CHAPTER V.

Prevents the Rockingham Secession-Franklin-Absentee TaxAlliance of France with America-Burke loses his Seat for Bristol-Speech on the Household-French Finance-Neckar.

DURING this anxious period; while all the elements of public life were darkening, and the tempest which began in America threatened to make the round of the whole European horizon, Burke found leisure and buoyancy of spirit for the full enjoyment of society. There he was still the universal favourite. Even Johnson, adverse as he was to him in politics, and accustomed to treat all adversaries with rough contempt or angry sarcasm, smoothed down his mane, and drew in his talons in the presence of Burke. On one occasion, when Goldsmith, in his vague style, talked of the impossibility of living in intimacy with a person having a different opinion on any prominent topic, Johnson rebuked him, as usual. "Why, no, Sir. You must only shun the subject on which you disagree. For instance, I can live very well with Burke. I love his knowledge, his genius, his diffusion and affluence of conversation. But I would not talk to him of the Rockingham party."

In his reserve upon this topic, Johnson probably meant to exhibit more kindness than met the ear, for the Rockingham party had become the tender point of Burke's public feelings. That party had been origi nally led to take refuge under its nominal leader, by the mere temptation of high Whig title, hereditary rank, and large fortune. But the Marquis had been found inefficient, or unlucky, and his parliamentary weight diminished day by day. Burke still fought, kept actual ruin at a distance, and signalized himself by all the vigour, zeal, and enterprise of an invincible debater. But nothing could resist the force of circumstances; the party must change its leader, or give up its arms. In this emergency, the Marquis proposed a total secession from Parliament. To his proposal Burke, with due submission, gave way; but accompanied the acquiescence with a letter, in which, in stating his reasons for retreat, he so strikingly stated the reasons for the contrary, that the Marquis changed his opinion at once; and the field was retained for a new trial of fortune. Burke's impression, doubtless, was, that nothing can be gained, though every thing may be lost, by giving up the contest; that nothing is sooner forgotten than the public man who is no longer before the public eye; and that, whatever the nation may discover in vigorous resistance, it will never discover courage in flight, or wisdom in despair.

His opinion on this point was touched on, in a subsequent conversation with his friend Sir Joshua Reynolds. "Mr Burke, I do not mean to flatter," said

Sir Joshua, "but when posterity reads one of your speeches in Parliament, it will be difficult to believe that you took so much pains, knowing with certainty that it could produce no effect-that not one vote would be gained by it."

"Waiving your compliment to me," was the reply, "I shall say, in general, that it is very well worth while for a man to take pains to speak well in Parliament. A man who has vanity speaks to display his talents. And if a man speaks well, he gradually establishes a certain reputation and consequence in the general opinion, which sooner or later will have its political reward. Besides, though not one vote is gained, a good speech has its effect. Though an act which has been ably opposed passes into a law, yet in its progress it is modelled, it is softened in such a manner, that we see plainly the minister has been told, that the members attached to him are so sensible of its injustice or absurdity from what they have heard, that it must be altered."

He again observed,—“ There are many members, who generally go with the Minister, who will not go all lengths. There are many honest, well-meaning country gentlemen, who are in Parliament only to keep up the consequence of their families. Upon most of those a good speech will have influence."

"What next," asked Sir Joshua, "would be the result; if a Minister, secure of a majority, were to resolve that there should be no speaking on his side?" Burke answered; "That he must soon go out. The plan has been tried already, but it was found it would not do."

In the midst of the more important matters of debate, his natural good humour often relieved the gravity of the House. His half-vexed, half-sportive remark on the speech of David Hartley, the member for Hull, an honest man, but a dreary debater, was long remembered. Burke had come, intending to speak on a motion on American affairs, to be brought forward by the member for Hull. But that gentleman's style rapidly thinned the benches. At length, when the House was almost a desert, he called for the reading of the Riot Act, to support some of his arguments. Burke's impatience could be restrained no longer, and under the double vexation of seeing the motion ruined, and his own speech likely to be thrown away for want of an audience, he started up, almost instinctively, exclaiming, "The Riot Act, the Riot Act! for what? does not my honourable friend see that he has dispersed the mob already?"

His exertions on the American question naturally brought him into intercourse with the principal persons connected with the subject. He corresponded with General Lee, a man of some acquirements, but of extreme eccentricity, if not insane. Lee afterwards took service in the American army, where he soon quarrelled with his superiors as much as at home; and found as little to reconcile his giddy understanding and worthless heart, in republicanism as in monarchy. Some connexion with Franklin was the natural result of his position in the House. But Franklin at that time was not the revolter that he afterwards became. He cal

led upon Burke the day before he took his final leave of London, in 1775, and had a long interview with him. On this occasion Franklin expressed great regret for the calamities, which he viewed as the consequence of the ministerial determinations; professing, that nothing could give him more pain than the separation of the colonies from the mother-country; that America had enjoyed many happy days under her rule, and that he never expected to see such again! Yet, it is evident, that Franklin was irreconcileably hostile ; this feeling had broken out on the most accidental occasions. One day, visiting the source of the Thames, he exclaimed, "And is it this narrow stream, that is to have dominion over a country that contains the Hudson and the Ohio?" On leaving the Privy-Council, where he had been examined and taken to task by Wedderburne the Attorney-General, he murmured in the bitterness of personal revenge, "For this I will make your King a little king." "This was not the language of a peace-maker. The Americans still panegyrize this man. His worldly skill makes the standing figure of the fourth of July speeches, those annual elaborate effusions of Republican eloquence. But whatever they may do with his name, they should abjure his spirit. To Franklin and to his doctrine of selfishness, his substitution of the mere business of amassing, for the generous and natural uses of wealth, his turning the American into a mere calculator of profit and loss, and America into a huge countinghouse; is due a vast portion of every evil belonging to