FOOTNOTES: 

[33] Some accounts make them five times as many.

[34] Before the Revolution, the French noblesse were so reduced in numbers that they did not much exceed twenty thousand at least of full-grown men.  As they have been very cruelly formed into entire corps of soldiers, it is estimated, that, by the sword, and distempers in the field, they have not lost less than five thousand men; and if this course is pursued, it is to be feared that the whole body of the French nobility may be extinguished.  Several hundreds have also perished by famine, and various accidents.

[35] This was the language of the Ministerialists.

[36] Vattel.

[37] The first object of this club was the propagation of Jacobin principles.

APPENDIX.

EXTRACTS FROM VATTEL’S LAW OF NATIONS.

[The Titles, Marginal Abstracts, and Notes are by Mr. BURKE, excepting such of the Notes as are here distinguished.]

CASES OF INTERFERENCE WITH INDEPENDENT POWERS.

“If, then, there is anywhere a nation of a restless and mischievous disposition, always ready to injure others, to traverse their designs, and to raise domestic troubles[38] it is not to be doubted that all have a right to join in order to repress, chastise, and put it ever after out of its power to injure them.  Such should be the just fruits of the policy which Machiavel praises in Caesar Borgia.  The conduct followed by Philip the Second, King of Spain, was adapted to unite all Europe against him; and it was from just reasons that Henry the Great formed the design of humbling a power formidable by its forces and pernicious by its maxims.”—­Book II. ch. iv.  Sec. 53.

“Let us apply to the unjust what we have said above (Sec. 53) of a mischievous or maleficent nation.  If there be any that makes an open profession of trampling justice under foot, of despising and violating the right of others,[39] whenever it finds an opportunity, the interest of human society will authorize all others to unite in order to humble and chastise it.  We do not here forget the maxim established in our preliminaries, that it does not belong to nations to usurp the power of being judges of each other.  In particular cases, liable to the least doubt, it ought to be supposed that each of the parties may have some right; and the injustice of that which has committed the injury may proceed from error, and not from a general contempt of justice. But if, by constant maxims, and by a continued conduct, one nation shows that it has evidently this pernicious disposition, and that it considers no right as sacred, the safety of the human race requires that it should be suppressed.  To form and support an unjust pretension is to do an injury not only to him who is interested in this pretension, but to mock at justice in general, and to injure all nations.”—­Ibid. ch. v.  Sec. 70.