themselves the merits of the case, and assist the party which seems to have justice on its side".95 This requirement accords with Vattel's more general proposition that force is justified only if peaceful means of redress have been exhausted.96 Burke's use of Vattel to sanction intervention on behalf of embat• tled Monarchs is equally problematic. In the same passage on Alli• ances quoted above, Vattel reminds his readers that an ally of a state "is not its Judge". "If the nation has deposed its King", he writes, "to Interventionism 133 oppose these domestick regulations, by disputing their justice or validity, would be to interfere in the Government of the Nation, and to do it an injury."97 More importantly, he insists that outside states cannot wage an "eternal war" on behalf of a fellow sovereign: "After having made ineffectual efforts to restore him, they must at length give peace to their people, and come to an accommodation with the Usurper, and for the purpose treat with him as with a lawful Sovereign."98 There are, to be sure, ambiguities in Vattel's thought which could give rise to such extrapolation.99 Nonetheless, Vattel's pluralist soci• ety of states is ultimately too weak to extract such extensive rights and duties of intervention from it. As Kingsbury and Roberts ex• plain: "While there was agreement on certain principles of order, such as a balance of power system to preserve equilibrium and state independence, this agreement did not extend to the enforcement of law or of more elaborate principles of justice or cooperation."100 As demonstrated in Chapter 3, while Vattel is notable for advancing the existence of an international society, with rules of conduct for its members, the cornerstone of his system is the liberty and autonomy of states, derived from their natural equality.101 His principle of non• intervention reflects an unwillingness to sacrifice this autonomy to a more rigid enforcement of societal rules.102 Thus, while he is pre• pared to condone intervention in certain cases, such as maintaining the balance of power or aiding the just side of a civil war, his basic predilection remains one of nonintervention.103 Burke's willingness to sacrifice state sovereignty must therefore be seen as diverging from the international norms set down by jurists such as Vattel. As shown in Part I, his conception of European in• ternational society differs from Vattel's pluralist vision. In the end, Burke's crusade for preventive and legitimist intervention against the revolutionaries places him outside the Just War framework estab• lished by the international lawyers and distances him further from his former constitutionalist position.

The Laws of Vicinity and Neighbourhood

Given Burke's solidarist vision of international order and his depic• tion of the contagious French revolutionary threat, it is hardly sur• prising that his crusade for intervention explodes the prevailing norms of international law. As a result, he turns to a final theoretical justi• fication for intervention. To further develop his argument that the 134 Edmund Burke and International Relations revolutionaries have inaugurated a civil war in Europe, Burke in• vokes the Roman law notions of Vicinity and Neighbourhood. In his later work, Letters on a Regicide Peace, he relies on these concepts of civil jurisprudence, rather than on the more conventional precepts of international law, to justify military intervention to restore the ancien regime. This preoccupation with things domestic coincides with his mounting anxiety over the survival of the old European order, and his frustration with the 'ordinary' procedures of international relations in combatting the transnational revolutionary forces of sub• version. In his estimation, the traditional distinction between domes• tic and international politics is becoming increasingly irrelevant. The Law of Vicinity, Burke explains, refers to the rights and duties which arise from the circumstance of connectedness: Distance of place does not extinguish the duties or the rights of men; but it often renders their exercise impracticable. The same circumstance of distance renders the noxious effects of an evil system in any community less pernicious. But there are situations where this difficulty does not occur; and in which, therefore, these duties are obligatory, and these rights are to be asserted.104 As we have seen, Burke frequently asserts this phenomenon of vicinage for the members of his European Commonwealth: "France, by it's mere geographical position, independently of every other cir• cumstance, must affect every State of Europe; some of them imme• diately, all of them through mediums not very remote."105 By virtue of not only geography, but also history, religion, and common custom, what happened in France necessarily had an impact on other powers in Europe. The accompaniment to vicinage is the Law of Neighbourhood: When a neighbour sees a new erection, in the nature of a nuisance, set up at his door, he has a right to represent it to the judge; who, on his part, has a right to order the work to be staid; or if estab• lished, to be removed .. .106 Burke goes on to apply this maxim of domestic civil law to the con• dition between the sovereign states of Europe: Now where there is no constituted judge, as between independent states there is not, the vicinage itself is the natural judge. It is, preventively, the assertor of it's own rights; or remedially, their avenger. Neighbours are presumed to take cognizance of each Interventionism 135

other's acts This principle, which, like the rest, is as true of nations, as of individual men, has bestowed on the grand vicinage of Europe, a duty to know, and a right to prevent, any capital innovation which may amount to the erection of a dangerous nui-

In essence, therefore, Burke sees Revolutionary France as answer• able to the larger neighbourhood of Europe, and compares armed intervention against the revolutionaries to a civil lawsuit. "What in civil society is a ground of action," he writes, "in politick society is a ground of war."108 Nevertheless, honouring Burke's own views about circumstance, this discussion of Vicinity and Neighbourhood should not be read as granting an abstract or unconditional right of intervention. Rather, it should be seen in the context of the uniquely revolutionary situation facing Europe in the 1790s. War for Burke remains a "serious mat• ter". It should only be contemplated in response to "an aggregate of mischief" and clear "traces of design". "When all these circumstances combine", he remarks, "the duty of the vicinity calls for the exercise of its competence; and the rules of prudence do not restrain, but demand it."109 In Burke's mind, these criteria of "mischief" and "design" were always latent in the Revolution. "Long before their acts of aggres• sion", he argues, the Jacobins "had adopted a body of principles which was in itself a declaration of war against mankind."110 The "capital innovation" of the French Revolutionaries, in the form of their subversive doctrine, has activated the right of vicinage for all of France's neighbours in the Commonwealth of Europe. "Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire", he remarks, it is better "to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security."111

Intervention and International Order

For any international theorist, the willingness to engage in interven• tion depends on her more general understanding of state sovereignty and international order. As Vincent has noted, observance of the procedural norm of nonintervention does not necessarily exhaust the ingredients for international order. This would only hold true where states are viewed as purely autonomous and self-contained - 136 Edmund Burke and International Relations as parts of a system rather than a society. "Where this isolation does not obtain", he writes, "but where various degrees of separateness and independence do, the requirements for order are more com• plex."112 Hence, the rule of nonintervention will be weighed against competing imperatives. Burke's theory of intervention becomes clearer when set in the context of this larger debate over sovereignty and international order.

The Noninterventionists Burke's opponents, the noninterventionists, adhere to a "strong sense" of state sovereignty. For them, international society is valuable only insofar as it preserves the independence of its members. As a result, nonintervention is seen as an indispensable feature of international order. This absolutist stance is derived from two possible arguments. First, in Christian Wolff's formulation, the prohibition on interven• tion is based on an analogy of the autonomy and equality of states with the autonomy and equality of individuals. In his famous words: "Just as the tallest man is no more a man than the dwarf, so also a nation, however small, is no less a nation than the greatest nation."113 As with individuals, the natural equality of nations brings with it equal rights and obligations, the most important of which is freedom from interference.114 Wolff's principle of nonintervention is therefore grounded in his conviction that the sovereign state is a moral entity, akin to the individual. The second, contractarian argument for nonintervention is a lib• eral one, originating in the ideas of those such as Charles Fox and . Here, the state acquires moral value by virtue of its role in protecting the rights and liberties of individuals, which have been transferred to the sovereign through the social contract.115 In• tervention from the outside would infringe upon the autonomy of individuals, since it would suggest that one group of people could impose its ideas of government upon another. Thus, Fox proclaimed that it would be the end of English liberty, if, having made a change in the English constitution, other powers were permitted "to com• bine and replace what we had rejected, or give us any thing else in its room by fire and sword".116 This contractarian approach to nonintervention has been extended in contemporary literature by the communitarian political philoso• pher Michael Walzer. For liberals such as Mill, sovereignty and non• intervention flow from individual liberties; a state is accorded these rights because it expresses the will of its citizens. Walzer's philosophy, Interventionism 137 by contrast, is driven by an interest in diversity rather than consent. For him, sovereignty and nonintervention are prized not so much for their protection of individual liberties, as for their protection of in• dividuals in communities. In his theory, a state is deserving of such rights even if it does not provide direct political representation for its members, because it expresses an ongoing contract between past, present and future. What is essential is not the degree of individual consent in the contract, but the existence of a viable, historical community.117 By comparing Burke's view of international order with the think• ers above, his interventionism is easier to understand. As suggested in Part I, Burke does not share Wolff's tenet of international egalit- arianism. Instead, he sees European international society containing an elite of Great Powers which could, and often did, override the independence of 'lesser' members. Furthermore, Burke diverges from Wolff's strong sense of state autonomy. For him, states are not territorially defined black boxes, separate and isolated from each other. Rather, they are arranged horizontally into a Commonwealth of Europe, where the ties which join them are as strong as the forces which divide them. As a result, sovereignty is a relative concept which must be weighed against larger societal obligations. Nor, alternatively, is Burke committed to a contractarian philoso• phy - in either of its forms. As shown previously, he perceives the consent-based social contracts of his Enlightenment contemporaries as dangerously temporary and fragile. He sees individuals as part of a continuous, historical society, rather than a "momentary aggrega• tion". Moreover, while Burke's ideas on individual rights, the state and the nation resemble the communitarian notion of contract, his theory of international order does not accord the same prominence to the norm of nonintervention. Where Walzer confines the param• eters of his historical community to the sovereign state, Burke casts his net wider. He sees states, as well as individuals, as part of a historical community: the Commonwealth of Europe. And within this community, individuals have links to those outside the bounda• ries of their particular contract. Burke's theory of international society, which is premised on an underlying homogeneity among its members, resembles more the solidarist vision of the peace theorists than the pluralist conception of the noninterventionists. It is a society of hierarchy, inequality, and interdependence, where sovereignty is a less important ingredient of international order. Consequently, he is prepared to override the 138 Edmund Burke and International Relations doctrine of reciprocal noninterference, and advance interventionism, if more fundamental components of order are under attack.

The Interventionists While the noninterventionists hold sovereignty as sacred and indis• pensable, the interventionists rest their theory of international order on a priori assumptions which may necessitate its violation. Unlike the noninterventionists, for whom the character of domestic order is less important,118 those who favour intervention maintain that the kind of order which exists within states is critically important for the order that is achieved between them. The norm of nonintervention therefore becomes less valuable in itself, and is left only as a 'gloss' once more fundamental components of order have done their work. In Vincent's words, "If it is the nature of the internal order that ultimately determines the character of international society, then rules about international relations must give precedence to rules about domestic society."119 Interventionism is clearly present in the "New Diplomacy" think• ing of Burke's Enlightenment contemporaries, such as the French philosophes and Thomas Paine. For them, the principle of noninter• vention serves as a slogan for Great Power licence and a shield for autocratic regimes. Lasting international order and peace, they ar• gue, depends not on procedural rules of foreign policy, but on the creation of healthy domestic orders.120 For Paine, this means spread• ing the example of the French Revolution, which has abolished mo• narchical sovereignty and placed power in the hands of "the People". Hence his support for the National Convention's Fraternal Decree and for Lafayette's campaign to stamp out German despotism.121 This argument for intervention is also expressed by figures such as Guiseppe Mazzini and Woodrow Wilson. While Mazzini recognises nonintervention as a useful norm for ordering international relations, it can function only after a fundamental revision of the international system has taken place to enshrine the principle of self-determination in each of its members.122 Therefore, he contends that the vehicle of intervention should be used to bring about this doctrinal conformity. In a similar way, Wilson justifies the use of intervention to rid inter• national relations of old-style Realpolitik and to "make the world safe for democracy".123 As with these thinkers, Burke's interventionism flows from the belief that sovereignty is not an absolute value, but one which must be weighed against other imperatives of international order. For him, Interventionism 139 that competing requirement is his substantive view of international legitimacy. Burke construes the Jacobin assault on manners, religion, property and dynastic right as an "act of secession"124 from European international society. As a consequence, the procedural conventions of that society, such as nonintervention, can be suspended in the name of preserving more critical ingredients of order. Nonetheless, Burke's crusade to restore the pillars of the ancien regime is a conservative version of interventionism. As contended in Chapter 3, while his conception of international legitimacy involves homogeneity, it does not demand the kind of doctrinal conformity enunciated by figures such as Paine or Mazzini. His intervention is in the name of legitimism rather than .125 This conservative interventionism is also exemplified by Metternich, who continues Burke's mission to protect the legitimist order of post- Napoleonic Europe from the upheaval of revolution. Like Burke, Metternich enunciates a vision of international order which is de• fined internally and well as externally - socially as well as politically. As Ian Clark explains, he sees Europe "not as divided vertically into states but as divided horizontally into rulers, on the one hand, and revolutionists on the other".126 While his counterpart, Castlereagh, is preoccupied with preserving the external territorial equilibrium achieved at the Congress of Vienna,127 Metternich hopes to consolidate this balance of power system with a stronger glue: a consensus on internal principles of legitimacy. Hence, in Vincent's words, Metternich adds to the prevailing international political order "a transnational or Europe-wide conception of social order - the Euro• pean civilization of which the great powers were the custodians."128 Thus, there can be a progressive and a conservative abrogation of the norm of nonintervention. Both are based on a conception of international order which holds sovereignty as a relative rather than an absolute value. "In both views," Wight observes, "the independ• ence and separateness of states is less important than the homogene• ity of international society, and the inviolability of frontiers is subordinate to the illimitability of truth."129 Whereas the progressives define that truth as self-determination. Burke defines it as the legiti• macy of thrones. In conclusion, Burke's interventionist campaign against the French Revolution distinguishes him from most of his British counterparts. The latter are concerned primarily with the political independence of states - and the maintenance of order between them - rather than with the particular orders within those states. As a consequence, they 140 Edmund Burke and International Relations carefully distinguish between military and social threats, and between the external conduct of states and their internal affairs. For them, revolution is only a casus foederis if it proves to be externally aggres• sive.130 Burke, however, visualises a stable international order con• structed on stable domestic orders. In his mind, statesmen must intervene to address social threats such as revolution, as well as material shifts in power or physical acts of aggression. Because his international theory does not value the principle of nonintervention as fundamental to the preservation of international order, he can temporarily break this convention in the interests of the more sub• stantive assumptions that hold international society together. In this sense, Burke's conception of international order is much more "con• tinental" in character.131 6 Holy War

As outlined in the preceding chapters, Burke perceives the French Revolution as an unprecedented event in international history which threatens to destroy the foundations of order in the Commonwealth of Europe. Consequently, when Britain enters the continental con• flict in 1793, Burke insists that the struggle it faces is of an entirely new kind. The battle against Revolutionary France, he claims, is not a "common political war with an old recognized member of the com• monwealth of Christian Europe".1 Nor is it being waged for familiar or traditional causes, such as territorial, commercial, or dynastic controversy. Instead, it is a "moral war", dedicated to cleansing Europe of "the evil spirit that possesses the body of France", and to safeguarding the "dignity, property, honour, virtue and religion of ... all nations".2 In Burke's perspective, the ordinary means of de• fence and the procedural institutions of international relations - ne• gotiation, treaty, and the laws of war - have become ineffectual in the revolutionary situation confronting Europe. Only unlimited war, waged by a Grand Alliance of all the European Powers, can halt the spread of the contagion and restore order to European international society. This chapter will illustrate how Burke's apocalyptic depiction of the revolutionary threat informs his ideas on the conduct of the war against it. In particular, it will examine Burke's critique of Pitt's war strategy, and of his various efforts to secure peace with the French Directory. First, since Burke sees the differences between the two sides as doctrinal rather than material, he reasons that they cannot be settled by conventional diplomatic means or the restoration of the balance of power. In this kind of war, he claims, conflicting interests cannot be settled "by the gain or the loss of a remote island, or a frontier town or two, on the one side or the other."3 Second, Burke contends that a traditional strategy of defence is doomed to failure, since the war of revolutionary principles operates internally - by corruption and sedition - rather than externally.4 Instead, Britain and her allies must assume an offensive posture by actively support• ing the factions fighting for ascendancy in France. More• over, their offensive campaign must incorporate novel instruments of warfare, such as subversion and propaganda. Finally, given the scope and urgency of the danger, Burke entreats the European powers to

141 142 Edmund Burke and International Relations set aside their individual national interests in the name of the larger crusade to preserve the pillars of the European Commonwealth. In addition, this chapter will set out the theoretical implications of Burke's policy recommendations. First, it will argue that his under• standing of the nature of the struggle facing the Commonwealth of Europe exhibits a "Holy War" attitude, in which the Just War rules of neutrality and jus in bello are suspended. This willingness to over• ride established norms of international law flows from his hierarchi• cal conception of international order, in which the underlying homogeneity among the members of international society has pride of place. Second, it will show that Burke's Holy War aims beyond limiting the external size of the French state to addressing its internal character. In the end, he maintains, it is impossible to have peaceful co-existence with a system whose essence is "inimical to all other governments".5 Thus, Burke's crusade incorporates a detailed vision of the post-revolutionary order, in which each ingredient of the an• cien regime is restored to its proper station.

THE CRUSADE FOR THE COMMONWEALTH OF EUROPE Negotiating with the Devil

In Burke's crusade to avert the destruction of European civilisation, there is no room for compromise with the enemy. Hence, his Letters on a Regicide Peace, written between 1795 and 1797, are dedicated to showing the futility and folly of the British government's peace overtures to France.6 In his eyes, the events of 1789 have also inau• gurated a "Diplomatic Revolution", which "alters the whole genius, Spirit, character, principles and modes of proceeding in the Inter• course between Nation and Nation".7 In the present conflict, Burke contends, the two sides do not even speak the same language; consequently, the common diplomatic dis• course of international relations is no longer appropriate. Further• more, he insists that the Revolutionaries have made the traditional basis for peace in Europe, the balance of power, impossible: To talk of the balance of power to the governors of such a country, was a jargon which they could not understand even through an interpreter. Before men can transact any affair, they must have a common language to speak, and some common recognised Holy War 143

principles on which they can argue, otherwise all is cross-purpose and confusion.8 The old procedures of mutual compensation and exchange of con• quests, which had secured diplomatic treaties in the past,9 have been rendered obsolete. For Burke, the opportunity for rational bargain• ing with the Revolutionaries has long since passed: "Their bosom is a rock of granite, on which falsehood has long since built her strong hold. Poor Truth has had a hard work of it with her little pickaxe. Nothing but gunpowder will do."10 In fact, Burke accuses the Jacobins of perverting traditional diplo• matic machinery through their subversive style of politics. "The Ambassadors from the Rights of Man", he writes, "and their admis• sion into the diplomatick system, I hold to be a new era in this business."11 Such ambassadors serve as spies and "emissaries of sedi• tion", and their foreign embassies as "centers of cabal" for malignant Jacobin principles.12 As a corollary, he warns against assuming that the French resumption of diplomatic practices signifies a tempering of revolutionary ambitions. Though the "Ambassadors of Infamy" have become "powdered and perfumed" and "sashed and plumed", they have "grown infinitely more insolent in their fine cloaths... than they were in their rags".13 Simply because the revolutionaries have donned conventional diplomatic dress does not mean they have been "socialised" back into the European Commonwealth. Indeed, Burke believes the very nature of the revolutionary re• gime - its "systematick unsociability"14 - precludes the possibility of reciprocity or conciliation. "[Her] whole system," he observes, "every speech, every decree, every act, bespoke an intention preclusive of accommodation."15 In his mind, one simply cannot negotiate with the devil: The very idea of a negociation for peace, whatever the inward sentiments of the parties may be, implies some confidence in their faith, some degree of belief in the professions which are made concerning it... I therefore wish to ask what hope we can have of their good faith, who, as the very basis of the negociation, assume the ill faith and treachery of those they have to deal with?16 Burke also claims that to negotiate with the present French Republic is to assume a legitimate and stable government where none exists. "I believe we shall be in a great errour", he states, "if we act upon an idea that there exists in that country any organized body of men 144 Edmund Burke and International Relations who might be willing to treat on equitable terms, for the restoration of their Monarchy."17 Hence, in addition to opposing peace negotia• tions, Burke continues to denounce any recognition of the new French republic by Britain and the other European powers. On the contrary, he holds France to be in a state of anarchy, where "no man could answer for another, nor any race of men bind their successors."18 He goes a step further to suggest that the true France - the pre- revolutionary society and culture - has been replaced by an imposter: "The truth is, that France is out of itself - The moral France is separated from the geographical. The master of the house is ex• pelled, and the robbers are in possession."19 Therefore, any declara• tions or actions which acknowledge the French republic will make Britain an "accomplice" in the crimes of the Revolution.20 "It is the concern of mankind", he proclaims, "that the destruction of order should not be a claim to rank, that crimes should not be the only title to pre-eminence and honour".21 As intimated in Part I, Burke's theory views pre-revolutionary French society as more important than the present physical or terri• torial shell of the French state. It is only the representatives of this 'real' France who are fit to negotiate and with Britain and her allies: If we look for the corporate people of France existing as corporate in the eye and intention of public Law,... they are in Flanders, and Germany, in Switzerland, Spain, Italy, and England. There are all the Princes of Blood, there are all the Orders of the State, there are all the Parliaments of the kingdom.22 While Pitt's government acknowledged these as a viable opposition to the Revolutionaries, it was not prepared to foreclose the possibility of negotiating with a Republican authority on the basis of the aims announced at the outset of the war. When prodded by events, Pitt proved that he was not wedded to hereditary monarchy as the only legitimate government for France, and did not consider Bourbon restoration as a sine qua non of peace.23 This kind of flex• ibility is something Burke's crusade is unwilling to tolerate. Instead, he advises European states to follow the lead of Russia in recognis• ing the Comte d'Artois and the Comte de as Regents.24 In other words, he not only refuses to bargain with the Jacobins in Paris; he does not want them to exist. Burke can therefore be interpreted as conforming to a "domestic change"25 approach to diplomacy: before any negotiation according to the principles of international law can be contemplated, there Holy War 145 must be internal change in France. In his estimation, the "usual re• lations of peace and amity in civilized Europe"26 have disappeared with the onset of the Revolution: "He wished to know on what law the French could be expected to treat; they had made a new law of nations of their own, and had pronounced all treaties between kings - or, as they called them, despots - void."27 Burke predicates the conventional procedures and institutions of European international society on a deeper level of homogeneity and 'civility' among its members: There must be a means not only of breaking their strength within themselves, but of civilizing them; and these things must go to• gether, before we can possibly treat with them, not only as a na• tion, but with any division of them."28 "When such a questionable shape is to be admitted for the firsttim e into the brotherhood of Christendom", he concludes, "it is not a mere matter of idle curiosity to consider how far it is in it's nature alliable with the rest."29 To make any kind of overtures to France in its 'uncivilised' form, Burke continues, is to invite disaster for one's own state: They who bow to the enemy abroad will not be of power to sub• due the conspirator at home. It is impossible not to observe, that in proportion as we approximate to the poisonous jaws of anarchy, the fascination grows irresistible. In proportion as we are attracted towards the focus of illegality, irreligion, and desperate enterprize, all the venomous and blighting insects of the State are awakened to life.30 Furthermore, he predicts that the British ambassadors sent to meet with such an evil will become contaminated with the revolutionary plague, and will lose all affection and attachment to the constitution and religion of their homeland: "They will become true conductors of contagion to every country, which has had the misfortune to send them to the source of that electricity."31 And finally, Burke suggests that the willingness to compromise or negotiate will inevitably lead to a weakening of British resolve. In fact, he devotes as much atten• tion to the manner in which Pitt's Administration approaches the Revolutionaries as he does to the various overtures themselves. Hence, for example, he forecasts that the accommodating language of "or• dinary" diplomacy, will breed "female weakness"32 in the British rep• resentatives. In Burke's opinion, only the "manly sentiments"33 of 146 Edmund Burke and International Relations the sublime are appropriate to deal with the force and energy of the Jacobin menace. "[National] disgrace", he remarks, "is not the high road to security, much less to power and greatness."34 In addition to attacking Pitt's overtures to Revolutionary France, Burke disparages the proposals for peace offered by Fox and his colleagues.35 For these liberal Whigs, the conventions of diplomacy and international law are not predicated on the reinstatement of a non-revolutionary regime in Paris. Moreover, because they can fore• see a future European international society which contains a repub• lican France, they advocate a humane peace in order to ease its re-integration into that society. Hence, they recommend allowing France to keep some of her territorial acquisitions (e.g. Savoy) in exchange for the cessation of hostilities.36 In Burke's mind, this strat• egy erroneously assumes that the Revolutionary republic is capable of moderation or socialisation. He is unable to contemplate any half• way house between war to destroy the revolutionary regime, and peace with a restored ancien regime. More importantly, Burke attacks Fox's assertion that in construct• ing this humane peace, the post-war borders and governments of Europe should be determined through consultation with "the Peo• ple". This popular notion of international legitimacy is fundamen• tally at odds with Burke's dynastic conception, and strikes at the very heart of his views on the foundation of European international soci• ety.37 Thus, Fox's promulgation of popular sovereignty raises ques• tions in Burke's mind about the deeper motives of the peace advocates:

It is not easy to state for what good end, at a time like this, when the foundations of all antient and prescriptive Governments, such as ours, to which people submit, not because they have chosen them, but because they are born to them, are undermined by per• ilous theories, that Mr. Fox should be so fond of referring to those theories, upon all occasions 38

Burke answers this puzzle by alleging that those who press for peace are collaborators with the Revolution: "The two things are connected in fact. The partizans of the one are the partizans of the other."39 As evidence for this charge, he observes that the peace proponents cou• ple their foreign policy proclamations with calls for domestic reform. Fox's goal, according to Burke, is "to make the influence of what He calls the People every thing, and that of the Crown - Nothing ... It Holy War 147 is for this grand end, he proposes that kind of Peace which he rec• ommends and is one of the chief advantages which he expects."40 Given the close connection in Burke's theory between domestic and international politics, the "war at home" requires as much inten• sity as the war abroad. He protests against the tendency "to look upon this Jacobin contest at home, as an ordinary party squabble about place or patronage", or to "regard this Jacobin War abroad as a common War about trade or territorial boundaries, or about a political balance of power among rival or jealous states".41 Burke sees only one all-inclusive counter-revolution, being waged on two fronts. "I considered a general war against Jacobins and Jacobinism, as the only possible chance of saving Europe (and England as in• cluded in Europe) from a truly frightful Revolution."42

The Conduct of War

Burke's writings and speeches are relentless in pronouncing that the war against the revolutionaries in France is of a kind not seen before in Europe: It was said by old Trivulzio, that the battle of Marignan was the battle of the Giants, that all the rest of the many he had seen were those of the Cranes and Pygmies. This is true of the objects, at least, of the contest. For the greater part of those, which we have hitherto contended for, in comparison, were the toys of children.43 In addition to accentuating the magnitude of the stakes, Burke em• phasises the unique nature of the revolutionary adversary and the power of its levee en masse: He readily allowed that this was the most dangerous war we were ever engaged in; that we had to contend with a set of men now enured to warfare, and led on by enthusiasm and the ardour of conquest to such a degree, that they bartered the arts, commerce, industry, manufactures, and civilization itself, for the sword.44 Thus, in terms of both ends and means, the present contest is unpre• cedented in the annals of European international relations. In light of this characterisation of the crusade, Burke is frustrated by the seeming inability of Pitt's Administration to rise to the nov• elty of the challenge. As Clive Emsley contends, though Pitt's rhetoric was often harsh, neither he "nor any of his ministers expressed their antipathy to France with the same crusading zeal and single-mindedness 148 Edmund Burke and International Relations as Burke".45 Moreover, British strategists remained fixed to the tra• ditional calculations of power when assessing what was needed to defeat France, giving little recognition to the levee en masse and postulating that France could not match the powerful forces rallied against her. Looking back to their earlier victories over Dutch and Belgian insurgents, they were confident in their ability to wage a short and "limited liability" conflict.46 In keeping with this optimistic forecast, the British war strategy employed many of the tactics used by Pitt's father during the Seven Years War: subsidising the armies of the major European land powers, while British fleets swept French merchantmen from the seas and convoyed troops to seize profitable French colonies.47 In other words, Britain prepared for the same kind of battle it had always fought against Bourbon France. As a result, Burke condemns Pitt and his ministers for proceeding "exactly as if every thing stood in the situation, in which ... [he] saw them thirty years ago, at a time when very great Errours led but to very slight consequences; and not as they are now, when very slight mistakes lead to incalculable Evils."48 His critique of Pitt's "limited liability" strategy is launched on three main fronts. First, because Burke interprets the revolutionary threat as ideo• logical rather than material, he holds the traditional means of de• fence employed by the coalition's strategists as wholly inadequate: They pretended to seek, or they flattered themselves that they sought, in the accession of new fortresses, and new territories, a defensive security. But the security wanted was against a kind of power, which was not so truly dangerous in it's fortresses nor in it's territories, as in it's spirit and it's principles. They aimed, or pre• tended to aim, at defending themselves against a danger, from which there can be no security in any defensive plan.49 The conflict Burke envisages is "not the usual war for trade routes and sugar islands",50 but a crusade against "a principle, and an exam• ple, which there is no shutting out by Fortresses or excluding by Territorial Limits".51 Burke's strategic recommendations for Britain are therefore offen• sive as opposed to defensive.52 Indeed, it is the defensive posture of the Prussians and Austrians which he isolates as the cause of their defeats: "They propose that all Europe shall form a Cordon to hedge in the Cuckoo. They are to form a defensive Alliance to hinder the propagation of French Principles! Well! of the two madnesses, the madness of the French rabble is the more noble."53 Burke is especially Holy War 149 disturbed that Britain employs its navy "merely as an outwork" and its army "merely as a Garrison".54 "What has an Enemy to fear", he asks, "from a nation who confines herself to an inert, passive, domes• tic defense?"55 By restricting herself to the dominion of the ocean, Britain has used only the "right arm" of her naval power, and has "never manfully met the danger in front M56 To answer those who fear that Britain lacks the material resources to carry out this offensive, Burke provides a detailed account of the robustness of the British economy.57 Far from being weakened by the war on the continent, he contends, all the vital signs of the British economy point in a healthy direction: "[Our] trade has grown too big for the ancient limits of art and nature. Our streets, our lanes, our shores, the river itself... are impeded, and obstructed, and choaked up by our riches. They are like our shops, 'bursting with opulence.'w5* Hence, Pitt's Ministry cannot "plead poverty" to justify capitulation. If Britain fails to fulfill its historic mission, Burke declares, it is the fault not of the British people, but of its leadership:

The people stand acquitted, if the war is not carried on in a man• ner suited to it's objects. If the publick safety suffers any detri• ment, they [the Minsters] are to answer it, and they alone. It's armies, it's navies, are given to them without stint or restriction. It's treasures are poured out at their feet. It's constancy is ready to second all their efforts.59

He therefore challenges Pitt's Ministers to prove themselves equal to the "ancient spirit" and "expectation of a brave people".60 Burke's second criticism of government policy surrounds its failure to specify the precise beneficiary of British intervention. "All the misfortunes of the war", he states, "have arisen from this very intri• cacy and ambiguity in our politics."61 In Burke's perspective, this beneficiary can only be the Royalist faction in France. Indeed, he asserts that refusal to assist this group constitutes a de facto recogni• tion of the "atheistick and murderous" regime in Paris.62 As a result, Burke disparages the Administration's decision to divert military resources away from the European theatre - "the heart of the hostile mischief"63 - toward securing traditional British goals in the West Indies: "We are probably the only nation who have de• clined to act against an enemy, when it might have been done in his own country; and who having an armed, a powerful, and a long vic• torious Ally in that country,... suffered him to perish for want of 150 Edmund Burke and International Relations support."64 While France's "frontier was terrible", her interior was "feeble"; therefore, the allies had erred in attacking her where she was invincible and sparing her "where she was ready to dissolve by her own internal disorders".65 After Toulon proves too weak to sustain a foreign-aided campaign against the Revolution, Burke pins his hopes on the Royalists in Poitou and Vendee: "This is a war directly against jacobinism and its principles... At La Vendee with infinitely less charge we may make an impression likely to be decisive."66 Third, Burke berates Pitt's Ministry for failing to identify more directly with the French emigre community. In fact, he pleads on several occasions that the emigres be permitted to join the British Army.67 Pitt strongly resisted such pressure, fearing that collabora• tion with the faction-ridden emigres might drive moderates within France to side with the Revolution.68 Moreover, as John Ehrman points out, any such assistance "would have meant facing at the very outset the question of British intervention in the future settlement of France".69 As noted above, this was something the British govern• ment was not yet willing to contemplate. Thus the Burke family's association with the 6migr6s gradually came to be seen as a formal alternative to the foreign policy of Pitt's Administration.70 Through• out the Revolutionary Wars, Burke and his son continue to foster correspondence with the emigres, and complain that the latter are being "cold-shouldered" by the European powers. In his Remarks on the Policy of the Allies, Burke makes two inter• esting theoretical arguments in favour of collaboration with the emigres. First, on grounds of sheer practicality, the emigres are bet• ter placed to determine what kind of campaign is most likely to succeed against the Revolution: "[No] Foreigners whatsoever are either in interest so engaged, or in judgment and local knowledge so competent, to answer all these purposes as the natural proprietors of the country."71 Second, and more importantly, a half-hearted com• mitment to the emigr6 cause is likely to raise larger doubts about Britain's real interest in the war effort:

[Are] we quite sure, that others can believe us to be sincere, or that we can be even fully assured of our own sincerity in the pro• tection of those who shall risque their lives for the restoration of Monarchy in France, when the world sees, that those who are the natural, legal, constitutional representatives of that Monarchy, if it Holy War 151

has any, have not had their names so much as mentioned in any one publick act... ?72 In other words, it is only by consorting with these 'real' Frenchmen that the crusade can be a pure one, based upon collective European principles, and not a mere Realpolitik display of outside meddling. Burke therefore advises that the crusade of counter-revolution should not be a completely foreign affair, lest it be perceived as conquest. The following commentary underscores his appreciation of the potential hazards of outside involvement: Where none of the respectable native interests are seen in the transaction, it is impossible that any declaration can convince those that are within, or those that are without, that any thing else than some sort of hostility in the style of a conqueror is meant... When they see nothing but bands of English, Spaniards, Neapolitans, Sardinians, Prussians, Austrians, Hungarians, Bohemians, Slav• onians, Croatians, acting as principals, it is impossible they should think we come with a beneficent design 73 These statements conform to his general belief that action taken by sovereigns on behalf of the ancien regime is part of a larger Euro• pean civil war, and should not be considered as 'foreign' interference. What is more striking, however, is Burke's acknowledgement of the possible effects of intervention on the target state's population. In this respect, his desire to avoid the alienation of the French people has a noticeably modern ring. France, he concludes, "must be gained and settled by itself, and through the medium of its own native dig• nity and property. It is not honest, it is not decent, still less is it politick, for foreign powers themselves to attempt any thing in this minute, internal, local detail, in which they could shew nothing but ignorance, imbecility, confusion and oppression."74 Nonetheless, such remarks also suggest that the alleged necessity of collective interven• tion by European sovereigns may be apparent only to the members of the Royalist cause and not to the larger population of the country in question.75 Burke's preoccupation with the Emigres indicates that his warfight- ing plan is directed at Atheism and Jacobinism, as well as Regicide: The great means therefore of restoring the Monarchy which we have made the main object of the war, is to assist the dignity, the religion, and the property of France, to repossess themselves of the 152 Edmund Burke and International Relations

means of their natural influence. This ought to be the primary object of all our politicks, and all our military operations. Other• wise every thing will move in a preposterous order, and nothing but confusion and destruction will follow.76 Keeping in mind his prerequisites for a healthy society, Burke in• structs the coalition members not "to act as if it was only a War of Kings, and leave out the suffering intermediate Orders ... without which every Dominion must become a mere despotism of the Prince".77 His crusade is a comprehensive one, designed for collabo• ration with the representatives of all facets of the ancien regime.

The Role of Propaganda: Fighting Fire with Fire

In warning his contemporaries of the dangers posed by the French Revolutionary threat, Burke is careful to accentuate its doctrinal and ideological character. For him, the present contest is a war of ideas rather than a war of national ambitions. As a consequence, in dis• cussing the various means of waging his offensive crusade, he fastens upon the potential weapons of the written and spoken word. According to Conor Cruise O'Brien, as a practical politician Burke had long been aware of "the value of verbal violence", challenging the assumption that the "calm mode of Enquiry" is always the most rewarding strategy.78 Soon after entering Parliament, Burke devel• oped the specialized weapons of a parliamentary performer, mar• shalling them to great rhetorical and persuasive effect.79 In addition, Burke's writings display a certain "dramatic" fervour by employing the literary techniques of metaphor, paradox or inversion to enhance the impact of his ideas.80 In this sense, Burke can be described as a "philosophical polemi• cist":81 one who paid equal attention to style and substance when attempting to persuade his audience. Even in his own day, commen• tators acknowledged how Burke's style served to multiply the effect of his arguments. The British pamphleteer, Sir , offered this description of Burke: "[He] can advance a groupe of magnificent horrors to make a breach in our hearts, through which the most undisciplined rabble of arguments may enter in triumph."82 It was also Mackintosh who, as early as 1791, described the Reflec• tions as "the manifesto of a counter-revolution".83 It is this respect for Burke's rhetorical persuasiveness which moti• vates O'Brien to dub him the first modern propagandist.84 But Burke's Holy War 153 originality lies not so much in engaging in propaganda, as in reflect• ing upon its nature and its power. In particular, he highlights the tendency of human beings to act on passion and opinion rather than : They who have made but superficial studies in the Natural History of the human mind, have been taught to look on religious opinions as the only cause of enthusiastick zeal, and sectarian propagation. But there is no doctrine whatever, on which men can warm, that is not capable of the very same effect. The social nature of man impels him to propagate his principles, as much as physical im• pulses urge him to propagate his kind.85 Ultimately, Burke believes the propagation and direction of this opinion must originate in a few.86 As we have seen, he conceives the voice of "the People" as passionate, ill-informed and partial to what is "near and dear". Thus, to have any political usefulness, it must be given guidance and direction by an effective propagandist: "To bring the people to a feeling, such a feeling I mean, as tends to amendment or alteration of System, there must be plan and management."87 Many of Burke's own writings and speeches are devoted to moulding this apolitical British opinion.88 Burke applies these lessons concerning the malleability of popular opinion to his assessment of the French Revolution. Most impor• tantly, as shown in Chapter 4, he underlines the role of propaganda in shaping the ideas of the French people in the prelude to 1789.89 It is the diffusion of this revolutionary doctrine, through the Jacobin societies and the print media, which continues to preoccupy Burke during the Revolutionary Wars. In his estimation, the seeds of "the French spirit of proselytism... are sown almost every where."90 Burke incorporates this understanding of the revolutionary tool of propaganda into his own strategy for waging Holy War. Indeed, his anxiety over the dispersion of Jacobin dogma is matched by his fear of the weakness of defenders of the status quo. As O'Brien notes, Burke is "conscious of the need for organized effort, adequately financed, and reinforced by 'State action', to mould public opinion on questions of ideology and international policy".91 Hence, for ex• ample, he advises the drafters of the to exag• gerate the "Tyranny of the present usurping Government" in France for purposes of public consumption: "Previous to it or along with it ought to be published strong collections of cases and facts of cruel• ties, persecutions and desolations produced by this revolution in a 154 Edmund Burke and International Relations popular style, which for being simple and popular will not be the less eloquent and impressive."92 In sum, Burke insists that the spirit of the Revolution can be de• feated only by another "of the same nature but informed with an• other principle".93 He is prepared to meet Jacobinism on its terms - on the ground of public opinion - and in the powerful language of the sublime rather than the harmonious tones of the beautiful. In short, he is willing to fight fire with fire.

AlUed Unity

Finally, since Burke's crusade against Revolutionary France seeks to preserve the very foundations of order in European international society, allied unity is an essential component of its success. Therefore, in presenting his alternative strategy, Burke continually disparages the lack of cohesion among the coalition partners. In fact, his writ• ings and speeches are devoted as much to the weakness and division of the allies as they are to the energy and strength of the enemy. For Burke, the "province-swapping politics"94 of traditional Realpolitik are ill-suited to this new war of principle. "[In] this awful hour", he implores, "we ought to be bottomed enough in principle not be carried away upon the first prospect of any sinister advan• tage."95 By giving way to the temptations of unilateral gain, the Al• lies have permitted the Jacobins to play one state off against another:

By thus dissociating every State from every other, like deer sepa• rated from the herd, each power is treated with, on the merit of his being a deserter from the common cause. In that light the Regicide power finding each of them insulated and unprotected, with great facility gives the law to them all.96

The result of such "desertion" and "disunion", he observes, is an association tainted by "an admiration of the enemy, by mutual accu• sations, by a distrust in every member of the alliance of it's fellow, of it's cause, it's power, and it's courage."97 Burke is especially critical of Pitt's proclivity to separate British policy from the efforts of Prussia and Austria. In the months prior to British involvement, Burke had praised these continental powers for carrying the torch for all of European international society.98 After the conflict widens in 1793, he challenges those such as Fox, who call for an 'arms-length' distance between Britain and her unsavoury Holy War 155

Prussian and Austrian allies. He does so in the terms of classic Realpolitik: [This] country had made alliances with some of the greatest des• pots on the earth: in treating, they never inquired what the char• acters of the princes were with whom they treated: the only question they considered was, whether that prince could be useful in a con• federation against France...." In other words, even the raw mechanics of the balance of power demanded that "whatever country was the enemy of France was naturally the ally of Great Britain". Since that "opinion was founded in true policy before the revolution", he asks, "what reason was there to alter that opinion since ... ?"100 For Burke, the revolutionary events in France make such an association even more essential. Alliances must be forged with less than scrupulous bed-fellows in order to fend off a more evil revolutionary ambition. In particular, Burke charges Fox with exploiting the issue of the partition of Poland to divert attention away from the need for steady allied co-operation. As Burke sees it, Britain is "obliged to act with some of the authors of that injustice, against our common enemy, France."101 It is evident, then, that he has placed the struggle against Revolutionary France above all other foreign policy considerations. While in 1772 Burke had condemned Britain for her inaction on the Polish question, he now counsels a policy of noninterference. As he states in a letter to his son: [Though] I lament the fate of Poland, as I before lamented its fate when the cruel partition was made of that Kingdom between the same powers, yet I would sooner let affairs there take their Course, and hope for better things from better conjunctures, than by per• haps a vain and impotent Effort to succour Poland, establish at our very door a System of Tyranny infinitely more dangerous, which aims directly at the Sources of all the happiness that this Kingdom has enjoyd 102 Thus, what appears as a contradictory policy toward Poland is in fact a manifestation of Burke's hierarchical conception of international order - a hierarchy which holds the workings of the balance of power as subordinate to the battle to keep Europe safe from revolutionary contagion: "If lost for a while, the Balance of power may be recoverd. But the Spirit and principles of Europe, once destroyd in the Stamina of its internal Governments, never will be restored."103 156 Edmund Burke and International Relations

In contrast to the allied disunity he sees in the conflict with Revo• lutionary France, Burke fondly recalls the Grand Alliance of Euro• pean powers which had fought Louis XIV at the turn of the eighteenth century. In addition, he praises the commitment of the British people to that war: In that great war carried on against Louis the XlVth, for near eighteen years, Government spared no pains to satisfy the nation, that though they were to be animated by a desire of glory, glory was not their ultimate object; but that every thing dear to them, in religion, in law, in liberty, every thing which as freemen, as Eng• lishmen, and as citizens of the great commonwealth of Christen• dom, they had at heart, was then at stake.104 This dedication and sense of urgency, he mourns, has been lost in the present contest with France: "If a war to prevent Louis the XlVth from imposing his religion was just, a war to prevent the murderers of Louis the XVIth from imposing their irreligion upon us is just; a war to prevent the operation of a system, which makes life without dignity, and death without hope, is a just war."105 In fact, he con• tends, an even greater level of intensity and solidarity is required. The notion of Christian fraternity also occupies a prominent posi• tion in Burke's call for allied unity. Europe, he declares, must "make a league between all the grand divisions of that name [Christianity] to protect and to cherish them all; and by no means to proscribe in any manner, more or less any member of our common party."106 Thus, in keeping with his view of religion as more a social than a doctrinal issue, Burke cautions that the religious diversity of Europe should not interfere with the crusade to extirpate the revolution from France. In face of the challenge of Atheism, Burke concludes, it is the task of Christian Statesmen "to secure their common Basis, and not to risque the subversion of the whole Fabrick by pursuing these distinctions with an ill-timed zeal."107 Despite these laudable sentiments, it is interesting to note that the language of Burke's counter-revolutionary crusade often verges on imperialistic. In the end, he suggests that the outcome of the Euro• pean campaign against the Jacobins hangs upon the survival of Brit• ain.108 It is the duty of Pitt's government, he pronounces, to assert Britain's place as "the head of the great Commonwealth of Europe", and to "make England, inclined to shrink into her narrow self, the Arbitress of Europe, the tutelary angel of the human race".109 As with his writings on Empire, Burke continually brings the discussion Holy War 157 back to Britain, and to the survival and strengthening of her con• stitution. This begs the question as to whether Burke's crusade can be considered pure, or whether it is a hybrid of altruism and state interest.110

BURKE'S HOLY WAR AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER

Just War Versus Holy War

Burke's writings on the ends and means of the Revolutionary War often invoke images of a "Holy War". In his Letters on a Regicide Peace, he describes the struggle against France in frankly religious terms: [A] war to preserve national independence, property, liberty, life, and honour, from certain universal havoc, is a war just, necessary, manly, pious; and we are bound to persevere in it by every prin• ciple, divine and human, as long as the system which menaces them all, and all equally, has an existence in the world.111 "We cannot delude ourselves about the true state of this dreadful contest," he declares. "It is a religious war."112 Many commentators have seized upon this seemingly fanatical side of Burke's thought. Hindson and Grey, for example, see the Manicheanism of Burke's "cosmic crusade" against the French Revo• lution as part of his "dramatic theory" of politics.113 Similarly, Vilho Harle points to Burke as the embodiment of a larger European dualist tendency to pit good against evil - the "Sons of Light" against the "Sons of Darkness".114 And finally, Burke's defence of Christian Europe served as an inspiration for American Cold Warriors in their Holy War campaign against atheistic Communism.115 What is more significant, however, is the place of this Holy War mentality in Burke's larger international theory. In particular, his portrayal of the battle against Revolutionary France as 'total' has important ramifications for the constitutionalist rules and procedures of international order. This tendency to sanctify a war waged on behalf of the Commonwealth of Europe threatens to obliterate the laws of war established by the international jurists of his time. First, participation in Burke's Holy War is not limited to the spe• cific state which has been injured. Instead, there is a proclamation of collective self-defence: a recognition of the right and duty to fight, 158 Edmund Burke and International Relations even if one's immediate physical interests are not involved. Conse• quently, the rights of neutrality, enunciated three decades earlier by Vattel, are overruled. As Burke states in his Letters on a Regicide Peace: There is nothing in the world so difficult as to put men in a state of judicial neutrality. A leaning there must ever be, and it is of the first importance to any nation to observe to what side that leaning inclines - whether to our own community or to one with which it is in a state of hostility.116 Clearly, then, there is no room for shades of grey in Burke's analysis of the Revolution: "They who do not dread it, love it. Such is the nature of Jacobinism, such is the nature of man, that this system must be regarded either with enthusiastic admiration, or with the highest degree of detestation, resentment, and horror."117 Second, in Burke's Holy War there is no longer a duty for both sides to observe the conventional rules of jus in bello. The barbarian nature and behaviour of the enemy are taken as justification for an abandonment of all inhibitions. Only a suspension of the "ordinary" rules of international relations, Burke avows, can ward off defeat from this new kind of enemy: The Jacobin Revolution is carried on by men of no rank, of no consideration, of wild savage minds, full of levity, arrogance and presumption, without morals, without probity, without prudence ... [If] we meet this energy with poor commonplace proceeding, with trivial maxims, paltry old saws, with doubts, fears and suspi• cions, with a languid, uncertain hesitation, with a formal, official spirit,... down we go to the bottom of the abyss - and nothing short of Omnipotence can save us.118 One might argue that Burke's crusade against Revolutionary France is simply an extension of the conventional doctrine of the Just War. Indeed, recent scholars suggest that Burke fits squarely into the "Grotian tradition" by sanctioning war on behalf of international society against a delinquent member.119 This interpretation is sup• ported by the fact that Grotius's own writings are often unclear as to whether those with a just cause are permitted to use any means necessary to secure victory,120 and whether third parties have the right to discriminate in favour of this just side. Similar ambiguities regarding the rights of the just side have been noted in Vattel's writings on neutrality and jus in bello.121 According to one scholar, Vattel can Holy War 159 be accused of allowing disciplinary action to "degenerate into a quest for vengeance".122 Nevertheless, it is also important to underscore the differences between the Just War tradition and Burke's crusade. First, while Grotius advances a kind of "qualified neutrality" for third parties, he does not imply a duty to assist those waging a Just War. He simply does not foreclose the right to do so.123 In this sense, Grotius can be seen as straddling the line between the collective responsibilities of medieval solidarism, and the more modern, pluralist idea of neutral• ity.124 Likewise while Vattel makes detailed exceptions to his princi• ple of neutrality, they must ultimately be viewed as no more than exceptions.125 He is more notable for his path-breaking role in the creation of international legal norms on neutrality, particularly those which operate from the perspective of the neutral state. As shown in Chapter 1, Burke himself appeals to these principles during the St. Eustatius Affair. Second, both Grotius and Vattel add a series of petitions for moderation - temperamenta belli - in the exercise of what the Law of Nations permits during war. In fact, the humanisation of jus in bello is an expressly stated purpose in Grotius' Prolegomena, and is considered by many to be one of his most enduring contributions to international law.126 Therefore, while Grotius differentiates just from unjust jus ad bellum, he also moves legal theory toward the position where jus in bello applies equally to both sides. Vattel's discussion of jus in bello also contains these pleas for humanity in warfare,127 drawing on his more basic premise of the 'reasonableness' of rulers in European international society. Both thinkers therefore leave the impression that war is a rule-governed activity - a 'gentlemen's game' - occurring within the parameters of a well-defined society of states.128 Burke, by contrast, perceives the Jacobin challenge as a conscious divorce from and attack upon this international society. As a conse• quence, he steps outside the legalist Just War paradigm in his posture toward Revolutionary France:

The mode of civilized war will not be practised; nor are they French who act on the present system entitled to expect it. They, whose known policy is to assassinate every citizen whom they suspect to be discontented by their tyranny, and to corrupt the soldiery of every open enemy, must look for no modified hostility.... The hell-hounds of war, on all sides, will be uncoupled and unmuzzled. The new school of murder and barbarism, set up in Paris, having 160 Edmund Burke and International Relations

destroyed ... all the other manners and principles which have hith• erto civilised Europe, will destroy also the mode of civilized war, which more than anything else, has distinguished the Christian world.129

In short, gentlemen have no place in the battle of the European Commonwealth against the Revolutionary menace. To appreciate the moral intensity of Burke's crusade, it is useful to consult Martin Wight's distinction between Just and Holy War. Just War, Wight explains, has traditionally been the custom within the states system, while Holy War is the norm between states systems:

In the notion of the Just War, the premise is that all parties have their due rights, and war is the means of penalizing violation of right and ensuring restoration and restitution. It is a juridical con• ception, of war as the instrument of law. In the notion of the Holy War, the premise is that the true believers are right, and that in• fidels are to be converted or exterminated It is a religious conception, of war as the instrument of God's will, or of history.130

Just War is the practice within the confines of one's moral commu• nity; it is conducted between political adversaries who recognise each other's existence and legitimacy. Holy War is the instrument used against "the Other" who is alien to that moral community. As Wight points out, however, a characteristic feature of the Euro• pean states-system has been its vulnerability to internal fracture. The first of these fractures, he suggests, were the Religious Wars; the second, the French Revolutionary Wars. The doctrinal schisms aris• ing from these events undermine the transnational consensus which underpins international society. In the process, the 'ordinary' institu• tions and procedures of international relations, such as sovereignty or the rules of war, are also eroded. To cite Raymond Aron: "the meaning of a common culture is effaced, and the belligerents are now aware only of what separates them".131 Holy War is therefore conceivable not only between civilizations or states systems, but also within them.132 Political opponents become assimilated to barbarians; they must be liberated or destroyed. In fact, Aron contends that in terms of the cruelty of warfare, one can• not necessarily distinguish internal Holy War from Holy War among systems of alien civilisations: "The belligerents have no need to be alien to each other in order to be fierce;politica l heterogeneity ... is Holy War 161 enough."133 It is this kind of internal Holy War which characterises Burke's crusade. It should be emphasised that Burke does not prescribe such feroc• ity for all warfare. As noted in Part I, Burke views war as a serious undertaking and as subject to the rule of law. Consequently, he fol• lows the lead of Vattel in supporting the regulations of the Just War within international society. "It was a first principle of the law of nations," Burke states during the St. Eustatius Affair, "that to ex• pound the rights of war, we must conceive each party to have justice on its side ... everything preceding the commencement of hostilities must be forgotten in that exposition."134 Furthermore, Burke's consti• tutionalism is marked by a demand for a fair and merciful system of justice. He therefore treats as the exception those instances in which one side clearly possesses the monopoly on justice and can suspend the accepted conventions of warfare. The fight against Jacobinism, Burke maintains, is one such excep• tion. His Commonwealth of Europe presupposes an underlying ho• mogeneity among its members and is reinforced by its distinctiveness from what lies outside. In this case, it is Revolutionary France, with its abrogation of the shared values and norms of European civilisa• tion, which constitutes "the Other". As a consequence, the proce• dural props of equal justice and jus in bello must be sacrificed in view of the enemy's assault on more fundamental principles of order.

The Post-War Order

The Domestic Crusade For Burke, military victory over France is only a prelude to the more crucial features of his war aims. Having set forth the goals which he believes should guide Britain's involvement and the manner in which the war should be fought, he goes on to discuss his ultimate concern - the restoration of the ancien regime. In Burke's perspective, more salient than the tactical deficiencies of the British government's strat• egy is its ambiguous approach to the internal configuration of the French regime. His Holy War against Revolutionary France is about much more than Pitt's aims of "security and indemnification"; there• fore, it cannot be limited to reforming and circumscribing France's external behaviour. In responding to Fox's appeal for a mutual pledge of noninter• ference between Britain and France, Burke reiterates his view that 162 Edmund Burke and International Relations the internal character of the French regime is a matter of concern for all European states: The best writers on the law of nations, give no sort of countenance to his doctrine of non-interference, in the extent and manner in which he used it, even when there is no war. When the war exists, not one authority is against it in all its latitude. His doctrine is equally contrary to the enemy's uniform practice, who, whether in peace or in war, makes it his great aim, not only to change the Government, but to make an entire revolution in the whole of the social order in every country.135 If England was not to pass judgment on the internal government of France, there had to be reciprocity: France had to cease its invectives against religion, monarchy and property in England. It is Burke's conviction, however, that Revolutionary France is intrinsically inca• pable of such reciprocity, given her "disposition to pull down and destroy all states about her".136 As a result, it is impossible to main• tain the conventional separation between internal and external politics. Thus, in contrast to the limited aims of Pitt and Fox, Burke's cru• sade moves beyond the redress of specific international grievances to a complete reinstatement the ancien regime. In his mind, no trace of Revolutionary French society can remain in the aftermath of the war: Nothing I am persuaded can be done with the smallest prospect of permanence, but by completely counteracting all those crude Systems with which mankind has been surfeited, and by putting every thing without exception as nearly as possible upon its former Basis Only after the status quo has been restored, he argues, can we "talk with safety, upon some practical principles, of reforming what may be amiss... ."137 Such war aims indicate that Burke's crusade is "domestic" as well as "international".138 It is designed not only to reform the external behaviour of Revolutionary France, and circumscribe the scope of its territorial reach, but also to rectify its "internal rottenness". Burke's substantive conception of international legitimacy demands such attention to the internal composition of states, for it is only through an underlying social and political homogeneity that the Holy War 163

"ordinary" rules and institutions of international order are capable of flourishing. Thus, in sketching his vision of the post-war order, Burke fleshes out in greater detail the foundations upon which a future French government and society should be based. The first task is to identify who actually constitutes "the People" of France; the second is to establish principles of government for those people. In answering the first question, Burke denies that "the individuals now actually in France, numerically taken and arranged into Jacobin Clubs", can be considered as the "body politick" or "the nation" of France. Instead, he considers the "King and his Subjects" - the "origi• nal individual proprietors of lands" and the "bishops and the clergy" - as "the true constituent parts of the nation".139 Here, Burke is engaged in a definitional exercise akin to the modern practice of national self-determination. What is striking , however, is the degree to which his definition of 'the People' is so intricately tied to the notion of Monarchy. Popular sovereignty has little or no trace in his analysis. After delineating the French people as the King and his subjects, Burke proceeds to determine who is to be the Monarch and how that Monarch is to be "modified and supported". Is it to be hereditary or elected? If hereditary, what guidelines are to be set for succession? If elected, who are the Electors to be?140 These questions must be carefully answered, he contends, if a Jacobin usurpation of power is to be avoided in the future. More importantly, he believes such questions, which relate to the internal affairs of France, are matters which other European states have the right and duty to consider. "The affair of the establishment of a Government," he reflects, "is a very difficult undertaking for foreign powers to act in as principals; though as auxiliaries and mediators, it has been not at all unusual .. ."141 This assertion stems from his recognition of the "reinforcing effect" of homogeneity on the maintenance of international order. Burke's own response to these questions is a hereditary Monarchy, guided and constrained by a well-balanced constitution. While Pitt's Administration is willing to entertain the possibility of various kinds of post-war French regimes, Burke remains insistent on a Monarchi• cal solution. As shown in Part I, he holds the dynastic principle of legitimacy as a defining criterion for membership in international society, and the preservation of the monarchical form of government as essential to the maintenance of peace and stability in Europe. Monarchy itself, however, is only part of the answer. Equally 164 Edmund Burke and International Relations important are the intermediate institutions and the hierarchical so• cial order which underpin this monarchical form. In Burke's vision of the post-war order, there must be not only restoration of the King - a political solution - but also a revival of religion, property and man• ners - a social solution. Hence, he insists that the institutions of established religion must resume their place as a bulwark for mon• archy in France, and calls on the French clergy to "administer the only cure for the unheard of disorders of that undone country". Furthermore, his plan for restoration relies on the leadership of the "sensible" and "highly ingenious" members of the French landed interest.142 Indeed, he asserts that "Monarchy and property must, in France, go together; or neither can exist. To think of the possibility of the existence of a permanent and hereditary Royalty, where noth• ing else is hereditary or permanent... is a ruinous chimera."143 To conclude, as with Burke's general theory of society, which re• lies on a delicate balance between political, social and cultural forces, his crusade of counter-revolution is designed to reinstate to their former pre-eminence both the "sublime" and the "beautiful" institu• tions of French and European civilisation. For him, stability can be achieved only when Monarchy is supported by the other "permanent orders" of society. His substantive conception of international legiti• macy involves consensus not only on political questions, but extends to assumptions of a social and cultural nature as well.

The Negative Crusade: A Return to Constitutionalism? It should be pointed out that Burke's counter-revolutionary crusade is not wholly devoid of a spirit of reform. As noted earlier, he accepts that the institutions of the ancien regime were in some cases corrupt, and therefore might require modification.144 In general, however, he strives to restore everything as "nearly as possible upon its former Basis". He is confident that once the Jacobin plague has been exter• minated, and the old landmarks of European international society have been restored, traditional habits, loyalties and relationships will reassert themselves. Therefore, Burke's crusade remains predomi• nantly "negative" - designed to root out an existing evil, rather than to impose a new and perfect system.145 At this point, Burke resumes his constitutionalist approach to in• ternational order. In contrast to the revolutionaries, his conservative crusade does not forecast a Utopian peace for post-war Europe. In• stead, Burke predicts that the historic rivalries between European states will re-emerge. He therefore turns his attention to the revival Holy War 165 of the old balance of power system. And in planning for Britain's security in this balance, he recognises that France may be needed as an ally to prevent continental bids for hegemony from disturbing British interests:

As to the power of France, as a State, and in its exteriour relations, I confess my fears are on the part of its extreme reduction... If there were no other countries in the political map but these two, I admit that policy might justify a wish to lower our neighbour to a standard which would even render her in some measure, if not wholly, our dependent. But the system of Europe is extensive and extremely complex. [My] clear opinion is, that the Liberties of Europe cannot possibly be preserved, but by her remaining a very great and preponderating power.146

Total annihilation of France, he contends, is desirable neither to Europe, nor to its ancient rival Britain. Once the "post" of Jacobinism is removed, he writes, "it will be a serious question how far her further reduction will contribute to the general safety "147 In other words, there are limits to Burke's crusade. He desires only the destruction of the revolutionary regime, not the elimination of the French state. He is not willing to go as far as the Austrians, who advocate dismembering France, for he can anticipate a day in which other states will have malicious designs upon such a weak and truncated state in the heart of Europe: "We cannot be so childish as to imagine, that ambition is local, and that no others can be infected with it but those who rule within certain parallels of latitude and longitude "148 It is his Realist assumptions about the nature of humankind, and the prevalence of force in international relations, which inform this expectation. Burke's constitutionalism is also manifest in his ideas on the pun• ishment of Revolutionary France in the aftermath of his crusade. More specifically, he suggests that European states must commit themselves to recovery rather than retribution. If France is to resume her part in the balance of power, it will be their business to "nurse" her rather than "exhaust" her.149 Consequently, Burke is quick to point out that his object is not to punish the French people, but only their revolutionary leaders. The "body and mass of the people", he states, "never ought to be treated as criminal... This is one of the few fundamental and unalterable principles of politicks." Further• more, Burke asserts that individuals cannot be punished for the 166 Edmund Burke and International Relations actions they may have taken during the hostilities, since the "of• fences of war are obliterated by peace."150 Indeed, Burke is meticulous in singling out the individuals who are morally culpable and subject to retribution. They include all those who committed regicide or other acts of murder, and those con• cerned in the demolition of property or religion. Even here, how• ever, Burke's constitutionalist proclivity to seek the golden mean - to combine both justice and mercy - leads him to urge moderation. Hence, he declares that punishment must proceed by "trial according to the course of law, carried on with all that caution and deliberation which has been used in the best times and precedents of the French jurisprudence "151 In short, his crusade of restoration must cham• pion the "high road" of order, not the "low road" of lawlessness: "In restoring order and justice, every thing like retaliation, ought to be religiously avoided; and an example ought to be set of a total aliena• tion from the jacobin proceedings in their accursed revolutionary tribunals."152 In conclusion, it is apparent that Burke is not a blind crusader. His target is specific and his strategy clear. Although he wants order and stability restored to both France and Europe, he does not give com• plete licence to indemnity or revenge. Because he is always con• cerned with consequences - with the future as well as the present - morality and prudence inform his thoughts on the post-war order. While the battle against Jacobinism is still being waged, Burke's cru• sading credentials are flawless. Once that war is over, the constitu• tionalist again takes over. Conclusion

By 1797, the last year of his life, Burke is driven to despair and the sense of a looming apocalypse. He continues to lament the progress of revolutionary sentiments in England, and the resolution of Pitt's ministry to carry the European war to its proper conclusion: "I have no great heart to write in the present State of things. The quick succession of every sort of calamity and disgrace both foreign and domestick has quite overwhelmed my feeble constancy."1 The root problem, he concludes, is ultimately domestic rather than interna• tional. If Britain were to perish, it would not be from lack of "ma• terial means of strength", but from "a poverty and imbecility of mind".2 In these last pieces of his writing, Burke accentuates once more the novelty of social revolution, the threat it poses to both domestic and international society, and the extraordinary means which are required to combat it. Despite Burke's inability to influence government policy during the 1790s, his interpretation of the French Revolution, and his more general conservative philosophy, have had a profound and lasting legacy. In commenting on the major issues of the late eighteenth century - India, America, the partition of Poland, the French Revo• lution - Burke rarely failed to penetrate beneath the surface of events to the foundations of principle below. It is this resort to fundamen• tals which makes him relevant to the problems and controversies of succeeding generations, and which has led conservative thinkers and statesmen to claim him as one of their founding fathers.3 By way of conclusion, I propose to add to this debate on Burke's legacy, by assessing his significance for the theory of international relations.

THE TENSIONS IN BURKE'S INTERNATIONAL THEORY

Part I of this book outlined Burke's general theory of international society. First, it was shown that Burke subscribes to a "constitution• alist" view of international relations, which seeks a mean between the Realist denial of international society and the Revolutionist desire to supersede it with a cosmopolitan community of individuals. This constitutionalism is manifest in his general prudential style of politics

167 168 Edmund Burke and International Relations and his conceptions of war, the balance of power, and international law and morality. In addition, it was argued that Burke's view of international society is a "medieval" one, which looks back to the unity of Western Christendom for its inspiration. This medievalism combines a pluralist toleration for diversity and decentralisation with a deeper commitment to the collective maintenance of international order. Finally, we have seen that Burke's understanding of interna• tional society is dominated by his more particular vision of the Com• monwealth of Europe, an interdependent community of states held together by a strong consensus with regard to religion, manners, law and dynastic right. By contrast, Part II described Burke's "crusading" reaction to the French Revolution and how it differed from the traditional Realist position of his British contemporaries. First, it was argued that Burke perceives 1789 as a complete social and moral revolution, which threat• ens the very pillars of order in European international society. For him, the challenge posed by Revolutionary France is not a military one, but one of subversive and contagious doctrine. Second, it was demonstrated that Burke sees military intervention as the only pos• sible counter to this act of aggression against international society. Using the laws of Vicinity and Neighbourhood, he justifies this inter• ventionist campaign as part of a larger European civi/ war between revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries. Finally, it was shown that Burke's crusade of counter-revolution proposes to suspend the "usual relations of peace and amity"4 among states, inaugurating an internal Holy War within the European Commonwealth. Ironically, Burke's quest for order and harmony ends in conflict. In attempting to shelter Christian monarchs from the French Revo• lutionary storm, Burke is willing to undermine the very procedures and institutions which have traditionally served to maintain order among the members of international society. Despite the supposed solidarity of his European Commonwealth, it is ultimately sustained by Interventionism and Holy War. Thus, in choosing to answer the revolution in France with force, he falls into what Kissinger calls the trap of the fanatic: "His very claim to moral superiority leads to an erosion of all moral restraint."5 Indeed, Wight refers to this tension in Burke's thought as illustrating the slide from Rationalism into Revolutionism.6 Does this tension point to an irredeemable flawi n Burke's theory?7 Are the constitutionalism of Part I and the crusading of Part II irreconcilable? Conclusion 169

This contrast between Burke's earlier political writings and his reaction to the French Revolution has led many scholars to observe that he has a "Janus face".8 Different approaches have been taken to explain this apparent duplicity. One strategy is to see Burke's cru• sade as an aberration from his "true" thought, explicable by the senility of old age.9 A more conventional explanation is to suggest that behind the two facades there is only one: Burke the opportun• istic politician.10 To arrive at such conclusions, however, is to look only at the sur• face of Burke's thought. A deeper examination of his international theory can explain this shift from moderation to extremism. It is possible to account for Burke's crusading response to the French Revolution within his larger theory of international society, and the nature of the order which underpins it. First, it is important to note that while Burke adopts the extreme tactics of his revolutionary adversaries, the ends of his crusade re• main decidedly conservative: a restoration of the status quo. In the words of Georg Fasel: Burke attacked the revolution, and defended English society and the constitution, on grounds which were not exotic but wholly familiar: social inequality, the rule of an elite, the avoidance of extremes, the dangers of democracy, the sanctity of property, the rightness of religion. He was not so much trying to convince his readers as to remind them of what they already believed, or at any rate ought to have believed.11 In other words, it is in order to return to a traditional situation that Burke advocates extreme measures. "[It] is a great truth", he writes, "that when once things are gone out of their ordinary course, it is by acts out of the ordinary course they can alone be re-established."12 Once the counter-revolution has succeeded in reinstating the pillars of order, Burke's former constitutionalism resumes its pride of place. Second, and more importantly, though Burke's conservatism is driven by the desire to preserve harmony, stability and order, it is a particular social order, based on a parochial set of values. His in• ternational theory contains a hierarchy of principles which posits Europe's "similitude" in religion, law, manners and dynasticism above the procedural rules of negotiation, treaty, nonintervention or jus in bello. If the former comes under attack, the latter must be superseded. Finally, I have suggested that Burke's theory of international order 170 Edmund Burke and International Relations is informed by a substantive as opposed to procedural conception of international legitimacy, which involves a consensus on the acceptable domestic political and social configuration of states. His international society is characterised by a strong degree of homogeneity that serves to reinforce the orderly relations between states, as well as the social and political status quo within them. For Burke, this "reinforc• ing effect" of homogeneity is as potent as the "example effect" of heterogeneity. The revolution of 1789 threatens to compromise the homogeneity which had sustained Burke's Commonwealth of Europe. In his per• spective, the Revolution's promotion of Atheism, Jacobinism and Regicide, coupled with its new system of manners, jeopardises Eu• rope's hierarchical social and political order. It has inspired a new kind of international relations, marked by propaganda, subversion and transnational allegiances. Englishmen are tempted by liberty and Jacobinism; Frenchmen fight against their fatherland for the restora• tion of the ancien regime. Set in this context of heterogeneity, Burke's crusade becomes explicable. Confronted with the social and doctrinal challenge of the Revolution, he focuses on the horizontal cleavage between rulers and revolutionaries which cuts across state boundaries, rather than on the ordinary vertical divisions between members of the states system. In Burke's mind, the revolutionary questioning of dynastic legitimacy has created a civil war in Europe, opening sovereign fron• tiers to permeability and inter-state conflict to Holy War. But while Burke's crusade may escape the charge of opportunism or inconsistency, it is not immune to critical evaluation. More impor• tantly, it leaves a series of outstanding problems and questions for his wider international theory. First, it is questionable whether the Holy War which Burke recom• mends for combatting the French Revolutionary threat will allow for a revival of the status quo ante bellum. Burke himself was aware of the potential hazards of using force, recognising that "[war] never leaves, where it found a nation".13 Indeed, in the case of America he suggested that war would be counter-productive, since it was likely to "impair its object".14 Thus, it could be argued that once the "hell• hounds of war" are "unmuzzled",15 it will be much more difficult for France to resume her place in European international society. Second, despite Burke's elaborate justification of intervention, he does not fully address the claims of his adversaries. Burke's account of the strength of the British economy meets the practical objections Conclusion 171 to the use of force raised by Pitt.16 However, it does not allay Pitt's pragmatic suspicion that intervention might make matters worse by pushing moderate Frenchmen into the arms of the Revolutionaries. Burke's own recommendations that the counter-revolutionary army be composed of French speakers - who would appear more as libera• tors than conquerors - seems to suggest that he too was aware of this difficulty. More significantly, Burke does not answer the deeper ques• tion posed by Fox as to whether force is a suitable instrument in a war of ideas. As Fox declared: "He knew not how to fighta n opinion, nor did history furnish him with an instruction ... By force and power, no opinion, good or bad, had ever been subdued."17 Again, Burke's call for military action seems particularly curious, considering that he doubted the effectiveness of the "feeble instrument" of force against the "fierce spirit of liberty" in America. A "nation is not governed," he warned in 1775, "which is perpetually to be conquered."18 Third, Burke's interventionist solution can be criticised for relying too heavily on prudent and responsible statesmanship. This problem was noted by his contemporary, Sir James Mackintosh. According to Mackintosh, the attempt by the Allied powers to restore the ancien regime violated "the sacred principle of national independence; - that great master-principle of public morality", and therefore could be justified only on the most noble of grounds. Most importantly, he insisted, the Allies would have to prove themselves moderate and disinterested. But by putting his trust in the Allied princes (the partitioners of Poland) Burke had ruled out any such disinterested• ness. These "vulgar politicians", Mackintosh argued, "were the only tools with which [Burke] had to work, in reducing his scheme to practice."19 The issue which Mackintosh highlights - the impossibility of impartiality - is part of a more general objection to intervention which has been voiced from the time of Vattel onward.20 This criticism, leads to a final problem, which relates to Burke's larger theory of international society. If the solidarity within the European Commonwealth was as strong as he envisaged, how could the Revolution have happened? Burke's theory tends to romanticise about the degree of substantive consensus which existed in European international society, and to over-estimate the "immutability" of its maxims of social order. Moreover, the consensus which it champions is a limited one, confined to those at the top of his hierarchical social order. In the final analysis, he cannot accommodate those who do want to lift the sacred veil of prescription and inquire into the foundations of international legitimacy. This is why he is unable to 172 Edmund Burke and International Relations

explain fully the "revolution in the moral world"21 which initiated the French Revolution.

BURKE'S LEGACY

Though Burke's crusade may be flawed, it is still rooted in principle. His calls for intervention are grounded not in opportunism or "sin* ister dealing",22 but in "moral prudence". More significantly, as I have argued, they are embedded in a deeper theory of international order. And so we return to the question of where Burke "fits" in the traditions of thinking about international relations. As the preceding chapters illustrate, Burke defies "pigeon-holing" in any one of Wight's three categories of thought. Though he exhibits some features of Realism, most notably its rejection of progressivism, he challenges its depiction of the international system as a state of war, its mechanistic conception of the balance of power, and its denial of international morality. Similarly, though Burke asks the same essential question as Wight's Rationalists - what is the nature of international society? - the solidarist answer he gives differs from the pluralist one associated with Rationalists such as Vattel. While the Rationalists limit their expectations of societal consensus to rules and procedures of co• existence, Burke goes one step further to demand a substantive con• sensus on religion, nobility, monarchical rule, and feudal manners. For him, we have seen, the "obligations written in the heart" are more fundamental than the "formality of treaties and compacts".23 As a result, Burke's framework of crime and punishment goes be• yond the enforcement of international law to encompass the enforce• ment of this underlying social and cultural homogeneity. Despite his medieval predilection for diversity, his toleration of pluralism goes only so far. And finally,thoug h Burke's theory of international soci• ety is based on a strong degree of homogeneity, it does not espouse the Revolutionist notions of cosmopolitanism or doctrinal uniformity forwarded by his radical Enlightenment counterparts. In the end, Burke's "negative" crusade remains conservative. Ultimately, I share Cobban's conclusion that the only school for which Burke can legitimately claimed is the "school of Burke".24 If he is to be considered as part of any tradition, it is only the more general "classical tradition" of international theory conceived by Kal Conclusion 173

Holsti.25 Holsti defines this classical tradition as revolving around three key questions: 1) what are the causes of war and the conditions of peace/security/order? 2) who are the essential actors/units of analy• sis?; and 3) how should we characterise the world/system/society of states?26 Within this definition, all three of Wight's categories would fall under the rubric of the classical tradition, as providing a variety of answers to these essential problematics.27 Burke plays a particu• larly important role in stimulating thought about the first and last of these questions: the roots of international order and the nature of international society. As Holsti notes, the tendency of post-war international theory to be dominated by Realist responses to the above questions has narrowed the confines of the debate and left many presuppositions unchallenged.28 In responding to the events and crises of his era, Burke exposes these hidden assumptions to daylight. In particular, he forces us to consider whether order is founded on the "instrumental part" of international society - its procedural rules and institutions - or on its deeper "correspondence in customs, manners, and habits of life".29 In this way, Burke's think• ing drives to the heart of the issues which divide the members of the classical tradition, and serves to reinvigorate its most fundamental debates. Burke's answer to the perennial question of what sustains interna• tional order is a highly contentious one. As Wight has observed, despite Burke's apocalyptic forebodings about the French Revolu• tion, and his warnings about the need for intervention and Holy War, European international society proved "more resilient than he feared" and "more capable of development than he imagined".30 It might be argued, then, that Burke's crusade came too hard and too fast. In the long run, the international system digested the French Revolution, much as it had the challenge of the Reformation. The events of 1789, rather than destroying the foundations of European order, merely introduced some variety into the "similitude" of religion, laws, and manners in Europe. In short, the principles of international legiti• macy "were modified, rather than dissolved".31 Burke's substantive conception of international legitimacy, and his contention that heterogeneity undermines international order, have also been countered by members of the Realist school of interna• tional relations. Scholars such as Kissinger, for example, have posited that it is possible for states with different domestic orders to coexist peacefully - trade, exchange ambassadors, sign treaties - provided they adhere to procedural rules of coexistence and agree to respect 174 Edmund Burke and International Relations internal diversity.32 In addition, Realists emphasise the capacity of the international system to "socialise" its deviant members, and thereby temper the challenge of heterogeneity. Revolutionary states, it is contended, quickly "return to the fold", acquire national inter• ests, and adopt all of the "ordinary" conventions of international relations.33 Revolutions can therefore be depicted as hiccoughs in an otherwise orderly story of continuity and recurrence. Their challenge to the international system, writes Arnold Toynbee, can "achieve no more than a dislocation straining towards a new integration".34 Nevertheless, Burke's case for homogeneity is not quite so easily disposed of. In fact, writers such as Fred Halliday suggest that in terms of the historical evidence, the balance still seems to lean in Burke's favour - i.e. that heterogeneity produces conflict.35 Similarly, Raymond Aron has provided a theoretical comparison between the stability of homogeneous international systems and the instability of heterogeneous ones. It is no coincidence, he argues, that the major unlimited wars of religion, revolution and empire "have coincided with the challenging of the principles of legitimacy and of the organ• ization of states".36 Furthermore, it is possible to contest Realism's one-dimensional account of the "socialisation" of revolutionary states by the interna• tional system. While revolutionary regimes have often tempered their proclamations of "New Diplomacy"37 and participated in the conven• tional rules and instruments of foreign policy, these actions do not necessarily indicate an abandonment of their radical agenda. As Wight declares: "there are few greater errors in the study of international politics than to suppose that revolutionary doctrines have been dis• carded or are maintained only hypocritically for reasons of state."38 Hence, as demonstrated in Chapter 6, Burke warns his British con• temporaries not to be duped by the willingness of the French Direc• tory to take on the "sashes" and "plumes" of traditional eighteenth century diplomacy. Finally, it is crucial to reiterate that the issue of homogeneity or heterogeneity at this procedural level is only the beginning of the story. What is more fundamental is the revolutionary challenge of heterogeneity at the substantive level - the level of domestic social and political orders. As Halliday writes: "The challenge they [revolutionaries] pose to the international system is not so much that they propound a new form of diplomacy, or conduct international relations in a distinct manner, but that they make the altering of social and political relations in other states a major part of their Conclusion 175

foreign policy and regard themselves as having not just a right, but an obligation, to conduct their foreign policies on this basis."39 Though this commitment may eventually be diluted, there is a crucial period when it directly affects international order by undermining the "reinforcing effect" of homogeneity. And it is precisely during this period that the crusading mentality is most evident. Thus, while there is no coherent Burkean tradition which can be traced down through the centuries, there is a sense in which his vision of international order still finds adherents. Indeed, the notion of domestic homogeneity as a precondition for international stability is a basic tenet of much Marxist and liberal thinking on international relations.40 More importantly, however, Burke's substantive concep• tion of international legitimacy can be viewed as part of a debate among conservatives on the nature of international order. The con• troversy which divided Burke the crusader and Pitt the Realist is one that has continued to divide conservative thinkers, particularly in revolutionary times. Hence, for example, during the Russian Civil War one sees a fa• miliar exchange between crusaders such as , who pressed for a concerted Allied policy of intervention to root out the Bolshevik ideology,41 and Realists such as Lloyd George, who main• tained that Britain would use force only if Bolshevism translated into physical aggression against British interests.42 For Lloyd George, the construction of the post-war order depended on the resumption of the balance of power; for Churchill, that balance could not operate without a "friendly" and non-communist Russia.43 The divide between Realism and crusading is also evident in the post-1945 debate within American foreign policy circles over "con• tainment" of the Soviet challenge.44 On one side were Realists such as George Kennan, whose strategy of containment concentrated on "mellowing" Moscow's external behaviour,45 and who advised West• ern governments to cultivate "detachment and reservation of judg• ment" concerning "internal in Russia".46 On the other side were the proponents of Burke's Holy War, such as John Foster Dulles, who thought "in terms of the offensive in the world struggle for freedom and of rolling back the engulfing tide of despotism".47 For Kennan, international order was premised on "balanced diver• sity" and "peaceful coexistence";48 for Dulles, it was "impossible to find a common denominator" for coexistence with those "animated by an atheistic creed".49 To present the divide between Realists and crusaders as black and 176 Edmund Burke and International Relations white, however, is to oversimplify their conceptions of international order and to limit the scope of Burke's legacy.50 What is more inter• esting is the degree to which Burke's "presumption of homogene• ity"51 also characterises those who claim adherence to a procedural conception of international legitimacy. In other words, the crusading spirit is evident not just in the obvious examples of Churchill and Dulles, but also in the ideas of self-professed Realists. There is a sense in which substantive considerations enter into procedural con• ceptions of international order as well. Behind many of the Realist statements of pluralism lies what Richard Ullmann has referred to as a kind of "muddled Darwinism": a belief that the non-revolutionary order is morally superior and stronger than the revolutionary one, and will therefore rise to the top.52 It is this confidence which accounts for their optimism concern• ing "socialisation", and which allows them to maintain a noninter- ventionist posture. This sentiment is captured by British General Sir Henry Wilson in a statement in 1918 concerning the nature of Bol• shevism: "Like all cults, if radically unsound, as we think it is, it cannot long survive the re-establishment of normal conditions in the rest of the world."53 This hidden bias in favour of homogeneity can also be seen in the West's approach to the resumption of economic and diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union in the inter-war period. In launching Britain's efforts to re-establish economic ties with Moscow, Lloyd George hinted at the possibility of using trade as a tool for taming the "ferocity, the rapine, and the crudity of Bolshevism... Z'54 Indeed, throughout the negotiations leading to the Anglo-Soviet Trade Agree• ment of 1921, Britain's representatives demanded that trade be used as an inducement for the Bolshevik regime to temper its revolution• ary activities.55 Similarly, the United States continued to withhold diplomatic recognition throughout the inter-war years, claiming that the Russian government was based upon the "negation of every principle upon which it is possible to base harmonious and trustful relations, whether of nations or of individuals ".56 In sum, there was a continued sense in which the 'ordinary' procedures of international relations, such as diplomacy and trade, had to be premised on a deeper level of homogeneity among the members in the system. Finally, despite Kennan's professions of toleration for diversity, even his limited version of containment carries shades of a crusading mentality. First, Kennan rejected the possibility of addressing the Soviet Union's external behaviour through diplomatic negotiation - Conclusion 111 something Henry Kissinger would later propose.57 He contended that adjustment alone could not settle basic disputes between states as different as the United States and the Soviet Union, since there was no genuine community of interests between them.58 Second, Kennan's rejection of the use of force was partly informed by a faith that the leadership in the Kremlin was not wholly irre• deemable, and that it would eventually move away from its expan• sionist ambitions: "While its evolution may not proceed at the pace we would like, it has proceeded at a pace which affords no grounds at all for the total abandonment of all hope that it may some day take an acceptable place in the family of nations."59 Such confidence in the inevitability of political change afforded the luxury of a patient and defensive strategy, rather than an offensive Holy War. Neverthe• less, the underlying presumption of homogeneity remains evident. And third, Kennan's conception of international legitimacy ap• pears to rest on certain requirements of membership. As with Burke, he believes outside powers have a "right, an interest, and a duty to know with what government they are to treat".60 The following ex• cerpt from "America and the Russian Future" is indicative of the crusading potential in Kennan's thought:

What attributes are we, as responsible members of the world com• munity, entitled to look for in the personality of a foreign state, and of Russia in particular? We may look, in the first place, for a Russian government which ... would not take the ideological position that its own purposes cannot finally prosper unless all systems of government not under its control are subverted and eventually destroyed... Secondly,... we are entitled to expect the exercise of governmen• tal authority will stop short of that fairly plain line beyond which lies ... [because] excess of internal authority leads inevitably to unsocial and aggressive conduct as a government among governments, and is a matter of concern to the interna• tional community. The third thing we may hope from a new Russia is that it will refrain from pinning an oppressive yoke on other peoples who have the instinct and the capacity for self-assertion If she is prepared to do these things, then Americans will not need to concern themselves more deeply with her nature and purposes; the basic needs of a more stable world order will then have been met... .61 178 Edmund Burke and International Relations

While not subscribing to the counter-revolutionary means of the crusaders, Kennan shares their belief that the institutions and proce• dures of international relations are in some sense dependent on deeper, substantive principles of legitimacy. For many Realists, then, the rejection of the crusading approach is based not on a toleration of heterogeneity, but on a "Darwinistic" faith in the superiority of the non-revolutionary order and an opti• mistic view of the ability of the international system to "socialise" its pariah states. Intervention is viewed as inappropriate not necessarily because it is inconsistent with pluralism, but because it may work against this evolutionary process by serving to alienate the forces of moderation within the revolutionary state.62 Thus, it can be argued that homogeneity is an assumption of international order in both conservative approaches. In one it is self-professed; in the other it is implicit. Ironically, while crusaders are much more explicit about the moral superiority of the non-revolutionary order, they are far less sanguine about the durability and longevity of that order. Therefore, they emphasise the importance of homogeneity in reinforcing and sustain• ing it. Moreover, they believe the forces of the status quo must be ready to take up arms to preserve it, or, at the very least, to ensure that modification of its principles of legitimacy occur "within limits that posterity can accept".63 As the above treatment of crusading and Realism suggests, the presumption of homogeneity is most obvious in a negative sense: i.e., if states are organised on different bases, then they are more likely to feel threatened by the example of the diverse "Other", and the 'ordinary' rules and procedures of international relations will be more difficult to sustain. But as Halliday has pointed out, the theoretical importance of homogeneity goes beyond this issue of "exemplary alternatives". What is more interesting, and perhaps more funda• mental, is the role of homogeneity in a positive sense: how it rein• forces international order in times of stability. As Halliday writes: "States are not isolated units: they exist in an international context, and their practices, constitutions, social and economic orders derive reinforcement from the fact that other states behave like them."64 The legitimacy of any given social and political system therefore derives confirmation from such reinforcement; once it becomes evi• dent that there can be a different way of living, the supposed "natu• ralness" and "immutability" of any given order collapses. In this sense, the international dimension is relevant not just when things break Conclusion 179 down, but is also integral to maintaining order and stability - both between and within states - in "normal times".65 There is a trans• national force of example through similarity as well as through difference. It is this "reinforcing effect" of homogeneity which Burke's inter• national theory serves to highlight. For him, states are not isolated moral enclaves, protected by strict rules of nonintervention, but rather neighbours in a larger, interdependent international society in which the "erection of a nuisance" in one member can have important ramifications for the health and stability of another. While his cru• sade against the French Revolution illustrates the force of the "ex• ample effect" and the presumption of homogeneity in a negative sense, his writings on the nature of the order underpinning the Com• monwealth of Europe uncover the crucial function played by homo• geneity in a positive sense. Indeed, it is only by revealing this a priori role of homogeneity in "normal times" that one can account for his violent reaction to the challenge of heterogeneity posed by the French Revolutionaries and his abandonment of the prudential approach to politics. Thus, it is evident that Burke's writings and speeches have a great deal to say about international society, and the nature of the order which underlies it, in periods of stability as well as crisis. Why, then, does Wight claim that revolutionary and counter-revolutionary think• ers have been unable to make any substantial contribution to inter• national theory? The answer, as Michael Donelan suggests, lies in a flawed definition of that theory itself:

[If] the starting-point of the study of international relations is a world of separate states, a political theorist is right not to be inter• ested in the subject. There is nothing for him to say. International relations is concerned with a mere space between states, a desert of crude power, mitigated at best by a network of pragmatical customs and by pragmatical, unstable co-operation. This is a place for great intelligence and the highest qualities of character but only on the part of practical statesmen and their attornies and historians and commentators. There is no international theory to be done. If, on the other hand, we must not start with this assumption of separate states, there is all the international theory in the world to be done. For there is now a primordial community of mankind; separate states are but an arrangement of it. The international 180 Edmund Burke and International Relations

sphere is no longer a mere space between states; it is this commun• ity. "International" no longer means between nations but shared by the nations.66 Moving beyond the state-centric assumptions of Realist international theory is therefore a crucial first step in coming to grips with the theoretical contributions of both revolutionaries and counter• revolutionaries. To answer Wight, there is international theory, pro• vided one is willing to broaden the definition to incorporate domestic and international politics.67 Burke is not afraid to blur the theoretical distinctions which so many international relations scholars seem to cling onto. To return to the words of John Vincent, he recognises very little discontinuity between the domestic and the international, or the social and the political. His weak sense of sovereignty reflects a willingness to reject the conventional division between external and internal politics, and to consider both the substantive and procedural features of interna• tional order. His conception of international legitimacy acknowledges both the "example effect" of heterogeneity in times of crisis, and the "reinforcing effect" of homogeneity in times of stability. These fac• tors enable him to offer insights into not only the impact of modern social revolution, but also the more general bases for international order. Interestingly enough, it is precisely because of Burke's vocation as practical politician that he is able to make such contributions to in• ternational theory. While he pays homage to the conventions of in• ternational society revered by the theorists - those virtues of the "sublime" - his everyday experience suggests that there is something more fundamental sustaining the Commonwealth of Europe. In the end, he is prepared to downplay the procedural rules of the game, or even override them, to safeguard the more substantive and "beauti• ful" factors consolidating the Europe he knew. Notes and References

List of Short Titles

WS The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, ed. Paul Langford et ah, vols II, V, VI, VIII, and IX. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981-91. Works The Works of Edmund Burke, ed. Henry Bohn, 8 vols (Bohn's Brit• ish ). London, 1854-89. Corr. The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, ed. Thomas Copeland et al., 10 vols. Cambridge and Chicago, 1958-78. MS. Notes at Sheffield Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments on de• posit at Sheffield City Libraries, Sheffield; the larger part of Fitzwilliam's Burke col• lection. PH The Parliamentary History of England from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to the year 1803, ed. W. Cobbett, 36 vols. London: T.C. Hansard.

Introduction

1. R.J. Vincent, "Edmund Burke and the theory of international rela• tions", Review of International Studies, vol. 10 (1984), pp. 205-18 (p. 206). 2. Isaac Kramnick, The Rage of Edmund Burke (New York, 1977), p. xi. 3. Connor Cruise O'Brien, The Great Melody: A Thematic Biography of Edmund Burke (London, 1993). 4. C.B. Macpherson, for example, writes that "[no] one was more aware than Burke that national policies needed to be framed in the light of the international situation". See Burke (Oxford, 1980), p. 73. Similarly, Ian-Hampsher Monk notes that a primary concern of Burke's philoso• phy was the problem of empire, "and how to accommodate it to do• mestic politics." See Introduction to The of Edmund Burke (London, 1987), p. 15. Finally, Alfred Cobban has extrapolated Burke's writings on the nation into a "theory of nation• ality", which he believes is crucial to our understanding of the impact

181 182 Notes and References

of the French Revolution. See Edmund Burke and the Revolt against the Eighteenth Century, Second Edition (London, 1960), Chapter Four. 5. Vilho Harle, "Burke the International Theorist - or the War of the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness" in European Values in Inter• national Relations (London, 1990), pp. 58-79 (p. 59). 6. David Boucher, "The character of the history of the philosophy of international relations and the case of Edmund Burke", Review of International Studies, vol. 17 (1991), pp. 127-48 (p. 140). 7. Vincent, op.cit, p. 205. 8. Martin Wight, "Why is there no International Theory?", in Diplomatic Investigations, edited by H. Butterfield and M. Wight (London, 1966), pp. 17-34 (p. 17). 9. Ibid., p. 24. 10. While Wight sees the tradition of Revolutionism as embodied in the three successive waves of Revolutionist ideology that have divided the modern international system - the Protestant Reformation, the French Revolution, and Communist Revolution - he also detects its elements in the counter-revolutionary accompaniments to these social upheavals. 11. Ibid., p. 25. 12. Ibid., p. 20. 13. These references to Burke appear in the new edited collection of Wight's lectures. See International Theory: The Three Traditions, ed• ited by Gabriele Wight and Brian Porter (Leicester, 1991). 14. Second Letter on a Regicide Peace (1796), in The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, vol. IX, edited by R.B. McDowell (Oxford, 1991), pp. 264-295 (p. 277) (henceforth WS). 15. Martin Wight, Systems of States, edited by Hedley Bull (Leicester, 1977), p. 153. 16. According to Raymond Aron, a homogeneous international system is one in which states observe the same principle of domestic legitimacy. A heterogeneous system is one in which states are organised according to different principles of legitimacy and appeal to often contradictory values. See Peace and War (London, 1966), p. 100. This notion of homogeneity has been invoked more recently by Fred Halliday in " The Sixth Great Power': on the study of revolution and international relations", Review of International Studies, vol. 16 (1990), pp. 217-19. 17. Wight, Systems of States, p. 153. 18. Henry Kissinger, A World Restored (London, 1957), p. 1. Andreas Osiander forwards a definition which combines substantive and proce• dural elements. He defines international legitimacy as "the consensus existing in the international system on the structures and procedures of that system." See "Peacemaking and International Legitimacy: Sta• bility and Consensus in the States System of Europe", D.Phil. Thesis, Oxford University, 1991, p. 14. For Osiander, structural principles determine the identity and relative status of the international actors, as well as the distribution of territories between them; procedural rules refer to the way relations between the actors are conducted (p. 11). 19. Primacy or World Order: American Foreign Policy since the Cold War (New York, 1978), p. 39. Hoffmann's own procedural conception of Notes and References 183

legitimacy is reflected in his idea of the "law of the political frame• work": the "network of agreements" which define the conditions and rules of the political game among states. See Hoffmann, "International Systems and International Law", in The International System: Theo• retical Essays, edited by Klaus Knorr and Sidney Verba (Princeton, 1961), pp. 205-238 (pp. 212-13). 20. Osiander, op.cit, p. 9. 21. Martin Wight, "Western Values in International Relations", in Diplo• matic Investigations, pp. 89-131 (p. 91). 22. This phrase was used by to characterise the Ital• ian city-state system in the fifteenth century. Cited in E.V. Gulick, Europe's Classical Balance of Power (New York, 1967), p. 11. 23. As Bull defines it, an international society exists "when a group of states, conscious of certain common interests and common values, ... conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in the working of common insti• tutions." See The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Poli• tics (London, 1977), p. 13. 24. I am referring here to Wight's three traditions of international theory, set out in Systems of States, pp. 38-9. The Realists concentrate on the elements of international anarchy and power politics, the Rationalists on the factors of international intercourse and international society, and the Revolutionists on the moral unity of humankind. See also Wight, "The Three Traditions", in International Theory, pp. 7-24. 25. Bull describes a "medieval" vision of international relations as one based on a "structure of overlapping authorities and criss-crossing loyalties" that binds peoples and states together in one larger commun• ity, op.cit, p. 255. The idea of a "new medievalism" has been for• warded in the recent work of political scientists such as Philip Cerny, who argue that state authority is becoming diffused and compromised by both internal and external forces. See, for example, The Changing Architecture of Politics: Structure, Agency, and the Future of the State (London, 1990). 26. For a further examination of Wight's definition of international theory, see Brian Porter, "Martin Wight's International Theory'", in The Reason of States, edited by Michael Donelan (London, 1978), pp. 64- 74 (p. 69). 27. Wight, International Theory, pp. 7-24. Wight's categories are elabo• rated by Hedley Bull in "Martin Wight and the Theory of Interna• tional Relations", British Journal of International Studies, vol. 2 (1976), pp. 101-116. 28. Vincent draws the same conclusion. See op.cit, p. 216. 29. Wight, "The Three Traditions", in International Theory, p. 15. 30. Critics have raised a number of objections to the three traditions. Boucher, for example, highlights their propensity to force thinkers into boxes, regardless of the embarrassing elements of their theories which do not "fit". See "The philosophy of international relations", p. 131. Others, such as Martin Ceadel, have observed that Wight's schools of thought can too easily lead to a "running together of the views of 184 Notes and References

similar but far from identical thinkers". Hobbes, for example, is fre• quently and indiscriminately interchanged with Machiavelli. See Think• ing About Peace and War (Oxford, 1987), p. 193. Benedict Kingsbury and Adam Roberts echo these views, contending that the categories have become overextended by the sheer diversity of thinkers each is required to manage, and that it is difficult to identify significant fea• tures common to all members. See Introduction to and International Relations (Oxford, 1990), p. 56. 31. Bull, "Martin Wight", p. 110. 32. Ibid., p. 106. 33. Wight, "The balance of the three traditions", in International Theory, pp. 259-68 (p. 264). As we shall see, Wight saw the ambiguity in Burke's writings as illustrating the tendency of Rationalism to slide into Revolutionism. 34. Wight, "Western Values", p. 90. This moderating disposition is re• flected in the following words of Grotius: "A remedy must be found for those that believe that in war nothing is lawful, and for those for whom all things are lawful...." Cited in Ibid. 35. Vincent, op.cit, p. 216, fn. 6. 36. In fact, Wight sees a connection between his constitutionalist approach and the domestic political philosophy of constitutional government. "Western Values", p. 91. 37. First Letter on a Regicide Peace (1796), in WS, IX, pp. 187-263 (p. 247). See also Vincent, op.cit, p. 216. 38. Ceadel, op.cit, p. 43. Crusaders are part of Ceadel's larger spectrum of thought, which includes militarists, defencists, pacific-ists, and pacifists. 39. Ibid., p. 47. 40. See Wight, "Theory of International Society", in International Theory, pp. 40-6. 41. Morton Auerbach, The Conservative Illusion (New York, 1959), p. 5. 42. Ceadel, op.cit, p. 1. Vincent also returns to the "old distinction" be• tween conservative, liberal and revolutionary in the conclusion to his treatment of Burke. See op.cit, p. 216. 43. William Cobbett, Political Register, 8 June 1816, cited in Raymond Williams, Culture and Society: 1780-1950 (Harmondsworth, 1963), p. 38. 44. Sir Lewis Namier, "The Character of Burke", The Spectator, Decem• ber 19, 1958, pp. 895-96. Namier's scepticism is shared by Frank O'Gorman in Edmund Burke: His Political Philosophy (London, 1973), p. 13. For a critique of the Namier position, see O'Brien, op.cit, pp. xxxii-lx. 45. Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr., Introduction to Selected Letters of Edmund Burke (Chicago, 1984), p. 2. 46. C.P. Courtney, Montesquieu and Burke (Oxford, 1963), p. ix. 47. Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics (London, 1962), p. 93. 48. A Vindication of Natural Society, in The Works of the Right Honour• able Edmund Burke, Bohn Edition, vol. I (London, 1854), pp. 3-21 (p. 4) (henceforth Works). Notes and References 185

49. For a brief introduction to the main ideas of conservatism, see Gordon Graham, Politics in its Place (Oxford, 1986), p. 172. 50. Reflections on the Revolution in France, in WS, vol. VIII, edited by Leslie Mitchell (Oxford, 1981), pp. 53-293 (p. 138). 51. Cobban, op.cit, p. 76-77. 52. Letter to William Elliot, in WS, IX, pp. 29-44 (p. 40). 53. Vincent, op.cit, p. 205. The same observation has been made about Michael Oakeshott. Oakeshott's critics insist that in belittling theory and ideology, Oakeshott is actually forwarding a theory of his own. In short, there is a certain rationalism in anti-rationalism. 54. Mansfield, op.cit, p. 31. 55. Stanley Ayling, Edmund Burke: His Life and Opinions (London, 1988), p. xv. 56. Michael Freeman, Edmund Burke and the Critique of Political Radi• calism (Oxford, 1980), p. 4. 57. The most useful introduction to the debate is Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and his Critics, edited by James Tully (Cambridge, 1988). See also Richard Ashcraft, "The Changing Foundations of Contemporary Political Theory", Political Power and Social Theory, vol. 6 (1987), pp. 27-56. 58. Quentin Skinner, "Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas", History and Theory, vol. 8 (1969), pp. 3-53, reprinted in Tully, op.cit, pp. 29-67. 59. Ibid., p. 65. In formulating this critique, Skinner singles out the work of political theorist Leo Strauss, whose conventional chronology of classic texts is alleged to constitute an "inherited pattern" of political thought. The criteria for this historic tradition are based on what Strauss refers to as the "unchanging framework" of perennial issues and prob• lems. See What is Political Philosophy? (Glencoe, 1959), pp. 228-29. A further critique of Strauss is offered by John G. Gunnell in "The Myth of a Tradition", American Political Science Review, vol. 32, no. 1 (1978), pp. 122-34. 60. An example might be attempts to piece together Grotius' doctrine on the balance of power - a concept which had not yet gained currency at the time he wrote. The extreme form of this mythology occurs when a theorist is criticised for failing to come up with a recognisable doc• trine on a certain theme thought to be proper to his subject, and is therefore "supplied" with one. At this point, Skinner writes, history "becomes a pack of tricks we play on the dead". Skinner, "Meaning and Understanding", p. 37. 61. Ibid., pp. 40-3. 62. Ibid., p. 56. 63. The most prominent of Skinner's colleagues is J.G.A. Pocock. See Politics, Language and Time: Essays on Political Thought and History (Chicago, 1989). 64. Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought: vol. I (Cambridge, 1978), p. x. 65. Following the work of Thomas Kuhn, Pocock suggests that a philoso• pher's work must be viewed as an act of communication within a 186 Notes and References

certain linguistic "paradigm". See Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Second Edition (Chicago, 1970), Chapter Five. 66. See Gordon J. Schochet, "Quentin Skinner's Method", Political Theory, vol. 2, no. 3 (1974), pp. 261-77 (p. 264). 67. Skinner, Foundations, p. xi; p. xiii. For Skinner, therefore, the author's choice of language is itself political. See James Tully, "The pen is a mighty sword: Quentin Skinner's analysis of politics", in Meaning and Context, pp. 7-28 (p. 10). 68. Vindication, in Works, I, pp. 3-4. 69. As Chapter 5 will demonstrate, Burke had Vattel's Le Droit des Gens at his side when he developed his own ideas on intervention, civil war, and the balance of power. 70. It should also be noted that I will remain faithful to the original syntax and grammar of these passages. 71. Cited in Joseph Femia, "An historicist critique of Revisionist' methods for studying the history of ideas", in Meaning and Context, pp. 156-75 (p. 169). 72. Quentin Skinner, Machiavelli (Oxford, 1981), p. 88. 73. Femia, op.cit, p. 169. 74. John Keane, "More theses on the philosophy of history", in Meaning and Context, pp. 204-17 (p. 209). 75. Kenneth Minogue, "Method in intellectual history", Meaning and Con• text, pp. 176-93 (p. 179). Minogue has formulated this criticism of Skinner into a "mythology" of his own - the "mythology of fragmen• tation". 76. C.B. Macpherson, for example, portrays Burke as a spokesperson for bourgeois political and economic interests. See op.cit Similarly, Conor Cruise O'Brien focuses on the "determining factor" of Burke's Catho• lic and Irish roots. See Introduction to Reflections on the Revolution in France, Penguin Edition (Harmondsworth, 1969), pp. 35-42. 77. Freeman, op.cit, p. 13. 78. See Paul Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth, 1976). 79. Keane, op.cit, p. 211. 80. Femia, op.cit, p. 164. In responding to his critics, Skinner concedes that over time there has been a consistent employment of a number of key concepts and modes of argument. However, he maintains that accepting their continuity is not the same thing as establishing their perennial status. Hence, for example, he still refuses to accept a com• parison of Plato, Hobbes and Marx on the "nature of the just state", arguing that these terms feature in their theories in such divergent ways that no common ground of analysis could be established. See "A reply to my critics", in Meaning and Context, pp. 204-17 (p. 283). 81. Skinner, "Meaning and Understanding", p. 66. 82. Friedrich Meinecke, Machiavellism: The Doctrine ofRaison d'Etat and its Place in Modern History, translated by D. Scott (London, 1957), p. 21. 83. For Strauss, the great thinkers of the past operated in the realm of knowledge and "truth", as opposed to the arena of mere "opinion" occupied by their lesser contemporaries. See op.cit, pp. 228-29. Notes and References 187

84. Thus, I agree with Nick Rengger that while Skinner's methodology is arduous, this is not an excuse for ignoring it. See "Discovering Tradi• tion? Grotius, International Society and International Relations", Oxford International Review, vol. 3, no. 1 (1991), p. 49. 85. This is also Boucher's conclusion. See "The philosophy of interna• tional relations", p. 129. 86. Cited in Bull, "Martin Wight", p. 113. 87. This appeal to the relevance of classical theorists has been made most recently in relation to the works of Hugo Grotius. See Kingsbury and Roberts, Introduction to Hugo Grotius, p. 64. R.B.J. Walker makes a similar case for the continued importance of Machiavelli's ideas. See uThe Prince and The Pauper': Tradition, Modernity and Practice in the Theory of International Relations", in International/Intertextual Relations: Postmodern Readings of World Politics (Lexington, 1989), pp. 25-48 (p. 29). 88. Hedley Bull, "International Theory: The Case for a Classical Ap• proach", in Contending Approaches to International Politics, edited by Klaus Knorr and James Rosenau (Princeton, 1969), pp. 20-38. Bull defines the classical school as "the approach to theorising that derives from philosophy, history and law, and that is characterised above all by explicit reliance on the exercise of judgment." (p. 20). 89. A more comprehensive list of the recurring questions of international relations is provided by Bull. See Ibid., p. 27. 90. Cobban, op.cit, p. 39. 91. Mansfield, Introduction to Selected Letters, p. 3. 92. Paul Hindson and Tim Grey, Burke's Dramatic Theory of Politics (Aldershott, 1988), pp. 4-5. 93. Christopher Reid, Edmund Burke and the Practice of Political Writing (Dublin, 1985), p. 12. P.J. Marshall and Glyndwr Williams also observe this tendency for eighteenth century thinkers to be "men of universal knowledge" rather than specialized members of distinct intellectual disciplines. See The Great Map of Mankind: British Perceptions of the World in the Age of the Enlightenment (London, 1982), p. 299. 94. T.W. Copeland, Our Eminent Friend Edmund Burke (New Haven, 1949), pp. 5-6. 95. See, for example, the Reports of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on India (1781-83), in WS, V, edited by P.J. Marshall (Ox• ford, 1981), pp. 194-377. 96. As Cobban notes, while Burke was the effective editor of the Annual Register as late as 1774, and continued to be associated with it until 1789, editorial assistants may have produced much of the written work after 1765. See Preface to Cobban op.cit 97. Reid, op.cit, pp. 97-8; pp. 105-6. The most successful attempt to pro• duce a verbatim recording of parliamentary proceedings was Sir Henry Cavendish's Diary, Debates of the House of Commons during the Thirteenth Parliament of Great Britain, ed. J. Wrights, 2 vols (London). Unfortunately, it spans only the first part of Burke's career. 98. Reid, op.cit., p. 97. See also J. Steven Watson, "Parliamentary Proce• dure as a Key to the Understanding of Eighteenth Century Politics", Burke Newsletter, vol. Ill, no. 4 (1962), p. 108. 188 Notes and References

99. James JoU, Britain and Europe: Pitt to Churchill 1793-1940 (Oxford, 1950), p. 25.

PART I BURKE'S THEORY OF INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY

Introduction

1. Vincent, "Edmund Burke", p. 205. 2. Reflections, in WS, VIII, pp. 97-8. 3. Burke's position on Natural Law is discussed later in Chapter 1. 4. Andrew Linklater, Men and Citizens in the Theory of International Relations (London, 1982), p. 13. 5. Ibid., p. 30. 6. Wight, "Western Values", p. 92.

1. Constitutionalism

1. Works, VII, p. 28, cited in Mansfield, Introduction to Selected Letters, p. 8. 2. The Correspondence of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, edited by Thomas Copeland et al. (Cambridge and Chicago, 1967-78) vol. VI, p. 48 (henceforth Corr.). 3. Works, II, p. 29, cited in Mansfield, Selected Letters, p. 8. 4. Works, VI, p. 133, cited in Courtney, Montesquieu and Burke, p. 156. 5. Corr., VI, p. 48. 6. Speech on Conciliation with America, in Works, I, pp. 181-205 (p. 200). 7. See Peter Stanlis, Edmund Burke and the Natural Law (Louisiana, 1986), p. 111. 8. Annual Register, 1762, cited in Courtney, op.cit, p. 42. Burke never hides his dislike for Rousseau, referring to him as the "founder of the philosophy of vanity". As he wrote of the Contract Social' "It has left very few traces upon my mind. I thought it a performance of little or no merit " Mansfield, Selected Letters, p. 268. 9. Corr., VI, p. 49. 10. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 293. 11. Auerbach, op.cit, p. 35. The following discussion of Burke's Sublime and Beautiful draws heavily upon Christopher Reid's recent work, Edmund Burke and the Practice of Political Writing. See especially pp. 34-50. 12. Courtney, op.cit, p. 46. Burke's association with the Romantics is discussed by Cobban in Edmund Burke and the Revolt against the Eighteenth Century. 13. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas Sublime and Beautiful, in Works, I, pp. 22-74 (pp. 24-5). 14. Sublime and Beautiful, cited in Reid, op.cit, p. 38. Notes and References 189

15. Ibid., p. 37. 16. Sublime and Beautiful, cited in Ibid., p. 38. 17. B.T. Wilkins, The Problem of Burke's Political Philosophy (Oxford, 1967), p. 91. 18. Annual Register, 1770, cited in John A. Lester, An Analysis of the Conservative Thought of Edmund Burke, Doctoral Dissertation, Harvard University (1942), p. 77. 19. Letter to a Member, in WS, VIII, p. 332. 20. Wight, "Theory of Human Nature", in International Theory, pp. 25-9. 21. Works, V, p. 308, cited in Charles Parkin, The Moral Basis of Burke's Political Thought (Cambridge, 1956), p. 90. 22. Corn, VI, p. 46. 23. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 112. 24. Ibid., p. 111. 25. Observations on a Late State of the Nation, cited in Lester, op.cit, p. 74. 26. Sublime and Beautiful, in Works, I, p. 24; 37. 27. Instead, as Lester has argued, Burke's ideas drew heavily from the work of the Earl of Shaftesbury (Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, and Times), and from his Scottish Enlighten• ment contemporaries, David Hume (A Treatise on Human Nature) and Adam Smith (Theory of Moral Sentiments). All three gave promi• nence to those human impulses which derived from emotion and "sense" rather than pure reason. See Lester, op.cit, pp. 59-71. 28. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 129. 29. Ibid., p. 85. The same concern for the "unfeeling" nature of reason informs Burke's critique of the French philosophes. As he remarks in his Letter to a Noble Lord: "Nothing can be conceived more hard than the heart of a thorough-bred metaphysician." See WS, IX, pp. 145-86 (p. 176). 30. Sublime and Beautiful, in Works, I, p. 33. This premise is also a key plank in the international theory of Hugo Grotius. See Cornelius Murphy, "The Grotian Vision of World Order", American Journal of International Law, vol. 76 (1982), pp. 477-99 (p. 483). 31. Works, VI, p. 218, cited in Parkin, op.cit, p. 22. Burke's alternative theory of contract is discussed in the next chapter. 32. PH, vol. 29, 11 May 1792, 1386-7. 33. Ibid., 1389. 34. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 109. 35. Corn, VI, p. 48. 36. Sublime and Beautiful, in Works, I, p. 35. 37. Works, XV, 347, cited in Lester, op.cit, p. 94. 38. Lester, op.cit, p. 94. 39. Works, XVI, p. 117, cited in Lester, op.cit., p. 92. 40. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 138. 41. Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, in Works, VI, p. 258. 42. See Auerbach, op.cit, p. 45. 43. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 83. 44. Works, X, p. 104, cited in Lester, op.cit, p. 164. 190 Notes and References

45. See Thoughts on the Present Discontents (1770), in WS, II, edited by Paul Langford, (Oxford, 1981), pp. 241-323. 46. Ayling, op.cit, p. 186. 47. Cited in Lester, op.cit, p. 185. 48. The following analysis draws on a recent article by James Coniff en• titled "Burke on Political Economy: The Nature and Extent of State Authority", Review of Politics, vol. 49, no. 4 (1987), pp. 490-515. Those who view Burke as a "market liberal" include C.B. Macpherson, op.cit, and Isaac Kramnick, The Rage of Edmund Burke (New York, 1977). 49. Cited in Mansfield, Selected Letters, p. 231. 50. In his Thoughts and Details on Scarcity, Burke refers to "the benign and wise Disposer of all things, who obliges men, whether they will or not, in pursuing their own selfish interest, to connect the general good with their own individual success". See WS, IX, pp. 119-45 (p. 145). This pamphlet was written in opposition to government proposals to set labourers' wages and regulate the price of provisions. 51. The relationship between Smith and Burke is outlined by William Clyde Dunn in "Adam Smith and Edmund Burke: Complementary Contemporaries", The Southern Economic Journal, vol. 7, no. 3 (1941), pp. 330-46. See also Dixon Wecter, "Adam Smith and Burke", Notes and Queries, vol. 174, no. 18 (1938), pp. 310-11. As Dunn shows, the two men moved in the same circle of friends, and were familiar with each other's work. In fact, Burke reviewed Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments in the 1759 Annual Register. Smith would later declare: "Burke is the only man I ever knew who thinks on economic subjects exactly as I do without any previous communication having passed between us " (cited in Wecter, p. 311.) 52. Dunn, "Adam Smith and Edmund Burke", pp. 339-40. As Dunn puts it, while Smith argued deductively from natural order principles, Burke argued inductively from history. Ibid., p. 345. 53. Donal Barrington, "Edmund Burke as an Economist", Economica, New Series, vol. 21, no. 83 (August, 1954), pp. 252-8 (p. 252). As Barrington shows, by the time Burke entered the House of Commons in 1766 he had already gained a reputation for expertise in matters of trade and commerce. This interest in trade, particularly in relation to Ireland, continued throughout his parliamentary career. See Two Let• ters on the Trade of Ireland, 23 April 1778 and 2 May 1778, in WS, IX, pp. 506-17 (p. 514). 54. Burke defends these commercial regulations, which were established in 1660, in his Speech on American Taxation. See WS, II, pp. 427-29. 55. As P.J. Marshall notes, Smith believed the anomalous status of the EIC as a "mercantile sovereign" had to be brought to an end. See notes to Ninth Report of Select Committee, 25 June 1783, in WS, V, edited by P.J. Marshall (Oxford, 1981), pp. 194-333 (p. 196). Burke's view is set out in the Speech on State of East India Company, 9 April 1781, in Ibid., pp. 132-34 (p. 133). 56. In particular, Burke does not see trade with India as a means of bring• ing development to that country. Instead, he seeks to allow the Indians to keep as much as possible of their native economy by limiting Notes and References 191

contact to what is necessary for mutual material exchange. See Ninth Report of Select Committee, (esp. p. 242). 57. Thoughts and Details, in WS, IX, p. 133. See also MS. Notes at Shef• field, Bk. 18.13. 58. In the Thoughts and Details, Burke delineates those matters which the state should "direct by the public wisdom", and those which "it ought to leave, with as little interference as possible to individual discretion". (Ibid., p. 143) In particular, Burke insists that it is not within the power of government "to provide for us in our necessities", (p. 120) For those who cannot compete in the market, he offers the consolation of pri• vate charity. 59. See Sketch of the Negro Code, in Works, II, pp. 420-28. 60. Coniff, "Burke on Political Economy", p. 509. 61. Thoughts and Details, in WS, IX, p. 143. As Reid explains, Burke's pragmatic approach also reflects the fact that economics had not yet become a concrete science: "at this stage in its history political economy was an empirical practice, dependent more upon the skill and experi• ence of the observer than upon the rigour of its concepts." See Reid, op.cit, p. 54. 62. Letter to a Noble Lord (1796), in WS, IX, pp. 145-87 (p. 154). The spelling of "oeconomy" is Burke's. 63. Wight, "Western Values", p. 90. 64. Annual Register, vol. 15,1772, p. 3. Boucher also points to this passage as evidence of "Realist" thinking in Burke. See "The philosophy of international relations", p. 141. 65. First Letter on a Regicide Peace (1796), "On the Overtures of Peace", in WS, IX, pp. 187-264 (p. 248). 66. Wight, "Theory of War", in International Theory, pp. 206-32 (pp. 206- 7). 67. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 237. 68. Corr., VI, pp. 47-8. 69. First Letter, p. 238; 251. PH, vol. 22, 14 May 1781, 230. 70. PH, vol. 22, 14 May 1781, 218; 229. 71. Ibid., 218. During the rupture between Holland and Britain in 1781, Britain seized St. Eustatius, an island in the Dutch West Indies, and confiscated the property of her inhabitants. 72. A Letter to the Sheriffs of the City of Bristol, in Works, II, p. 206; pp. 210-11. Nonetheless, as Boucher points out, Burke hints in this Letter that the moral obligations of jus in bello may need to be suspended if war is prolonged. See "The philosophy of international relations", op.cit., p. 141. As we shall see, Burke is prepared to abandon the laws of war in his crusade against the Revolution. 73. For Rousseau's stark depiction of the international state of nature, see The State of War, in Rousseau and International Relations, edited by Stanley Hoffmann and David P. Fidler (Oxford, 1991), pp. 33-47 (p. 44). 74. Wight, "Western Values", p. 95. 75. Cited in Wilkins, op.cit, p. 99. 76. Wight, "Theory of National Power", in International Theory, pp. 99- 110 (p. 99). 192 Notes and References

11. Third Letter on a Regicide Peace (1797), in WS, IX, pp. 296-386 (p. 338). 78. Annual Register, vol. 15,1772, p. 2. Burke notes that the same balance of power, "though formed upon a smaller scale" had contributed to the "fortune and glory" of Ancient Greece. 79. Here, Burke refers explicitly to the hubris of the Roman Empire. Ibid. 80. Third Letter, in WS, IX, p. 339. 81. Thoughts on French Affairs (1791), in WS, VIII, pp. 338-86 (p. 352). In particular, Burke emphasises France's role in guaranteeing the in• dependence and balance of Germany - the balance which he holds as the key to European stability. 82. M.S. Anderson, "Eighteenth Century Theories of the Balance of Power", in Studies in Diplomatic History: Essays in Memory of David Bayne Horn, edited by M.S. Anderson and R. Hatton (London, 1970), pp. 183-98 (p. 184). 83. F.H. Hinsley, Nationalism and the International System (London, 1973), pp. 79-80. Voltaire observes that European states are "at one in the wise policy of maintaining among themselves as far as possible an equal balance of power". Similarly, Vattel describes the balance of power as the part of the "public law of Europe" (cited in Ibid., p. 80). 84. Ibid., p. 82. The growing importance of the balance of power was reflected by its inclusion in the wording of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht. See Gulick, Europe's Classical Balance of Power, p. 35. 85. Annual Register, vol. 15, 1772, p. 3. 86. Wight, "The Balance of Power", in The Bases of International Order, edited by Alan James (London, 1973), pp. 85-115 (p. 108). Gulick refers to these two visions as the "coalition equilibrium" and the "al• liance balance". The coalition is a product of conscious contrivance, reflecting international society's belief that a balance ought to exist. The alliance regards the balance of power as an observed fact of po• litical life, a natural outcome of uncoordinated efforts on the part of autonomous units (op.cit, p. 81). 87. In 1790, Spain attempted the seizure of a British commercial base on the Pacific coast of America. Britain immediately came to defence of her maritime position, demanding access to the coast from Northern California to Alaska, as well as a share of the fisheries of the pacific and the south seas. For an overview of this crisis, see Paul Langford, The Eighteenth Century (London, 1976), p. 199. 88. PH, vol. 28, 6 May 1790, 780-81. 89. Ibid. 90. Annual Register, vol. 3, 1760, p. 2. As Gulick points out, peace need not be a direct aim of the balance of power. Many of its proponents see the survival of states as the primary aim, and peace as a possible, but not a necessary, by-product (op.cit, p. 30). 91. Annual Register, vol. 15, 1772, pp. 2-3. 92. For a description of the origins and methods of the partition, see Derek McKay and H.M. Scott, The Rise of the Great Powers: 1648-1815 (New York, 1983), pp. 222-8. 93. Annual Register, vol. 15, 1772, p. 1. Notes and References 193

94. Ibid., pp. 1-2. 95. Ibid., p. A. 96. Ibid., p. 2. 97. Ibid., p. 3. Burke frequently repeats this indictment of British unwill• ingness to work with France in preventing partition. See, for example, Thoughts on French Affairs, in WS, VIII, p. 351. 98. James Davidson, "Natural Law and International Law in Burke", Review of Politics, vol. 21 (1959), pp. 483-95 (p. 491). 99. Vincent, "Edmund Burke", p. 210. 100. As Gulick notes, there is a tension in balance of power theory between insuring the survival of independent states, and the aim of preserving the larger state system. See op.cit., p. 33. Burke clearly believes that self-interest can best be secured by attention to group interest. 101. My distinction between a weak and strong sense of sovereignty is derived from the distinction between a weak and strong sense of indi• vidual autonomy, as set out by political philosopher Fred Barnard. The weak sense of autonomy, Barnard argues, recognises the pull of social obligations, whereas a strong sense of autonomy is fundamen• tally a-social. See "Will and Political Rationality in Rousseau", Politi• cal Studies, vol. 32 (1984), pp. 369-84. 102. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 291. 103. Letter to Sheriffs, in Works, I, p. 217. 104. Corr., VI, p. 42. 105. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 59. 106. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 249. 107. Murphy, "The Grotian Vision", p. 478. 108. Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace, p. 165. 109. This notion of the "Commonwealth of Europe" is the subject of Chap• ter 3. 110. Vincent, p. 212. The distinction between solidarism and pluralism was conceived by Hedley Bull. See "The Grotian Conception of Interna• tional Society", in Diplomatic Investigations, pp. 51-74 (p. 52). 111. Speech Opening the Trial of Warren Hastings, 16 February 1788, WS, VI, p. 351. 112. The main contributors to the debate are O'Gorman, op.cit; C.E. Vaughn, Studies in the History of Political Philosophy Before and After Rousseau (New York, 1925); Parkin, op.cit.; Wilkins, op.cit; Stanlis, op.cit.; and Courtney, op.cit The attempt by Stanlis to resurrect Burke's Natural Law credentials was part of a larger project to apply Burkean conservatism to the ideological war against communism. 113. O'Gorman, op.cit, p. 19. 114. Vaughn, op.cit, p. 2, 5 and 19. The classic utilitarian interpretation of Burke was offered by one of his earliest biographers, . See Edmund Burke: A Historical Study (London, 1867). For a critique of this utilitarian view, see Stanlis, op.cit, pp. 29-34. 115. Parkin, op.cit, p. 2. 116. Works, VII, p. 98, cited in Wilkins, op.cit, p. 13. 117. Wilkins, op.cit, p. 13. 118. Works, VI, p. 323, cited in Ibid., p. 56. By "individuals", Wilkins 194 Notes and References

argues, Burke does not mean "the People", but rather those upper and middle class Englishmen who "know best" what is just and useful for the whole community. (Ibid.) 119. Ibid., p. IS. 120. As Mansfield points out, Burke frequently appeals to 's idea of a "principle of superior law". He also follows Montesquieu in high• lighting the Roman law heritage of European legal systems. See Mansfield, Introduction to Selected Letters, p. 33. 121. Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History, cited in Stanlis, op.cit, pp. 16- 7. 122. Cobban, op.cit, p. 42; 43. 123. Speech Opening the Trial of Warren Hastings, 16 February 1788, in WS, VI, p. 350. 124. Ibid., p. 346. There is a tension between this objective account of justice and Burke's respect for local autonomy, which will be discussed in the next chapter. In practice, Burke believes there is no dilemma, provided other societies conform roughly to the "natural order of things" and possess prescriptive traditions and institutions. But as Part II will argue, this order is parochially defined. As a result, the delicate balancing act fails when certain societies are perceived as having aban• doned "civilised" maxims. 125. Works, VI, p. 322, cited in Wilkins, op.cit, p. 42. 126. Works, III, p. 112, cited in Courtney, op.cit, p. 160. 127. Davidson, "Natural Law", op.cit, p. 485. This treatment of the role of custom in Burke is a variation on that offered by John Vincent. While Vincent suggests that Burke chooses the "low road" of custom rather than the "high road" of Natural Law, custom can be incorporated into Burke's conception of Natural Law. (Vincent, "Edmund Burke", p. 212). In discussing custom, Burke is not forwarding an alternative to Natural Law. It is his contention that customs, prejudices, or histori• cally established rightswill , in the majority of cases, actually conform with Natural Law tenets. If they do not, they must be abandoned as morally bad. 128. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 84. 129. Mansfield, Introduction to Selected Letters, p. 19. 130. Reid, op.cit, p. 23. 131. See Ayling, op.cit, pp. 8-10. 132. Reid, op.cit, p. 22; 19. 133. Bull, "The Grotian Conception of International Society", p. 52. 134. Wight, "Western Values", p. 105. For a further discussion of the issue of crime and punishment in Grotius, see Michael Donelan, Elements of International Political Theory (Oxford, 1990), pp. 161-3. 135. Reid, op.cit., p. 24; 32. Part II will illustrate Burke's use of the "rob• ber" image in his writings on Revolutionary France. 136. Ibid., p. 30. 137. "Some Thoughts on the Approaching Executions", cited in Reid, op.cit, p. 30; 266. Chapter 6 will show that Burke repeats this call for justice and mercy when commenting on the restoration of order in France after the Revolutionary Wars. Notes and References 195

138. Stanlis, op.cit, Chapter 4, pp. 85-124. 139. Grotius held Natural Law as a key source of international law. See Hedley Bull, "The Importance of Grotius in the Study of International Relations", in Hugo Grotius and International Relations, pp. 65-93 (pp. 78-80). 140. PH, vol. 22, 14 May 1781, 228-29. 141. Davidson, "Natural Law", op.cit, p. 487. 142. Wight, "Theory of Mankind", in International Theory, p. 73. 143. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 240. 144. Stanlis, op.cit, p. 89. Interestingly enough, as noted above, Burke sees relations with America as part of this inner circle, governed by the Law of Nations. By treating the American colonists as and rebels, rather than as citizens dissenting from arbitrary rule, the King of England had made it impossible to settle the differences within the British constitution, and in effect put them in possession of the Law of Nations. See Letter to the Sheriffs, in Works, I, pp. 207-08. As Chapter 2 will show, while Burke concedes these rights to the colonists, he would prefer to see America not as a "foreign" country, but as part of a more cohesive imperial society. 145. Davidson, "Natural Law", p. 491. 146. Esther Brimmer, "Emer de Vattel's Le Droit des Gens", M.Phil. Thesis, Oxford University, 1985, p. 60. 147. Charles Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations (Princeton, 1979), pp. 15-27. For a comprehensive examination of raison d'etat, see Friedrich Meinecke, Machiavellism: The Doctrine of Raison d'Etat and its Place in Modern History, translated by D. Scott (London, 1957). 148. A Vindication, in Works, I, pp. 10-11. 149. Remarks, in WS, VIII, p. 490. 150. Linklater, op.cit, p. 39; 40. As Linklater explains, the various kinds of external orientation run along a continuum. It may involve the treat• ment of the social practices of other groups as 'barbaric', because they contravene certain 'civilised' maxims. Or, it may demand a more radi• cal attempt to incorporate these other societies within one larger com• munity. As Chapter 2 will show, Burke is somewhere in the middle, advocating respect for diversity, rather than seeking to overcome it. 151. Bull, "Martin Wight", p. 105. 152. Wight, "Western Values", p. 123. 153. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 143. 154. Wight, "Western Values", p. 128. 155. Ibid., pp. 123-24. According to this view, if rulers operate according to the standards of political morality, the occasions for conscientious objection and rebellion on the part of their subjects are significantly diminished, "since conscience has already had its say in the debate in which policy is shaped." Ibid., p. 128. 156. This reliance on individual restraint helps to explain Burke's anxiety over the moral licentiousness of the French Revolutionaries. For him, there is an explicit link between private moral codes and public action. 157. For a full treatment of the "domestic analogy", see Hidemi Suganami, The Domestic Analogy and World Order Proposals (Cambridge, 1989). 196 Notes and References

Suganami distinguishes between cosmopolitanist versions of the analogy, which seek to supersede the state, and internationalist variants, which strive to join states together in a voluntary association or federation. 158. Vincent, "Edmund Burke", p. 213.

2. Medievalism

1. For a discussion of the "chain of Being" image in Burke's philosophy, see Kramnick, The Rage of Edmund Burke, p. 34. 2. Leopold Ranke, cited in Gulick, Europe's Classical Balance, p. 11. 3. Bull, The Anarchical Society, p. 255. 4. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 189. 5. Ian Clark cites the denial of progress as a fundamental tenet of Real• ism. Reform and Resistance in the International Order (Cambridge, 1980), p. 56. 6. For a full treatment of eighteenth century progressivism, see Frank E. Manuel and Fritzie P. Manuel, Utopian Thought in the Western World (Oxford, 1979). Burke was most critical of the Utopian ideas of the French philosophes, such as Turgot and Condorcet. 7. Robert Nisbet, Conservatism (Milton Keynes, 1986), p. 25. As Manuel and Manuel note, Burke is equally averse to the "cyclical" and "or• ganic" approaches to history elaborated in his age, most notably in the writings of Montesquieu (op.cit, p. 457). In particular, he challenges Montesquieu's analogy between political societies and physical organ• isms. For Burke, "commonwealths are not physical but moral essences." First Letter on a Regicide Peace, in WS, IX, p. 188. This aversion to theories of inevitable growth and decay also stems from Burke's fun• damental belief in the relevance of human action. As John Weston Jr. has shown, Burke's theory of history mediates between individual and Providential determinism. See "Edmund Burke's View of History", Review of Politics, vol. 23 (1961), pp. 203-29 (p. 208). 8. Fragments of a Tract on the Popery Laws, in WS, IX, pp. 434-82 (p. 467). 9. Nisbet, op.cit, p. 18. 10. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 129. 11. Cited in Robert A. Smith, "Burke's Crusade against the French Revo• lution: Principles and Prejudices", Burke Newsletter, vol. 7 (1966), pp. 552-69 (p. 558). 12. Cobban, op.cit, p. 256. 13. Corr., VI, p. 272. 14. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 137. In this passage of the Reflections, Burke even seems to question the evidence of material progress. "Four hundred years have gone over us", he writes, "but I believe we are not materially changed since that period." (Ibid.) 15. See Wilkins, op.cit, pp. 59-63. 16. Corr., VI, p. 95. 17. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 200. It was in relation to the Nullum Tempus Act of 1769, which sought to limit the property claims of the Crown, Notes and References 197

that Burke attempts to establish prescription as part of the public law in Britain. (See 'Mnemon' to the Public Advertiser, 24 February 1768, in WS, II, pp. 75-83.) 18. Mansfield, op.cit, p. 20. 19. Corr., VI, p. 95. Paul Lucas has argued that this indifference to the origins of possession distinguishes Burke from international lawyers such as Wolff, Grotius, and Pufendorf. These thinkers stressed the requirements of "good faith" and "just title" before prescriptive right could be enshrined. See "On Edmund Burke's Doctrine of Prescrip• tion: Or, an Appeal from the New to the Old Lawyers", , vol. 11, no. 1 (1968), pp. 35-63 (pp. 43-4). 20. Speech Opening the Trial of Warren Hastings, in WS, VI, pp. 316-17. 21. Mansfield, op.cit, p. 12. 22. Works, VI, pp. 201-02, cited in O'Gorman, op.cit, p. 114. 23. Cobban, op.cit, p. 49. 24. This was the view of Thomas Paine. According to Thomas Schlereth, Enlightenment philosophers such as Paine tended to hold the indi• vidual and humankind as the two basic realities of political life, and the state as an instrumental body. See The Cosmopolitan Ideal in En• lightenment Thought (Notre Dame, 1977), pp. 104-06. 25. Ibid., p. 105. 26. Speech on Fox's East India Bill, 1 December 1783, in WS, V, edited by PJ. Marshall (Oxford, 1981), pp. 378-452 (p. 385). 27. Observations on the Conduct of the Minority, in WS, VIII, pp. 402-52 (p. 439). 28. Works, X, pp. 96-97, cited in Parkin, op.cit, p. 59. I interchange the terms nation and state, since Burke seems to have made little analyti• cal distinction between them. 29. Speech on Economical Reform, cited in Cobban, op.cit, p. 88. 30. Ibid., p. 51. 31. Reflections, in WS, VIII, pp. 146-47. 32. Ibid., p. 147. 33. Williams, Culture and Society, p. 29. 34. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 253. 35. Ibid. 36. Remarks, in WS, VIII, p. 465. 37. F.H. Hinsley, Nationalism, p. 41. This fact was reflected in the frequent interchanging of the terms "state" and "nation". 38. Ibid., p. 48. 39. Burke speaks fondly of the "cold sluggishness" of "our national char• acter" when commenting on Britain's attitude toward reform and revo• lution. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 137. Cobban extrapolates Burke's views on national character into a theory of nationality. See op.cit, p. 130. 40. Hoffmann and Fidler, Introduction to Rousseau and International Relations, pp. xxxiv-xxxv. 41. See Cobban, op.cit, p. 99. In his Discourse on Political Economy, Rousseau describes patriotism as an "agreeable and lively sentiment" and "the most heroic of all passions". See Ibid., pp. 1-32 (p. 14). 198 Notes and References

42. Cited in Schlereth, op.cit, p. 107. As Schlereth explains, Burke and Rousseau permitted political society to retain an "emotional aura" that the cosmopolitan philosophes had hoped to supersede. Ibid., p. 111. 43. Cobban, op.cit, p. 129. Part II will show how Burke incorporates British national sentiment in his crusade against the French Revolution. 44. The Annual Register, 1772, cited in Ibid., p. 109. 45. As Walzer writes: "The rights of states rest on the consent of their members. But this is consent of a special sort. State rights are not constituted through a series of transfers from individual men and women to the sovereign ... What actually happens is harder to describe. Over a long period of time, shared experiences and cooperative activity of many different kinds shape a common life. 'Contract' is a metaphor for a process of association and mutuality, the ongoing character of which the state claims to protect against external encroachment." Just and Unjust Wars (New York, 1977), p. 54. See also Esther D. Brimmer, Towards a Liberal Theory of International Ethics, D.Phil. Thesis, Oxford University, 1989, pp. 107-08. The implications of this conception for the doctrine of non-intervention will be discussed in Chapter 5. 46. Cobban, op.cit, p. ix. 47. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 100. 48. Cited in Lester, An Analysis of Edmund Burke, p. 111. 49. PH, vol. 28, 9 February 1790, 359. The eighteenth century idea of the "chain of being" is discussed by A.O. Lovejoy in The Great Chain of Being, a Study of the History of an Idea (Cambridge, 1950). As will be shown later, Burke criticises the French Revolutionaries for severing these links in this chain of subordination. 50. Reflections, in WS, VIII, pp. 187-88. 51. Appeal, Works, VI, p. 204. In the Reflections, Burke describes demo• cracy as the "most shameless thing in the world." WS, VIII, p. 144. 52. Reflections, in WS, VIII, pp. 100-01. 53. Ibid, p. 130. 54. Cited in Mansfield, Selected Letters, p. 184. As has demonstrated, it is this idealistic vision of nobility which leads Burke to such despair in his Letter to a Noble Lord (WS, IX, pp. 145-87). The latter was written in response to the Duke of Bedford's attempts to deny Burke a parliamentary pension, and sets out Burke's disillusion• ment at having being betrayed by those he had always taken pains to defend. See "Edmund Burke, Revolutionist (1795)", Yale Journal of Criticism, vol. 4, no. 1 (Fall, 1990), pp. 85-108. 55. John Plamenatz, Man and Society: vol. I (London, 1963), p. 350. There is a parallel between Burke's "spirit of a gentleman", and Montesquieu's notion of "honour". See The Spirit of the Laws, 1748, translated by Thomas Nugent (New York, 1949), vol. I, Bk. ii, pp. 25-26. 56. Reflections, in WS, VIII, pp. 87-88. 57. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 193. 58. McKay and Scott, The Rise of the Great Powers, p. 203. 59. Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace, p. 153. 60. Nisbet, op.cit, p. 35. Montesquieu also forwarded a "feudal" Notes and References 199

conception of Monarchy, which delegated certain functions of author• ity to intermediate powers. Of these, the nobility was considered the most important. See The Spirit of the Laws, vol. I, Bk. ii, pp. 15-18. Thus, while Montesquieu refers to the Monarchical form of govern• ment, it encompasses much more than the individual figure of King or Queen. "A monarchical government supposes ... pre-eminences and ranks, as likewise a noble descent." (Ibid., p. 25) 61. Montesquieu explicitly defines despotism in terms of the absence of intermediate institutions. (Ibid., p. 18) 62. Reflections, in WS, VIII, pp. 97-98. 63. Speech on Conciliation with America, in Works, II, pp. 190-91. As the next chapter will argue, Burke's perceptions of the non-European world were less imperialistic than those of many of his contemporaries. 64. See Wight, "Theory of Mankind", in International Theory, pp. 75-83. 65. Letter to the Sheriffs, in Works, II, pp. 215-16. 66. Fasel, op.cit, p. 59. 67. Letter to the Sheriffs, in Works, II, p. 216. 68. Speech on Fox's India Bill, in WS, V, p. 404. 69. Speech on Conciliation, in Works, II, p. 188. 70. Ibid. Burke notes this decentralisation in the Sultan's control over and Arabia: "He governs with a loose rein, that he may govern at all; and the whole of the force and vigour of his authority in his centre is derived from a prudent relaxation in all his borders." Ibid. 71. Speech on Taxation, in WS, II, pp. 459-60. 72. Ibid., p. 460. 73. Letter to the Sheriffs, in Works, II, p. 217. 74. Cited in O'Gorman, op.cit, p. 103. 75. Speech on Conciliation, in Works, II, p. 203. 76. Harle, European Values, p. 67. 77. Georg Fasel, Edmund Burke (Boston, 1983), p. 69. 78. Burke continued to support the 1766 Declaratory Act, which reiter• ated the right of the British Parliament "to have full power and Au• thority to make Laws and Statues of sufficient force and validity to bind the Colonys and People of America". See Speech on Declaratory Resolution, 3 February 1766, in WS, II, pp. 45-51. 79. Speech on Conciliation, in Works, II, p. 182. 80. See Speech on Stamp Act Disturbances, January-February 1766, in WS, II, pp. 43-45. Burke was a member of the Rockingham Administration in 1766, when the Stamp Act was repealed. 81. This solution is captured in Burke's famous phrase: "Tax yourselves for the common supply, or parliament will do it for you." Speech on American Taxation, in WS, II, p. 460. 82. Ibid., p. 456. Charles Ritcheson argues that Burke's American policy was motivated primarily by domestic political considerations - i.e., the need to unite the Old Whig Ministry of Rockingham by discrediting its Grenvillite predecessors. See "Edmund Burke and the American Revolution", Sir George Watson Lecture (Leicester, 1976), p. 7. 83. Speech on Taxation, in WS, II, p. 457. 84. Ibid., p. 460. 200 Notes and References

85. Speech on Conciliation, in Works, I, p. 182. 86. Ibid. 87. Ibid. 88. Ibid. 89. Ibid, p. 186. 90. Ibid. 91. Ibid. 92. ZWrf., p. 189. David Boucher characterises this as a Realist argument: to "use force in suppressing the American spirit can only do harm to both the Americans and British, and would at once be a deviation from the Principles of Englishmen and from those of Americans." See "The philosophy of international relations", p. 145. 93. Speech on Conciliation, in Works, I, p. 192. 94. Ibid., p. 196. 95. Letter to Sheriffs, in Works, I, p. 219. Indeed, throughout the war, Burke laments the impact on Britain's national character of ruling "half the empire by a mercenary sword". The war had left "very few traces", he writes, "of that generosity, humanity, and dignity of mind, which formerly characterised this nation." (Ibid., p. 221; 222) 96. Cited in Mansfield, Selected Letters, p. 141. 97. Sheriffs, p. 219. 98. Early in his career, Burke was in fact a champion of the EIC, referring to it as a "great, glorious Company", and defending its autonomy against state interference. See Speech on East India Settlement, 27 February 1769, in WS, II, pp. 219-223 (221); and Speech on Chatham's East India Dividend Bill, 26 May 1767, in WS, II, pp. 64-67 (p. 65). 99. Speech on Fox's India Bill, in WS, V, pp. 385-86. The Bill proposed that management of the EIC be vested in a board of commissioners appointed by the House of Commons and Crown. 100. Ibid., p. 386. 101. Ibid, p. 425. 102. Speech on Fox's East India Bill, pp. 389-90. 103. Ibid. 104. See Courtney, op.cit, p. 135. 105. Speech on Bengal Judicature Bill, 27 June 1781, in WS, V, pp. 140-42 (p. 141). 106. WS, V, p. 383. 107. Wight, "Theory of Mankind", p. 78; 83. In particular, it is instructive to note the absence in Burke of the Revolutionist or "missionary" motive to rescue the Indians from despotism. While he admits that "their situation and their feelings were truly lamentable in the eyes of men enlightened by comparison", it is not Britain's responsibility to relieve them "from the bonds of mental slavery". Speech on Bengali, in WS, V, p. 141. 108. Speech on Rohilla War Charge, in WS, VI, p. 93. 109. Ibid, p. 109. 110. Speech Opening the Trial of Hastings, in WS, VI, pp. 457-58. Burke pushes for a continuation of the impeachment proceedings, even when his fellow parliamentarians question the expenditure of time and Notes and References 201

energy. (See Corr., VII, p. 148). The subsequent acquittal of Hastings by the in 1795 was one of the greatest defeats of Burke's career. 111. Ibid., p. 346. This extension of Natural Law to India is further evid• ence of Burke's Rationalist approach to Empire. See Wight, "Interna• tional Theory", p. 77. 112. For a summary of Burke's early years in Ireland, see R.B. McDowell, Introduction to WS, IX, Part II, pp. 389-394. McDowell argues that the significance of Burke's Irish heritage has been exaggerated: "If there were distinct national characteristics, they were for him of minor significance compared to the common literary and political heritage, the way of life, and the friendships shared by men of education, prop• erty, and enterprise in both countries." (p. 394) For an opposing view, see O'Brien, Introduction to The Reflections on the Revolution in France (Harmondsworth, 1969), pp. 35-41, and The Great Melody, Chapter 1. 113. O'Brien, Intro to Reflections, p. 75. 114. Letter to Sir Charles Bingham, 30 October 1773, in WS, IX, p. 493; pp. 489-90. 115. The disabilities against Catholics barred them from the legal and judi• cial professions, restricted their ownership of land, and prevented them from voting in county elections. Burke's critiques of these laws are set out in the Tract on the Popery Laws, in WS, IX, pp. 434-82. 116. Cited in Francis Canavan, "Edmund Burke as a Reformer", in The Relevance of Edmund Burke, edited by Peter J. Stanlis (New York, 1964), pp. 85-108 (p. 95). 117. It is interesting to note that while Burke in some respects behaved as an "Irish radical" during his days as a student at Trinity College, he rejected the option of independence from the very beginning. See Ayling, op.cit, pp. 8-9. 118. Cited in Mansfield, Selected Letters, p. 422. 119. Letter to Samuel Span, 23 April 1778, in WS, IX, pp. 507-13 (p. 508). 120. Cited in McDowell, Introduction to WS, IX, p. 396. 121. In fact, there are parallels between Burke's "law of detached empire" and Dante's medieval scheme for world monarchy. See S. J. Hemleben, Plans for Peace through Six Centuries (Chicago, 1943), p. 8. 122. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 130. 123. Ibid, p. 142. 124. Ibid., p. 141. In his Vindication of Natural Society, Burke attacks the anti-religious strain which he detects in the Rationalist ideas of the Enlightenment. See Conor Cruise O'Brien, "A Vindication of Edmund Burke", , December 17, 1990, pp. 28-35. 125. Fragment of a Speech on the Petition of Unitarians, 11 May 1792, in Works, II, pp. 474-79 (pp. 474-75). 126. Cited in Mansfield, Selected Letters, p. 286. 127. Vincent, "Edmund Burke", p. 207. 128. Speech on the Bill for the Reliefs of Protestant Dissenters, 1773, in Works, II, pp. 469-74 (p. 473). 129. Kramnick, op.cit, p. 33. 130. Cited in Mansfield, Selected Letters, p. 139; 137. This sentiment translates 202 Notes and References

into Burke's liberal policy of religious toleration, particularly concern• ing the Protestant Dissenters. 131. Works, VI, p. 368, cited in Davidson, "Natural Law", p. 493. 132. Cited in Mansfield, Selected Letters, p. 133. Even a spark of religious piety is enough to satisfy Burke: "Even the man, who does not hold revelation, yet who wishes that it were proved to him, who observes a pious silence with regard to it, such a man, though not a Christian, is governed by religious principles. Let him be tolerated in the coun• try." Speech on Protestant Dissenters, in Works, II, p. 473. 133. Speech in the Trial of Warren Hastings, in WS, VI, p. 302; 304. Burke's Scottish contemporary, David Hume, advocated a similar tolerance for diverse religious practices through his doctrine of the "natural history" of religions. This study of non-European religions was a common pre• occupation in Burke's time. See Marshall and Williams, The Great Map of Mankind, p. 120. 134. WS, VI, p. 305. 135. "The most horrid and cruel blow, that can be offered to civil society, is through atheism." These "infidels", he insists, "are outlaws of the constitution; not of this country, but of the human race. They are never, never to be supported, never to be tolerated." Speech on Prot• estant Dissenters, in Works, II, p. 473. 136. Vincent, "Edmund Burke", p. 206.

3. The Commonwealth of Europe

1. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 244. 2. Annual Register, 1772, cited in Cobban, Edmund Burke and the Revolt, p. 112. 3. Wight, "Western Values", p. 97. 4. First Letter on a Regicide Peace, in WS, IX, p. 248. 5. As Raymond Williams argues, the meaning of "culture" itself changed during the course of Burke's lifetime, shifting from a "process of hu• man training" (a culture of something), to signify "a whole way of life, material, intellectual, and spiritual". Thus, culture evolved from some• thing individual to something collective. See Williams, Culture and Society, p. 16. For Burke this collective culture exists internationally as well as domestically. 6. First Letter in WS, IX, p. 248. In keeping with his views on Empire, Burke conceives of an "Atlantic connection" to his Commonwealth. In his eyes, America has adopted all of the important institutions and sentiments suggested above, and is therefore as much a part of Europe as France or Spain: "I do not know why I should not include America among the European Powers, because she is of European origin; and has not yet... destroyed all traces of manners, laws, opinions, and usages which she drew from Europe ... even separated as it is by the ocean, it must be considered as a part of the European system." Third Letter, in Ibid., p. 325. 7. First Letter, in Ibid, p. 248. Notes and References 203

8. Denys Hay, Europe: The Emergence of an Idea, revised edition (Ed• inburgh, 1968), p. 96. The cultural influence of Christianity was par• ticularly evident in language, art and architecture. See also James loll, Europe: A Historian's View (Leeds, 1969). JoU holds Christianity and the Roman law heritage as common historical experiences for all European states. 9. Rousseau, Abstract and Judgement of Saint-Pierre's Project for Per• petual Peace (1756), in Hoffmann and Fidler, Rousseau and Interna• tional Relations, pp. 53-100 (p. 57). 10. There is in fact a striking similarity between Burke's conception of the Commonwealth of Europe and Voltaire's description. Hay, op.cit, p. 233. 11. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 248. 12. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 175. 13. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 248. 14. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 127. In this emphasis on manners and mores, Burke is again drawing heavily upon Montesquieu. See Spirit of the Laws, vol. I, Bk. xix, pp. 292-315. 15. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 248. 16. Ibid., p. 242. 17. Ibid., pp. 248-9. This notion of a common education suggests that Burke's system of manners is confined to the upper echelons of society. 18. Ibid, p. 249. 19. See Schlereth, The Cosmopolitan Ideal, p. 5. Where Burke differs, however, is in retaining a religious component in the common educa• tional experience. 20. This "Republic of Letters" was fostered through mechanisms such as the "Grand Tour", Learned Societies, and common review journals. Schlereth, op.cit, pp. 11-14. 21. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 195. 22. For an overview of the economic ideas of the Enlightenment, particu• larly those of Smith, Hume and Bentham, see Schlereth, op.cit, pp. 97-104. 23. Cited in Ibid, p. 100. 24. Hoffmann and Fidler, Introduction to Rousseau and International Re• lations, p. xlvi. "The historic union of the nations of Europe", writes Rousseau, "has entangled their rights and interest in a thousand com• plications ..." See Abstract and Judgement, in Ibid., p. 60. 25. Rousseau, Considerations on the Government of Poland (1772), in Ibid, pp. 162-96 (p. 168). 26. Ibid, p. 169. 27. Introduction, in Ibid., pp. xxxiv-xxxvii. Rousseau directed this advice to the Poles and the Corsicans. 28. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 247. 29. Felix Gilbert, "The 'New Diplomacy' of the Eighteenth Century", World Politics, vol. 4, no. 1 (October, 1951), pp. 1-39 (pp. 4-5). 30. Schlereth, op.cit, p. xii. 31. Ibid., p. xiii. The secular cosmopolitanism of the Enlightenment was 204 Notes and References

often used as a weapon against the religious establishment. See Manuel and Manuel, Utopian Thought, p. 410. 32. Therefore, while Kant disparaged the international lawyers of his day as "miserable comforters", Burke frequently appeals to the legal au• thority of thinkers such as Vattel. 33. Schlereth, op.cit, p. xii. 34. Gilbert, op.cit, p. 5. The essence of this universalism is captured by the French Utopian, Turgot, whose stated goal was to make "the bounda• ries of the political word become identical with those of the physical world". Cited in Ibid, pp. 3-4. 35. Wight, Systems of States, p. 18; "Theory of Mankind", pp. 49-50. Wight points to this trend in the Greek world, the Chinese system of warring states, and in and medieval Europe. See also Gerrit Gong, The Standard of "Civilization" in International Society (Oxford, 1984), p. 4. 36. I have discussed this notion of "the Other" more thoroughly else• where. See Iver B. Neumann and Jennifer M. Welsh, "The 'Other' in European Self-Definition: An Addendum to the Literature on Inter• national Society", Review of International Studies, vol. 17 (1991), pp. 327-48. 37. Schlereth, op.cit, p. xiii. 38. Burke's Annual Register took a particularly keen interest in publishing travel accounts from Asia and the New World. 39. Marshall and Williams, The Great Map of Mankind, p. 2. 40. Introduction to WS, VI, p. 20. 41. Letter to William Robertson, cited in Preface to Marshall and Williams, op.cit. It is noteworthy that Burke uses lower case when writing of the "barbarians". 42. Of particular importance were David Hume, William Robertson and , who challenged the orthodox view that human his• tory could be traced to a single point of origin, as described in the Bible. Ibid, pp. 91-93. 43. As Burke writes of the "savage": "But the same savage hath within him the seeds of the logician, the man of taste and breeding, the ora• tor, the statesman, the man of virtue, and the saint: which seeds, though planted in his mind by nature, yet, through want of culture and exer• cise, must be for ever buried, and be hardly perceivable by himself or others." See Annual Register, 1164, cited in Lester, An Analysis of Edmund Burke, p. 97. 44. Hay, op.cit, pp. 104-05. 45. Spirit of the Laws, vol. I, Bks. xiv-xviii. 46. Smith's four stages of economic production were hunting, shepherd• ing, agriculture, and commerce. 47. While most theories attributed backwardness to adverse environmen• tal and climatic conditions, there were often shades of racialism as well. Hume's essay, "Of National Characters", gives expression to this sense of European superiority: "I am apt to suspect the Negroes, and in general all the other species of men... to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilised nation of any other complexion Notes and References 205

than white, nor even any individual eminent in action or speculation." Cited in Marshall and Williams op.cit, p. 246. 48. In 1793 the British Parliament defeated clauses to a bill that would have compelled the British East India Company to work for the "re• ligious and moral improvement" of the Indians. See Marshall and Williams, op.cit, p. 122. 49. Marshall and Williams see this as part of a more general Enlighten• ment schizophrenia regarding non-Europeans: "For every writer yearn• ing for a half-forgotten pastoral existence, there was another complacently boastful of the technical wonders of his own age." Ibid., p. 197. 50. Burke was not immune to the common tendency to exaggerate the "savagery" of the American Indian. In a speech during the Wars of American Independence, he railed against the "mode of an Indian war", which exceeded "the ferocity of all barbarians mentioned in history". PH, 6 February 1778, cited in Ibid., p. 218. However, this description can be interpreted as an "enemy image" used within the context of war, rather than as a complete indictment of the "savage". 51. PH, vol. 29, 29 March 1791, 76-78. 52. Gulick, The Classical Balance, pp. 12-13. 53. The distinction between society and system is set out by Bull in The Anarchical Society, pp. 9-10. 54. Aron, Peace and War, p. 95. 55. See Neumann and Welsh, "The Other", pp. 338-43. 56. Hay, op.cit, p. 114. The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) made explicit refer• ence to the "respublica Christiana". Ibid, p. 118. 57. Gong, op.cit, p. 27. 58. Leibniz's "Christian Pansophic" vision is set out by Manuel and Manuel, op.cit, pp. 392-411. For a discussion of Penn and Saint-Pierre, see Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace, pp. 33-34. It is worth noting that Rousseau also excludes the Ottoman Empire from his conception of Europe. See Abstract and Judgement, in Hoffmann and Fidler, op.cit, p. 61. 59. Montesquieu defined "savages" as those in an early stage of existence, who remained in tribal groups and lacked a developed political sys• tem. 'Barbarians' were those who had shown a capacity to unite under some kind of political rule, even if their political systems were con• ceived as rudimentary, stagnant, and "uncivilised". Spirit of the Laws, vol. I, Bk. xviii, p. 276. 60. Burke speaks of the Ottoman Sultan as the "nearest of Asiatic Sover• eigns". Speech Opening the Trial of Hastings, in WS, VI, p. 354. 61. Third Letter, in WS, IX, pp. 299-300. 62. Wight, Systems of States, p. 34. 63. I am referring to Waltz's three-fold typology for explaining the causes of war. The first image locates the origins of war in human nature; the second image looks to the nature of the state and the domestic regime; and the third image examines the structure of the international system. See Kenneth Waltz, Man, the State, and War (New York, 1954), p. 101. 64. Wight, "Theory of International Society", pp. 41-42. 206 Notes and References

65. Wight, Systems of States, p. 153. 66. Aron, op.cit, p. 81. 67. Wight, Systems of States, p. 159. 68. Ibid, p. 41. 69. See Osiander, Peacemaking and International Legitimacy, pp. 138-40. Osiander believes these constitutional differences are significant enough to render Wight's term "dynastic legitimacy" inaccurate. Prior to 1789, Osiander argues, the legitimacy of a ruler stemmed not from his dy• nastic connections, but from his social background and the legality of his accession. Nonetheless, Osiander acknowledges the basic social homogeneity that underlay European international society prior to 1789: the "pyramid-shaped" social order where rank was largely deter• mined by birth, and where social mobility remained limited. (Ibid, p. 318). 70. Aron, op.cit, p. 80. 71. Wight, Systems of States, p. 163. 72. As will be argued in Part II, Burke campaigns vigorously against Charles Fox's advocacy of using the principle of popular legitimacy - i.e., that "the People" should decide on the Government to which they wished to belong - to settle territorial disputes with France. 73. Gulick, op.cit, p. 19. 74. Remarks on the Policy of the Allies, in WS, VIII, p. 486. 75. Bull, The Anarchical Society, p. 245. 76. This philosophy is outlined by Gilbert in "The 'New Diplomacy'", pp. 11-13. As Gilbert explains, the chief interest of the philosophes was the presentation of a new program of interior policy. Their neglect of foreign policy was conscious - reflecting the belief that in a reformed world ruled by reason, the question of foreign affairs would be of little relevance. 77. The link between and peace became a consistent theme for the Enlightenment cosmopolitanists. It is articulated most fully by in his Plan for an Universal and Perpetual Peace. See Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace, p. 83. 78. In the century preceding the French Revolution, when intellectual and commercial exchanges between France and Britain were at their height, the two countries were at war for 54 out of 126 years. See Joll, op.cit, p. 10. 79. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 248. 80. Wight, Systems of States, p. 162. As Wight argues, while the dynastic principle of legitimacy was rooted in custom rather than doctrine, at times it showed a tendency to develop into an ideology of "interna• tional dynasticism". An obvious example is the "Holy Alliance" of Metternich and Alexander I. See "Theory of International Society", in International Theory, p. 42. 81. Bull, The Anarchical Society, p. 248. 82. Third Letter, in WS, IX, p. 327. 83. Hinsley, Nationalism, p. 71. 84. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 248. 85. Emer de Vattel, Le Droit des Gens, Bk. Ill, Chap, iii, para. 47. Notes and References 207

86. Ibid, Bk. I, Chap, i, para. 10. 87. Hinsley, Nationalism, p. 72. 88. Brimmer, Emer de Vattel, pp. 18-26, esp. p. 20. 89. Ibid, p. 43. 90. Linklater, Men and Citizens, p. 92. 91. Brimmer, op.cit, p. 80. 92. Wight lists these prerequisites as: "sovereign states that could effec• tively and continuously organize their human and territorial resources; a diplomatic system that provided them with a regular flow of infor• mation; and a sufficient sense of common interest among them." See Wight, "The Balance of Power", p. 86. 93. Hemleben, Plans for Peace, p. 19. The earlier projects of Emeric Cruce and the due de Sully were the most frequent sources of inspiration for Penn and Saint-Pierre. 94. Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace, p. 42. Because of this under• lying belief that sovereignties already coexisted in a single community, these theorists were often indifferent to the more specific question of whether the union should be a confederal alliance or one federal state. 95. Cobban, Edmund Burke and the Revolt, p. 112. 96. Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace, p. 36. By the 1760s, Hinsley remarks, "Europe was approaching a greater near-equality of effective resources between a large number of states than it had ever known in its history." Nationalism, p. 81. 97. Under Article IV of Saint-Pierre's project, any exchange of territory was deemed to require union consent. See Abrege du Pro jet de Paix Perpetuelle, cited in Hemleben, op.cit, p. 60. 98. See, for example, William Penn, Essay towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe (1693), cited in Ibid., p. 52. 99. The essence of the idea was most fully developed by Cruce in 1623: "Peace being established between all Princes, all the Sovereigns ... would not have much difficulty to make themselves obeyed by their people " Cruce, Nouveau Cynee, cited in Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace, p. 21. 100. The Second Fundamental Article of the Abrege promised speedy as• sistance to any sovereign confronting sedition or rebellion, while the Third Article committed the union to prevent any harm being done to either the royal personage or royal prerogative. See Hemleben, op.cit, pp. 60-64. 101. Saint-Pierre, Abrege, cited in Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit, p. 42. Even Rousseau's federal scheme sought to preserve a territorial and political status quo, guaranteeing "to each sovereign not only that his dominions shall be protected against foreign invasion, but also that his authority shall be upheld against the rebellion of his subjects." Rousseau, Abstract and Judgement, in Hoffmann and Fidler, op.cit, pp. 80-81. Rousseau, however, did not share the same faith in the "enlightened" nature of sovereigns. Because they acted according to their apparent rather than real interests, they would be unable to agree to form a federation. Ibid, pp. 87-88. 102. This distinction between internal sovereignty - supremacy over all 208 Notes and References

authorities within a given territory and population - and external sov• ereignty - independence from outside authorities - is made by Bull. See The Anarchical Society, p. 8. 103. Hemleben, op.cit, p. 67. 104. Osiander, op.cit, p. 111. 105. This theoretical issue of homogeneity vs. heterogeneity is addressed by Fred Halliday in "The Sixth Great Power", pp. 217-13.

PART II THE CONSERVATIVE CRUSADER

Introduction

1. First Letter on a Regicide Peace, in WS, IX, p. 199. 2. Second Letter on a Regicide Peace, in Ibid., p. 290. 3. Reid, Edmund Burke and the Practice of Political Writing, p. 42. 4. This is the title of a book by Isaac Kramnick. 5. Mitchell, Introduction to WS, VIII, p. 15. 6. Cited in Kramnick, op.cit, pp. 39, 40. 7. Corr., VII, pp. 346-47 (p. 347). As a junior official in the Prussian Government, Gentz had initially welcomed the French Revolution. Later, as a close associate of Metternich, he became a vehement op• ponent of liberal and revolutionary movements. 8. John Ehrman, The Younger Pitt: The Reluctant Transition, vol. II (Lon• don, 1983), p. 80. 9. Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, cited in Mitchell, op.cit, p. 16; Papers of Thomas Jefferson, cited in Ibid., p. 13. As Mitchell shows, Paine wrote to Burke in January of 1790 to report on the progression of the Revolution, expecting a sympathetic ear. See Corr., VI, pp. 67- 75. 10. Reid, op.cit, p. 1. 11. Stanlis, Burke and the Natural Law, pp. 247-48.1 shall return to Burke's legacy in the conclusion. 12. Second Letter, in WS, IX, p. 271. 13. Ceadel, Thinking about Peace and War, pp. 44-6. 14. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 131. As Ceadel notes, in practice it is difficult to make clean distinctions between "domestic" and "interna• tional" crusades. For many thinkers, a crusade which produces a better domestic regime will also produce one which is less of a threat to the international system, (op.cit, p. 45) 15. Ceadel, op.cit, p. 45. 16. Speeches, IV, cited in O'Gorman, Edmund Burke, p. 128. 17. The parameters of the British debate are set out in The Debate on the French Revolution: 1789-1800, edited by Alfred Cobban (London, 1950). 18. Cobban argues that Paine's Rights of Man "crystallized extreme opin• ion on one side of the controversy", just as Burke's Reflections did on Notes and References 209

the other (op.cit, p. 16). Other prominent pamphleteers included Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (London, 1985), and Sir James Mackintosh, Defence of the French Revolution and its English Admirers (Dublin, 1791). Both wrote in direct response to Burke. The impact of these writings was strengthened by the rise of a number of popular reformist societies concerned with questions of political and constitutional change. The most active were the London Corresponding Society, formed by Thomas Hardy, and the Society for Constitutional Information, which had branches established in several cities throughout Britain. The activity of these societies is analysed by Clive Emsley in British Society and the French Wars: 1793-1815 (Lon• don, 1979), p. 25. 19. During the Parliamentary Debate on the Army Estimates in February of 1790, Fox suggested that post-revolutionary France no longer pre• sented a threat to the British state, and therefore offered Britain a golden opportunity to decrease public expenditure on its military. PH, vol. 28, 5 February 1790, 332. James Joll describes Fox's as representative of the "idealism of the Left" which has often character• ised British foreign policy debates. This idealism includes features such as the romantic adoption of foreign causes; the fear of expenditure on armaments; a belief in open diplomacy and the peaceful settlement of disputes; a critique of the amoralism of Realpolitik; and the demand for clear statements of war aims. See Britain and Europe: Pitt to Church• ill, 1793-1940, (Oxford, 1950), pp. 17-18. This philosophy adopts many tenets of the "New Diplomacy" outlined in Chapter 3. 20. PH, vol. 28, 9 February 1790, 351. 21. T.C.W. Blanning, The Origins of the French Revolutionary Wars (Lon• don, 1986), p. 47. 22. Joll, op.cit, p. 18. As Burke himself would proclaim in the House of Commons in 1791: "Holland might justly be considered as necessary a part of this country as Kent." PH, vol. 29, 29 March 1791, 77. British influence in the Low Countries was reasserted just prior to the Revo• lution, when in 1787 Britain combined with Prussia to preserve the power of the House of Orange and thwart French "republican" de• signs in the United Provinces. See Paul Langford, The Eighteenth Century, 1688-1815 (London, 1976), pp. 194-95. The Low Countries have remained a fundamental British concern well into the twentieth century. As Austen Chamberlain wrote in 1931: "It was to secure the independence of the Low Countries that we fought Spain in the 16th century, that we fought in the nineteenth, and that we fought Germany in the twentieth." Cited in John Clarke, British Diplomacy and Foreign Policy, 1782-1865 (London, 1989), pp. 9-10. 23. This narrower conception of British national interest was partially the result of the Ochakov Affair of 1791. This foreign policy debacle saw Pitt's fellow parliamentarians reject his balance of power scheme to prop up Britain's Prussian ally and oppose 's bid to retain the Black Sea port of Ochakov. (See PH, vol. 29, 1 April 1791, 80-86.) The incident is dealt with at length in Ehrman, op.cit, pp. 3-37. As Ehrman shows, Pitt's defeat during this crisis was a stark 210 Notes and References

reminder of the limited tolerance for any expansion of British activity on the continent beyond the proximate territories of the Low Coun• tries, and had a profound impact on later debates regarding the wis• dom of intervention in France. 24. Vincent, "Edmund Burke", p. 209. Clarke claims that Pitt's maxim of nonintervention has become a defining feature of British foreign policy. (op.cit, p. 11.) Similarly, Joll argues that it was during the Revolution• ary Wars that Britain's attitude toward European affairs became a "tradition". See op.cit, p. 2. 25. Langford, op.cit, p. 37. 26. This term was used by Fox in a debate with Burke over the alleged "rottenness" of the internal system in France. See PH, vol. 30, 8 Feb• ruary 1793, 424. 27. PH, vol. 30, 1 February 1793, 279. Of particular concern to Britain were the battle at Jemappes (November 6), in which the Austrians were expelled from Belgium, and the opening of the river Scheldt (November 16), which abrogated long-standing treaty agreements between Britain, France and Holland dating back to the Treaty of Westphalia. Pitt's Realist justification for Britain's "defensive" use of force can be found in the parliamentary debate that followed the French Convention's declaration of war. PH, vol. 30, 12 February 1793, 352- 60.

4. Burke's Reaction to the French Revolution 1. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 131. 2. PH, vol. 28, 9 February 1790, 367. 3. Works, VI, p. 369, cited in Canavan, "Edmund Burke as a Reformer", in The Relevance of Edmund Burke, ed. PJ. Stanlis (New York, 1964), pp. 85-108; Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 72. 4. Reflections, p. 72. 5. Ibid, p. 146. 6. Ibid, p. 216. 7. Letter to William Elliot, in WS, IX, pp. 29-44 (p. 40). 8. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 84. 9. Works, VI, p. 369, cited in Canavan, op.cit, p. 92. 10. Ibid. As noted earlier, Burke urged Catholics in Ireland not to rush into a relaxation of the Penal Laws before "the Temper of the nation was ripe for a real reformation " Cited in Mansfield, Selected Let• ters, p. 143. 11. Speech on Economical Reform (1780), in Works, pp. 228-55 (p. 232). 12. Canavan, op.cit, p. 93. This point can be illustrated through Burke's position on the Abolition of the Slave Trade. In 1780, Burke set forth his Sketch of a Negro Code, which advocates not outright abolition of the trade, but rather regulation leading gradually to extinction. (Works, II, pp. 420-28) The preamble captures Burke's maxim of gradualism: "during the time of the continuance of the said practices, it is desirable and expedient, by proper regulations, to lessen the inconveniences and evils attendant on the said traffick and state of servitude, until both Notes and References 111

shall be gradually done away " (p. 421) See also Corr., VII, pp. 123-24. In April 1792 the Commons accepted Burke's principle of gradual abolition (to be completed by 1807) and vowed to regulate the trade in the intervening period. 13. Speech on Economical Reform, in Works, I, p. 232. This preference for timely concessions is best portrayed in Burke's treatment of the American crisis. 14. Michael Freeman, Burke and the Critique of Political Radicalism, p. 174. 15. Ibid, p. 175. 16. Works, IV, p. 407, cited in Freeman, op.cit, p. 111. 17. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 81. 18. Ibid. 19. Corr., VI, p. 48. 20. "Let sleeping dogs lie." Cited in Mansfield, Selected Letters, p. 154. 21. Mansfield, Selected Letters, p. 241. 22. PH, vol. 28, 9 February 1790, 361. 23. Ibid, 362. 24. First Letter on a Regicide Peace, in WS, IX, p. 190. 25. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 85. 26. Plamenatz, Man and Society, p. 362; Cobban, Edmund Burke and the Revolt, p. 120. 27. Reflections, in WS, VIII, pp. 112-15. 28. Michael Freeman, "Burke and the Theory of Revolution", Political Theory, vol. 6 (1978), pp. 277-99 (p. 280). 29. Nisbet, Conservatism, pp. 80-81. 30. As Fasel observes, Burke took very little notice of the French govern• ment's calamitous financial situation before 1789. (Edmund Burke, p. 93.) This economic malaise, in part brought on by wars in North America and on the continent, is held by Theda Skocpol to be one of the primary causes of the Revolution. See States and Social Revolu• tions (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 51-67. Simon Schama, who also notes the "oceans of debt" which existed in France in the 1780s, argues that it was specific fiscal policies of the old regime, rather than structural economic problems, which precipitated the downfall of the French Monarchy. See Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (New York, 1989), pp. 60-71. 31. Letter to William Elliot, in WS, IX, p. 39. 32. Second Letter on a Regicide Peace, in Ibid., p. 291. 33. Ibid, pp. 291, 292. 34. Freeman, Burke and the Critique, p. 198. While Burke campaigns vig• orously for monarchical restoration, he claims that he could not, "with a good heart, and clear conscience, go to the establishment of a mo• narchical despotism in the place of this system of Anarchy." Corr., VI, p. 414. For a further discussion of Burke's hesitations about the ancien regime, see Robert A. Smith, "Burke's Crusade against the French Revolution: Principles and Prejudices", Burke Newsletter, vol. 7 (1966), pp. 552-69. 35. Thoughts on French Affairs, in WS, VIII, p. 374. 212 Notes and References

36. Corr., VI, p. 242. 37. Thoughts, in WS, VIII, p. 374. 38. Second Letter, in WS, IX, p. 290. 39. In particular, Burke points to the debate between those who favoured a maritime strategy for France, and those who sought to build up her pre-eminence on the continent. On the subject of aggrandisement "there was but one mind: but two violent factions arose about the means." Ibid, p. 280. As Schama notes, this schism was never really resolved, leading to a duplicative and expensive foreign policy: "No other Euro• pean power attempted to support both a major continental army and a transcontinental navy at the same time." Citizens, p. 62. 40. Second Letter, in WS, IX, p. 283. 41. Ibid.,p.2M. 42. Cobban, The Debate, p. 4. See also Ian R. Christie, Wars and Revolu• tions. Britain 1760-1815 (London, 1982), p. 212. While the French Revolution can in retrospect be recognised as one of the most decisive events for European international relations, it was some time before the struggle became the dominant theme in European affairs. The destruction of Poland and the fate of the Ottoman Empire remained salient and often overriding issues for the major powers in the first few years of the Revolution, and the notion that 1789 might spread to other states was not yet taken seriously. Hence, a pamphlet produced by the Austrian chancellor entitled "Reflections on the Pretended dangers of Contagion with Which the New Constitution of France Menaces Other Sovereign States", dismissed the idea of the French Revolution having international consequences. See Gordon Craig and Alexander George, Force and Statecraft, Second Edition (New York, 1990), p. 25. 43. Ehrman, op.cit, p. 37. 44. Corr., VI, p. 10. 45. As Burke writes in November: "[It] would ill become Me to be too ready in forming a positive opinion upon matters transacted in a Country, with the correct, political Map of which I must be very im• perfectly acquainted." Corr., VI, p. 41. 46. As McKay and Scott observe, Britain and France had been locked in a "second Hundred Years War" for much of the eighteenth century, interrupted only by "peaces that turned out to be truces", (op.cit, p. 45) Therefore, rather than fearing the possibility of a revolutionary foreign policy from the new republic, British observers welcomed the elimination of traditional French economic and political rivalry. (Ibid., p. 274) 47. PH, vol. 28, 9 February 1790, 353. 48. Ibid, 354. Indeed, T.C.W. Blanning suggests that the most common early British response to the Revolution might be described as schadenfreude - taking pleasure in other people's misfortunes, (op.cit, p. 132) This attitude was exemplified by Britain's Foreign Secretary, Carmathen. "I defy the ablest Heads in England", he stated in July of 1789, "to have planned, or its whole Wealth to have purchased, a Notes and References 213

Situation so fatal to its Rival, as that to which France is now reduced." Cited in Ibid., p. 4. 49. Corr., VI, p. 42. 50. Ibid., p. 36. I shall return later to Burke's ideas on France's place in the balance of power after restoration of the ancien regime. 51. PH, vol. 28, 9 February 1790, 353; 367; 354. 52. Cobban, Introduction to Corr., VI, p. xi. 53. Corr., VI, p. 10. 54. Ibid, pp. 26, 25. 55. Ibid., p. 46. 56. As Leslie Mitchell notes, the "speed with which his mind was made up startled critics and led to speculations about his real motives in pro• nouncing on France so quickly." See Introduction to WS, VIII, p. 6. 57. The Society was instituted to commemorate the English Revolution of 1688. It met annually on November 4th in order to celebrate the birth• day of William III. 58. Cited in Mitchell, Introduction to WS, VIII, p. 7. 59. Conor Cruise O'Brien, "A Vindication of Edmund Burke", The National Review, December 17, 1990, pp. 28-35, (p. 30). The early sections of the Reflections are devoted to countering Price's sermon. 60. Corr., VI, pp. 67-75 (p. 71). As Cobban notes, since the two men had been on the same side of the American Revolution, Paine assumed that Burke would share his views on the French Revolution. 61. PH, vol. 28, 9 February 1790, 356-57. 62. PH, vol. 28, 2 March 1790, pp. 436-7. These seventeenth-century enactments prevented Dissenters from holding public office unless they subscribed to a sacramental test. While Burke did not have any quar• rel with their Repeal, he was wary of the proclivity of the Dissenters to base their claims on the "abstract rights of men". See also Corr., VI, pp. 83, 102. 63. See Observations on the Conduct of the Minority (1793), in WS, VIII, pp. 402-51. 64. This second aspect of Burke's crusade is set out most clearly in Thoughts on French Affairs (1791), in WS, VIII, pp. 338-85; and in Remarks on the Policy of the Allies (1793), in Ibid, pp. 452-99. 65. Mitchell, Introduction to WS, VIII, p. 34. 66. Corr., VII, p. 305. 67. A notable exception is Michael Freeman. See "Burke and the Theory of Revolution", p. 294. 68. Corr., VI, p. 459. 69. Fourth Letter on a Regicide Peace, in WS, IX, p. 106. 70. Second Letter, in Ibid, p. 267. 71. First Letter, in Ibid., pp. 240-42. See also Vincent, "Edmund Burke", p. 209. Vilho Harle's treatment of Burke focuses almost exclusively on the religious threat to Europe, and neglects the other pillars of Burke's Commonwealth. (See European Values in International Relations) 72. Corr., VII, p. 60. In this letter, Burke estimates that ten thousand "heads of respectable families" had been driven out of France. As the 214 Notes and References

editors note, modern research indicates that this is a considerable exaggeration. 73. Letter to a Member, in WS, VIII, p. 333. 74. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 241. In his crusade against Jacobinism, Burke is especially critical of the "levelling" ideas of French Revolutionaries such as Saint-Just. Saint-Just's ideal polity was one stripped of aristo• cratic, commercial and Church wealth, and composed solely of peas• ants, artisans, and shopkeepers. See Manuel and Manuel, Utopian Thought, p. 565. 75. Cited in Mansfield, Selected Letters, p. 347. For more on Burke's treat• ment of Jacobinism, see O'Gorman, Edmund Burke, p. 124. 76. Corr., VII, p. 388. 77. Ibid. 78. PH, vol. 28, 9 February 1790, 358. 79. Following the of 1792, Burke became involved in a committee to raise money for the relief of the French clergy. See Corr., VII, pp. 219-21. 80. PH, vol. 30, 12 February 1793, 386. In his attacks on the French athe• ists, Burke holds up Condorcet for particular abuse: "That wretched man stands as a great example, to shew that when the heart is vitiated nothing can be sound " Corr., VI, p. 478. 81. Remarks, in WS, VIII, p. 485. 82. PH, vol. 30, 28 December 1792, 188. 83. Letter to William Elliot, in WS, IX, p. 36; Second Letter, in Ibid, p. 279. 84. Kramnick, The Rage of Edmund Burke, p. 31. 85. The excerpt most often cited is Burke's description of the queen as he saw here in 1773: "It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delight• ful vision little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour and of . I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult." Reflections, in WS, VIII, pp. 126-27. O'Brien refers to this as the most famous passage in the Reflections. See The Great Melody, p. 406. 86. PH, vol. 30, 12 February 1793, 385. 87. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 240. 88. Ibid, p. 241. 89. Ibid, p. 242. 90. Observations on Late State of the Nation, in WS, II, p. 214. Burke is especially appalled by the "debauched" moral code of the revolution• aries, and charges them with practices of sexual promiscuity, divorce, drunkenness, and even cannibalism: "Their society was more like that of a den of outlaws upon a doubtful frontier; of a lewd tavern for the revels and debauches of banditti, assassins, bravos, smugglers, and their more desperate paramours " First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 247. In this critique, Burke is responding to the "new regime domestique" being Notes and References 215

propagated by some of the more extreme French radicals, such as the . As Manuel and Manuel explain, aside from forward• ing new conceptions of politics and property relations, such radicals also challenged the established orthodoxy on monogamy and patriar• chy. (See Utopian Thought, pp. 535-35.) 91. Reflections, in WS, VIII, pp. 127-8. 92. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 247. 93. Reid, Edmund Burke and the Practice of Political Writing, p. 48. In the words of Reid: "As an aesthetician and man of letters (as well as a statesman) he was quick to spot the currents of a cultural revolution." 94. PH, vol. 28, 9 February 1790, 359. 95. Ibid, 351-8. 96. Remarks, in WS, VIII, p. 462. Post-1945 East European intellectuals discuss the notion of "civil society" in a strikingly similar way. For them, intermediate institutions were essential in undercutting the arbitrary power of the totalitarian regime. See T.G. Ash, The Uses of Adversity (New York, 1989), pp. 193-95; 270-74. 97. PH, vol. 30, 13 December 1792, 53. 98. Thoughts, in WS, VIII, p. 341. 99. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 253. The assertion that 1789 is more than a revolution of "persons and forms" suggests that Burke has in mind something akin to the modern notion of a social revolution. According to Sigmund Neumann's definition, a social revolution goes beyond reform of a state's political authority structure to encompass changes in "social structure, economic property control and the predominant myth of social order". See "The International Civil War", World Poli• tics, vol. 1, no. 1 (April, 1949), pp. 333-34. Theda Skocpol's definition also underscores the impertome of social as well as political change. See op.cit, p. 4. 100. Letter to a Noble Lord, in WS, IX, p. 147. 101. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 252. 102. Ibid. 103. O'Brien, "A Vindication of Edmund Burke", p. 28. 104. In a letter to Earl Fitzwilliam, he refers to 1789 as that "Grand Revo• lution in Human affairs which has begun in France." Corr., VI, p. 450. 105. Corr., VII, p. 174. 106. PH, vol. 29, 6 May 1791, 371. 107. Corr., VI, p. 416. 108. Thoughts, in WS, VIII, p. 354. 109. Ibid, p. 352. As he writes in the Remarks: "If Spain goes, Naples will speedily follow; Prussia is quite certain, and thinks of nothing but making a market of the present confusions. Italy is broken and di• vided; Switzerland is Jacobinized, I am afraid, completely." WS, VIII, p. 483. 110. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 199. 111. Corr., VII, p. 177. The italics are Burke's. 112. Corr., VI, p. 419. 113. Fourth Letter, in WS, IX, p. 115. Burke later extends the fear of 216 Notes and References

contagion to the colonies: "if a single Rock in the West Indies is in the hands of this transatlantic Morocco, we have not an hour's safety there." Ibid., p. 99. 114. Third Letter, in WS, IX, pp. 316-17. 115. Ibid, p. 339. 116. Ibid, pp. 383-84. 117. Ibid, pp. 354-55. 118. Fourth Letter, in WS, IX, p. 110. 119. Thoughts, in WS, VIII, p. 341. The italics are Burke's. 120. Third Letter, in WS, IX, p. 310. Burke focuses much of his fury on the dispersal by English radicals of pamphlets which "publicly avowed doctrines tending to alienate the minds of all who read them from the constitution of their country." See PH, vol. 29, 11 May 1791. 121. John Weston, Jr., "Burke's View of History", p. 226. 122. Thoughts, in WS, VIII, p. 341. 123. Ibid, p. 342. 124. Aron, Peace and War, p. 101. As a non-religious precedent, Burke harks back to the "Aristocratick and Democratick Factions" which dominated the politics of ancient Greece. Although they differed from religious affiliation, these conflicting "political concerning the constitution of a Republick" were used by Athens and Sparta to keep "alive a constant cabal and conspiracy in every State" and "were the great instruments by which these leading States chose to aggrandize themselves." Thoughts, in WS, VIII, p. 343. In the present instance, Burke reasons, France serves as the head of the democratic factions, just as Athens had acted as "the head and settled ally of all democratick factions" in ancient Greece. Ibid., p. 345. As evidence for the presence of these factions in England, Burke refers to the Revolution Society, the Dissenters, and to "all those who hate the Clergy, and envy the Nobility". 125. Thoughts, in WS, VIII, p. 383. 126. Avignon was incorporated into France in September of 1791. 127. Thoughts, in WS, VIII, pp. 362, 354. 128. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 240. 129. Thoughts, in WS, VIII, p. 352. Refer to Chapter 1 for Burke's views on France as the "linch-pin" of the European balance of power. 130. Ibid, p. 347. 131. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 239. 132. Corr., VII, p. 176. 133. Second Letter, in WS, IX, p. 289. 134. Third Letter, in Ibid, p. 340. 135. Second Letter, in Ibid., p. 267. 136. Third Letter, in Ibid, p. 339. 137. Fourth Letter, in Ibid., p. 92. 138. Heads for Consideration on the Present State of Affairs (1792), in WS, VIII, pp. 386-402 (p. 402). 139. Fourth Letter, in WS, IX, p. 58. 140. Corr., VII, p. 387. 141. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 193. Notes and References 111

142. Preface to Brissofs Address to His Constituents, in WS, VIII, pp. 500- 21 (pp. 519-20).

5. Interventionism

1. Vincent, "Edmund Burke", p. 209. 2. Corr., VI, p. 211. 3. Ibid., pp. 217-19. 4. Ibid., p. 211. 5. Ibid. 6. Letter to a Member, in WS, VIII, pp. 305-06. 7. Corr., VI, p. 242. 8. Ibid, p. 211. 9. Letter to a Member, in WS, VIII, p. 307. Burke is referring to Prussian action on behalf of the Ottoman Empire in May 1790. 10. Corr., VI, pp. 241-42. 11. PH, vol. 29, 6 May 1791, 371. 12. Ibid,386. 13. Ibid., p. 386. It was during this debate in the House that the famous breach between Fox and Burke occurred. 14. "It is high time to save our sister", he declared, "and suppress this pernicious French epidemic." Blanning, op.cit, p. 86. 15. For more on this Declaration, see William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution (Oxford, 1990), pp. 156-57. 16. Corr., VI, p. 258. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid, pp. 300-01. 19. Cobban, Introduction to Corr., VI, p. xviii. Two schemes emerged from the meeting between Richard and the Comte de Provence at Coblenz. First, an ambassador for the emigres, the Chevalier de la Bintinaye, was to be sent to England as a formal channel of commu• nication. From September onward, Burke tried to set up meetings between the Chevalier and Pitt's Ministry. (See Corr., VI, 394-96; 431-32). Second, a formal treaty was to be contracted between the exiled princes and King George, with the express aim of re-establish• ing royal authority in France. (See also MS. Notes at Sheffield, Bk. 10.22) 20. See Corr., VI, p. 339, fn. 1. As Cobban notes, Marie Antoinette had written to the Austrian Emperor on July 30th warning him of the hazards of attempted foreign invasion. See Ibid., p. 348, fn. 4. 21. Corr., VI, pp. 350-51. 22. Ibid, 353. 23. Ibid., p. 377. At Pillnitz, the Austrians and Prussians had qualified their declaration, claiming that they would not commit themselves to action without support from a coalition that included Britain. For its part, Britain kept its distance from the conference at Pillnitz. Indeed, the Declaration was described by Britain's Ambassador at the Hague, Lord Auckland, as "ill-conceived and undignified." (Cited in Blanning, 218 Notes and References

op.cit, p. 133.) This stance was reiterated by Grenville, the new For• eign Secretary, when he asserted Britain's "most scrupulous neutrality in the French business." (Cited in Ehrman, op.cit, p. 42.) 24. Corr., VI, p. 421-22. 25. Ibid., p. 422. At the very least, Burke demands that the British Gov• ernment permit Emperor Leopold to withdraw troops from the Aus• trian Netherlands for use in the campaign against France. Ibid., pp. 400-01. 26. Ibid, p. 404. 27. The Thoughts were published posthumously in 1797, as part of the Three Memorials on French Affairs. Burke's influence on the ministers was minimal, and they responded to the Thoughts with little or no comment. (See Corr., VII, p. 81) 28. Thoughts, in WS, VIII, p. 339. 29. Ibid, p. 340. The spelling of "it's" is Burke's. 30. Ibid. 31. Ibid, pp. 340-41. Here, Burke is particularly concerned with the calls from Fox and his Whig colleagues for recognition of the French re• gime. Citing historical precedent, Fox would later suggest that the French Republic deserved recognition as much as Cromwell's England or the American Republic. See PH, vol. 30, 4 December 1792, 65-67. 32. Thoughts, in NS, VIII, p. 341. 33. Thoughts, in WS, VIII, pp. 362-68. Burke specifically challenges the notion, held in some circles, that because the regime in France was financially unstable, it was unlikely to survive for long. See Ibid., p. 368. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid, pp. 384-85. 36. Corr., VII, p. 167. 37. Ibid, pp. 176-77. 38. One exception to Britain's neutrality was its quick response to calls for independence by the Austrian Netherlands. Nonetheless, British ac• tion was aimed not so much at the revolt of the provinces per se, but at fears of French control of the Channel. (See Ehrman, op.cit, p. 49.) 39. PH, vol. 29, 17 February 1792, 826. This reduction was based on the government's estimate that war was not the most likely outcome of events in Europe. In the East, the danger of conflict seemed to have lessened with the end to the Russo-Turkish War. And in the West, any result could be tolerated provided it did not jeopardise British pre• eminence in the Low Countries. Even if war did break out, France seemed to be in no position to defeat its Austrian or Prussian oppo• nents. (See Ehrman, op.cit, p. 52.) 40. Ehrman, op.cit, p. 53. 41. Not only indifference, but outright contempt, was often shown by the British for the Prussians and the Austrians. In responding to Prussia's failures on the battlefield, Grenville stated: "we had the wit to keep ourselves out of the glorious enterprize ... and ... were not tempted by the hope of sharing the spoils in the division of France, nor by the prospect of crushing all democratic principles all over the world." Cited in Ehrman, op.cit, p. 205. Notes and References 219

42. Corr., VII, pp. 271-2. 43. Heads for Consideration, in WS, VIII, p. 392. 44. Ibid. 45. PH, vol. 30, 28 December 1792, 183. 46. Heads for Consideration, in WS, VIII, p. 395. As Mitchell explains, the Austrians and Prussians shared Pitt's caution about forging links with the Royalists or the emigres, for fear of suggesting that Brunswick's army "had the intention of restoring the ancien regime in all its as• pects. Such an impression was unlikely to win the confidence of mod• erate opinion within France, whose support might be crucial for the success of the undertaking." See Ibid., p. 393, fn. 2. Blanning also argues that the Austrians and Prussians were motivated more by Realist concerns than ideology. (See op.cit, pp. 120-23.) 47. Ibid, p. 399. 48. Corr., VII, p. 232. 49. Ibid, p. 219. 50. PH, vol. 30, 12 February 1793, 386-87. Burke is responding to the speech of the Earl of Lauderdale, who warned parliamentarians of the economic disadvantages of severing the 1786 Anglo-French Commer• cial Treaty. 51. PH, vol. 30, 15 December 1792, 112. 52. Heads for Consideration, in WS, VIII, p. 390. 53. Ibid, p. 391. 54. Ibid. 55. Ibid, p. 399. 56. Ibid. 57. Corr., VII, p. 309. 58. PH, vol. 30, 14 December 1792, 72-73. Burke is responding to the Fraternal Decree of November 19th, in which the French Revolution• aries promise "fraternity and assistance to all people who wish to re• cover their liberty." (See Doyle, op.cit, p. 199.) 59. PH, vol. 30, 15 December 1792, 115. 60. First Letter on a Regicide Peace, in WS, IX, p. 252. 61. Anderson, "Eighteenth Century Theories of the Balance of Power", pp. 190-91. 62. Wight, "The Balance of Power", p. 103. As Wight notes, wars which modified only a particular distribution of power (e.g. the wars between 1713 and 1792) must be distinguished from those which endangered international order at large, by threatening to destroy the balance al• together (e.g. the French Revolutionary Wars). 63. This distinction between an "automatic" and "contrived" balance of power was set out in Chapter 1. 64. Walzer, lust and Unjust Wars, p. 76. For a further discussion of the compatibility between intervention and the balance of power, see Stanley Hoffmann, "The Problem of Intervention", Intervention and World Politics, edited by Hedley Bull (Oxford, 1984), pp. 7-29. 65. Vincent, "Edmund Burke", p. 209. 66. Third Letter, in WS, IX, p. 306. 67. Corr., VII, p. 176. 220 Notes and References

68. Ibid. 69. Appendix to Three Memorials on French Affairs Written in the Years 1791, 1792, and 1793. By the Late Right Hon. Edmund Burke, (Lon• don, 1797). A series of extracts from Vattel's Le Droit des Gens, com• plete with Burke's annotations, are included in this 1797 edition. The relevant excerpt is from Le Droit des Gens, Bk. II, chap. 4, para. 53. The italics are Burke's. 70. In an annotation to the preceding quotation, Burke adds the following list of attempts by the revolutionaries to "raise domestic troubles" as pretexts for intervention: "This the case of France - Semonville at Turin - Jacobin clubs - Liegeois meeting - Flemish meeting - La Fayette's answer - Cloots's embassy - Avignon". 71. Appendix to Three Memorials (Bk. II, chap. 4, para. 70.) 72. After the asterisk, Burke provides the following evidence for the vio• lation of right: "The French acknowledge no power not directly ema• nating from the people." 73. Remarks on the Policy of the Allies, in WS, IX, p. 474. 74. In his letters to Richard at Coblenz, Burke instructs his son to refer to Vattel's writings concerning the legality of armed intervention. See Corr., VI, p. 317. 75. Appendix to Three Memorials. (Bk. II., chap. 4, para. 56.) Here, Vattel is following the lead of Grotius in sanctioning intervention on the "just side" of a civil war. (De lure Belli ac Pads, Bk. II, Chap, xxv, sec. 8.) 76. Remarks, in WS, VIII, p. 474. (italics mine) Vattel's words in the above passage are directed at assistance for an "oppressed people". 77. Appendix to Three Memorials. (Bk. II, chap. 4, para. 53.) The italics and upper case were all inserted by Burke. 78. This qualification would seem to cast doubt on a recent article in the Wall Street lournal, which attempts to extrapolate Burke's views on intervention to argue for external assistance for the Iraqi Kurds. (See Wall Street lournal, April 12, 1991, A12.) There is little evidence in Burke for any modern notion of humanitarian intervention. 79. Corr., VI, p. 317. 80. Corr., VII, p. 176. The same distinction had been advanced by Burke fifteen years earlier to justify the involvement of France in the Ameri• can cause in its war of independence. See Cobban, Edmund Burke and the Revolt, pp. 115-16. 81. Appendix to Three Memorials. (Bk. II, chap. 2, para. 47.) This extract was included by Burke in his Appendix under the heading "System of Europe". 82. Heads for Consideration, in WS, VIII, p. 394. 83. Ibid. 84. Appendix to Three Memorials. (Bk. IV, chap. 2, para. 14.) 85. Ibid. (Bk. II, chap. 12, para. 196.) 86. Ibid. There is a clear parallel here with the federative peace proposals of Saint-Pierre and Penn, discussed in Chapter 3. 87. Remarks, in WS, VIII, p. 473. 88. Ibid, p. 414. 89. Hersch Lauterpach, "The Grotian Tradition in International Law", p. 37. Notes and References 221

90. De lure Belli ac Pacis, Bk. II, chap, xxii, sec. 5, cited in G.I.A.D. Draper, "Grotius's Place in the Development of Legal Ideas about War", in Hugo Grotius and International Relations, pp. 177-207 (p. 195). Thus, for example, Grotius believed the proper response to a neighbour building a fortress was not to resort to arms, but to erect counter-fortifications. 91. Bull, "The Importance of Grotius", in Ibid, pp. 90-91. 92. De lure Belli ac Pacis, Bk. II, chap, xx, sec. 40, cited in Kingsbury and Roberts, Introduction to Hugo Grotius, p. 39. 93. Le Droit des Gens, Bk. Ill, chap. 3, para. 50. 94. Walzer, op.cit, p. 79. In his Fourth Letter on a Regicide Peace, Burke refers to the Wars of the Spanish Succession as a legitimate case of preventive war. (WS, IX, pp. 64-65) 95. Le Droit des Gens, Bk. Ill, chap. 18, para. 296. 96. See Brimmer, Towards a Liberal Theory, p. 88. 97. Appendix to Three Memorials. (Bk. II, chap. 12, para. 196). 98. Ibid. 99. These tensions, particularly relating to the obligations of states to obey the precepts of Natural Law, have been illustrated by Brimmer. See Emer de Vattel, pp. 18-26. 100. Kingsbury and Roberts, Introduction to Hugo Grotius, p. 33. While both solidarism and pluralism posit the existence of an international society, solidarism assumes a basic consensus of states with respect to the enforcement of law, whereas pluralism believes states are capable of agreeing only on certain minimum purposes. See Bull, "The Grotian Conception", p. 52. 101. "De tous les Droits qui peuvent appartenir a une Nation, la Souverainete est sans-doute le plus precieux, et celui que les autres doivent respecter le plus scrupulesement." Le Droit des Gens, Bk. II, chap. 4, para. 54. In this sense, the extracts of Vattel used by Burke are instructive for what they exclude as well as for what they include. This strong statement on nonintervention is not part of the Appendix to the Three Memorials. 102. Brimmer, Towards a Liberal Theory, p. 88. Vincent presents an oppos• ing view, arguing that Vattel's right of intervention flows from the rights of states as members of an international society, rather than from individualistic notions of state liberty and self-preservation. See Nonintervention, p. 290. 103. See Le Droit des Gens, Prelimin., para. 15. This more restrictive read• ing of Vattel is borne out by an analysis of his legal successors. The positivist international lawyers who followed Vattel were even more inclined to favour state liberty over international society, and to deny the legality of collective intervention. See, for example, W.E. Hall, A Treatise on International Law, 8th ed., edited by A. Pearce Higgins (Oxford, 1924), pp. 347-48. 104. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 250. 105. Heads for Consideration, in WS, VIII, p. 386. 106. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 250. Burke's right of vicinage was clearly intended to be a defence against innovation. Ironically, as Wight points 222 Notes and References

out, it has been incorporated into an innovative doctrine of "racial sovereignty" by the African nationalist writer, Ali Mazrui. Under Mazrui's scheme, colonial territories belong first to their African ma• jorities. If these majorities prove uncertain, they then belong to their African neighbours on the continent. Racial sovereignty therefore renounces the legal fiction that these territories can be considered part of a European metropole. (See Wight, Systems of States, pp. 170-71.) 107. Ibid, p. 251. 108. Ibid., p. 251. See also Reid, Edmund Burke and the Practice, p. 28. As Reid notes, Burke himself was involved in such a civil lawsuit in the summer of 1774, when an "insolent neighbour" claimed the rights to a wooded lane that bounded his farm. 109. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 251. 110. Ibid, p. 260 111. Reflections, in WS, VIII, p. 60. It is interesting to note that when writ• ing of the duty of sovereigns to assist one another, Emeric Cruce uses much the same imagery: "when you see the house of your neighbour burning or falling, you have a cause for fear as much as compassion, since human society is one body " Cited in Hinsley, Power and the Pursuit of Peace, p. 21. 112. Vincent, Nonintervention, p. 332. See also Oran Young, "Intervention and International Systems", Journal of International Affairs, vol. 22, no. 2 (1968), pp. 177-88 (pp. 184-85). 113. Christian Wolff, Jus gentium methodo scientifica pertractatum, Prolegom• ena, para. 16, cited in Vincent, Nonintervention, p. 27. Vattel makes a similar comparison of states and individuals. See Le Droit Des Gens, Prelimin., para. 18. 114. Jus gentium, Chap. II, para. 255, cited in Vincent, Nonintervention, pp. 27-8. 115. Beitz, Political Theory, p. 11. Vattel's theory combines Wolffs argu• ment with this contractarian logic. See Le Droit des Gens, Prelimin., para. 18; para. 2. 116. PH, vol. 30, 1 February 1793, 304. 117. Brimmer, Towards a Liberal Theory, pp. 107-08. Walzer therefore asserts the right of nonintervention for both democratic and undemo• cratic states. He believes there is a fundamental "match" between populations and their rulers which outside states must respect. See "The Moral Standing of States" in International Ethics: A Philosophy and Public Affairs Reader, ed. by Charles Beitz, et al. (Princeton, 1985), pp. 217-37 (p. 224). 118. Vincent, Nonintervention, p. 341. 119. Ibid, pp. 58-59. 120. Gilbert, "The New Diplomacy", pp. 13-15. Of particular relevance here are the ideas of Mirabeau, Diderot and Condorcet. 121. Waltz, Man, the State, and War, p. 109. 122. See Vincent, Nonintervention, pp. 59-61. 123. Waltz, op.cit, pp. 110-11. 124. Wight, "Western Values", p. 98. 125. This distinction is Vincent's. See Nonintervention, pp. 341-47. Notes and References 223

126. Clark, Reform and Resistance, p. 87. 127. Castlereagh rejected any proposal to wed the European Powers to• gether in an anti-revolutionary Holy Alliance. See Harold Temperley and Lillian M. Penson, Foundations of British Foreign Policy (Cam• bridge, 1938), pp. 36-37. The contrast between Castlereagh and Metternich is best captured by Henry Kissinger in A World Restored, Chapters 9-12. 128. Vincent, Nonintervention, p. 341. 129. Wight, "Western Values", p. 113. 130. Vincent, Nonintervention, p. 75. 131. Carsten Holbraad, The Concert of Europe (London, 1970), p. 120.

6. Holy War

1. Fourth Letter on a Regicide Peace, in WS, IX, p. 50. 2. Second Letter, in Ibid, p. 264; First Letter, in Ibid, p. 257. 3. Fourth Letter, in Ibid, p. 50. 4. Thoughts on French Affairs, in WS, VIII, pp. 368-69. 5. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 199. 6. With war expenses and national debt mounting, Pitt's Administration rapidly became disillusioned with war. Accordingly, in October of 1796, Lord Malmesbury was dispatched to Paris to open peace negotiations with the new French Directory. Britain's willingness to negotiate was strengthened by the perceived "mellowing" of the French regime fol• lowing the fall of Robespierre (July, 1794) and the approval of the new Constitution (August, 1795). See McDowell, Introduction to WS, IX, pp. 18-19. 7. MS. Notes at Sheffield, Bk.10.126. 8 Third Letter, in WS, IX, p. 340. 9. Here, Burke refers to the 1763 Treaty of Paris, in which Britain ob• tained Canada, but agreed to restore Martinique, Guadeloupe and St. Lucia to France. Ibid., p. 337. 10. Fourth Letter, in WS, IX p. 70. 11. Thoughts on French Affairs, in WS, VIII, p. 385. 12. Ibid, p. 379. 13. Fourth Letter, in WS, IX, p. 72. Burke does not share the optimism of Pitt's Ministry that the new French Directory may be more amenable to peace than the regime of Robespierre. "It is the old bon ton of robbers", he writes, "who cast their common crimes on the wickedness of their departed associates." Ibid, p. 84. 14. First Letter, in Ibid, p. 257. 15. PH, vol. 30, 12 February 1793, 383. 16. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 216. 17. Remarks, in WS, VIII, p. 461. 18. PH, vol. 30, 18 February 1793, 438. 19. Remarks, in WS, VIII, p. 465. 20. Corr., VII, pp. 391-92. 21. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 208. 224 Notes and References

22. Ibid. In Burke's formula, Revolutionary France cannot properly be called France at all: "Permit me to say, that I am not yet well ac• quainted with this new-coined France, and, without a careful assay, I am not willing to receive it in currency in place of the old Louis d'or." (Fourth Letter, in Ibid., p. 51.) 23. As Pitt wrote to Grenville in October, 1793: "This by no means pre• cludes us from treating with any other form of regular government, if, in the end, any other should be solidly established " Cited in Ehrman, op.cit, p. 312. See also R.B. McDowell, Introduction to WS, IX, pp. 17-18. 24. Heads for Consideration, in WS, VIII, p. 394-95. Catherine the Great was the only European head of state to recognise this Regency. Not surprisingly, Burke is full of praise for her foreign policy: "Your Im• perial Majesty has sent your Minister to reside where the Crown of France, in this disastrous Eclipse of Royalty, can alone truly and freely be represented - that is, in its Royal Blood - where alone the nation can be represented - that is, in its natural and inherent Dignity ... By the intervention of Russia the World will be preserved from barbarism and Ruin." Corr., VI, pp. 442-43. 25. This term, coined by Coral Bell, refers to one strand of American thinking regarding the possibility of peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union. It is contrasted with the "diplomatic accommodation" approach, which accepts that societies with incompatible domestic systems can coexist peacefully. The Diplomacy of Detente (London, 1977), p. 22. I shall return to this theme in the concluding chapter. 26. Second Letter, in WS, IX, p. 277. The resumption of the "usual rela• tions of peace and amity" had been demanded by Fox in his amend• ment to the Address from the Throne (October, 1795). 27. PH, vol. 30, 18 February 1793, 439. In October of 1790, in relation to the controversy over Alsace, Merlin de Douai proclaimed that the French National Assembly was not bound by treaties "made without the consent of the people ... In short, it is not the treaties of princes which regulate the rights of nations." Cited in Blanning, op.cit, p. 75. 28. Remarks, in WS, VIII, pp. 468-69. 29. Second Letter, in WS, IX, p. 277. 30. First Letter, in Ibid., pp. 198-99. Burke is particularly angered by the activities of Lady Gower, wife of the English Ambassador in Paris, whom he accuses of socialising with the "Gang of Traitors". Corr., VI, p. 395. 31. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 206. 32. Third Letter, in Ibid, p. 314. 33. Fourth Letter, in Ibid., p. 94. 34. Third Letter, in Ibid., p. 301. 35. Ibid, pp. 330-31. 36. Observations on the Conduct of the Minority, in WS, VIII, pp. 431-32. 37. Ibid, in WS, VIII, p. 438. Of popular sovereignty, Burke writes: "I believe, that no such doctrine has ever been heard of in any public act of any Government whatsoever, until it was adopted (I think from the writings of Rousseau) by the French Assemblies " Notes and References 225

38. Ibid, p. 439. 39. Observations, in WS, VIII, p. 443. 40. Cited in Mansfield, Selected Letters, p. 353. 41. Observations, in WS, VIII, p. 405. 42. Ibid, p. 404. 43. Fourth Letter, in WS, IX, p. 70. 44. PH, vol. 30,12 February 1793, 386. Already in 1790, Burke had warned his parliamentary colleagues of the "late assumption of citizenship" by the French army. PH, vol. 28, 9 February 1790, 355. 45. Emsley, op.cit, p. 22. 46. Clarke, op.cit, p. 81. 47. As Stanley Ayling puts it: "If France could be denied the Netherlands coastline and the great anchorages of the Scheldt, if her cause could be damaged and her claws cut, a negotiated peace favouring British inter• ests with suitable 'indemnity'... might satisfy Pitt." See Edmund Burke, pp. 249-50. 48. Cited in Mansfield, Selected Letters, pp. 343-44. 49. Second Letter, in WS, IX, p. 268. 50. Mitchell, Introduction to WS, VIII, p. 35. 51. Corr., VII, p. 387. 52. It is this aggressive posture which, under Ceadel's typology, differen• tiates Burke the "crusader" from "defencist" conservatives. 53. Corr., VII, p. 272. 54. Cited in Mansfield, Selected Letters, p. 360. 55. Ibid, p. 356. 56. Third Letter, in WS, IX, p. 357. 57. Ibid., pp. 345-81. Burke compares the state of the economy in the years of war (1793-1796) with those of the peace preceding it (1788- 1791) on a number of criteria: the balance of trade; the rate of com• mercial traffic at the Port of London; the expenditure on public works and monuments; the percentage of personal income spent on leisure and luxury items; the rate of inclosure bills; etc. From all this, he concludes that Britain's prosperity has not declined, and that the Brit• ish people are still capable of financing the war. 58. Ibid, p. 381. 59. Ibid, pp. 385-86. In actual fact, the state of the British economy was much more precarious than Burke's accountancy suggests. In Decem• ber of 1796, a loan of eighteen million pounds had been contracted to pay for the war, leading to financial panic and a run on the Bank of England. (See Emsley, British Society, pp. 28-33.) Moreover, British forces were continually overstretched, as the problem of finding and maintaining enough soldiers continued to vex the government through• out the war. (See Christie, Stress and Stability, pp. 232-34.) 60. Third Letter, in WS, IX, p. 386. 61. Corr., VII, p. 490. 62. Remarks, in WS, VIII, p. 456. 63. Third Letter, in WS, IX, p. 358. 64. Second Letter, in Ibid., p. 273. For its part, Pitt's Ministry saw itself faced with conflicting choices: reinforcing corps in the Netherlands; 226 Notes and References

aiding counter-revolutionary forces in Toulon and the North West; and seizing French possessions in the West Indies. A war fought for the balance of power called for the first and the third; however, if peace and security also demanded a Bourbon restoration, then the government had to consider the second as well. Pitt's declarations failed to settle this question decisively, thereby leading to a watered- down effort everywhere: York's troops were left unaided in the Neth• erlands; a weak force was sent to the West Indies; the Vendee campaign was delayed; and the Royalists at Toulon had to rely on an interna• tional army which quickly crumbled. See Christie, Wars and Revolu• tion, p. 231. 65. Second Letter, in WS, IX, pp. 272-73. At the very least, Burke argues, support for the Royalists would have "drawn a sort of impregnable Line which would have effectually prevented any sort of useful com• munication between the Regicide Rebels and French Naval power they had usurped." MS. Notes at Sheffield, Bk. 25.32. 66. Corr., VII, p. 445. When the Comte de Puisaye came to London to request aid for the Royalist cause in September of 1794, he was given a less than enthusiastic response. See Ehrman, op.cit, pp. 368-71. 67. Corr., VII, p. 514. 68. Mitchell, Introduction to WS, VIII, p. 50. Hence, for example, only one emigre1 had been permitted to participate in the trip to Toulon and was denied official endorsement by Pitt himself. 69. Ehrman, op.cit, p. 300. 70. See Mitchell, op.cit, p. 44. Though Burke's efforts met with limited success, their novelty was not lost on observers of the time. As Mitchell writes: "It was not that what might be called Burke's foreign policy had failed that struck contemporaries. It was rather that a private family should have a foreign policy at all." 71. Remarks, in WS, VIII, p. 466. 72. Ibid, p. 454. 73. Ibid, p. 461. 74. Ibid, p. 470. 75. As Ceadel notes, for a crusade to be truly "negative" - i.e. limited to rooting out an existing evil - the proportion of the target population who are "liberated" must exceed the proportion who are merely co• erced. "[It] is a striking feature of crusaders", he writes, "that they are self-confident enough to give themselves the benefit of any doubt on this score." op.cit, p. 47. 76. Remarks, in WS, VIII, p. 468. 77. Corr., VII, p. 160. 78. O'Brien, Introduction to the Reflections, Penguin Edition, p. 53. 79. Langford, Introduction to WS, II, p. 6. 80. Hindson and Grey, Burke's Dramatic Theory, p. 44. 81. Fasel, Edmund Burke, p. 11. 82. Memoirs of Sir James Mackintosh, cited in O'Brien, op.cit, p. 51. 83. Ibid. 84. O'Brien, op.cit, p. 51. 85. Second Letter, in WS, IX, p. 278. Notes and References 227

86. Cobban, Edmund Burke and the Revolt, pp. 128-29. 87. Cited in Lester, "An Analysis of Burke", p. 200. 88. As Reid explains, while many parliamentary figures were reluctant to prepare their speeches for the press, Burke was one of the first to realise the full literary and political potential of this medium. See op.cit, p. 118. 89. Second Letter, in WS, IX, pp. 278-79. 90. Thoughts in WS, VIII, pp. 347-48. For Burke's discussion of the role of the press, see Second Letter, in WS, IX, p. 292. 91. O'Brien, Introduction to the Reflections, p. 51. 92. Corr., VI, pp. 359-60. 93. Cobban, Edmund Burke and the Revolt, p. 126. 94. Mitchell, Introduction to WS, VIII, p. 41. 95. Remarks, in WS, VIII, p. 481. 96. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 210. 97. Ibid, p. 197. 98. "I conceive that the Duke of Brunswick", Burke writes of the Prussian commander, "is as much fighting the battle of the Crown of England as the duke of Cumberland did at Culloden." Corr., VII, p. 177. 99. PH, vol. 30, 18 February 1793, 437. 100. PH, vol. 30, 12 February 1793, 382. 101. Observations, in WS, VIII, p. 423. 102. Corr., VII, p. 159. Burke's treatment of the Polish crisis after 1789 vividly illustrates the degree to which his mind has become obsessed with the Jacobin conspiracy. Given his support for the cause of Poland in the past, Burke was approached by a group of MPs to participate in a campaign for an Anglo-French alliance to save Polish independ• ence. In response, he not only refused to lend any support, but went as far as to tar the members of this movement with the same brush as the Revolutionary societies in Britain: "The faction which never has lost sight of its Object for one moment, aims at bringing in the French Evil by a back door; and on pretence of an assistance to the Poles " See Corr., VII, p. 159. 103. Ibid, p. 161. 104. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 237. 105. Ibid, pp. 238. Burke's call for unity also applies to domestic British politics. He consistently condemns Party "trifling" during the Revolu• tionary Wars, and urges politicians to put their energies into working together. 106. Cited in Mansfield, Selected Letters, p. 347. 107. Remarks, in WS, VIII, p. 486. 108. Preface to Brissot's Address, in Ibid, p. 518. 109. Third Letter, in WS, IX, p. 357; First Letter, in Ibid, p. 234. 110. See Ceadel, op.cit, pp. 54-55. 111. First Letter, in WS, IX, p. 238. 112. Remarks, in WS, VIII, p. 485. 113. Hindson and Grey, Burke's Dramatic Theory, p. 82. 114. Harle, European Values, p. 72. See also Kramnick, The Rage of Edmund Burke, pp. 38-41. 228 Notes and References

115. The most prominent example is Peter Stanlis. See "Edmund Burke in the Twentieth Century" in The Relevance of Edmund Burke, pp. 44-52. 116. Third Letter, in WS, IX, pp. 306-07. 117. Preface to Brissot's Address, in WS, VIII, pp. 519-20. 118. Remarks, in WS, VIII, p. 480. 119. Kingsbury and Roberts, Introduction to Hugo Grotius, pp. 15-16. 120. Hence, for example, Grotius suggests that the just party has the right to violate neutral territory, while the unjust party does not. De Jure Belli ac Pacis, Bk. Ill, ch. xiii, sec. iv. Cited in Bull, "The Grotian Conception of International Society", p. 60. Michael Walzer refers to this as a "sliding scale" argument: the greater the justice of one's cause, the more rights one has in battle. Just and Unjust Wars, p. 246. How• ever, Michael Donelan contends that by giving war the character of law, Grotius actually lends support to the inhuman conduct of warfare. Seminar at Oxford University, February 17, 1989. 121. See Le Droit des Gens, Bk. Ill, chap. 7, paras. 110-15. 122. Brimmer, Emer de Vattel, p. 46. Brimmer argues that there are traces of a "scorched earth policy" in Vattel's treatise. See Bk. Ill, chap. 4, para. 52. 123. In the context of international law, the distinction between debarring a right and imposing a duty is a crucial one. See G.I.A.D. Draper, "Grotius' Place in the Development of Legal Ideas about War", pp. 177-207. 124. Bull, "The Importance of Grotius in the study of International Rela• tions", pp. 65-93. 125. In Bk. Ill, chap. 7, para. 104, Vattel provides a firm statement on neutrality. See Brimmer, op.cit, p. 55. 126. De Jure Belli ac Pacis, Prolegomena, cited in Draper, op.cit, p. 197. Grotius claims, for example, that good faith should always be observed with the enemy, even in the case of or those "who are faith• less". De Jure Belli ac Pacis, Bk. Ill, ch. xiii, cited in Bull, "The Grotian Conception", p. 60. 127. Le Droit des Gens, Bk. Ill, chap. 9, para. 172. Hence, Vattel asserts that even if states are at war, they should honour their promises, re• frain from killing civilians, and allow safe-conduct for the enemy's messengers. 128. As Bull puts it: "It is clearly not the view of Grotius that those who are fighting for an unjust cause thereby place themselves outside inter• national society, where they enjoy no rights." See "The Grotian Con• ception", pp. 59-60. 129. Letter to a Member, in WS, VIII, p. 320. 130. Wight, Systems of States, pp. 34-35. Aron draws a similar distinction between inter-state and imperial war. An inter-state war becomes imperial, he writes, when one of the belligerents "brandishes a transnational principle". At this point, the conflict becomes charged with partisan passions, and the enemy is "simultaneously alien and adversary". Peace and War, p. 154. 131. Ibid, p. 103. 132. Wight, Systems, p. 36. As Wight notes, Burke tries to find a precedent Notes and References 229

for internal Holy War in the division of the Hellenic states-system between democratic and oligarchic factions. Ibid., pp. 37-38. 133. Aron, op.cit, p. 104. 134. PH, vol. 22,14 May 1780, p. 232. See also Davidson, "Natural Law and International Law in Burke", p. 488. 135. Observations, in WS, VIII, p. 421. For Fox's resolutions, see PH, vol. 30, 18 February 1793, 431-32. 136. PH, vol. 30, 18 February 1793, 436. 137. Corr., VII, pp. 388-89. 138. Ceadel, Thinking about Peace and War, p. 45. 139. Remarks, in WS, VIII, pp. 457-58. 140. Ibid, p. 458. 141. Ibid, p. 457. 142. Ibid, p. 469. 143. Ibid, pp. 459-60. 144. Hence, for example, he presses Artois and Provence to agree to a "Bill of Rights" in order to circumscribe the power of monarchy and limit the possibility of despotic rule. Corr., VI, pp. 413-14, 145. Ceadel, op.cit, pp. 46-47. 146. Remarks, in WS, VIII, pp. 488-89. 147. Ibid, p. 490. 148. Ibid. 149. Ibid, p. 491. 150. Ibid, p. 494. 151. Ibid, p. 495. 152. Ibid., p. 496. For a comparison between Burke's comments on the executions of the Gordon Rioters (1780), and the system of punish• ment he envisages for the Jacobins, see Reid, op.cit, pp. 30-32.

Conclusion

1. Corr., IX, p. 317. 2. Corr., IX, p. 340. Burke's dying days were dominated by the mutinies at Spithead and Nore, two of the most ominous incidents in Britain's war with Revolutionary France. 3. See Conor Cruise O'Brien, "A Vindication of Edmund Burke", pp. 33-35. 4. Second Letter on a Regicide Peace, in WS, IX, p. 277. 5. Kissinger, A World Restored, p. 153. 6. Wight, "The balance of the three traditions", in International Theory, p. 264. 7. For an example of this view, see Auerbach, The Conservative Illusion, pp. 309-10. 8. Harle, European Values, p. 69. Kramnick refers to Burke the Tory prophet and Burke the ambivalent radical. See The Rage of Edmund Burke, p. 4. 9. Hence, for example, John Morley saw Burke as a liberal Gladstonian who went wrong toward the end of his life. See Cobban, Edmund Burke and the Revolt, p. 38. As O'Brien notes, if Burke had died in 230 Notes and References

1789, rather than 1797, "nobody could conceivably have labelled him as a thinker." The Great Melody, p. 595. 10. Kramnick, op.cit, p. 143. A variation on this theme, offered by Macpherson, accounts for Burke's "see-sawing" by describing him as a spokesperson for "bourgeois" economic interests. See Burke, pp. 3- 5. 11. Fasel, Edmund Burke, p. 107. 12. Letter to William Elliot, in WS, IX, p. 41. 13. First Letter on a Regicide Peace, in WS, IX, p. 237. 14. Speech on Conciliation, in Works, I, p. 182. 15. Letter to a Member, in WS, VIII, p. 320. 16. It should be reiterated, however, that Burke's empirical evidence re• garding the health of the British economy has been contested. 17. PH, vol. 30, 4 January 1793, 223. See also McDowell, Introduction to WS, IX, p. 25. 18. Speech on Conciliation, in Works, I, p. 182. 19. Cited in Introduction to WS, IX, pp. 23-24. 20. See R.J. Vincent, and Foreign Policy (Oxford, 1984), pp. 113-18. This argument is particularly evident in contemporary debates concerning the legality of humanitarian intervention. Michael Walzer, for example, argues that pure cases of humanitarian interven• tion are extremely rare, and that most contain an overriding national interest. Hence, he concludes that there must be a legal presumption in favour of non-intervention. Jiist and Unjust Wars, p. 101-02. His position is shared by a number of international lawyers. See Ian Brownlie, International Law and the Use of Force by States, (Oxford, 1963), p. 301; and Michael Akehurst, "Humanitarian Intervention", in Intervention in World Politics, edited by Hedley Bull (Oxford, 1984), pp. 95-118. 21. Second Letter, in WS, IX, p. 291. 22. Remarks on the Policy of the Allies, in WS, VIII, p. 481. 23. Second Letter, in WS, IX, p. 247. 24. Cobban, Edmund Burke and the Revolt, p. 39. 25. Kal Holsti, The Dividing Discipline: Hegemony and Diversity in Inter• national Theory (Boston, 1985), p. 8. A distinction should be made between Holsti's "classical tradition", and the term "classical approach" used by Bull. The latter is a methodological approach which applies history, philosophy and law to the study of international relations. The former refers to a set of questions or objects of inquiry. 26. Ibid. I therefore define tradition in a "weak" sense - as a "pattern of issues, and of approaches to them, which the various members of the tradition have been concerned", rather than as a self-conscious conti• nuity of debate and inquiry. (See Kingsbury and Roberts, Introduction to Hugo Grotius, p. 51) A stronger definition of tradition, such as that offered by Alasdair Maclntyre, requires the members of the tradition to be consciously aware of it, and to attempt to amend, redirect or carry its ideas forward. See Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Lon• don, 1988), p. 326. 27. Holsti, op.cit, pp. 8-11. Holsti argues that "radical" visions of the Notes and References 231

states system - such as those offered by Marx or Mazzini - are equally part of this classical tradition, and that issues such as imperialism, justice, or revolution are as crucial as the standard Realist concerns of the balance of power and raison d'etat. 28. Ibid., p. 9. See also Michael Banks, "The Evolution of International Relations Theory", in Conflict and World Society, edited by M. Banks (London, 1984), pp. 3-21. 29. Second Letter, in WS, IX, p. 247. 30. Wight, "Western Values", p. 98. 31. Ibid, p. 100. 32. For Kissinger's procedural definition of international legitimacy, see A World Restored, p. 1. 33. This "socialisation thesis" is particularly marked in discussions of the Soviet Union in the inter-war period. See F.S. Northedge, The Inter• national Political System (London, 1976), pp. 28-30; and Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass., 1979), pp. 127-28. 34. Arnold Toynbee, Introduction to The Impact of the Russian Revolu• tion: 1917-1967 (London, 1967), p. 1. 35. Halliday, "The Sixth Great Power", p. 218. Halliday argues that an obvious testing ground for this proposition has been presented by the recent changes within the former Soviet Union. 36. Aron, Peace and War, p. 101. 37. Gilbert, "The New Diplomacy", p. 36. 38. Wight, Power Politics, p. 24. 39. Halliday, "The Sixth Great Power'", p. 214. 40. See Waltz, Man, the State and War, pp. 80-103; and Wight, "Theory of International Society", in International Theory, pp. 40-44. The lib• eral case for homogeneity is presented clearly by Michael Doyle in "Kant, Liberal Legacies and Foreign Affairs", Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 12 (1983), pp. 205-35. One of its more recent expressions can be found in the writings of Francis Fukuyama. See, for example, "Two sets of rules for a split world", , 1 September 1990. 41. Winston Churchill, The World Crisis: The Aftermath (London, 1929). In fact, Churchill's characterisation of the Bolshevik threat closely re• sembles Burke's depiction of Jacobinism. See Ibid, p. 264. 42. Northedge, op.cit, pp. 198-99. As Northedge points out, Lloyd George frequently referred to the precedent of the French Revolution to jus• tify his noninterventionist response. 43. Richard Ullman, Anglo-Soviet Relations: Intervention and the War (Princeton, 1961), pp. 121-23. 44. The spectrum of opinions is summarised by John Lewis Gaddis in Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy (New York, 1982). 45. Kennan referred to this strategy as changing the Soviet Union's "con• ception of international relations". See Gaddis, Strategies of Contain• ment, p. 48. 46. George F. Kennan, BBC Reith Lectures, cited in Michael Smith, Re• alist Thought from Weber to Kissinger (Louisiana, 1986), p. 183. 232 Notes and References

47. John Foster Dulles, War or Peace, (New York, 1950), p. 175. 48. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, p. 108. 49. Dulles, War or Peace, p. 187. See also Townsend Hoopes, The Devil and John Foster Dulles (London, 1973). In tracing the subversive fac• ets of communism to its atheism, Dulles' writings closely parallel Burke's. 50. This is the weakness of American interpretations of Burke during the Cold War. See Stanlis, Burke and the Natural Law. 51. Halliday, "The Sixth Great Power", p. 218. 52. Ullman, Intervention and the War, p. 12. 53. Cited in Ibid. 54. Cited in George Kennan, Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin, (Boston, 1961), p. 172. 55. Stephen White, Britain and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Study in the Politics of Diplomacy, 1920-1924 (London, 1979), pp. 87-88. White argues that the Anglo-Soviet Agreement was essentially a continua• tion of anti-Bolshevik policy by other means, (p. 25) 56. Cited in Gaddis, Russia, the Soviet Union and the United States, Second Edition (New York, 1990), p. 94. 57. According to Kissinger's conception of procedural legitimacy, there was a level of shared geopolitical interest within which even "red- baiters" and "crusaders for world revolution" could find each other. The White House Years (Boston, 1979), p. 1089. 58. Barton Gellman, Contending with Kennan, (New York, 1984), p. 123. 59. Kennan, On Dealing with the Communist World, Elihu Root Lectures (New York, Council on Foreign Relations, 1964), p. 17. In fact, Kennan believed that economic rehabilitation of Western Europe would speed• up this evolution, by serving as a powerful example of Western suc• cess. 60. Remarks on the Policy of the Allies, in WS, VIII, p. 474. 61. Cited in Wight, "Western Values", pp. 99-100. Wight claims that this passage is striking for its "unrealist" character. See International Theory, p. 133. 62. This was the spirit of Pitt's position on Revolutionary France. 63. Wight, "Western Values", op.cit, pp. 100-01. 64. Halliday, "The Sixth Great Power", p. 218. 65. Ibid, p. 219. 66. Michael Donelan, "The Political Theorists and International Theory", in The Reason of States, pp. 75-91 (p. 90). 67. A better definition of international theory, I would argue, is advanced by Holsti: "descriptive and explanatory statements about the structure, units, and processes of international politics " See op.cit, p. 3. Under such a definition, one is able to combine political and international theory, and to use multidiscipiinary tools of analysis. For a further critique of the separation between international theory and political theory, see Fred Halliday "The Pertinence of International Relations", Political Studies, vol. 38, 1990, pp. 502-16. Bibliography

I PRIMARY TEXTS

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allied unity 154-7 Brunswick, Duke of 122 allies 19, 131, 150 Brunswick Manifesto 153 America 33, 59, 61-3, 170, 175, Bull, Hedley 7, 42, 82-3, 131 176-7 Burke, Edmund American Revolution (1776) 14, A Vindication of Natural Society 93, 94, 95 (1756) 10-11, 14, 33, 45 Anderson, M. S. 126 Annual Register 20, 32 anti-rationalism 9-12 Appeal from the New to the Old Antoinette, Marie 118, 119 Whigs 42 Aquinas, Thomas 41 De Jure Praedae 42 aristocracy 55-7 Heads for Consideration on the see also nobility Present State of Affairs \22> Aristotle 40, 77 Letter to a Member of the Aron, Raymond 79, 81, 160, 174 National Assembly 116 Asia 76-8 Letters on a Regicide Peace 71, Atheism 5, 91, 93, 105-6, 151, 89-90, 99, 134, 142, 157-8 156, 170 Letters to a Noble Lord 31, 108 Austria 122-3, 154-5 Observations on the Conduct of Ayling, Stanley 12 the Minority 42 Philosophical Enquiry into the balance of power 23, 24, 155, 168 Origin of Our Ideas of the and constitutionalism 34-6 Sublime and Beautiful and the French (1756) 26 Revolution 100-1, 142-3, 165 Reflections on the Revolution in and intervention 14 France (1790) 19, 26-7, 38, and preventive war 126-8, 132 49-50, 53, 89-90, 101-3, barbarian 76, 79 106-7, 109, 116, 152 beauty 26, 98, 108, 164, 180 Remarks on the Policy of the Belgium 92 Allies 19, 131, 150 Bintinaye, Abbe de la 122 Speech on American Bintinaye, Chevalier de la 98 Taxation 59 Bolingbroke, Lord 10, 14, 33 Speech on Conciliation with Boucher, David 2 America 60, 62 Britain Speech on Fox's India Bill 65 Constitution 29-30, 104 Thoughts on French affairs 19, defensive foreign policy 92 111, 120, 128 France as ally 165 Works, Bohn series 20-1 Great Power 156 Burke, Richard 119, 129, 150 national interest 124 threat from French Revolution Calonne, Charles-Alexander de 109-11 118, 119 British East India Company 31, Canavan, Francis 95 64 Castlereagh 7, 139 British Empire 24, 30, 58-67 Catholic Relief 94

242 Index 243

Ceadel, Martin 8-9, 91 Courtney, C. P. 26 Chain of being 49, 55-6 crime and punishment 42-3, 172 Charlemont, Earl of 100, 101 Croce, Benedetto 16 chivalry 107 crusading 5-6 Christendom 71, 79, 83, 84, 86, against the French Revolution 120, 145, 156 99-104 Churchill, Winston 175-6 for the Commonwealth of Cicero 40 Europe 142-57 civil society 28 conservative crusading 8-9, civil war 115,126,129-31, 168, 170 89-166 civilization 44, 77 crusading vs. Realism 168-70, Clark, Ian 139 175-8 Cobban, Alfred 11, 19, 41, 50, 52, negative vs. positive 91, 164 55, 86, 97, 101, 172 domestic vs. international 161-2 Cobbett, William 10 culture, see also homogeneity; Coblenz 118-19 similitude Coleridge, S. T. 89 custom 41, 44, 72, 80 Colonies 58-67 see also Empire D'Artois, Comte 144 Commonwealth of Europe 14, 24, Davidson, James 37, 44, 68 39, 71-80, 137 Declaration of Pillnitz 118, 119 crusade for 142-57 defensive strategy 141, 148-9 and homogeneity 3, 5-6, 8, 125, democracy 56 161, 168 Depont, Charles-Jean- and theory of international order Francois 102 80-8 despotism 77, 92 communitarian 136-7 diplomacy 120, 142-3, 145-6, 174 Coryress of Vionna 139 Dissenters 103 Coniff, James 31 Donelan, Michael 179 consensus 3, 168, 170, 171, 172 Dulles, John Foster 175-6 see also homogeneity Dundas, Henry 110 conservatism 8-9, 11, 84, 89-166 dynasticism 81-2, 86, 110, 117, conspiracy theory 97 125, 163-4, 168, 169 Constitution, mixed 29-30 constitutionalism 7-9, 24, 167-8, economy 30-4 169 education 72-2 and prudence 25-31 Ehrman, John 100, 122, 150 the via media 31-48 Empire 24, 30, 58-67, 113 contextualist, versus textualist Emsley, Clive 147 12-19 Enlightenment 31, 38, 40, 49, 75, continuity 18, 24, 29 77, 83, 137, 138, 172 see also tradition Europe contract theory 54 civil war 115, 126, 129-31, 168, contractarian 52-4, 136-7 170 Copeland, Thomas 20 and balance of power 34 Corporation and Test Acts 103 see also Commonwealth of Europe cosmopolitanism 74-5, 84, 86 'example effect' 170, 179, 180 counter-revolution 90-1, 103, French Revolution 104-5 118-19, 151 expedience 40, 52 244 Index

Fasel, Georg 59, 61, 169 of principle 169 Fenelon 35 and social order 55-7, 164 Fitzwilliam, Earl 50, 101, 123 Hindson, Paul 157 Fox, Charles 14, 92, 129, 136, 146, Hinsley, F. H. 35, 54, 57, 86 154, 155, 161, 162, 171 history (Burke's theory of) 49-51, France 40 53 emigr£ community 118, 150-1 Hobbes, Thomas 40 National Assembly 100 Hobbesian 25, 37 the People 163 Hoffmann, Stanley 4 post-war order 161-6 Holland 92 rise of middle class 97-8 Holsti, Kal 173 Fraternal Decree 138 Holy War 5, 91, 141-64, 168, 170 free trade 30-1, 73 and international order 157-66 Freeman, Michael 12, 16, 95, 97 versus Just War 157-61 French Revolution 2, 4, 8-9, 27, homogeneity 4, 24, 70, 142, 180 34, 81-2, 89-166 within the Commonwealth of Burke's reaction to 92-114; Europe 125, 145, 161 crusade against 99-104 ideological 82 causes of 96-9 and international order 80-3, example effect 104-5, 108-14 170, 174, 176, 178 intervention 92, 115-40 and the 'reinforcing effect' recognition of new regime 121 84-8 and tensions in Burke's theory see also consensus; similitude 167-72 human nature 23, 77 threat posed by 104-14, 117; theory of 26-9 ideological 93, 111-13, 152, Hume, David 73, 78 168; military 118 transnational character of 91, India 41, 64-6 93, 109, 111-12, 121 institutions, intermediate 24, 57-8, 108, 164 Gentz, Freidrich 7, 90 interdependence, economic 73 George III, King 89 international law 23, 24, 84, 168 Gilbert, Felix 74 and intervention 15, 131-3 Glorious Revolution (1688) 93, international order 94, 95, 96, 100 Great Powers 57, 137, 138 Gong, Gerrit 79 hierarchy 142, 155 Gordon Riots (1780) 43 and Holy War 157-66 Great Powers 57, 137, 138 and homogeneity 80-3, 170, Grenville, Lord 61, 113, 122 174, 176, 178 Grey, Thomas 157 post war 161-6 Grotius 7, 32, 39, 43, 44, 60, revolutionary challenge to 131-2, 158-9 174-5 and sovereignty 86, 135-40 Halliday, Fred 174, 178 theory of 80-8 Harle, Vilho 2, 60, 157 international politics 75 Hastings, Warren 14, 41, 65 international society 4, 32 heterogeneity 173-4, 180 intervention 14,15,23, 92,168,178 hierarchy 23, 24, 49 arguments for 116-17 and international order 142, 155 beneficiary of 149-50 Index 245

Burke's campaign for 115-25 international theory 136, 138 in civil conflict 128-31 see also Welsa, Mazzin and international order 135-40 individual 38-9, 136 theory of 125-40 social 95 see also war state 84-5, 133 interventionism 115-40 liberty 63, 112, 170 and international law 131-3 Linklater, Andrew 23, 45 nonintervention 5, 62-3, 136-7 Little Platoons 57-8, 108 progressive vs. conservative 139 see also institutions Ireland 14, 40, 66-7 Lloyd George, David 175, 176 Islam 79 Locke, John 40, 41, 52 Louis XIV 118, 156 Jacobinism 5, 91, 93, 105, 151, 170 Louis XVI 98-9, 106, 119-20 Jefferson, Thomas 90 Low Countries 92 Joll, James 20 Machiavelli 99 jus ad bellum 159 Mackintosh, Sir James 152, 171 jus in bello 142, 158-9, 161, 169 manners 70, 72, 107-8, 164, 168, Just War 132, 142, 157-61 169, 172 justice 65-6 Mansfield, Harvey 10,11,19,42,51 Marshall, P. J. 76 Keane, John 17 Marxism 175 Kennan, George 175-8 Mazzini, Guiseppe 138 Kissinger, Henry 4, 168, 173 medievalism 4, 5, 24, 49-69, 168 Kramnick, Isaac 106 Meinecke, Friedrich 17-18 Metternich 139 Lafayette 138 Mill, John Stuart 136 Lasksi, Harold 19 Mitchell, Leslie 104, 150 Lauterpacht, Hersch 131 monarchy 70, 72, 80, 172 law 169 heredity 163-4 of nations 43-5 universal 126 of Neighbourhood 115, 126, Montesquieu 7, 11, 60, 72, 77, 99 133-5, 168 morality 23, 24, 50, 136, 168 of Vicinity 115, 126, 133-5, 168 individual 45-6 see also international law; international 45-7 Natural Law; Roman law political 46 legitimacy dynastic 110, 125 Namier, Sir Lewis 10 international 5, 80-3, 84, 115, nationality 86 177; substantive vs. nation 51-5 procedural 3-4, 62, 70, 170, historical concept of 52-3 173, 175 and national character 54, 74 popular 102, 106-7 territorial vs. institutional of war 24, 32-4 concept of 54 Leibniz, Gottfried 79 see also state Lester, John 29 Natural Law 23, 39-43, 44, 51, 85 levee en masse 147-8 Natural Rights 40, 51, 58 liberal Naturalism 41, 44-5 response of French Revolution Navigations Acts 31 92; see also Fox negotiation 143-5 246 Index

neutrality 122-5, 158-9 Realism 5 -7, 24, 27, 31, 32, 33, New World 76-8 35, 37, 46, 49-50, 58, 83, 100, Nisbet, Robert 49-50, 57-8, 97 123, 124, 167, 172, 173, 174 nobility 56, 172 versus crusading 168-70, 175-8 non-European world 23, 69, Realpolitik 45, 138, 151, 154 75-80 reason 11, 27-8 Nootka Sound (1790) 35-6 rebellion 28 reform 93-9 Oakeshott, Michael 10 great law of change 93 O'Brien, Conor Cruise 66, 109, prudence 94-5 152, 153 Regency Crisis (1788) 30 Ochakov Crisis (1791) 78 Regicide 5, 91, 93, 106-7, 151, O'Gorman, Frank 39 170 order Reid, Christopher 26, 42, 43, 90 internal and external 23, 86-7, 'reinforcing effect' 84-8, 170, 179, 91, 138, 139, 147, 180 180 see also international order religion 24, 67-9, 70, 164, 168, Ottoman Empire 76, 78-80 169, 172 Religious Wars 160 Padua Circular 118 revolution Paine, Thomas 80-1, 90, 91, theory of 93-9 102-3, 138 see also counter-revolution Parliamentary Reform 104 Revolution Society of Britain patriotism 54-5 102 Penn, William 79, 85, 86 Revolutionary Wars 122-5 Pitt, William 6, 10, 14, 78, 90, 92, Revolutionism 5, 7, 8, 27, 32, 58, 104, 110, 115, 119, 122, 124 167, 168 war strategy 141, 144-8, 150, Richmond, Duke of 56 154, 156, 161-2, 167, 171 rights, social 28 Plamenatz, John 97 rights of man 28, 39, 143 Pocock, J. G. A. 185 Rivington, F. and C. 21 Poland, partition (1772) 14, 36-7, Robertson, William 76 55, 155 Rockingham 10 political economy 30-4 Roman law 70, 72, 80, 134 Positivism 41, 44, 45 Romantics 26 power 34, 45 Rousseau, Jean-Jeaques 14, 25, prejudice 11, 29, 40 33, 35, 54, 55, 71, 73, 78 prescription 51 Russian Civil War 175 Price, Dr Richard 102 propaganda 141, 152-4, 170 St. Eustatius Affair (1781) 33, property 51, 164 159, 161 Provence, Comte de 144 Saint Pierre, Abbe de 79, 85, 86 prudence 33, 63, 168 sedition 93, 112, 141 and Burke's philosophy 25-31,47 self-determination 81-2 and reform 94-5 Seven Years War 59 Prussia 122-3, 154-5 similitude 71-2, 74, 169 see also homogeneity raison d'etat 14, 33, 45 Skinner, Quentin 12-19 Rationalism 7,8,27,32,35,168,172 slave trade 31 Index 247

Smith, Adam 30-1, 77-8 Treaty of Utrecht (1713) 86 society trusteeship 52, 64 hierarchy, within 55-7 political 45-7 international 4 versus state 53 Ullmann, Richard 176 solidarist international 39, 47, 82, 84 Vattel, Emer de 14, 32, 35, 42, 44, sovereignty 24, 81 71, 84, 85, 127, 128, 130, 131-2, and international order 86, 158-9, 161, 171, 172 135-40 Vaughn, C. E. 39 popular 82, 106-7, 127, 146 Vendee 150 state 115, 135-6 Vincent, John 2, 8, 11, 23, 57, 68, weak vs. strong 43, 125, 180 92, 115, 135, 138, 139, 180 Soviet Union 176-7 Voltaire 35, 55, 71, 73 Spain 124 Stamp Act 61 Waltz, Kenneth 231 Stanlis, Peter 39, 41, 44, 90 Walzer, Michael 55, 126, 132, state 136-7 autonomy 133, 136, 171 war liberty 84-5, 133 civil 115, 120, 126, 128-31, 168, morality 136 170 origin of 51-2 conduct of 147-52 and sovereignty 115, 135-6 laws of 33, 161, 170-1 theory of 24, 51-5 legitimacy of 24, 32-4 versus society 53 offensive vs. defensive 148-9 see also nation preventive 115, 126-8, 132 state of nature 28, 33, 47 see also Holy War; intervention; Strauss, Leo 18, 40 Just War sublime 26, 98, 108, 146, 164, Weston, John 111 180 Wight, Martin 2-3, 18, 24, 33, 35, subversion 93, 97, 112, 117-18, 42, 46, 75-6, 81, 84, 139, 160, 141, 170 168, 172, 173, 174, 179, 180 surplus meaning 17-18 and the Three Traditions 6-8 Wilkins, B. T. 26, 39, 40 text, versus context 12-19 Williams, Raymond 53 Toynbee, Arnold 174 Wilson, Sir Henry 176 trade 30-1, 73 Wilson, Woodrow 138 see also free trade Windham, William 102 tradition 18, 24, 49-51 'wisdom of ages' 29, 49-51 see also continuity Wolff, Christian 44, 136 Treaty of Triple Alliance (1717) 130 Wollstonecraft, Mary 90