Thomas Beddoes to Davies Giddy, 4 July 1792
Non, mon ami, je ne sais pas encore, à beaucoup près, aussi Jacobin que M. le Redacteur du journal du soir & quelques uns de ses lecteurs. I have, I am sensible, no pretensions to any decisive opinion on French Politics; I can only bring up a few indications into a hazardous conjecture; & having done that, I collect that a new revolution, which with other evils will be productive of a civil war, is seriously meditated by the leaders of the clubs; the pike-men; an expression in their address which declared that the pikes shd remain after kings had passed away; a speech of M. Isnard, in which he openly avows a wish for a new revolution; the 20000 men who certainly were to assist the pike-men agt the Parisian Natl guard are appearances which I can solve upon no other supposition. I am afraid such evil spirits as have arisen at the time of all political explosions now haunt France in bodies; & if you had heard Dillon’s murder &c applauded at a nocturnal meeting, cd <you> have helped imagining you had fallen among devils? Fayette’s epithet therefore – ‘infernal acclamations’ – I think fully justified, for I cannot suppose that he was so silly or uncandid as to criminate a whole body upon the excesses of one mad member. Surely Fayette is not their enemy, though they may be his enemies. Were they less he wd not be greater; but will the reverse hold? I have no apprehension that he is to be corrupted by money, or irritated by intrigue, or seduced by the Queen, who certainly has not attractions of mind or form for any such purpose. Besides has she seduced D’Andre, Thouret, Chapelier, Rochefoucault &c&c&c. The Jacobin club has conducted itself as the equal of the Nat. Ass. & many of the ablest deputies have acted rather as members of that club than as representatives of France – & I am much more afraid of their machinations than of the abuse of the King’s constitutional but ill-bestowed veto. I have felt what you describe the wearisomeness of the eternal disappointment of one’s hopes & opinions. But I will not be disgusted. There must be some true theory for these strange appearances & if one cd be discover it there wd be some satisfaction, a melancholy one perhaps, in observing how it answered. It is obvious that, quitting every thing but the necessary arts, every hand shd grease a musket, & France produce nothing for a while ‘but men & steel, the soldier & his sword’. I much fear the attention of the country has been principally distracted from its external enemies by the intrigues of the Jacobins & the counter-intrigues of the real friends of the constitution.
Before I received your letter I had been speculating on the subject of the Cornish address & the awkward situation in which you wd find yourself. Had I been in another part of England, I wd most certainly have spoken agt an address, but send such a form as I shd have thought worthy of the occasion & of an assembly of freemen – not that I shd have expected to carry it nor even to have had it seconded, but it might, if I cd have expressed my ideas, have smitten the consciences of some of the slaves who yet retain, though they suppress, their feelings; & have put them to the pain of openly opposing what they secretly approved. I will make an offhand attempt to exemplify my meaning, but for want of the proclamation, my address, I fear, will not be a true echo.
We &c hasten to communicate to your Majesty our sentiments concerning those objects which have lately excited your M’s paternal solicitude. We have [xxxx] observed without apprehension, some illegal proceedings effects of that discontent which springs from local & transitory causes (dearness of provisions) which as they <it> arose without any evil design, passed away, without any fatal consequence, but we cannot <find> words to express our abhorrence of those disgraceful excesses into which ignorant fanaticism was hurried at the instigation of bigotry. Against these, & against all other outrages, whether committed by the unprincipled or the deluded, we shall be ever ready to oppose the influence of our opinions & our personal exertions. May the time speedily arrive when the genuine spirit of humanity shall be universally diffused, & all your Majesty’s subjects shall feel the great duties of the submission to the laws, & of an inviolable respect for the rights of those fellow citizens <who> shall <happen to> differ from them on certain abstruse questions, utterly <foreign> to the conduct of life.
We have beheld, with undisturbed tranquillity, the publication of <several> bold political speculations. The History of Europe, for centuries past, exhibits the strength of Truth & Freedom against falsehood & oppression; & if this struggle under so many disadvantages was crowned with success, can we doubt of their ability to resist the attempts of their adversaries in a liberal enlightened age, when the arms & skill of their champions are so sensibly improved & their numbers so much increased?
The analogies of every branch of human knowledge concurs with a just sense of the limited powers of the human understanding in <forbidding> us to suppose that political science has yet attained its utmost perfection. We feel the just claims of our ancestors both to our gratitude & admiration, & in the flourishing condition of our country we see a pleasing demonstration of the superiority of the constitution under which we live. But we shd esteem ourselves unworthy of such ancestors, if we submitted to them with blind deference, & of such a constitution, if we shd be led by the irrational admiration of existing institutions, to condemn <unheard> those possibilities of improvement which meditating wisdom may suggest. Our interest however as well as our duty will guard us against a precipitate adoption of any project as well as against any method of realizing it inconsistent with the demeanour of peaceful citizens.
I am more obliged to you for your remarks on Darwin than you will be to me for this piece of oratory. I wish for more of them – What think you of alluvial mountains? I no idea of any such productions of mere water –
The stipa pennata is I suppose now in seed, if not past, the Briza media not yet so far advanced: I shall ascertain these points tomorrow – & it will be quite easy for me to enclose a few seeds of each in a letter – I shall be either here or in London when you carry up the Cornish address. But will they send the sheriff? & a sheriff of such principles? & will he sign the address? I hope for a solution of these difficulties soon after the meeting & remain yours most sincerely
Thomas Beddoes
July 4th
Address: To / Davies Giddy Esq / Tredrea / Marazion / Cornwall / single sheet
Endorsement: Doctor Beddoes / 1792 / July the 4th
Stamped: OXFORD
MS: Cornish Archives MS DG 41/16