VINDICIÆ GALLICÆ.

DEFENCE

OF THE

FRENCH REVOLUTION

AND ITS

ENGLISH ADMIRERS,

AGAINST THE ACCUSATIONS OF

THE RIGHT HON. EDMUND BURKE;

INCLUDING

SOME STRICTURES ON THE LATE PRODUCTION

OF

MONS. DE CALONNE.

By JAMES MACKINTOSH,

OF LINCOLN'S INN, ESQUIRE.

THE FOURTH EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR G. G. J. AND J. ROBINSON,

PATERNOSTER-ROW.

1792.

E 724.

HAD

ADVERTISEMENT.

AD 1 forefeen the fize to which the following volume was to grow, or the obftacles that were to retard its completion, I should probably have shrunk from the undertaking; and perhaps I may now be fuppofed to owe an apology for of fering it to the Public, after the able and masterly Publications to which this controversy has given occasion.

Many parts of it bear internal marks of having been written fome months ago, by allufions to circumftances which are now changed; but as they did not affect the reafoning, I was not folicitous to alter them.

For the lateness of its appearance, I find a consolation in the knowledge, that refpectable Works on the same subject are ftill expected by the Public; and the number of my fellow-labourers only fuggefts the reflection—that too many minds cannot be em→ ployed on a controversy so immense as to present the most various afpects to different understandings, and so important, that the more correct statement of one fatt, or the more fuccessful illuftration of one argument, will at least rescue a book from the imputation of having been written in vain.

Little Ealing, Middlefex,

April 26, 1791.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE THIRD EDITION.

I NOW prefent the following Work to the Public a third time, rendered, I hope, lefs unworthy of their favor.Of Literary Criticism it does not become me to question the justice, but Moral Animadverfion I feel it due to myfelf to notice.

The vulgar clamor which has been raised with fuch malignant art against the friends of Freedom, as the apofiles of turbulence and fedition, has not even spared the obfcurity of my name. To ftrangers I can only vindicate myfelf by defying the authors of fuch clamors to difcover one paffage in this volume not in the highest degree favorable to peace and stable government. Those to whom I am known would, I believe, be flow to impute any fentiments of violence to a temper which the partiality of my friends muft confefs to be indolent, and the hoftility of enemies will not deny to be mild.

I have been accufed, byvaluable friends, of treating with ungenerous levity the misfortunes of the Royal Family of France. They will not however suppose me capable of deliberately violating the facredness of mifery in a palace or a cottage; and I fincerely lament that I should have been betrayed into expressions which admitted that conftruction.

Little Ealing, August 28, 1791.

INTRODUCTION.

HE late opinions of Mr. Burke fur

THE

nished more matter of astonishment to those who had distantly observed, than to those who had correctly examined the system of his former political life. An abhorrence for abstract politics, a predilection for aristocracy, and a dread of innovation, have ever been among the most facred articles of his public creed. It was not likely that at his age he should abandon to the invasion of audacious novelties, opinions which he had received fo early, and maintained fo long, which had been fortified by the applause of the great, and the assent of the wife, which he had dictated to fo many illuftrious pupils, and fupported against fo many distinguished opponents. Men who early attain eminence, repofe in their first creed.

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