to inquire into his motives, or the legality of what he said; and the real issue was, therefore, in the hands of the judges, who, being appointed by the Crown, were peculiarly liable to be swayed by court influences. This made the trial by jury in libel cases a mere nullity, and too often turned it into an instrument for crushing the liberty of the press. Mr. Burke took up the subject at the time of Woodfall's trial, and prepared a bill giving juries the right to judge of the law as well as the fact, but it was rejected by a large majority. This bill, in all its leading features, Mr. Fox brought forward again in the year 1791, after the famous trial of the Dean of St. Asaph, in which Mr. Erskine made his masterly argument on the rights of juries." "When a man," said Mr. Fox, in urging his bill, "is accused of murder, a crime consisting of law and fact, the jury every day find a verdict of guilty, and this also is the case in felony and every criminal indictment. Libels are the only exception, the single anomaly." "All will admit that a writing may be an overt act of treason; but suppose in this case the Court of King's Bench should charge the jury; Consider only whether the criminal published the papers-do not inquire into the nature of it-do not examine whether it corresponds to the definition of treason'—would Englishmen endure that death should be inflicted by the decision of a jury thus trammeled and overruled?" Mr. Pitt generously seconded Mr. Fox in this effort, and even raised Mr. Grenville to the House of Lords for the sake of giving the bill a more powerful support in that body, but Lord Thurlow succeeded in defeating it that ses sion. It was passed, however, in 1792, notwithstanding the pertinacious opposition of the law Lords, Thurlow, Kenyon, and Bathurst; and Mr. Fox had the satisfaction of thus performing one of the most important services ever rendered to the liberty of the press.

The progress of our narrative has led us forward insensibly into the midst of the French Revolution. Some one, speaking of this convulsion, remarked to Mr. Burke, that it had shaken the whole world. Yes," replied he, "and it has shaken the heart of Mr. Fox out of its place!" Certain it is that every thing Mr. Fox did or said on this subject, whether right or wrong, sprung directly from his heart, from the warm impulse of his humane and confiding nature. In fact, the leading statesmen of that day were all of them governed, in the part they took, far more by temperament and previous habits of thought, than by any deep-laid schemes of policy. Mr. Burke was naturally cautious. His great principle in government was prescription. With him abstract right was nothing, circumstances were every thing; so that his first inquiry in politics was, not what is true or proper in the nature of things, but what is practicable, what is expedient, what is wise and safe in the present posture of affairs. Hence, on the question of taxing America, he treated all discussions of the abstract right with utter contempt. "I do not enter into these metaphysical distinctions," said he, "I hate the sound of them." Mr. Fox, on the contrary, instantly put the question on the ground of right; all the sympathies of his nature were on the side of the colonies as injured and insulted. "There is not an American," said he," but must reject and resist the principle and the right." With such feelings and habits of thought, it might have been foreseen from the beginning that Mr. Burke and Mr. Fox would be at utter variance respecting the French Revolution, carried on, as it was, upon the principle of the inherent "rights of man." The difficulty was greater, because each of them, to a certain extent, had the truth on his side. The right of self-government in a people, as Mr. Fox truly said, does not depend on precedent or the concessions of rulers, but is founded in the nature of things. It is not because they have been free, but because they have a right to be free, that men demand their freedom." Mr. Burke, on the other hand, was equally correct in maintaining that the question of resistance is far from being a question of

22 For this speech, see page 656.

mere abstract right. Circumstances, to a great extent, enter as an essential element into the decision of that question. No one is weak enough to suppose that any nation, however oppressed, can be justified in a rebellion which it is plainly impossible to carry through; or that self-government would be any thing but a curse to a people who are destitute of moral and political virtue. These are points, however, on which it is usually impossible to decide in the early stages of a revolution. A people sometimes make their destiny by the energy of their own will. The trials and privations through which they pass (as in the case of the seven United Provinces) prepare them for self-government. It was, therefore, natural for a man of Mr. Fox's sanguine temperament, especially with the example of America before him, to have confident hopes of the same auspicious results in France.

The first instance of popular violence that occurred was the attack on the Bastile (July 14th, 1789); and Mr. Fox, in referring to it in the House, quoted, very happily, from Cowper's Task (which had been recently published), the beautiful lines respecting that fortress:

"Ye horrid towers, th' abode of broken hearts,

Ye dungeons and ye cages of despair,
That monarchs have supplied from age to age
With music such as suits their sovereign ears:

The sighs and groans of miserable men!

There's not an English heart that would not leap
To hear that ye were fall'n at last."

So far as this event was concerned, Mr. Burke's sympathies were entirely with Mr. Fox. He said it was impossible not to admire the spirit by which the attack was dictated; but the excesses which followed brought him out soon after as an opponent of the Revolution, while Mr. Fox, as might be expected from one of his ardent feelings, still clung to the cause he had espoused. He lamented those excesses as truly as Mr. Burke, but his hopeful spirit led him to believe they would speedily pass away. He ascribed them to the feelings naturally created by the preceding despotism, and thus insensibly became the apologist of the revolutionary leaders, as Mr. Burke was of the court and nobility.

The false position into which Mr. Fox was thus drawn was the great misfortune of his subsequent life. He had no feelings in common with the philosophizing assassins of France, and from the moment he learned their true character, and saw the utter failure of their experiments, it is much to be regretted that he should in any way have been led to appear as their advocate. And yet it seemed impossible for one of his cast of mind to avoid it. When Austria and Russia invaded France (July, 1792), for the avowed purpose of putting back the Bourbons on the throne, he felt (as the whole world now feel) that it was not only the worst possible policy, but a flagrant violation of national right. He sympathized with the French. He rejoiced, and proclaimed his joy in the House of Commons, when they drove out the invaders, and seized, in their turn, upon the Austrian Netherlands. So, too, on the questions in dispute between England and France, which soon after resulted in war, he condemned the course taken by his own government as harsh and insulting. He thus far sided with the French, declaring that the English ministry had provoked the war, and were justly chargeable with the calamities it produced. And when the French, elated by their success in the Netherlands, poured forth their armies on the surrounding nations, with the avowed design of carrying out the Revolution by fire and sword, Mr. Fox was even then led by his peculiar position to palliate what he had no wish to justify. He dwelt on the provocations they had received, and showed great ingenuity in proving that the spirit of conquest and treachery which characterized the Republic, was only the spirit of the Bourbons transfused into the new government that they had taught the nation, and trained it up for ages, to be the

plunderers of mankind. It is difficult to conceive, at the present day, how all this grated upon the ears of an immense majority of the English people. The world has learned many lessons from the French Revolution, and one of the most important is that which Mr. Fox was continually inculcating, that nations, however wrong may be their conduct, should be left to manage their internal concerns in their own way. But the doctrines of Mr. Burke had taken complete possession of the higher class of minds throughout the country. The French were a set of demons. They had murdered their king, and cast off religion; it was, therefore, the duty of surrounding nations to put them out of the pale of civilized society-to treat them as robbers and pirates; and whatever violence might result from such treatment was to be charged on the revolutionary spirit of the French. That spirit was certainly bad enough, and would very likely, under any circumstances, have produced war; but if Mr. Fox's advice had been followed, much of the enthusiasm with which the whole French nation rushed into the contest would have been prevented, and the fire of the Revolution might possibly have burned out within their own borders, instead of involving all Europe in the conflagration. But the great body of the English people were unprepared for such views, and Mr. Fox was the last man from whom they could hear any thing of this kind even with patience. His early mistakes as to the Revolution had made him the most unpopular man in the kingdom; and it must be admitted that, while he was right in the great object at which he aimed, the nature of the argument and the warmth of his feelings made him seem too often to be the advocate of the French, even in their worst excesses. It was hardly possible, indeed, to oppose the war without appearing to take part with the enemy.

Even Mr. Wilber

force, when he made his motion against it in 1794, was very generally suspected of revolutionary principles. When I first went to the levee," said he, "after moving my amendment, the King cut me." "Your friend Mr. Wilberforce," said Mr. Windham to Lady Spencer, "will be very happy any morning to hand your Ladyship to the guillotine!"

The name of Mr. Windham naturally suggests another event connected with Mr. Fox's views of the French Revolution. Nearly all his friends deserted him, and became his most strenuous opponents. Mr. Burke led the way, as already stated in the sketch of his life. The Duke of Portland, Lord Loughborough, Mr. Windham, and a large number of the leading Whigs, followed at a somewhat later period, leaving him with only a handful of supporters in the House to maintain the contest with Mr. Pitt. Any other man, in such circumstances, would have given up in despair, but Mr. Fox's spirit seemed always to rise in exact proportion to the pressure that was laid upon him. While he pleaded incessantly for peace with France, he maintained a desperate struggle for the rights of the English people during that memorable season of agitation and alarm from 1793 to 1797. His remedy for the disaffection which prevailed so extensively among the middling and lower classes, was that of Lord Chatham : "Remove their grievances, that will restore them to peace and tranquillity." "It may be asked," said he, " what would I propose to do in times of agitation like the present? I will answer openly. If there is a tendency in the Dissenters to discontent, because they conceive themselves to be unjustly suspected and cruelly calumniated, what would I do? I would instantly repeal the Test and Corporation Acts, and take from them, by such a step, all cause of complaint. If there are any persons tinctured with a republican spirit, because they think that the representative government would be more perfect in a republic, I would endeavor to amend the representation of the Commons, and to show that the House, though not chosen by all, can have no other interest than to prove itself the representative of all. If there are men dissatisfied in Scotland, or Ireland, or elsewhere, by reason of disabilities and exemptions, of unjust prejudices, and of cruel restrictions, I would repeal

the penal statutes, which are a disgrace to our law books. If I were to issue a proclamation [the King had just issued one against seditious writings], this should be my proclamation: If any man has a grievance, let him bring it to the bar of the Commons' House of Parliament, with the firm persuasion of having it honestly investigated.' These are the subsidies that I would grant to government."

Such were, indeed, the subsidia, the support and strength in the hearts of his people, which the King of England needed. But George III. and his counselors at that time looked only to restriction and force. A repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts was not to be thought of (though strenuously urged by Mr. Fox), because Dr. Price and Dr. Priestley, who were leading Dissenters, had been warm friends of the French Revolution. The King would hear nothing of any relief for the Roman Catholics; his coronation oath required him to keep them in perpetual bondage. As to parliamentary reform, Mr. Fox himself, at an earlier period, saw no plan which he thought free from objections; and hence Mr. Moore, and others of his friends, have been led hastily to represent him as a cold, if not a hypocritical advocate of this measure. But from a private letter (see article Fox, in the Encyclopedia Britannica), it appears that his views at this time experienced a material change. "I think,” said he, " we ought to go further toward agreeing with the democratic or popular party than at any former period." Accordingly, in May, 1797, he supported Mr. Grey's motion for reform in a speech (to be found below) of uncommon beauty and force. His great struggle, however, for the rights of the people was somewhat earlier, during the period which has been called (though with some exaggeration) the "Reign of Terror." Lord Loughborough, and the other Whigs who seceded to Mr. Pitt, had urged the ministry, with the proverbial zeal of new converts, into the most violent measures for putting down political discussion. The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended; the Traitorous Correspondence Bill made it high treason to hold intercourse. with the French, or supply them with any commodities; the Treasonable Practice Bill was designed to construe into treason a conspiracy to levy war, even without an overt act amounting thereto; and the Seditious Meetings' Bill forbade any assembly of more than fifty persons to be held for political purposes, without the license of a magistrate. The two bills last mentioned were so hostile to the spirit of a free government, that even Lord Thurlow opposed them in the most vehement manner. It was during the discussion of the latter, that Mr. Fox made his famous declaration, that "if the bill should pass into a law, contrary to the sense and opinion of a great majority of the nation, and if the law, after it was passed, should be executed according to the rigorous provisions of the act, resistance would not be a question of duty, but of prudence."

It was unfortunate for Mr. Fox that he was so often hurried into rash declarations of this kind. Threats are not usually the best mode of defending the cause of freedom. Nor is it true that men, under a representative government, have a right instantly to resist any law which the Legislature have regularly enacted, unless it be one diametrically opposed to the law of God. There is another remedy both in the judiciary and in the popular branch of the government. Mr. Fox's doctrine, that "a law, contrary to the sense and opinion of the great majority of the nation," may be rightfully resisted, is a species of "nullification" hitherto unknown in America. Another of his hasty expressions did him great injury about three years after. At a dinner of the Whig club in 1798, he gave as a toast, "The Sovereignty of the People of Great Britain." Exactly what he meant by this, it is difficult to say. He was a firm friend of the British Constitution, with its three estates of King, Lords, and Commons. He always declared himself to be against a republic; and he could not, therefore, have wished that the functions of sovereignty should be taken from the 23 See Parliamentary History, vol. xxxiii., p. 456.

existing head of the government, and conferred on the body of the people or their representatives in Parliament. If he only meant that the King and Lords ought to yield in all cases to the deliberate and well-ascertained wishes of the people (a doubtful doctrine, certainly, in a mixed government), he took a very unfortunate mode of expressing his views. It is not wonderful, at all events, that the King considered it as a personal insult, and ordered his name to be struck from the list of Privy Counselors, a step never taken in any other case during his long reign, except in that of Lord George Germaine when convicted of a dereliction of duty, if not of cowardice, at the battle of Minden.

Mr. Pitt's ascendency in the House was now so complete, that Mr. Fox had no motive to continue his attendance in Parliament. He therefore withdrew from public business for some years, devoting himself to literary pursuits and the society of his friends. At no time does his character appear in so amiable a point of view. He had gradually worn out his vices. His marriage with Mrs. Armstead, which was announced at a later period, exerted the happiest influence on his character. This was truly, as a friend remarked, the golden season of his life. He devoted much of his time to the study of the classics, and especially of the Greek tragedians. At this time, also, he commenced his work on the Revolution of 1688, which was published after his death.

From this retirement he was temporarily called forth by an occurrence which led to one of the noblest efforts of his eloquence. In December, 1799, Bonaparte was elected First Consul of France for ten years; and the day after his induction into office, he addressed a letter to the King of England in his own hand, making proposals of peace. Mr. Pitt, however, refused even to treat with him on the subject. Upon the third of February, 1800, the question came before the House on a motion for approving the course taken by the ministry, and Mr. Fox again appeared in his place. Mr. Pitt, who felt the difficulty of his situation, had prepared himself beforehand with the utmost care. In a speech of five hours long, he went back to the origin of the war, brought up minutely all the atrocities of the Revolution, dwelt on the instability of the successive governments which had marked its progress, commented with terrible severity on the character and crimes of Bonaparte during the preceding four years, and justified on these grounds his backwardness to recognize the new government or to rely on its offers of peace. When he concluded, at four o'clock in the morning, Mr. Fox, who was always most powerful in reply, instantly rose and answered him in a speech of nearly the same length, meeting him on all the main topics with a force of argument, a dexterity in wresting Mr. Pitt's weapons out of his hands and turning them against himself, a keenness of retort, a graphic power of description, and an impetuous flow of eloquence, to which we find no parallel in any of his published speeches. Both these great efforts will be found in this collection, with all the documents which are necessary to a full understanding of the argument. Respecting one topic dwelt upon in these speeches, namely, the justice of the war with France, it may be proper to add a few words explanatory of Mr. Fox's views, to be followed by similar statements, on a future page, as to the ground taken by Mr. Pitt.

Mr. Fox held that the grievances complained of by the English, viz., the opening of the River Scheldt, the French Decree of Fraternity, and the countenance shown to disaffected Englishmen (points to be explained hereafter in notes to these speeches), ought to have been made the subject of full and candid negotiation. England was bound not only to state her wrongs, but to say explicitly what would satisfy her. But Mr. Pitt recalled the English embassador from Paris on the tenth of August, 1792 (when Louis XVI. became virtually a prisoner), before the occurrence of any of these events. He suspended the functions of M. Chauvelin, the French embassa