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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 October 2014
This essay analyses Burke's ideas on European history, which lay scattered over his works, and suggests that Burke may have considered Europe, with the notable exception of ancient Rome, as having been in a state of barbarism or confusion from the ancient era until the sixteenth century, despite the gradual development of society. Unlike some of his contemporaries, he did not closely examine the growth of a European state system, nor the rise of the balance of power in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Nor did he specially underline the collapse of feudalism and the process of establishing absolute monarchy. Instead, Burke stressed more fundamental elements. While he often drew attention to the glimmer of hope towards future prosperity amid devastation, which dominated large parts of European history, his ideas on European history reflected his long-held social theory that nations could revive and develop as long as the foundations of society were not damaged.
This essay has developed from a chapter of my doctoral thesis. I thank Thomas Ahnert, Harry Dickinson, Gordon Pentland and Richard Bourke for their great help and advice. Dickinson and Hajime Inuzuka took pains to read a revised version and made many suggestions, for which the author is most grateful. I also thank Duncan Kelly and three anonymous referees for their very generous comments and advice on this essay. Finally, I would like to thank the Sheffield City Archives and the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, for allowing me to access their invaluable collections.
1 For a general perspective on the historiography of the Enlightenment, for instance, see O’Brien, Karen, Narratives of Enlightenment: Cosmopolitan History from Voltaire to Gibbon (Cambridge, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pocock, J. G. A., Barbarism and Religion, 5 vols. (Cambridge, 1999–)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Exceptions are John C. Weston Jr, “Edmund Burke as Historian” (unpublished PhD thesis, University of North Carolina, 1956); Weston, , “Edmund Burke's View of History”, The Review of Politics, 23 (1961), 203–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Walter D. Love, “Edmund Burke's Historical Thought” (unpublished PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1956). For more recent discussion see Donlan, Séan Patrick, “The ‘Genuine Voice of Its Records and Monuments’? Edmund Burke's ‘Interior History of Ireland’”, in Donlan, Séan Patrick, ed., Edmund Burke's Irish Identities (Dublin, 2006), 69–101Google Scholar; O’Neill, Daniel I., The Burke–Wollstonecraft Debate: Savagery, Civilization, and Democracy (University Park, PA, 2007)Google Scholar, chaps. 2, 4; Sora Sato, “Edmund Burke's Ideas on History” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2013), Sato, “Edmund Burke's Ideas on Historical Change”, History of European Ideas, 40 (2014), 675–692; Taylor, Ben, “Reflections on the Revolution in England: Edmund Burke's Uses of 1688”, History of Political Thought, 35 (2014), 91–120Google Scholar.
3 Currie, James, A Letter, Commercial and Political, addressed to the right Honorable William Pitt: in which the Real Interests of Britain in the Present Crisis Are Considered, and Some Observations Are Offered on the General State of Europe, by Wilson, Jasper, Esq. (London, 1793), 42–3Google Scholar.
4 Pocock, J. G. A., “The Political Economy of Burke's Analysis of the French Revolution”, in Pocock, Virtue, Commerce, and History: Essays on Political Thought and History, Chiefly in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 1985), 193–212, 198CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Scholars who have explored Burke's ideas on international relations have once again drawn attention to it. For example, see Welsh, Jennifer M., Edmund Burke and International Relations: The Commonwealth of Europe and the Crusade against the French Revolution (Basingstoke, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 O’Gorman, Frank, Edmund Burke: His Political Philosophy (London, 1973), 129Google Scholar; Clark, J. C. D., “Introduction”, in Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, ed. Clark, J. C. D. (Stanford, CA, 2001), 69Google Scholar. References to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France use J. C. D. Clark's edition.
7 See Stubbs, John William, The History of the University of Dublin, from Its Foundation to the End of the Eighteenth Century (Dublin, 1889), 199–200Google Scholar; McDowell, R. B. and Webb, D. A., Trinity College Dublin: 1592–1952. An Academic History (Cambridge, 1982), 45–6, 69Google Scholar; McDowell, R. B. and Webb, D. A., “Courses and Teaching in Trinity College, Dublin, during the First Two Hundred Years”, Hermathena, 69 (1947), 9–30Google Scholar. For Burke's undergraduate education and the eighteenth-century curriculum at Trinity College, Dublin, see also Canavan, Francis P., The Political Reason of Edmund Burke (Durham, NC, 1960), 197–211Google Scholar.
8 “Burke to Shackleton, Richard and Burke, Richard Sr, (25, 31 July 1746)”, in The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, edited by Copeland, Thomas W. and others, 10 vols. (Cambridge, 1958–78) (hereafter Corr.), 1: 69Google Scholar.
9 See “Burke to Richard Shackleton (21 March 1746/47)”, in Corr., 1: 89.
10 Burke, Edmund, “National Character and Parliament”, in Richard Bourke, “Party, Parliament, and Conquest in Newly Ascribed Burke Manuscripts”, Historical Journal, 55 (2012), 619–52, 641, 625–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 Burke, Edmund, Vindication of the Natural Society, in The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke, ed. Langford, Paulet al., 8 vols. to date (1–3, 5–9) (Oxford, 1981–) (hereafter WS), 1: 142Google Scholar.
12 Ibid., 145.
13 Ibid., 149.
14 Ibid., 161.
15 Ibid, 163.
16 Ibid., 147–8.
17 Ibid., 165.
18 Burke, Edmund, An Essay towards an Abridgment of the English History, in WS, 1: 338–9Google Scholar.
19 Ibid., 339. See also ibid., 453.
20 Ibid., 341.
21 de Secondat, Charles-Louis, de Montesquieu, Baron, The Spirit of the Laws, ed. Cohler, Anne M., Miller, Basia C. and Stone, Harold S. (Cambridge, 1989), 165–8Google Scholar.
22 Burke, Abridgment, 429–432.
23 Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Réflexions sur la Monarchie Universelle en Europe (1734, but promptly withdrawn); Montesquieu, Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains and de leur décadence (1734; revised later). See also Rahe, Paul A., “The Book That Never Was: Montesquieu's Considerations on the Romans in Historical Context”, History of Political Thought, 26 (2005), 43–89Google Scholar. For eighteenth-century intellectuals, Rome was typically a model of territorial expansion. In his Second Letters on a Regicide Peace (WS, 9: 282–3), Burke took advantage of this idea to build up his arguments: “the discontented diplomatic politicians” of the Ancien Régime of France had Machiavelli's Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy and Montesquieu's Considerations as guides for their politics only to realize modern France's inferiority to the Roman republic.
24 See Courtney, C. P., Montesquieu and Burke (Oxford, 1963), 51–2Google Scholar.
25 Burke, Abridgment, 366–9. The Latin is from Tacitus's Annals, which Burke quoted in his footnote: “Rome, riding on a surfeit of glory, wanted peace for other nations as well as for herself”. Ibid., 368 n.
26 Ibid., 448.
27 Ibid., 359.
28 Ibid., 362.
29 Ibid., 369.
30 Edmund Burke, Thoughts on Cause of the Present Discontents, in WS, 2: 316 (importance of political connections); Burke, “Speech on Divorce Bill (29 April 1771)”, in WS, 2: 357 (indissolubility of marriage); Burke, Clerical Subscription (6 Feb. 1772), in WS, 2: 363 (piety and religious toleration).
31 Edmund Burke, “Speech in Reply”, in WS, 7: 662–3 (bribes); Burke, Duration of Parliaments (8 May 1780), in WS, 3: 596 (the destructive effects of frequent elections). In the latter, Burke insisted that “Rome was destroyd by the frequency and charge of Elections”. The context was his opposition to the introduction of shorter parliaments in Britain.
32 Edmund Burke, Clerical Subscription (6 Feb. 1772), in WS, 2.
33 See below and also “To James Boswell (1 March 1779)”, in Corr., 4: 45.
34 Edmund Burke, “On Parties”, in Bourke, “Newly Ascribed Burke Manuscripts”, 645–6. Burke also referred to the partisans of Mark Antony and Gaius Octavius, the factions of Gaius Marius and Lucius Cornelius Sulla, and the Yorkists and Lancastrians in England, as examples of factions under the “unmixed” constitution. Party should be distinguished from faction. In Greece and Italy, the contentions between the nobility and the plebeians contributed to preserving the vigour of their constitution until one party utterly destroyed the other. These historical examples contributed to the formation of his idea of “party”, which could be traced back to around 1757. See Bourke, “Newly Ascribed Burke Manuscripts”, 629–35.
35 Burke, in “Speech on Opening of Impeachment (15 Feb. 1788)”, in WS, 6: 277, applied this to the case of India. See also Burke, “Speech on Sixth Article: Presents”, in WS, 6: 63; Ayres, Philip, Classical Culture and the Idea of Rome in Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge, 1997), 46Google Scholar.
36 Burke, Abridgment, 375–6.
37 Ibid., 377–8.
38 Burke, Edmund, “Motion for Papers on Hastings”, in WS, 6: 63Google Scholar. See also Bk P, Sheffield Archives, Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments, the Burke Papers, 9/76. His understanding of Rome clearly provided him with a language to censure corruption in the imperial politics of his age. For this see especially Marshall, P. J., “Introduction”, in WS, 6: 29–31, 34Google Scholar.
39 Burke, Reflections, 410–411.
40 For example, see Burke, Peter, “Tradition and Experience: The Idea of Decline from Bruni to Gibbon”, Daedalus, 105 (1976), 137–52, 143, 146Google Scholar; O’Brien, Narratives of Enlightenment, 48.
41 Burke, Abridgment, 384.
42 Ibid., 453–4. See also Burke, Vindication of Natural Society, 149.
43 Burke, Abridgment, 454–5.
44 Ibid., 456.
45 Ibid. Fragile monarchies eroded by oppressive aristocratic powers were a characteristic of the medieval feudal societies widely recognized by eighteenth-century historians.
46 Ibid., 481.
47 Burke, Abridgment, 534, 548.
48 Ibid., 495.
49 See ibid., 517; Burke, Edmund, “Speeches on Bill to Secure Protestantism (26 June 1780)”, in WS, 3: 609–10Google Scholar; Cobbett, William, ed., The Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1806 (36 vols., London, 1806–20), 21, col. 720Google Scholar.
50 Burke may, however, have been familiar with European history of this period at an earlier stage of his life. A letter to Richard Shackleton in 1744 ends with the phrase “The Subjects of the Mod: Hist: 13th begins with Present State of Naples and ends with france: 14th france total: 15 france total”. The reference is to the contents of a Dublin edition of Thomas Salmon's Modern History: or, The Present State of All Nations. See “Burke to Richard Shackleton (24 Nov. 1744)”, in Corr., 1: 38.
51 Robertson, William, The History of Scotland, During the Reigns of Queen Mary and of King James VI. Till His Accession to the Crown of England, 2 vols. (London, 1759), 1: 12–18Google Scholar; Annual Register . . . for the Year 1759 (London, 1760), 489–94.
52 Anderson, Adam, An Historical and Chronological Deduction of the Origin of Commerce, 2 vols. (London, 1764), 1: 142–5Google Scholar; Annual Register . . . for the Year 1764 (London, 1765), 250–56. In his private library, Burke owned Anderson's Historical and Chronological Deduction. See catalogue of Burke's library dated 17 Aug. 1813, Bodleian MS Eng Misc d 722 (hereafter LC MS); Catalogue of the Library of the Late Right Hon. Edmund Burke, The Library of the Late Sir M. B. Clare, M.D. Some Articles from Gibbon's Library, &c. &c. . . . which will be sold by auction by Mr. Evans . . . ([London], 1833) (hereafter LC); reprinted in Deane, Seamus, ed., Sale Catalogues of Libraries of Eminent Persons, vol. 8, Politicians (London, 1973), 8Google Scholar; and its revised version by William Combe, 6 vols. (Dublin, 1790), LC, 1.
53 Edmund Burke, First Letter on a Regicide Peace, in WS, 9: 248. The European nations also came to possess a similar system of education. See ibid., 248–9.
54 Ibid. See also Edmund Burke, Letter to William Smith (1795), in WS, 9: 662.
55 Burke, First Letter on a Regicide Peace, 248.
56 Burke, Reflections, 238–9. Even before publishing the Reflections, Burke made the same point. See “Burke to Philip Francis (20 Feb. 1790)”, in Corr., 6: 90–91.
57 Burke, Reflections, 241–2.
58 Ibid., 242.
59 See Burke, Edmund and Burke, William, Account of the European Settlements in America, 2 vols. (London, 1757), 1: 192–3Google Scholar.
60 Hurd, Richard, Moral and Political Dialogues; with Letters on Chivalry and Romance, 3 vols. (London, 1765)Google Scholar; Ferguson, Adam, An Essay on the History of Civil Society (Cambridge, 1995), 192Google Scholar; Millar, John, The Origin of the Distinction of Ranks, ed. Garrett, Aaron (Indianapolis, 2006), 133, 137, 141Google Scholar; Robertson, William, The Situation of the World at the Time of Christ's Appearance, and Its Connexion with the Success of His Religion, Considered (Edinburgh, 1755), 38–40, 42Google Scholar; Robertson, William, “View of the Progress of Society in Europe”, in The Works of William Robertson, 12 vols., reprint of the 1794 edn (London, 1996), 3: 80–86, 91Google Scholar; Home, Henry, Kames, Lord, Sketches of the History of Man, 4vols. (Edinburgh, 1778), 2: 307–8Google Scholar; Hume, David, The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688, foreword by William B. Todd, 6 vols. (Indianapolis, 1983), 1: 486–7Google Scholar. Burke owned Hurd's Moral and Political Dialogues (LC MS; LC, 12.), Ferguson's Essay on the History of Civil Society (LC MS) and Hume's History of England (LC MS; LC, 15). For Montesquieu's views of chivalry see The Spirit of the Laws, 562.
61 Annual Register . . . for the Year 1758 (London, 1759), 464–9. Burke reviewed volume one of Jortin, John, The Life of Erasmus, 2 vols. (London, 1758–60)Google Scholar. In his private library Burke owned Samuel Knight, The Life of Erasmus (1726), LC MS; LC, 13.
62 See Annual Register . . . for the Year 1758, 463.
63 Burke and Burke, Account, 1: 3.
64 Ibid., 1: 3–4. In his private library, Burke owned Guicciardini's Storia d’Italia. See LC MS; LC, 11. Guicciardini, Francesco, The History of Italy, from the year 1490, to 1532, 10 vols., wanting vol. 7 (London, [1754]), 15Google Scholar.
65 Burke and Burke, Account, 1: 5.
66 Ibid., 1: 47.
67 “Speech at Bristol Previous to the Election (6 Sept. 1780)”, in WS, 3: 639.
68 Ibid.
69 Ibid., 639–40.
70 Jortin, Life of Erasmus, 1: 609.
71 In this letter Burke touched upon the corruption of the Greek and Latin churches. See “Burke to Lord Kenmare (21 Feb. 1782)”, in Corr., 4: –13. In his private library, Burke owned Paolo Sarpi, The Historie of the Councel of Trent, trans. Nathaniel Brent (London, [1620]). See LC MS; LC, 27.
72 Burke, Edmund, Thoughts on French Affairs (1791), in WS, 8: 341Google Scholar.
73 Ibid., 342.
74 Burke, Reflections, 312–13. Probably this was not the first time he had linked the events of 1789 with the Massacre of St Bartholomew. In a letter of 9 Aug. 1789 he already had in mind St Bartholomew's Day and the wars of the Fronde (1648–53). See “Burke to the Earl of Charlemont (9 Aug. 1789)”, in Corr., 6: 10; Clark, “Introduction”, in Burke, Reflections, 61.
75 Burke, Reflections, 306. Burke owned Enrico Caterino Davila, Histoire des guerres civiles de France, 2 vols. (1657), LC, 7; Davila, Historia delle guerre civili di Francia, 2 vols. (1755), LC MS, LC, 7; Davila, The History of the Civil Wars of France ([London], 1678) (LC MS; LC, 10); de Mézeray, François Eudes, Histoire de France, depuis Faramond jusqu’à maintenant, 3 vols. (Paris, 1643–51), LC, 18Google Scholar; Hénault, Charles Jean François, Nouvel abrégé chronologique de l’histoire de France (Paris, 1752), LC MSGoogle Scholar; LC, 15; Pierre Thomas Nicolas Hurtaut and Magny, Dictionnaire historique de la ville de Paris et de ses environs, 4 vols. (Paris, 1779), LC, 12. In the letter to Pierre-Gaëton Dupont on 28 Oct. 1790, Burke drew some information from the Mémoires de Maximilien de Bethume, Duc de Sully . . . Mis en ordre, avec des remarques par M.L.D.L.D.L., 3 vols. (London, 1747), which he owned in his private library. See “Burke to Pierre-Gaëton Dupont (28 Oct. 1790)”, in Corr., 6: 147–8; LC MS; LC, 24.
76 Burke, Reflections, 204–5.
77 Edmund Burke, Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791), in WS, 8: 302–3, 321–2; Burke, Remarks on the Policy of the Allies (1793), in WS, 8: 497–8.
78 Burke, Reflections, 324.
79 Here we may add his low view of Phillip II (1527–98), of whose persecution of Calvinism in the Netherlands Burke was probably highly critical. See Edmund Burke, “Speech at Bristol Previous to Election (6 Sept. 1780)”, in WS, 3: 651. Burke was a reader of Robert Watson's The History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain, 2 vols. (1777), and, in his previous speech, he clearly regarded the king as a tyrant. See Edmund Burke, “Speech on Cavendish's Motion on America (6 Nov. 1776)”, in WS, 3: 254–5; LC, 25. See also “Speech on Conciliation with America (22 March 1775)”, in WS, 3: 139.
80 See O’Brien, Narratives of Enlightenment, 141–8; Phillipson, N. T., “Providence and Progress: An Introduction to the Historical Thought of William Robertson”, in Brown, Stewart J., ed., William Robertson and the Expansion of Empire (Cambridge, 1997) 55–73, 69–70Google Scholar; Karen O’Brien, “Robertson's Place in the Development of Eighteenth-Century Narrative History”, in ibid., 74–91, 75; Kidd, Colin, “Subscription, the Scottish Enlightenment and the Moderate Interpretation of History”, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 55 (2004), 502–19, 513–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
81 He was, nevertheless, certainly aware of the contemporary debate on the historical formation of this idea. See Burke, Edmund, “Extracts from Vattel's Law of Nations”, in Three Memorials on French Affairs. Written in the Years 1791, 1792 and 1793. By the late Right Hon. Edmund Burke (London, 1797)Google Scholar.
82 Francis Bacon, The History of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh (1622); James Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656); Harrington, The Art of Lawgiving (1659).
83 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, 456, where the author argued that Henry's attack on the monks and removal of the poorhouses had contributed to establishing the spirit of commerce and industry.
84 Hume, History of England, 4: 384. See also Hume, “Of the Coalition of Parties”.
85 Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. Campbell, R. H., Skinner, A. S. and Todd, W. B., in The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1976), 1: 376–427 (Book III)Google Scholar. See also ibid., 2: 802–4; Adam Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence, ed. Meek, R. L., Raphael, D. D. and Stein, P. G., in The Glasgow Edition (Oxford, 1978), 261–4, 420Google Scholar.
86 Smith, Lectures on Jurisprudence, 264.
87 Burke, Edmund, An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, in Consequence of Some Late Discussions in Parliament, relative to the Reflections on the French Revolution (London, 1791), 87Google Scholar; Burke, Thoughts on the French Affairs, in WS, 8: 347; Burke, Reflections, 259.
88 Burke, Reflections, 281–2; Burke, Letter to a Noble Lord (1796), in WS, 9: 166–7. See also Burke, “National Character and Parliament”, in Bourke, “Newly Ascribed Burke Manuscripts”, 642.
89 Burke and Burke, Account, 2: 4.
90 Ibid., 2: 4–5.
91 Cf. Hume, David, “Of Civil Liberty”, in Hume, Essays: Moral, Political and Literary, ed. Miller, Eugene F. (Indianapolis, 1985), 87–96, 88: “Trade was never esteemed an affair of state till the last century”Google Scholar.
92 Burke and Burke, Account, 2: 16–17.
93 Ibid., 2: 17–18.
94 See Burke, Edmund, Speech on Fox's India Bill (1 Dec. 1783), in WS, 5: 401–2Google Scholar, where he claimed that, although the early invaders to India brought great turmoil to the country, they did not utterly ruin its society: “With many disorders, and with few political checks upon power, Nature had still fair play; the sources of acquisition were not dried up; and therefore the trade, the manufactures, and the commerce of the country flourished”.
95 Burke, Edmund, Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791), in WS, 8: 331–2Google Scholar.
96 Burke, Edmund, Second Letter on a Regicide Peace (1796), in WS, 9: 291Google Scholar.
97 Burke, Thoughts on French Affairs, 351, also 348–9.
98 “Letter to William Elliot (26 May 1795)”, in WS, 9: 36.
99 Ibid., 274–5. See also Burke, Edmund, Fourth Letter on a Regicide Peace, in WS, 9: 96. See also Bk P 25/32Google Scholar.
100 Burke, Edmund, Tracts relating to Popery Laws (1765), in WS, 9: 459Google Scholar.
101 Ibid., 460. See also Annual Register . . . for the Year 1763 (London, 1764), 3.
102 See Burke, Edmund, Speech on Economical Reform (1780), in WS, 3: 488Google Scholar; Burke, Substance of the Speech of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, in the Debate on the Army Estimates, in the House of Commons, On Tuesday, the 9th Day of February, 1790, 9–10. As a Whig, Burke was naturally critical of the absolutism of Louis XIV.
103 Burke, Edmund, A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791), in WS, 8: 306Google Scholar.
104 Burke, First Letter on a Regicide Peace, 238. See also Armitage, David, “Edmund Burke and Reason of State”, Journal of the History of Ideas, 61 (2000), 617–34, 631 nCrossRefGoogle Scholar.
105 Burke, Reflections, 275.
106 For the eighteenth-century views of Louis XIV and his reign, for instance, see Johnson, N. R., “Louis XIV and the Age of Enlightenment: The Myth of the Sun King from 1715–1789”, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, 172 (1978), 1–350Google Scholar; O’Brien, Narratives of Enlightenment, 67–8 (Voltaire's and Hume's views); Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, 1: 111, 2: 137.
107 Burke, Thoughts on the French Affairs, 368. Burke was generally critical of Polish politics. See Burke, Vindication, 159–60; Annual Register . . . for the Year 1763 (London, 1764), 45.
108 See Annual Register . . . for the Year 1762 (London, 1763), 11; “Burke to the Empress of Russia (1 Nov. 1791)”, in Corr., 6: 444 (the context was Burke's plea to Russia to intervene in French affairs); Annual Register . . . for the Year 1762 (London, 1763), 17; “Burke to [Adrian Heinrich von] Borcke [post 17 Jan. 1774]”, in Corr., 2: 514. See also Annual Register . . . for the Year 1765 (London, 1766), 5, where the author maintained that Russia had been steeped in religious and civil prejudice.
109 Burke, however, recognized the stagnation of the Spanish nation despite it gaining great wealth from its American and West Indian colonies. See Burke and Burke, Account, 1: 285–6.
110 Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, 1: 110.
111 See Burke, First Letter on a Regicide Peace, 190.
112 In his Reflections, Burke referred to a French census ordered in the early eighteenth century, and to Jacques Necker's and Richard Price's estimates, rather approvingly and maintained that there had been an increase in the population of France. See Burke, Reflections, 296. Burke owned Necker's De l’administration des finances de la France, 3 vols. ([Paris], 1784). See LC MS.
113 “Burke to Richard Burke, JR (18 Aug. 1791)”, in Corr., 6: 359. See also Burke, An Appeal, 46.
114 Burke, Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, 331–2.
115 For instance, see “Burke to Captain Thomas Mercer (26 Feb. 1790)”, in Corr., 6: 97.
116 Burke, Edmund, Letter to William Elliot (26 May 1795), in WS, 9: 39; Burke, Reflections, 241Google Scholar.
117 Edmund Burke, “Speech on Opening of Impeachment,” in WS, 6: 283, also 352–3; Burke, Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, 320.
118 In Burke's concept of civil society, a property differential naturally increases over time (Corr., 3: 403). The culture of honour in Europe, shaped over the course of time, rested on such an unequal division of property across different ranks in society. See Bourke, Richard, “Sovereignty, Opinion and Revolution in Edmund Burke”, History of European Ideas, 25 (1999), 99–120, 113CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
119 Burke, Second Letter on a Regicide Peace, 287.
120 Burke, “Considerations on a militia”, 652.
121 Burke, First Letter on a Regicide Peace, 192–3. For his review of Brown's Estimate of the manners and principles of the time, see Annual Register . . . for the Year 1758 (London, 1759), 445–53.
122 Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains and de leur décadence, in Oeuvres complètes de Montesquieu, ed. Jean Ehrard, Catherine Volpilhac-Auger, et al. (Oxford, 1998–), 2: 95, 263–4; Rahe, “The Book that never was”, 75–6.
123 Burke, Abridgment, 399.
124 Pocock, “Burke's Analysis of the French Revolution”; Pocock, , “Edmund Burke and the Redefinition of Enthusiasm: The Context as Counter-Revolution”, in Furet, François and Ozouf, Mona, eds., The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture, vol. 3, The Transformation of Political Culture 1789–1848 (Oxford, 1989), 19–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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126 Bourke, Richard, “Edmund Burke and Enlightenment Sociability: Justice, Honour and the Principles of Government”, History of Political Thought, 21 (2000), 632–56, 651–2Google Scholar.
127 Burke, Reflections, 364
128 What was happening in France was utterly new to history and extraordinary in its nature. See “Burke to Lord Grenville (21 Sept. 1791)”, in Corr., 6: 407; “Burke to the Archbishop of Nisibis (14 Dec. 1791)”, in Corr., 6: 458; Burke, Thoughts on French Affairs, 367; Burke, Remarks on the Policy of the Allies, 498; Burke, Letter to a Noble Lord, 174–5; Burke, Second Letter on a Regicide Peace, 290–91.
