The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V | Page 9

a charge was made, that Great
Britain had not interposed to prevent the last partition of Poland. On
this head the party dwelt very largely and very vehemently. Mr. Fox's
intention, in the choice of this extraordinary topic, was evident enough.
He well knows two things: first, that no wise or honest man can
approve of that partition, or can contemplate it without prognosticating
great mischief from it to all countries at some future time; secondly, he
knows quite as well, that, let our opinions on that partition be what they
will, England, by itself, is not in a situation to afford to Poland any
assistance whatsoever. The purpose of the introduction of Polish
politics into this discussion was not for the sake of Poland; it was to
throw an odium upon those who are obliged to decline the cause of
justice from their impossibility of supporting a cause which they
approve: as if we, who think more strongly on this subject than he does,
were of a party against Poland, because we are obliged to act with some
of the authors of that injustice against our common enemy, France. But

the great and leading purpose of this introduction of Poland into the
debates on the French war was to divert the public attention from what
was in our power, that is, from a steady coöperation against France, to a
quarrel with the allies for the sake of a Polish war, which, for any
useful purpose to Poland, he knew it was out of our power to make. If
England can touch Poland ever so remotely, it must be through the
medium of alliances. But by attacking all the combined powers
together for their supposed unjust aggression upon France, he bound
them by a now common interest not separately to join England for the
rescue of Poland. The proposition could only mean to do what all the
writers of his party in the Morning Chronicle have aimed at persuading
the public to, through the whole of the last autumn and winter, and to
this hour: that is, to an alliance with the Jacobins of France, for the
pretended purpose of succoring Poland. This curious project would
leave to Great Britain no other ally in all Europe except its old enemy,
France.
22. Mr. Fox, after the first day's discussion on the question for the
address, was at length driven to admit (to admit rather than to urge, and
that very faintly) that France had discovered ambitious views, which
none of his partisans, that I recollect, (Mr. Sheridan excepted,) did,
however, either urge or admit. What is remarkable enough, all the
points admitted against the Jacobins were brought to bear in their favor
as much as those in which they were defended. For when Mr. Fox
admitted that the conduct of the Jacobins did discover ambition, he
always ended his admission of their ambitious views by an apology for
them, insisting that the universally hostile disposition shown to them
rendered their ambition a sort of defensive policy. Thus, on whatever
roads he travelled, they all terminated in recommending a recognition
of their pretended republic, and in the plan of sending an ambassador to
it. This was the burden of all his song:--"Everything which we could
reasonably hope from war would be obtained from treaty." It is to be
observed, however, that, in all these debates, Mr. Fox never once stated
to the House upon what ground it was he conceived that all the objects
of the French system of united fanaticism and ambition would instantly
be given up, whenever England should think fit to propose a treaty. On
proposing so strange a recognition and so humiliating an embassy as he
moved, he was bound to produce his authority, if any authority he had.

He ought to have done this the rather, because Le Brun, in his first
propositions, and in his answers to Lord Grenville, defended, _on
principle, not on temporary convenience_, everything which was
objected to France, and showed not the smallest disposition to give up
any one of the points in discussion. Mr. Fox must also have known that
the Convention had passed to the order of the day, on a proposition to
give some sort of explanation or modification to the hostile decree of
the 19th of November for exciting insurrections in all countries,--a
decree known to be peculiarly pointed at Great Britain. The whole
proceeding of the French administration was the most remote that could
be imagined from furnishing any indication of a pacific disposition: for
at the very time in which it was pretended that the Jacobins entertained
those boasted pacific intentions, at the very time in which Mr. Fox was
urging a treaty with them, not content with refusing a modification of
the decree for insurrections, they