regicide, But that is high matter; and ought not to be mixed with any thing of fo little moment, as what may belong to me, or even to the duke of Bedford.

have the honour to be, &c.

EDMUND BURKE.

MR. BURKE'S

THREE LETTERS

ADDRESSED TO

A MEMBER OF THE PRESENT PARLIAMENT,

ON THE

PROPOSALS FOR PEACE

WITH THE

REGICIDE DIRECTORY OF FRANCE.

1796.

LETTER I.

ON THE

OVERTURES OF PEACE.

MY DEAR SIR,

UR laft converfation, though not in the tone

of abfolute defpondency, was far from chearful. We could not easily account for fome unpleafant appearances. They were reprefented to us as indicating the ftate of the popular mind; and they were not at all what we fhould have expected from our old ideas even of the faults and vices of

the English character. The difaftrous events, which have followed one upon another in a long unbroken funereal train, moving in a proceffion, that seemed to have no end, these were not the principal causes of our dejection. We feared more from what threatened to fail within, than what menaced to opprefs us from abroad. To a people who have once been proud and great, and great because they were proud, a change in the national spirit is the moft terrible of all revolutions.

I fhall not live to behold the unravelling of the intricate plot, which faddens and perplexes the awful