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Edmund Burke and the Politics of Conquest∗ Richard Bourke Queen Mary, University of London

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Edmund Burke and the Politics of Conquest∗ Richard Bourke Queen Mary, University of London Modern Intellectual History, 4, 3 (2007), pp. 403–432 C 2007 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S1479244307001333 Printed in the United Kingdom edmund burke and the politics of conquest∗ richard bourke Queen Mary, University of London This article restores the context of political action to Burke’s thinking about politics. It begins with the specific case of his interventions in the parliamentary debate over the Quebec Bill in 1774, and proceeds from this focal point to establish the centrality of the theme of conquest to his political motivation and understanding in general. Burke’s preoccupation with conquest drove him to examine eighteenth-century British politics within a set of comparative historical frameworks. These frameworks encompassed the trajectories of both modern European and imperial politics and ancient historical development. The objective of Burke’s politics of conquest was to overcome the destructive influence of the spirit of conquest. That objective involved deciding upon and justifying courses of action with reference to these comparative historical frameworks of understanding. Careful investigation shows that while Burke’s approach to this task was powerfully influenced by Montesquieu, his arguments invariably entailed serious criticism of Montesquieu’s conclusions. Properly understood, these criticisms show that Burke himself did not endorse the political principles that were later taken to constitute “Burkian conservatism”.The article draws the conclusion that a thorough grasp of the politics of conquest in Burke’s thinking will force us to reposition him in the history of political theory. introduction One of the most perceptive Burke scholars of the last century has unfortunately written little on the subject of Burke’s politics, and what he has written is more ∗ Much of the research for this article was undertaken under the auspices of a John Carter Brown Library Associates’ Fellowship. I am grateful to the electors to that fellowship, with- out which access to many of the materials used here would have proved difficult. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the United Kingdom for an award that supported research leave during which I undertook academic work of which this article forms a part. Portions of the argument presented here were delivered as papers at the Universite´ de Sorbonne, Paris IV; the University of Sussex; Harvard University; Edinburgh University; and Universitat¨ Bayreuth. I am grateful for the comments I received on each of these occasions. I am particularly grateful to the anonymous reviewers of this article for their scrutiny, to Ian McBride for his discussion of the underlying argument and to Nicholas Phillipson for his generous advice. 403 404 richard bourke suggestive than conclusive. J. G. A. Pocock has published five essays on Burke’s political ideas over the course of his career to date, and edited Reflections on the Revolution in France.1 Each of these contributions has provided crucial insights into Burke’s thinking, but it was Pocock’s first piece, originally published in 1960, that came closest to setting out a framework for the analysis of his politics. There it was proposed that the kind of argument typically found in Burke does not belong to one tradition, or to a single idiom of thought. Instead, distinct political discourses are mobilized in the one corpus—sometimes even within a single work. Prominent among this medley was a form of political argument deriving from the tradition of common-law jurisprudence. But still other strands in Burke’s thinking could be traced to Montesquieu and to Hume, while others again were indebted to various branches of natural law. How, then, was one to make sense of Burke’s political theory, above all in connection with his political practice? Not, Pocock implied, by elucidating the fundamentals of his “philosophy” in the hope of thereby decoding his political messages. For Burke’s utterances on political issues ought not to be seen as components of an all-encompassing architectonic structure; they cannot be explained in terms of a single philosophical system.2 Pocock’s emphasis on Burke’s use of arguments derived from the great seventeenth-century common lawyers was partly intended as a response to earlier attempts to situate him squarely within a natural-law tradition. But at the same time it was directed against the prevalent idea that the principles and beliefs that guide political thinking can best be explained by referring them to a canon of philosophical assumptions.3 It is now generally accepted that, in both of these critical ventures, Pocock’s case was justified. But we are still left with the problem of how to characterize Burke’s politics. Since Pocock’s first revisionist intervention 1 J. G. A. Pocock, “Burke and the Ancient Constitution: A Problem in the History of Ideas”, in idem, Politics, Language, and Time: Essays on Political Thought and History (Chicago and London, 1971), 202–32; idem, “The Political Economy of Burke’s Analysis of the French Revolution”, in idem, Virtue, Commerce and History: Essays on Political Thought and History, Chiefly in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1985), 193–212; idem,“JosiahTucker on Burke, Locke, and Price: A Study in the Varieties of Eighteenth-Century Conservatism”, in ibid., 157–91; idem, “Edmund Burke and the Redefinition of Enthusiasm: The Context as Counter-Revolution”,in Franc¸ois Furet and Mona Ozouf, eds., The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture: The Transformation of Political Culture, 1789–1848 (Oxford, 1989), 19–43; idem, “The Fourth English Civil War: Dissolution, Desertion, and Alternative Histories in the Glorious Revolution”,in Lois G. Schwoerer, ed., The Revolution of 1688–1689: Changing Perspectives (Cambridge, 1992), 52–64;EdmundBurke,Reflections on the Revolution in France, ed. J. G. A. Pocock (Indianapolis, 1987). 2 Pocock, Politics, Language, and Time, 231–2. 3 Ibid., 204. For recent criticism of reductive attempts to place Burke in either a natural-law or utilitarian tradition see David Armitage, “Edmund Burke and Reason of State”, Journal of the History of Ideas 61/4 (Oct. 2000), 617–34. edmund burke and the politics of conquest 405 all those decades ago, this problem has increased rather than diminished. We are now in possession of a vastly expanded repertoire of “languages” that can readily be excavated from Burke’s writings. But it remains to be shown how these relate to one another, particularly as Burke deployed them in the field of political action. Thus, while it is helpful to be able to identify the latitudinarian and sceptical strands in his thought; to trace his debts to Cicero, to Montesquieu, and to Adam Smith; and above all to appreciate how historical science in the enlightenment guided his approach to political affairs, we are still left with the problem of convincingly elucidating how these idioms of thought actually determined his political practice.4 The effort to characterize Burke’s politics in terms of an overarching ideological purpose has not fared any better than attempts to brand them in terms of his debt to particular schools of thought.5 Part of the problem to date with realizing this undertaking has been the temptation to transform Burke’s political statements into grand discursive abstractions. This tendency is understandable since it is based on the recognition that while Burke was an eighteenth-century politician, he was neither a simple nor a narrow-minded parliamentary operator who merely responded tactically to the exigencies of affairs. But if his arguments suggest a wide political vision, at the same time they were conceived as interventions. Whilst we therefore need to recover their theoretical significance, we also need to capture their strategic purpose. However, we can only make sense of strategies by way of reference to their original field of action. Political strategies should accordingly be decoded in the context of political action.6 Despite the evident reasonableness of this injunction, the history of political thought seldom concerns itself with the particular rhythms of political affairs. It rarely takes realistic account of the insistent pressures of political struggle on the thought of a political actor. The gains to be had from 4 On Burke’s latitudinarianism see F. P. Lock, Edmund Burke II, 1784–1797 (Oxford, 2006), 573–6. On the character of Burke’s scepticism see Iain Hampshire-Monk, “Burke and the Religious Sources of Skeptical Conservatism”, in J. van der Zande and R. H. Popkin, eds., The Skeptical Tradition around 1800 (Dortrecht, 1988), 235–59. 5 Recent focused studies have been more successful, although these have largely been topical in their ambition, and make no claim to capturing Burke’s political purpose in general. In this category see especially Jennifer Pitts, A Turn to Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France (Princeton, NJ., 2005); and Seamus Deane, Foreign Affections: Essays on Edmund Burke (Cork, 2005). 6 For the claim that intellectual and political strategies can only be understood contextually see John Dunn, “The Identity of the History of Ideas” (1968)inidem, Political Obligation in Its Historical Context (Cambridge, 1980), 13–28; Quentin Skinner, “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas” (1969)inidem, Visions of Politics I: Regarding Method (Cambridge, 2002), 57–89. 406 richard bourke such an approach should be immediately clear, especially for understanding the thought of a politician. But it is important to avoid lapsing in the process into another reductive procedure: that of collapsing Burke’s political career into a chain of actions and reactions and his arguments into a series of reactive adjustments to a train of circumstances—making a mockery, in short, of his political thought. This article discusses Burke’s preoccupation with the politics of conquest, and it does so in the belief that it played a defining role in shaping his political thought and practice.
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