This is my account of my conduct to my private friends.  I have already said all I wish to say, or nearly so, to the public.  I write this with pain and with an heart full of grief.

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] It is an exception, that in one of his last speeches (but not before) Mr. Fox seemed to think an alliance with Spain might be proper.

PREFACE

TO THE

ADDRESS OF M. BRISSOT

TO HIS CONSTITUENTS.

TRANSLATED BY

THE LATE WILLIAM BURKE, ESQ.

1794.

PREFACE TO BRISSOT’S ADDRESS.

The French Revolution has been the subject of various speculations and various histories.  As might be expected, the royalists and the republicans have differed a good deal in their accounts of the principles of that Revolution, of the springs which have set it in motion, and of the true character of those who have been, or still are, the principal actors on that astonishing scene.

They who are inclined to think favorably of that event will undoubtedly object to every state of facts which comes only from the authority of a royalist.  Thus much must be allowed by those who are the most firmly attached to the cause of religion, law, and order, (for of such, and not of friends to despotism, the royal party is composed,)—­that their very affection to this generous and manly cause, and their abhorrence of a Revolution not less fatal to liberty than to government, may possibly lead them in some particulars to a more harsh representation of the proceedings of their adversaries than would be allowed by the cold neutrality of an impartial judge.  This sort of error arises from a source highly laudable; but the exactness of truth may suffer even from the feelings of virtue.  History will do justice to the intentions of worthy men, but it will be on its guard against their infirmities; it will examine with great strictness of scrutiny whatever appears from a writer in favor of his own cause.  On the other hand, whatever escapes him, and makes against that cause, comes with the greatest weight.

In this important controversy, the translator of the following work brings forward to the English tribunal of opinion the testimony of a witness beyond all exception.  His competence is undoubted.  He knows everything which concerns this Revolution to the bottom.  He is a chief actor in all the scenes which he presents.  No man can object to him as a royalist:  the royal party, and the Christian religion, never had a more determined enemy.  In a word, it is BRISSOT.  It is Brissot, the republican, the Jacobin, and the philosopher, who is brought to give an account of Jacobinism, and of republicanism, and of philosophy.