THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 SCHOOL OF LAW 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Mrs. Leonora B. Lucas
 
 L, 
 
 H/Ulrpv^v^^^ - 
 
 I / / 
 
 ' 7, 
 
 
 ~
 
 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA
 
 725945
 
 (After a painting by ROMNEY.)
 
 BURKE'S SPEECH 
 
 ON 
 
 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA 
 
 EDITED WITH NOTES AND AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY 
 
 HAMMOND LAMONT 
 
 FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC IN BROWN UNIVERSITY 
 
 BOSTON, U.S.A. 
 GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 
 
 (Tf)c atf)fn<Tttm 
 1903
 
 T 
 B. 
 
 1903 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1897 
 BY HAMMOND LAMONT 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 
 TO MY FATHER 
 THOMAS LAMONT
 
 P.R-&-FACE. 
 
 THE object of this volume is to present in compact form 
 all the material needed by teacher or student for a complete 
 understanding of Burke's greatest speech, that on Conciliation 
 with America. 
 
 The text, except for modernized capitalization, spelling and 
 punctuation, and the correction of a few typographical errors, 
 follows a copy of the First Edition, London, 1775. 
 
 The Introduction contains no newly discovered facts, but 
 simply attempts to show how those already known in regard 
 to the condition of Great Britain, the relations between the 
 mother country and her colonies, Burke's career, his principles 
 and his style, bear upon the subject-matter and the form of 
 this speech. It also supplies references to the proper authori- 
 ties on matters concerning which the student may desire fuller 
 details. 
 
 ^ The Notes indicate some of the sources from which Burke 
 x^ drew elements in his style, mark the similarity in ideas and 
 
 Xxpression between this speech and his other writings, and 
 xplain, not only obscurities, but the many allusions which 
 ^i appealed to his hearers but which are partly or wholly lost on 
 ^Tfc modern readers. The notes referring to Greek and Latin
 
 iv PREFACE. 
 
 authors, to the Bible and to English poets for passages which 
 have been quoted by Burke, or, which seem to have affected 
 his thought or style, were mostly collected by C. A. Goodrich, 
 in his Select British Eloquence, and by E. J. Payne, Burke's 
 Select Works, Clarendon Press, 1892, vol. I ; they have 
 appeared in several subsequent editions, and the substance of 
 the more important is here reprinted without further acknowl- 
 edgment. The definitions of obsolete or peculiar words and 
 the explanations of parliamentary usages have been handed 
 down from Goodrich, with more or less addition at each trans- 
 mission ; but they have been treated with special fulness by 
 F. G. Selby, Burke's Speeches, Macmillan, New York, 1895. 
 Some of the parallel passages from Burke himself have also 
 been pointed out by Payne, Selby or Professor A. S. Cook, 
 Speech on Conciliation, Longmans, New York, 1896 ; but the 
 great majority of them are new in this edition. The most 
 important notes are those which throw light on Burke's infer- 
 ences from the events which had already estranged England and 
 her colonies ; on his manner of summing up everything said on 
 all sides during ten years of discussion of American affairs ; on 
 the political or personal bearing of many remarks which we 
 might deem insignificant ; on his dexterity in turning against 
 his opponents their own phrases, convicting them out of their 
 own mouths ; in short, on the force of this speech as an argu- 
 ment. Notes of this kind, in so far as they are needed to 
 elucidate matters which Burke directly mentions, are given in 
 most editions. Some of the allusions, however, are difficult to 
 trace, owing to the fragmentary state even of the completest 
 reports of parliamentary proceedings, and but few actually were
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 traced until Professor Cook gathered from such valuable but 
 obvious sources as the Parliamentary History, the Annual 
 Register and the histories of Bancroft and Lecky a considerable 
 body of material relating to the debates on America. Of such 
 notes some in this volume are specially credited to him ; some 
 are substantially identical with his, because the present editor, 
 before seeing Professor Cook's edition, made a systematic 
 study of the same sources ; and many are now published for 
 the first time. 
 
 For helpful suggestions the thanks of the editor are due 
 Professor John Matthews Manly of Brown University. 
 
 H. L. 
 
 PROVIDENCE, R. I., 
 May 13, 1897.
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION : PAGE 
 
 KL> 
 
 ACQUAINTANCE WITH BURKE ix 
 
 SOCIAL CONDITIONS . ' ix 
 
 POLITICAL CONDITIONS xii 
 
 EDMUND BURKE xix 
 
 BURKE AS A STATESMAN xli 
 
 BURKE AS AN ORATOR xlvi 
 
 BURKE AS A WRITER xlix 
 
 STRUCTURE OF THE SPEECH ON CONCILIATION . .. Iv 
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE . Ixv 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE Ixx 
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION I 
 
 NOTES 79 
 
 INDEX 129
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 i. 
 
 ^ 
 
 ACQUAINTANCE WITH BURKE. 
 
 " I MUST be in a wretched state indeed when your company 
 would not be a delight to me." 1 These words, which the dying 
 Dr. Johnson addressed to Edmund Burke, can be sincerely 
 repeated even now by any one who really gets acquainted with 
 him. Without some acquaintance, however, with Burke him- 
 self and with his environment, one may fail to realize that, far 
 from being a mere eloquent declaimer about matters settled a 
 hundred years before we were born, he is rather the greatest 
 of statesmen, discussing the very problems which vex us to- 
 day. To understand him wholly, even in the Speech on Con- 
 ciliation with America, one must have a considerable knowl- 
 edge of the social conditions in his time, of the political 
 situation, of his character, his principles of statecraft and his 
 style. 
 
 II. 
 
 SOCIAL CONDITIONS. 
 
 The social conditions of England in Burke's day are most 
 fully laid before us in the clear-cut pictures of Boswell's Life oj 
 fohnson, Horace Walpole's Letters, Madame D'Arblay's Diary 
 
 1 Boswell's Life of Johnson, edited by G. Birkbeck Hill, Oxford, 1887, 
 IV, 407-
 
 X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and Letters and Jesse's George Selwyn and His Contemporaries* 
 In these works such small details as tie-wigs and swords, 
 journeys from country to town by coach and four, pleasure 
 parties at Vauxhall Gardens, dinners of the Literary Club at 
 the Turk's Head, gossip about the shameless old Marquis of 
 Queen sberry and tears over the woes of Clarissa Harlowe 
 often show the real temper of the age more distinctly than do 
 the generalizations of formal history. Halfway between gossip 
 and history come Thackeray's entertaining lectures on George 
 the Second and George the Third in the Four Georges, and on 
 Hogarth, Smollett, Fielding, Sterne and Goldsmith in the 
 English Humorists. Leslie Stephen's History of English 
 Thought in the Eighteenth Century treats more particularly the 
 intellectual side of life. 2 Of the regular histories, Lecky's Eng- 
 land in the Eighteenth Century 8 goes over the whole ground 
 minutely, and Green's History of the English People * focusses 
 the same wide view into small space. All these books exhibit 
 the first stage of the transformation from the slow, insular, 
 unorganized country seen in the writings of Dryden and Pope, 
 Addison, Steele and Swift, to the quickly moving, cosmopolitan, 
 highly organized modern England. 
 
 One important element in the development was the broader 
 diffusion of intelligence. It is true that the wits still gathered 
 in the London coffee-houses, and, as Dr. Johnson and David 
 Garrick had done, men still came to town to make fortunes in 
 business and attain eminence in all professions ; but life out- 
 side London was becoming a bit less dull. Owing in part to 
 the popularity which the Tatler and the Spectator had given to 
 periodical literature, newspapers were springing up in all the 
 cities and leading towns, and were carrying into every village 
 the discussion of such topics as the social theories of Rousseau, 
 Dr. Smollett's new novel Humphrey Clinker, and the last letter 
 
 1 London, 1843. 8 New York, 1878-90, VI, 138-300. 
 
 2 See chapter xii. * New York, 1880, IV, 206-210, 272-283.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xi 
 
 of Junius in the Public Advertiser. More or less complete 
 reports of the proceedings of Parliament bore the voices of 
 Fox, Pitt and Burke l to an audience consisting of the whole 
 nation. 
 
 Another element on which both Green and Lecky 3 lay much 
 stress was the so-called Methodist movement. Though the 
 followers of Wesley and Whitfield were ridiculed 3 as fanatics 
 or snivelling hypocrites, nevertheless before the middle of the 
 century their zeal had gone beyond the narrow limits of the sect, 
 and was deepening the moral earnestness of all England. This 
 fresh impulse toward cleaner thinking and living was shaming 
 the coarseness and profligacy of the age of Anne, as revealed 
 in the brutal pages of Swift, and was driving out the cynical 
 corruption of Sir Robert Walpole's day, when every man had 
 his price and even a clergyman would buy a bishopric from a 
 king's mistress. 4 Above all, it was steadily strengthening that 
 interest in philanthropy now so widespread. It stirred not 
 only individual leaders like John Howard, but Parliament 8 and 
 various local governing boards as well, to discuss plans for 
 ameliorating the condition of the poor, the sick, the imprisoned 
 and the enslaved. Indeed it had already gained for the anti- 
 slavery movement such parliamentary support 8 that Burke's 
 references to the "inhuman traffic" 7 must have quickened his 
 hearers' attention, just as any mention of aid for the unem- 
 ployed quickens ours. 
 
 The most noteworthy change of all, however, was the expan- 
 sion of commerce. Burke tells how foreign trade had shot 
 up ; 8 no less remarkable had been the increase in domestic. 
 
 1 The Speech on Conciliation was issued in pamphlet soon after delivery. 
 
 2 II, 568-699. 
 
 8 See Anstey's New Bath Guide, published in 1766. 
 
 4 Thackeray's George the Second, London, 1869, 46. 
 
 5 See Parliamentary History, London, 1806-20, XVII, 639-643, 843-848. 
 * Lecky, VI, 279-281. 
 
 T See 32 22. 8 Pages 11-13.
 
 xii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Mines of coal, iron and tin were opening, factories and fur- 
 naces were multiplying, and canals were building which made 
 possible a volume of internal traffic never before dreamed of. 
 This development of business at home and abroad had affected 
 every class in the community, but had thrust the mercantile 
 class into special prominence ; it had bestowed on the newly 
 rich an influence 1 hitherto reserved as a sort of prerogative of 
 the aristocracy. It had enabled merchants, or those anxious 
 to guard mercantile interests, to play a more important part 
 in Parliament 2 than ever before, and in debates over taxes, 
 treaties, war and peace, to demand decisions favorable to Eng- 
 lish industries. This it was that gave to Burke's arguments 3 
 for the commercial advantages of conciliation the greatest 
 weight both with Parliament and the nation at large. 
 
 III. 
 
 POLITICAL CONDITIONS. 
 
 The course of events leading up to this speech is related in 
 all English or American histories that deal with the period. 4 
 
 1 See Burke's Speech on the Nabob of Arcofs Debts, Works, Boston, 
 1894, III, 24, 25. 
 
 2 See Parliamentary History, XVI, 133-135; XVIII, 168, 184,219,461. 
 8 See pages 11-13, 3. 3 1 . 39 4. 66, 67, 69-72. 
 
 4 Detailed accounts may be found in Lecky and in Bancroft, History of 
 the United States, New York, 1888, from II, 319, to IV, 120 ; more con- 
 densed narratives in Green, Andrews's History of the United States, New 
 York, 1894, period iii, chs. i-iv, Goldwin Smith's United States, New York, 
 1893, cn - i*> an d Fiske's American Revolution, Boston, 1891, chs. i, ii, and 
 the first part of iii; and yet briefer summaries in the introductions to 
 Selby's edition of Burke's Speeches, New York, 1895, an< ^ Morley's edition 
 in the Universal Library, London, 1892. Bancroft's relation of proceed- 
 ings in Parliament must be taken with some allowance ; for even when his 
 authority seems to have been the Parliamentary History, he now and then 
 omits qualifying clauses from speeches, and thus makes men appear more 
 hostile to America than they actually were.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xiii 
 
 According to all authorities, 1 though England and her colonies 
 had not been actually hostile during the first half of the eigh- 
 teenth century, nevertheless several causes were producing 
 irritation on both sides. In the first place, the mother country, 
 by a short-sighted effort to keep a monopoly of commerce and 
 manufactures, had from time to time laid restrictions upon 
 them. 2 Such were the laws that the colonists must export and 
 import only in English or American vessels ; that they must 
 trade only with England and her colonies ; that they must not 
 erect mills for rolling and slitting iron ; and that they must not 
 export hats. To these vexations, which in view of the growth 
 in colonial population and industries were by no means incon- 
 siderable, she had, through the sheer tactlessness of her agents, 
 added many annoyances in methods of administration. Her 
 executive officers, from governors down, were inclined to exert 
 their powers to the extreme and even beyond legal limits. 
 They occasionally suspended the writ of habeas corpus, inter- 
 fered with the freedom of the press, and attempted to deprive 
 towns of representation in the legislature. 3 The people, on 
 their part, proud of their English blood and their English 
 liberties, protested in town-meetings and legislative assemblies, 
 and often treated the king's officers with scant respect, some- 
 times with violence. Then while the colonists waxed more and 
 more indignant, England was inevitably led by the reports of 
 her agents into harsher severities ; for she fully believed the 
 Americans to be a discontented, hot-tempered, lawless crowd, 4 
 sorely in need of strong government. 
 
 1 The succeeding outline is drawn from all the authorities mentioned in 
 the preceding note, and from the Parliamentary History, Dodsley's Annual 
 Register, Journals of the American Congress, Letters of Junius, and 
 Adolphus's History of England from the Accession to the Decease of George 
 the Third, London, 1840-45, but Fiske is followed most closely. 
 
 2 See 39 10, note. 
 Fiske, I, 3. 
 
 * 33 11, note; also Adolphus, II, 102, 103.
 
 xiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The ill feeling was further inflamed by the attitude of the king 
 himself. When George the Third came to the throne in 1760, he 
 found his authority scarcely more than nominal ; for upon the ex- 
 pulsion of James the Second in 1688, the Tories had sullenly left 
 the government to the Whigs, and the latter so distrusted royal 
 power that they had reduced it to the narrowest limits. George, 
 however, was determined not to be a puppet in the hands of his 
 ministers. Dull, industrious, stubborn, he was resolved that on 
 both sides of the Atlantic he would rule in fact as well as in name. 
 
 Unhappily for England, he met with ineffectual resistance, 
 because his supporters were united and his enemies divided. 
 He was firmly backed by the Tories, who had begun to emerge 
 from retirement, and who found in him a sovereign exactly to 
 their tastes, a believer in the divine right of kings. He was 
 unsteadily opposed by the disunited Whigs. Of the several 
 factions he had less to fear from the Conservatives, or Old 
 Whigs ; for they were not only split, but they were so content 
 with the state of things under which England and their party 
 had thriven that they were averse to radical reforms. On the 
 other hand, the king dreaded and hated the New W 7 higs under 
 the lead of the elder Pitt ; for they were fighting with consider- 
 able unanimity and zeal for the enlargement of popular influ- 
 ence through more complete representation. They complained 
 that Parliament no longer reflected public opinion, because 
 cities like Birmingham and Leeds L which had recently become 
 important, were without representation, while ancient boroughs 
 which had dwindled into insignificance had seats which were 
 openly bought and sold, or else were under the control of a few 
 Old Whig families. With the help of the Tories headed by 
 Lord North, George played one faction against the other. He 
 strove to break the power of the Old Whigs by getting their 
 "rotten boroughs" into his own hands, and he weakened the 
 New Whigs by the use of political patronage. Thus he kept 
 each too feeble to block him.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 With England and America both irritated, with the king bent 
 on stretching his authority, and with opposition to him shattered 
 by faction, events moved swiftly to a crisis. In 1763 George 
 Grenville became Prime Minister, and Charles Townshend First 
 Lord of Trade, that is, head of the committee of the Privy 
 Council in charge of colonial affairs. Both were royal hench- 
 men. Townshend believed in holding the colonies with a firm 
 hand, in depriving them of the right of self-government, and in 
 maintaining authority by a standing army supported by taxes 
 assessed on the Americans by Parliament. To such lengths 
 Grenville was unwilling to go, but he was ready to lay a tax in 
 order to defray the expenses of the French and Indian War 
 which had closed in 1756, to lay a tax in spite of the fact, 
 fully acknowledged by Parliament, 1 that the colonists had already 
 borne more than their share of the burden. For carrying out his 
 purpose he introduced into the Commons in 1764 a resolution 2 
 asserting the propriety of raising an American revenue by 
 requiring stamps on all legal documents. He soon heard 
 protests, 3 however, from the assemblies of Massachusetts, 
 Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and South 
 Carolina. These bodies held that Parliament had no right to 
 tax the colonies without their consent, but declared that in 
 response to a request from the king the colonies would con- 
 tribute, according to their means, to the needs of the British 
 Empire. Notwithstanding these remonstrances, Grenville got 
 his Stamp Act passed in 1765. America was furious. In 
 October a congress of delegates from Massachusetts, Rhode 
 Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 
 Delaware, Maryland and South Carolina met at New York 
 and framed formal protests; merchants agreed to import no 
 more goods from England ; in some colonies the people threw 
 
 1 See page 55. 
 
 3 Parliamentary History, XV, 1427. 
 
 * Fiske, I, 1 6, 17.
 
 X vi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the boxes of stamps into the sea ; in most they compelled the 
 stamp officers to resign ; and in Massachusetts a mob sacked 
 the house of Chief Justice Hutchinson. 
 
 At this juncture Lord Rockingham, leader of that faction of 
 the Old Whigs with which Burke usually acted, became Prime 
 Minister, and proposed the repeal of the Stamp Act on the 
 ground of policy. During the hot debates over this motion 
 and over all subsequent proceedings in regard to America, the 
 "king's friends " l were firm against the colonies, because defeat 
 for the royal plan for America might mean defeat for it in 
 England. They argued that the colonists were actuated by 
 nothing but the rankest ingratitude and a sordid wish to get 
 the protection of England without paying for it, 2 and that 
 as Burke phrases the idea the "right of taxation is neces- 
 sarily involved in the general principle of legislation." 3 To 
 this view Pitt and his adherents were violently opposed, for 
 they understood that the cause of America was exactly the 
 same as that for which they were fighting in England. 4 They 
 maintained that representation is a natural right. 5 Between 
 these two extremes the Rockingham Whigs steered a middle 
 course. They held that even if Parliament had a right to 
 tax the colonies, the exercise of it was the height of folly. 6 
 (Finally, in 1766, the Rockingham ministry, with the help of 
 New Whigs, carried the repeal, and at the same time, with the 
 help of Tories, a Declaratory Act, asserting the power to make 
 
 1 See 17 8, note. 
 
 2 See speech of George Grenville, Jan. 14, 1766, Parliamentary History, 
 XVI, 101, 102. 
 
 8 See 37 11, 12 ; also the speech of Grenville, above. 
 
 * See speech of Colonel Barre, Jan. 26, 1775, Parliamentary History, 
 XVIII, 191. 
 
 6 See 37 6-10; the speech of Pitt, Jan. 14, 1766, Parliamentary History, 
 XVI, 97-101 ; his speech May 27, 1774, XVII, 1353-1356 ; and the speech 
 of Governor Johnstone, Feb. 6, 1775, XVIII, 253-262. 
 
 See 37 23-38 3, and 57 16-18.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xvii 
 
 laws for the colonies " in all cases whatsoever." ^ The repeal 
 so pleased the people of London that in th6 streets they 
 cheered Pitt and hissed Grenville. It so pleased the Ameri- 
 cans that they kindled bonfires, and, regarding the JDeclaratory 
 Act as a mere empty form, voted addresses of thanks and 
 loyalty. 
 
 No sooner was England out of this scrape than she blundered 
 into another. In a few months the Rockingham ministry was 
 succeeded by the Grafton ministry, in which Townshend was 
 the leading spirit. In accordance with his own views and 
 those of the king, he brought in a bill to lay duties on wine, 
 oil and fruits carried directly to America from Spain and 
 Portugal, and on glass, paper, lead, painters' colors and tea. 2 
 The resulting revenue he proposed to use for the salaries of 
 royal governors, justices appointed at the king's pleasure, and 
 civil officers responsible only to the crown, 3 a blow at the 
 principle of self-government, as regards both taxation and the 
 control of officers. The purpose of George the Third was even 
 more nakedly set forth when Parliament suspended the assem- 
 bly of New York for refusal to provide certain supplies for the 
 army. 4 It is true that in i^Q Parliament repealed all the 
 duties except that on tea, but England had let the time slip by 
 for conciliating America by a partial surrender. 
 
 During the next six years the efforts of England to compel 
 submission made the resistance of the colonies only the more 
 stubborn. When revenue officers enforced the laws with rigor 
 and intolerable insolence, merchants renewed their agreements 
 not to import English goods, and women pledged themselves 
 to wear homespun clothes and abstain from tea. When in 
 Rhode Island the captain of the revenue schooner " Gaspee " 
 
 1 Parliamentary History, XVI, 177. 
 
 2 See 36 4, note. 
 
 8 Parliamentary History, XVI, 375, 376. 
 4 Mid., 331-341.
 
 xviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 made illegal seizures and stole hogs and sheep from the 
 farmers, they retaliated by burning his vessel. When John 
 Hancock's sloop " Liberty " was seized in Boston, a riot broke 
 out. When England sent troops to overawe the inhabitants, 
 the latter refused to provide quarters. When the soldiers 
 irritated the populace, another riot resulted. In 1772 the king 
 attempted to control the judiciary by ordering that all Massa- 
 chusetts judges holding office during his pleasure should be 
 paid by the crown : the colonists, unable to obtain redress 
 through the regular government, organized committees of cor- 
 respondence which bound the whole country together in 
 common action. 1 The next year, in the hope of driving the 
 Americans to buy tea, England despatched shiploads of it to 
 Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Charleston : the commit- 
 tees of correspondence decided that the cargoes must go back. 
 The governor of Massachusetts would not issue clearance 
 papers for a return : the people of Boston threw the tea into 
 the harbor. Thereupon Parliament, spurred on by the king, 
 proceeded to measures yet more vigorous. It closed the port 
 of Boston; 2 practically annulled the charter of Massachusetts ; 3 
 ordered that soldiers or revenue officers indicted for murder 
 in Massachusetts should be tried in Great Britain; 4 provided 
 for the quartering of troops ; 5 and extended the boundaries of 
 Canada to the Ohio River 6 in defiance of the claims which 
 Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and Virginia laid to 
 the territory. By this last law, known as the Quebec Act, 
 England managed also to offend deeply both the religious and 
 the political prejudices of the colonists ; 7 for the act sanctioned 
 Roman Catholicism throughout Canada, and established a 
 
 1 Fiske, I, 78-80. See 27 18, note. 
 
 2 See 36 4, note. * See 36 4, note. 
 6 Parliamentary History, XVII, 1353-1356. 
 
 6 Ibid., 1357-1400, 1402-1406. 
 
 7 Journals of Congress, I, 22, 23, 30, 37, 40-45, 47.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xix 
 
 government recognizing neither trial by jury nor habeas corpus 
 nor popular meetings. To enforce the first three of these laws 
 the government stationed General Gage at Boston with more 
 troops. Although England had aimed most of this hostile 
 legislation especially at Massachusetts, she had struck all the 
 colonies so hard that they instantly forgot local jealousies, and 
 made the cause of the sufferer their own. When the royal 
 governors dissolved the provincial assemblies for expressing 
 sympathy, 1 the colonies united in the Congress at Philadelphia 
 in the autumn of 1774. This body heartily supported Massa- 
 chusetts ; 2 it asserted the freedom of the provincial legislatures 
 "in all cases of taxation and internal polity"; 3 it demanded 
 the repeal of the obnoxious acts of Parliament ; 4 it formed 
 an agreement to stop trade with Great Britain, Ireland and 
 the British West Indies ; 5 and it issued addresses to the 
 people of Great Britain, 6 to the colonists, 7 to the inhabitants of 
 Quebec, 8 and to the king. 9 When in reply Parliament declared 
 a rebellion 10 and proposed further restraints upon the New Eng- 
 land commerce and fisheries, 11 America hastened her prepara- 
 tions for war. 
 
 IV. 
 
 EDMUND BURKE. 
 
 In this long struggle between the king and his subjects, 
 Burke, though by temperament a conservative, was on the side 
 
 1 See letter of General Gage from Salem, June 26, 1774, Parliamentary 
 History, XVIII, 85, 86 ; letter of Governor Wentworth of New Hampshire, 
 June 8, 1774, ibid., 109; and letter of Governor Dunmore of Virginia, May 
 29, 1774, ibid., 136. 
 
 2 Journals of Congress, I, 14, 17. 7 Ibid., 31-38. 
 8 Ibid., 20, 21. 8 Ibid., 40-54. 
 
 * Ibid., 21, 22. 9 Ibid., 46-49. 
 
 Ibid., 23, 24. 1 See 35 as, note. 
 Ibid., 26-31. u See 3 8, note.
 
 xx INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of the people. This sympathy may be due in part to the fact 
 that he was a native of a country which had suffered long under 
 oppression. He was born in Ireland in 1729,* the son of a 
 solicitor in good practice. Though Burke's mother was a 
 Roman Catholic and brought up his sister in the same faith, 
 yet he and his two brothers adopted the religion of their 
 Protestant father. Throughout his life, however, he was always 
 so tolerant of Catholics that he was sometimes charged with 
 being a Jesuit. 
 
 At the age of about twelve he went to school to a Quaker, 
 Abraham Shackleton, for whose character he had the highest 
 regard, 2 and to whom he always professed to owe the best part 
 of his education. After two years with Mr. Shackleton, of 
 whose son Richard he made a lasting friend, Burke entered 
 Trinity College, Dublin, where he took his bachelor's degree in 
 1748. In the half-dozen letters which he wrote from college 
 to Shackleton, he stands before us full of attraction, a young 
 man brimming with life, serious in thought, and eager for 
 knowledge. In some pages he gives vivacious accounts of 
 his walks in the country, 3 and in others he considers such 
 matters as the still unsettled question of the salvation of the 
 heathen : " I am of your opinion that those poor souls who 
 never had the happiness of hearing that saving name shall in 
 no wise be damned. But, as you know, . . . there are several 
 degrees of felicity : a lower one, which the mercy of God will 
 suffer them to enjoy, but not anything to be compared to that 
 of those who have lived and died in Christ." 4 A bishop could 
 
 1 Of the several biographies of Burke the best are James Prior's, 2 
 vols., London, 1854; John Morley's small volume in the English Men of 
 Letters, and the twenty pages in the Dictionary of National Biography. In 
 connection with any of them the Correspondence, London, 1844, is very 
 interesting. Accounts of Burke's life, in some respects prejudiced, but 
 showing contemporary opinion, appeared in the Annual Register for 
 1797 and 1798. The present narrative is based upon Morley's. 
 
 2 Correspondence, I, 254. 3 Ibid., 4-6. * Ibid., 9.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxi 
 
 not be more cocksure. In his pursuit of knowledge Burke 
 seems to have been rather unsystematic. Of his fits of " mad- 
 ness " over various studies he wrote : " First I was greatly taken 
 with natural philosophy, which, while I should have given my 
 mind to logic, employed me incessantly. This I call my furor 
 mathematicus. But this worked off as soon as I began to read 
 it in the college, as men by repletion cast off their stomachs 
 all they have eaten. Then I turned back to logic and meta- 
 physics. Here I remained a good while, and with much 
 pleasure ; and this was my furor logicus, a disease very com- 
 mon in the days of ignorance and very uncommon in these 
 enlightened times. Next succeeded ihe. furor historicus, which 
 also had its day, but is now no more, being entirely absorbed 
 in \hefuror poeticus." 1 By the furor poeticus he was inspired 
 to some hundred and fifty lines which have been printed in the 
 Correspondence, and no one knows how much more, of 
 such verse as might be expected of the average sophomore 
 when Pope's fame was at its height. Unsystematic though 
 Burke may have been, he nevertheless kept at work : " I 
 spend three hours almost every day in the public library," he 
 says. 2 " I have read some history. I am endeavoring to get a 
 little into the accounts of this our own poor country." 3 
 
 The seventeen years between graduation and 1765, when 
 Burke's career was finally determined by his election to Par- 
 liament, he spent in various employments. He went to Lon- 
 don with the intention of taking up law, but succumbed to 
 the attractions of literature and philosophy. Prevented by ill 
 health from steady application, he traveled considerably in 
 England and on the Continent ; 4 he frequented debating clubs 
 and theatres, and he did more or less hack work for the book- 
 sellers. He published nothing, however, with which his name 
 is connected till the two books of 1756 : A Vindication of 
 
 1 Correspondence, I, 22. 8 Ibid., 20. 
 
 2 Ibid., 19. * Ibid., 32.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Natural Society and .A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin 
 of our Ideas on the Sublime and Beautiful. In the first he 
 attempted to refute Bolingbroke's arguments against revealed 
 religion by showing that they might be urged with equal force 
 against the thing which in his eyes was scarcely less sacred, 
 the social organization by which the rights of the individual 
 are maintained. In the second book he took up a subject 
 much discussed at the time ; and, though his speculations 
 have been superseded, he has the credit of stimulating Les- 
 sing to the production of Laocoon, which is regarded as the 
 most valuable contribution of that age tp aesthetic thought. 1 
 Burke also wrote, or helped to write, an \Account of the Euro- 
 pean Settlements in Atnericaknd an Abridgment of the History of 
 England. Then in 1759 he began to edit for Dodsley that 
 summary of important events, the Annual Register, with which 
 he was connected for thirty years. In 1761 he went to Ireland, 
 attached in some indefinite way, perhaps as a sort of secretary, 
 to William Gerard Hamilton, " Single-speech " Hamilton, 
 who was secretary to the lord-lieutenant. Here Burke studied 
 on the spot those evil effects of oppression on which he dwells 
 in this speech ; 2 for the punishment of Irish rebellion by 
 restricting commerce and manufactures, by taking many of the 
 ordinary rights of citizens from the Catholics, who were in an 
 enormous majority, and by confiscating land and outlawing 
 owners, 3 had impoverished the country and rendered the people 
 ferocious. After two years in Dublin, Burke, finding that, 
 contrary to agreement, he must give all his time and energy to 
 Hamilton and resign his literary ambitions, indignantly broke 
 with his patron 4 and returned to England. There he joined 
 
 1 Morley's Burke, 18. 
 
 2 See pages 43-46. 
 
 8 Green, IV, 54 ; Burke's Tract on the Popery Laws, Works, VI, 299. 
 4 See Correspondence, I, 46-51, 55-78, 83, 84; and Augustine Birrell's 
 Obiter Dicta, Second Series, New York, 1887, 165-170.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxiii 
 
 the famous Literary Club with which are associated the names 
 of Johnson, Goldsmith, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Garrick. 
 
 In this brilliant circle Burke stood among the first. " That 
 fellow," said Johnson, " calls forth all my powers." l In recog- 
 nition of his general abilities and of the knowledge of politics 
 which he had shown in the Annual Register, he was offered the 
 post of private secretary to Lord Rockingham when the latter 
 became Prime Minister in 1765. This place Burke accepted, 
 and just at the close of the year he was elected a member of 
 Parliament from Wendover. Within a week or two after taking 
 his seat, at the beginning of 1766, he had spoken twice for the 
 repeal of the Stamp Act. That he produced a strong impres- 
 sion is evident from one of Dr. Johnson's letters : " He has 
 gained more reputation than perhaps any man at his [first] 
 appearance ever gained before. He made two speeches in the 
 House for repealing the Stamp Act which were publicly com- 
 mended by Mr. Pitt, and have filled the town with wonder." 2 
 Upon the fall of the Rockingham ministry, Burke, who might 
 have had a place under the new administration, remained with his 
 friends. Turning to their account his literary powers, he began 
 his series of great political tracts which have outlived so much 
 other writing of the kind, because he treats of passing events 
 in the light of enduring wisdom. First in 1769 he put forth 
 the Observations on the Present State of the Nation, a reply to a 
 pamphlet by George Grenville, who had accused his successors 
 of ruining the country. In this controversy Burke showed 
 himself a master of the intricate details of revenue and finance. 
 
 At this point in his career he took part in some transactions 
 which gave his enemies a handle against him. Though he had 
 been living almost from hand to mouth till he entered Parlia- 
 ment, he bought in 1768 an estate worth upwards of one hun- 
 dred thousand dollars in our money, and correspondingly 
 expensive to maintain. The matter has been much discussed 
 
 1 Boswell's Life of Johnson, II, 450. 2 Ibid., 16.
 
 xxlv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 by biographers and critics, but has never been settled with com- 
 plete satisfaction. This much, however, is clear : Burke lived 
 on terms of close intimacy with his brother Richard and a 
 distant kinsman, William Burke. Richard and William, together 
 with Lord Verney, a political patron of Edmund, speculated 
 wildly in stock of the East India Company, and later Richard 
 was engaged in some questionable dealings in West Indian 
 lands. That these ventures were shared by Burke has been 
 charged but never proved. In vindication of his conduct it 
 can be shown that most of the money for the purchase of his 
 estate, Beaconsfield, he raised on a mortgage and on his bond 
 to Lord Rockingham. After getting the place, he was so strait- 
 ened for means to keep it up that he borrowed right and left 
 from his friends. For example, he was in debt thirty thousand 
 pounds to Lord Rockingham at the death of the latter in 1782, 
 and Rockingham directed that the debt should be cancelled in 
 view of Burke's faithful services. From these facts and others 
 it appears that Burke's faults were neither dishonesty in specu- 
 lation nor venality in Parliament, but rather a desire to live as 
 he thought became a man in high position, a free-handed care- 
 lessness and improvidence which led him to lend or give even 
 more readily than he borrowed or accepted, and an adherence 
 to eighteenth-century standards of propriety, which in such 
 things were lower than ours. 
 
 Whatever may have been his shortcomings in these private 
 affairs, his public services outweigh them a thousand times. 
 For one thing, he was on the right side in the long contest over 
 Wilkes. This man, a radical writer who had been outlawed for 
 libel, was in 1768 elected to Parliament from the county of 
 Middlesex. Parliament, subservient to the king, expelled him. 
 Then he was returned three times in quick succession, and 
 each time the House pronounced his election void. 1 Having 
 
 1 Green, IV, 243-247. Parliamentary History, XVI, 532-596. The case 
 forms the basis of many of the attacks of Junius upon the government.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXV 
 
 by this action wrought the people up to the pitch of rioting, the 
 government, in order to quell disturbances, called out a military 
 force which killed some twenty people. When the question of 
 excluding Wilkes was pending, Burke in several speeches 
 defended the right of a constituency to elect whom it pleases. 
 The dispute, he said, was not " between the House and the 
 freeholders of Middlesex, but between the House and all the 
 voters in England, who would easily perceive their franchises 
 invaded." r The matter of the riot Burke also brought before 
 the House in a motion for a committee of inquiry. In the 
 debate he declared : "When this House shall be found . . . 
 ready to punish the excesses of the people, and slow to listen 
 to their grievances ; . . . ready to entertain notions of the 
 military power as incorporated with the Constitution, 2 . . . 
 then the House of Commons will change that character which 
 it receives from the people only." 3 
 
 Since these sentiments were, in general, those of the Letters 
 of Junius, and since Burke was known to be one of the most 
 powerful writers of the day, he was by many suspected of being 
 Junius. This accusation, however, he denied, 4 and when he 
 published his Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents 
 in 1770, he presented convincing evidence to all doubters. For 
 aside from differences of opinion between the Letters and the 
 Thoughts, Burke did not use as his weapon the railing and invec- 
 tive of Junius, but argument. In this pamphlet Burke reviewed 
 the whole policy which led to the outbreak. He showed 
 how the king and his small knot of secret advisers were build- 
 ing up authority for themselves. 5 He argued that the powers 
 
 1 Parliamentary History, XVI, 587. Speech on the Middlesex Election, 
 Works, VII, 59-67. See also 35 4 and the note on this line, and 17 8, 
 note. 
 
 2 Compare 31 34, note. 
 8 Morley's Burke, 45. 
 
 * Correspondence, I, 265-269, 272-275. 
 
 6 See 19 24, note ; 17 8, note ; Works, I, 496.
 
 XXVi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of the government are held in trust for the people, 1 and, there- 
 fore, popular impatience must be indulged. True to his con- 
 servative instincts, he rejected the commonly proposed reforms, 
 universal suffrage, the disfranchisement of "rotten boroughs," 
 representation for the new trading towns, triennial Parliaments, 
 and the exclusion from the House of men holding offices under 
 the crown. These plans he regarded as too radical. " Our 
 Constitution," he urged, " stands on a nice equipoise, with steep 
 precipices and deep waters upon all sides of it. In removing 
 it from a dangerous leaning towards one side, there may be a 
 risk of oversetting it on the other." 2 He therefore contented 
 himself with suggesting that the people be stimulated to scru- 
 tinize more closely the conduct of their representatives, and 
 that lists of votes in Parliament be published. But above all 
 he emphasized the truth upon which he dwells so often in the 
 Speech on Conciliation, the necessity of adapting the govern- 
 ment to the circumstances and temper of the people. 3 A gov- 
 ernment not so adapted he held to be merely " a scheme upon 
 paper, and not a living, active, effective constitution." 4 
 
 During the years immediately following 1770, Burke devoted 
 his energies to keeping the Rockingham Whigs united against 
 the efforts of the king to win them over. Without Burke, says 
 Morley, "the Rockingham connection would undoubtedly have 
 fallen to ruin, and with it the most upright, consistent and dis- 
 interested body of men then in public life." 5 For the sake of 
 this party Burke refused a flattering offer to go to India as one 
 of three commissioners to overhaul the affairs of the East India 
 Company; 6 for the sake of this party he drummed up his 
 
 1 See 4 8 and the note on this line. 
 
 2 Works, I, 520. Compare also 51 27, note. 
 8 See 9 31 and the note ; 19 8 and the note. 
 * Works, I, 470. 
 
 5 Burke, 62. 
 
 5 Correspondence, I, 339.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxvii 
 
 associates by letter and personal appeal. In carrying out this 
 task he reproached the Duke of Richmond for being " some- 
 what languid . . . and unsystematic " ; 1 and the latter made 
 the admission : " Indeed, Burke, you have more credit than any 
 man in keeping us together." 2 Even in this employment as a 
 political whip Burke did not advance the usual cheap arguments 
 for temporary partisan success, but, with that conservatism 
 which deepened with his advancing years, he dwelt rather on 
 the considerations of permanent policy. " Persons in your 
 station of life," he wrote to the Duke of Richmond, " ought to 
 have long views. You people of great families and hereditary 
 trusts and fortunes, ... if you are what you ought to be, are 
 in my eye the great oaks that shade a country, and perpetuate 
 your benefits from generation to generation. The immediate 
 power of a Duke of Richmond or a Marquis of Rockingham is 
 not so much of moment ; but, if their conduct and example 
 hand down their principles to their successors, then their 
 houses become the public repositories and offices of record for 
 the Constitution ; not like the tower or Rolls-chapel, where it 
 is searched for and sometimes in vain, in rotten parchments 
 under dripping and perishing walls, but in full vigor, and act- 
 ing with vital energy and power, in the character of the leading 
 men and natural interests of the country." 8 
 
 From this political activity Burke withdrew for a little while 
 in 1773 for a trip to France. There he saw those royal splen- 
 dors against which the populace had even then begun to 
 ^mutter, and he observed in the brilliant society into which he 
 was cordjally received two things which he strongly dreaded, 
 atheism and an eager questioning of the " allowed opinions 
 which contribute so much to the public tranquillity." 4 This 
 atheism and this speculation, he perceived, and he was one 
 of the few who were so clear-sighted, were working toward 
 
 1 Correspondence, I, 375. 8 Ibid., 381, 382. 
 
 371. * See 28 2.
 
 xxviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 revolution. His fear of these tendencies he passionately 
 expressed in Parliament 1 not long after his return. When a 
 bill was pending to abolish the penalties inflicted on religious 
 teachers and schoolmasters who dissented from the doctrines 
 of the Church of England, Burke favored such toleration on the 
 ground that the men from whom the country stood in danger 
 were not the dissenters, but the atheists. " These," he cried, 
 " are the people against whom you ought to aim the shaft of the 
 law ; these are the men to whom, arrayed in all the terrors of 
 government I would say, 'You shall not degrade us into 
 brutes ! ' . . . The infidels are outlaws of the constitution, 
 not of this country, but of the human race. They are never, 
 never to be supported, never to be tolerated. Under the sys- 
 tematic attacks of these people, I see some of the props of 
 good government already begin to fail." 2 
 
 By this time Burke had won a substantial reputation through- 
 out the United Kingdom. Indeed, as early as the autumn of 
 1766 several Irish municipalities had voted him the freedom of 
 the city, whereupon his gratified mother had written, " I assure 
 you that it's no honor that is done him that makes me vain of 
 him, but the goodness of his heart, which I believe no man 
 living has a better." 3 During the succeeding years a number 
 of English mercantile organizations also passed resolutions com- 
 mending his labors in behalf of commerce. 4 Finally, in 1774, 
 when the troubles with America were thickening, Bristol, the 
 trading centre of the west of England, the city which had every- 
 thing to lose and nothing to gain from a war with the colonies, 
 honored him by electing him as its representative in Parliament. 
 
 This election from Bristol furnished Burke with an opportu- 
 nity to prove that in character as well as in abilities he was 
 removed from the ordinary politician by a whole world of dif- 
 
 1 Mar. 17, 1773. 
 
 2 Speech on the Relief of the Protestant Dissenters, Works-, VII, 35-37. 
 8 Correspondence, I, 112. 4 Ibid., 455, 456.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxix 
 
 ference. At the conclusion of the poll his colleague had 
 promised obedience to the instructions of his constituents. 
 Burke, however, with unexampled boldness, declared his inde- 
 pendence : " His [the representative's] unbiased opinion, his 
 mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to 
 sacrifice to you, to any man or to any set of men living. . . . 
 Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his 
 judgment ; and he betrays you instead of serving you, if he 
 sacrifices it to your opinion. . . . Government and legislation 
 are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination ; 
 and what sort of reason is th.at in which the determination 
 precedes the discussion, in which one set of men deliberate and 
 another decide, and where those who form the conclusion are 
 perhaps three hundred miles distant from those who hear the 
 arguments ? " * These principles he heartily followed in practice. 
 For example, in 1778 a bill was proposed for relaxing some of 
 the restrictions upon Irish commerce. At once the English 
 merchants, those of Bristol among the rest, with short-sighted 
 jealousy raised a cry of protest. But Burke was unmoved. He 
 boldly spoke and voted for the right side ; and when his con- 
 stituents besought him to advocate their ideas, he gave such 
 an answer as few representatives in England or any other 
 country have ever dared to give : " Is Ireland united to the 
 crown of Great Britain for no other purpose than that we should 
 counteract the bounty of Providence in her favor ? . . . Indeed, 
 Sir, England and Ireland may flourish together. The world is 
 large enough for us both. Let it be our care not to make our- 
 selves too little for it. 2 . . . You obligingly lament that you are 
 not to have me for your advocate ; but if I had been capable of 
 acting as an advocate in opposition to a plan so perfectly con- 
 sonant to my known principles and to the opinions I had pub- 
 licly declared on an hundred occasions, I should only disgrace 
 
 1 Speech at the Conclusion of the Poll, Works, II, 95, 96. 
 8 Two Letters to Gentlemen in Bristol, Works, II, 252, 253.
 
 xxx INTRODUCTION. 
 
 myself without supporting with the smallest degree of credit or 
 effect the cause you wished me to undertake. I should have 
 lost the only thing which can make such abilities as mine of any 
 use to the world now or hereafter : I mean that authority which 
 is derived from an opinion that a member speaks the language 
 of truth and sincerity, and that he is not ready to take up or 
 lay down a great political system for the convenience of an 
 hour, that he is in Parliament to support his opinion of the public 
 good, and does not form his opinion in order to get into Parlia- 
 ment, or to continue in it." 1 These eloquent words fell on deaf 
 ears. .-Burke was never forgiven for his liberality, and in the 
 election of 1780 he was forced to seek a new constituency^ -*^ 
 It was during his six years as member for Bristol that, in the 
 contest over America, Burke rose to his full height as a states- 
 man. Through all the confusion and tangle of the govern- 
 ment's temporary shifts and expedients, he steadily urged the 
 necessity of a consistent policy based on the character of the 
 Americans and the permanent relations which should exist 
 between England and her colonies. 2 He was almost alone 
 among the speech-makers of that decade of debate in always 
 going below the superficial considerations of the moment, a 
 desire for more revenue, irritation at the obstinacy of the colo- 
 nists, greed of power, to the fundamental fact that in the 
 long run restraint and violence defeat themselves. Though 
 most members of Parliament seemed incurably ignorant of 
 America and incapable of understanding her point of view, 
 Burke was always well-informed and sympathetic. Indeed, his 
 sympathy, which had led the province of New York to employ 
 him as its London agent, 3 drew upon him many attacks. " I 
 
 1 Two Letters to Gentlemen in Bristol, Works, II, 257. 
 
 2 See 4 18, note. 
 
 8 This incident is fully discussed by Calvin Stebbins in a paper read 
 before the American Antiquarian Society, Oct. ai, 1893, an ^ published in 
 the Proceedings of that body.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxx j 
 
 am charged with being an American," he wrote to the sheriffs 
 of Bristol. " If warm affection toward those over whom I claim 
 any share of authority be a crime, I am guilty of this charge." * 
 Certainly he could plead guilty of doing more than any other 
 Englishman to enlighten his countrymen about America. In 
 addition to many minor speeches scattered through the Parlia- 
 mentary History, he made three great contributions to the sub- 
 ject : the Speech on American Taxation, April 19, 1774; the 
 Speech on Conciliation, March 22, 1775 ; and the Letter to the 
 Sheriffs of Bristol, April 3, 1777. In the first he argued that 
 the Tea Duty was of no use to England for revenue ; that it 
 only served to irritate the Americans ; and that by winning the 
 loyalty of the colonists England could get more than she could 
 ever take by force. In the second speech Burke maintained 
 that affairs had come to such a pass that England must con- 
 ciliate, and that the only way was by yielding. In the Letter he 
 reviewed the struggle, and in the light of results justified his 
 own position. Of the three pieces that on Conciliation is the 
 best. Not even when dealing with India does Burke excel this 
 in grasp of details, in lucid presentation of a large mass of 
 facts and opinions, and in ripened political wisdom. He 
 virtually summed up everything said on America since he had 
 entered Parliament ; he refuted every opposing argument worth 
 serious consideration ; and he put every favorable argument in 
 its most convincing form. Then, too, he saw what so many 
 failed to see, that the real cause of the contest lay deeper than 
 the casual orders of a governor or the retaliation of a mob, and 
 that America, in resisting the encroachments of royal pre- 
 rogative, was fighting a battle for the liberties of Englishmen 
 at home. Thus, with the utmost breadth of view, with an 
 elevation of style which he never surpassed, and with a temper- 
 ance of expression which he perhaps never again attained, he 
 enunciated principles which are as true for America to-day as 
 
 i Workt, II, 222.
 
 xxxii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 they were for England in 1775 : that since laws do not work 
 in a vacuum, they should not be based upon abstract theory, 
 but upon experience and policy ; J that the first duty of a states- 
 man is, therefore, to study the character and circumstances of 
 the people whom he governs ; 2 that it is impossible to treat a 
 nation as a criminal, I do not know the method of drawing up 
 an indictment against a whole people* and that the surest con- 
 quests are those of peace. 
 
 Though Burke could not win over Parliament to his views 
 on America, yet in 1780 he had better fortune in securing 
 economies in government expenditure. He saw the people 
 staggering under the debt from the American war, and agitating 
 for a general reform of Parliament and curtailment of the royal 
 prerogative. Such changes, however, he regarded as too 
 radical. The fault, he argued, was not with the constituencies, 
 but with the representatives, whom the king had bribed with 
 sinecure offices. He proposed, therefore, to abolish some 
 offices, to consolidate others, and to readjust salaries. In this 
 plan he gave further evidence of his grasp of details, for he 
 comprehended in his scheme of reorganization the vast machine 
 of the whole civil service and a part of the military. Burke's 
 triumph in this undertaking was the more striking, because so 
 many members of Parliament were directly or indirectly inter- 
 ested in retaining the old abuses. Doubtless he would never 
 have succeeded had he not in every step been consistently 
 conservative, reluctant to touch so much as the semblance of 
 a vested right. "I would never suffer any man, ..." he said, 
 "to suffer from errors that naturally have grown out of the 
 abusive constitution of those offices which I propose to regulate. 
 If I cannot reform with equity, I will not reform at all." 4 
 
 1 See 37 23-37, and 7 14 and the note on that line. 
 
 2 See 9 27-34. 
 8 See 33 22, 23. 
 
 4 Speech on the Plan for Economical Reform, Works, II, 322.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxxiii 
 
 One of the offices which Burke had reformed, that of Pay- 
 master of the Forces, he himself occupied in 1782. At that time 
 the North ministry yielded to the Whigs, who were temporarily 
 united under Lord Rockingham, Charles James Fox and Lord 
 Shelburne. Burke, to whom, as we have seen, the party was 
 so deeply indebted, did not get a cabinet place, but only the 
 third-rate position mentioned above. At this exclusion he 
 seems to have been bitterly mortified, for thirteen years later 
 he wrote : " There were few indeed that did not at that time 
 acknowledge . . . that no man in the kingdom better deserved 
 an honorable provision should be made for him." * But in 
 spite of his deserts he never received any official post except 
 this, which he held for only a little while. This neglect was 
 due to several causes : he came of an obscure family ; he was 
 needy and improvident ; he was suspected of complicity in the 
 dubious transactions of Richard and of William Burke ; he had 
 many enemies in public life ; he was too proud to push his 
 claims ; and, as he grew old, he so far lost control of his 
 temper that he became a troublesome colleague. For these 
 reasons the leading statesman of the day was compelled to stand 
 aside while his inferiors snatched the prizes won by his toil. 
 
 The Whigs were scarcely in their seats, when Lord Rocking- 
 ham died and Lord Shelburne became head of the administra- 
 tion. At once Fox and Burke refused to work with him, and 
 by joining their old enemy, Lord North, in what is known as 
 the Coalition, they broke up the Whig party. In this proceed- 
 ing Burke is accused of deserting his principles for purely per- 
 sonal motives. Certainly his behavior is hard to defend, for he 
 attacked Shelburne with unparalleled asperity ; and, when the 
 Coalition overthrew Shelburne, Burke resumed for a few 
 months the office of Paymaster. 
 
 However much his motives or his discretion in regard to most 
 measures of the Coalition may be questioned, yet surely he 
 
 Letter to a Noble Lord, Works, V, 184.
 
 xxxiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 merits the highest praise for his strenuous advocacy of reform 
 in the government of India. That unhappy country was then 
 in the hands of the East India Company, whose system was 
 corrupt and cruel beyond description, as Burke puts the 
 case, unequalled by "all the acts and monuments of pecula- 
 tion, the consolidated corruption of ages, the patterns of 
 exemplary plunder in the heroic times of Roman iniquity." 1 
 Burke knew what he was talking about, knew better than 
 any man in England, for he had been a member of select com- 
 mittees upon Indian affairs, and he had drawn two of the most 
 important reports. He is also supposed to have framed the 
 East India bill commonly known as Fox's. At any rate he 
 defended it 2 in a speech which, as a whole, ranks but little 
 below his best, and which, in spite of some extravagance and 
 some outbursts of temper, perhaps pardonable, contains several 
 passages in his finest style. It is interesting to compare this 
 plea for India with his plea for America. In both he displays 
 the same conservatism, the same distrust of mere theories, and 
 the same intense hatred of all schemes of government which 
 rest upon brute force and rob the people of their happiness 
 and freedom. In beginning his discussion of India he said : 
 " I feel an insuperable reluctance to giving my hand to destroy 
 any established institution of government, upon a theory, how- 
 ever plausible it may be." 3 He then proved that his charges 
 against the East India Company were in no sense theoretical. 
 With brilliant description and an overwhelming abundance of 
 evidence he set forth the results of a tyranny which, as he 
 said, disgraced England and destroyed a large part of the 
 human species. 4 He could not, however, contend against the 
 potent influence of the plunder wrung from India ; and thus, 
 notwithstanding his passionate appeals, the bill was defeated, 
 and the Coalition, which supported it, was driven from office. 
 
 1 Speech on the Nabob of Arcofs Debts, Works, III, 49. 
 
 a Dec. i, 1783. 8 Works, II, 442. * Ibid., 536.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxxv 
 
 The loss of the bill is not to be regretted ; for in many 
 respects the measure was unwise, and the reforms at which it 
 aimed Burke finally secured in another way. Early in 1785 he 
 renewed his attack in the Speech on the Nabob of Arcot's Debts. 
 Dealing with many complicated financial accounts, with sys- 
 tems of taxation, and with a mass of minute technicalities, 
 topics which are usually the dryest of the dry, Burke never- 
 theless rose almost to the height attained in his Conciliation 
 with America. His description of the ravages of Hyder Ali 
 perhaps surpasses anything of the kind in English oratory, but 
 the total effect of the speech is somewhat marred by vitupera- 
 tion. This speech was but preliminary to the famous proceed- 
 ings against Warren Hastings. When the latter returned to 
 England laden with the spoils of India, Burke felt that the 
 time had come for a telling blow. Accordingly he drew up 
 articles charging Hastings with high crimes and misdemeanors, 
 and in 1786 had the case presented to the House. The story 
 of the trial need not be repeated here, for it has been told by 
 Macaulay in a passage familiar to every one. 1 On this occasion 
 Burke fairly outdid himself as an orator. As he described 
 some of the scenes of havoc in India, every listener, even the 
 prisoner, it is said, was breathless with horror. The trial 
 dragged on till 1795; an< ^ though the verdict at last was for 
 acquittal, Burke had norfe the less succeeded in reforming the 
 government of India, for he had trumpeted the wrongs of that 
 " emptied and emboweled " 2 land until public sentiment would 
 no longer tolerate them. He was justified in writing, near the 
 close of his life: " If I were to call for a reward, ... it should 
 be for [the services] in which for fourteen years without inter- 
 mission I showed the most industry and had the least success : 
 I mean the affairs of India. They are those on which I value 
 myself the most : most for the importance, most for the labor, 
 
 1 Essay on Warren Hastings. 
 
 * Speech on the Nabob of Arcot's Debts, Works, III, 65.
 
 XX xvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 most for the judgment, most for the constancy and perseverance 
 in the pursuit." 1 
 
 Before the trial of Hastings had closed, the French Revolu- 
 tion had broken out. Burke, who looked upon this, not as the 
 emancipation of oppressed masses, but as an effort of atheists 2 
 and political theorists 8 to uproot the settled order of society 
 and all hereditary rights in church and state, was horrified. 
 Since his views were hostile to those of the more radical of the 
 Whigs, who on general principles were delighted with a popular 
 uprising, he soon began to draw apart from the men with whom 
 he had been allied against the encroachments of the crown in 
 England and in America. In 1790 he widened the breach still 
 further by an aggressive proclamation of his opinions in Reflec- 
 tions on the Revolution in Prance, his first publication on the 
 subject. The book had, for that day, an enormous sale, and 
 created a profound sensation throughout England, and indeed 
 all Europe. It divided Great Britain into two parties : one 
 composed of Burke and an uncongenial company of Tories and 
 supporters of royal despotism ; the other composed of Liberals, 
 many of whom had been Burke's life-long associates. On both 
 sides the feeling ran high ; and Burke, already irritated by the 
 disapproval of men whom he held in esteem, was not in a frame 
 of mind to endure assaults calmly. When he was jeered in the 
 House by his former friends, lampotmed in the newspapers, 
 and branded as a renegade and traitor, he violently quarreled 
 with Fox, with whom he had been intimate for years, replied to 
 taunts with pamphlets of increasing acrimony, but never flinched 
 from his course. Notwithstanding the censure heaped upon 
 him, his attitude is not surprising to any one who carefully 
 studies his writings and speeches in their chronological order, 
 for he had been steadily growing more conservative. The 
 
 1 Letter to a Noble Lord, Works, V, 192. 
 
 2 Reflections on the Revolution in France, Works, III, 378. 
 1 Ibid., 399, 418.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxxvii 
 
 seeming contradiction between his early adherence to the cause of 
 the people and his later adherence to the cause of the sovereign 
 was due in part to this natural change and in part to his desire 
 to preserve the balance between king and subject : in England 
 the crown had been the transgressor ; in France, he thought, the 
 people. 1 Moreover, he had always insisted that liberty is " in- 
 separable from order"; 2 and in the French Revolution he saw 
 nothing but disorder. 3 He had always insisted that no institu- 
 tion should be overturned unless corrupt beyond reform ; 4 and 
 he believed that the institutions of France could be reformed. 5 
 In the Reflections, in spite of bitterness against the National 
 Assembly and the Englishmen who commended it, Burke dis- 
 played much real wisdom. He saw from the beginning the 
 advancing shadow of the Reign of Terror ; 6 he predicted the 
 rise of a military dictator, 7 and he pointed out the fatal defect 
 of the several theoretical devices of the constitution of France, 
 such as the geometrical division of representative districts. 8 
 But the Reflections contains almost the last of his sober think- 
 ing on the matter ; for, as the Revolution progressed, he became 
 more and more wrought up, so that in each of his succeeding 
 utterances, Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, 
 Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, Thoughts on French 
 Affairs, Remarks on the Policy of the Allies, Observations on the 
 Conduct of the Minority and Letters on a Regicide Peace, the 
 reasoning grew feebler, the scolding shriller. At last he was 
 nearly frantic with rage at the slaughters during the Reign of 
 Terror, and frantic with fear of a revolution in England. So 
 
 1 Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, Works, IV, 92-94. 
 
 2 Letter to a Noble Lord, Works, V, 183. 
 
 8 Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, Works, IV, 97. 
 4 Pages xxxii, xxxiv ; Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, Works, 
 IV, 80 ; Reflections on the Revolution in France, Works, III, 562. 
 6 Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, Works, IV, 42-52. 
 
 6 Works, III, 339. 8 Ibid., 461-476. 
 
 7 Ibid., 524, 525.
 
 xxxviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 irrational is public excitement, however, that, while his opinions 
 were losing real value, his influence was strengthening. As 
 the events which he had predicted came to pass one by one, 
 the laughter of his enemies turned to alarm ; and finally, when 
 Louis the Sixteenth was executed in 1793, England, though in 
 no serious danger, was filled with consternation and looked to 
 Burke as her most far-sighted statesman. Yet to his credit be 
 it said that, even with the nation applauding his frenzy, he now 
 and then fell back into his early habit of examining a question 
 in all lights. In such a moment of clear vision, when he per- 
 ceived that the movement in France might be one of actual 
 progress, when he caught a glimpse of himself as posterity 
 views him, he penned the solemn close of his Thoughts on 
 French Affairs : " I have done with this subject, I believe, for- 
 ever. It has given me many anxious moments for the two last 
 years. If a great change is to be made in human affairs, the 
 minds of men will be fitted to it, the general opinions and 
 feelings will draw that way. Every fear, every hope, will for- 
 ward it; and then they who persist in opposing this mighty 
 current in human affairs will appear rather to resist the decrees 
 of Providence itself than the mere designs of men. They will 
 not be resolute and firm, but perverse and obstinate." 1 
 
 Burke's mistakes in regard to the French Revolution are by 
 some critics ascribed in part to his imperfect acquaintance 
 with the subject. 2 However that may be, it is certain that 
 during the same period, when he was dealing with a subject 
 on which he was thoroughly informed, Ireland, he showed his 
 old qualities of statesmanship. He had always been a cham- 
 pion of his down-trodden native land, just as he had been a 
 champion of America and India. In his .boyhood, as we have 
 seen, he endeavored to master the history of his " poor coun- 
 try"; and later he tried to secure justice for it, though at the 
 
 1 Works, IV, 377. 
 
 2 Morley's Burke, 160.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxxix 
 
 expense of offending his Bristol constituents. Then, when 
 Ireland caught the contagion of the French Revolution, and 
 when the war between England and France rendered the situ- 
 ation still more threatening, Burke urged for Ireland the same 
 policy which he had urged for America seventeen years before, 
 conciliation. In letter and pamphlet he unceasingly advo- 
 cated relieving the Catholics of their disabilities. " It passes 
 my comprehension," he wrote, " in what manner it is that men 
 can be reconciled to the practical merits of a constitution . . . 
 by being practically excluded from any of its advantages." 1 
 This is surely a return to the high level of the dictum, " I do 
 not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a 
 whole people." 
 
 The incidents connected with the close of the trial of Warren 
 Hastings, with the excitement over the French Revolution, and 
 with the agitation for toleration in Ireland mark the end of 
 Burke's public career. In 1794, with his fame restored, he 
 retired from Parliament. He was to have received a peerage 
 with the title Lord Beaconsfield; but, since the death of his son 
 left him without a direct heir to whom to transmit the honor, 
 he accepted instead a pension granted in recognition of his 
 services to the country. This pension was the occasion of 
 a fresh attack upon him by his enemies. He replied in the 
 Letter to a Noble Lord, which from a rhetorical point of view 
 is one of his best pieces of work. He survived but three 
 years, during which he wrote the Letters on a Regicide Peace. 
 He died on the ninth of July, 1797. 
 
 The personality of Burke, which in his public life seems a 
 little vague and distant, appears with more distinctness in his 
 private life. As described by Madame D'Arblay he was tall, 
 his figure noble, his air commanding, his address graceful, his 
 voice clear, penetrating, sonorous and powerful, his language 
 
 1 Second Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe on the Catholic Question, Works, 
 VI, 382.
 
 xl INTRODUCTION. 
 
 copious, various and eloquent, his manners attractive, his con- 
 versation delightful. " Since we lost Garrick," she wrote, " I 
 have seen nobody so enchanting." 1 The range of Burke's 
 conversation was an indication of the variety of his interests, 
 politics, economics, social problems, history, philosophy, 
 poetry, drama, painting, sculpture, science, agriculture, manu- 
 factures. Whatever subject he took up, he pursued with the 
 same furor that possessed him in studying at college and in 
 mastering the details of finance and the affairs of America and 
 India. When he turned from the cares of state to his farm at 
 Beaconsfield, he was eager over carrots and pigs, just as he 
 had been eager over the Stamp Act. 2 
 
 Furthermore, his zeal in behalf of the wretched and the 
 oppressed was not a mere vague sentiment which expended 
 itself in words : it was a ruling motive in his daily conduct. 
 When the poet Crabbe was obscure and penniless, Burke took 
 him into the family at Beaconsfield, found a printer for his 
 verses, and finally obtained for him a living in the church. 
 Burke sent the painter Barry abroad and for five years fur- 
 nished him with money for study and travel. 3 During the 
 Revolution he kept open house for the French refugees, gave 
 from his own slender purse to acquaintances whose estates had 
 been confiscated, 4 and established near Beaconsfield a school 
 for French orphans and children of Emigres who had suffered 
 losses. 4 Such open-handed liberality could not but win him 
 troops of staunch friends. Richard Shackleton was devoted 
 to him from boyhood to old age ; Sir Joshua Reynolds ap- 
 pointed him an executor and left him a large legacy ; Dr. 
 Johnson, the stout Tory who declared that " the first Whig was 
 
 1 Diary and Letters, June, 1782. 
 
 2 Correspondence, I, 245-251, 257-265. 
 
 3 Ibid., 86-92, 116-129. 
 * Ibid., IV, 246-251. 
 
 6 Ibid., 33I-34I-
 
 INTRODUCTION. xli 
 
 the devil," 1 admired and loved him. Burke's faults were clearly 
 those of an ardent temperament, at times unreasoning zeal 
 for persons, parties or causes, and an impatience of contradic- 
 tion and delay which betrayed him into fiery outbursts of 
 passion. His virtues were also those of an ardent tempera- 
 ment, unquenchable energy, exhaustless generosity. 
 
 In his family relations he was very happy. In the winter of 
 1756-1757 he had married Jane Nugent, the daughter of a 
 physician. She was a woman of gentle manners, even temper, 
 and a capacity for management which lifted many burdens from 
 her husband's shoulders. Though Burke's only son, Richard, 
 was not generally liked, he was idolized by his father, who 
 with characteristic eagerness had indulged in the most extrav- 
 agant hopes of a brilliant future for him. The death of 
 Richard in 1794 was a blow from which Burke never recovered : 
 it filled his last days with gloom, and hastened his end. " I 
 am alone," he wrote. "I have none to meet my enemies in 
 the gate." 3 Js 
 
 .^, 
 
 BURKE AS A STATESMAN 
 
 Burke's principles of statesmanship, when briefly set down, 
 seem almost too bald and simple to be worth much attention. 
 One should remember, however, that theories of government 
 
 1 Boswell's Life of Johnson, III, 326. 
 
 2 Letter to a Noble Lord, Works, V, 208. 
 
 3 Able discussions of Burke's statesmanship are to be found in section 9 of 
 chapter xii of Leslie Stephen's History of English Thought in the Eigh- 
 teenth Century, New York, 1876; and in John Morley's Edmund Burke: 
 a Historical Study, London, 1867. The latter book should not be con- 
 founded with Morley's life of Burke in the English Men of Letters, to 
 which reference has already been made. Stephen dwells on a matter for 
 which there is no space in this introduction, the sources from which Burke 
 drew his ideas in statesmanship.
 
 xlii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 had not in Burke's day been discussed and developed as they 
 have been since, so that what is trite now may have been novel 
 then : moreover, statesmanship does not consist in a mere 
 knowledge of maxims, in which a modern schoolboy might 
 equal Burke, but in understanding when and how to apply 
 them. 
 
 The basis of Burke's system is explained in a sentence from 
 one of his letters : " The principles of true politics are those of 
 morality enlarged ; and I neither now do, nor ever will, admit 
 of any other." l But had he never written this sentence, his 
 works are full of proofs that his aim was the triumph of the 
 good : among the orators of his time he is notable for his fre- 
 quent appeals to the love of right rather than to the love of 
 might. It is better, he held, to try to make a government wise 
 and honest than to try to make it strong. 2 His hatred of the 
 French Revolutionists was due partly to his conviction that 
 they were enemies to sound morals : they were overturning the 
 church, a bulwark of morality ; they were dishonestly repudiat- 
 ing debts ; they were unjustly confiscating property. Of their 
 action he wrote : "As no one of us men can dispense with pub- 
 lic or private faith, or with any other tie of moral obligation, 
 so neither can any number of us. The number engaged in 
 crimes, instead of turning them into laudable acts, only aug- 
 ments the quantity and intensity of the guilt." 3 
 
 The first of the moral principles on which Burke rested great 
 weight was justice. Where duller men would have been 
 stolidly indifferent, his powerful imagination enabled him to 
 feel keenly the burdens of the oppressed. Thus it was for 
 justice to the clergy and the nobility of France, to the disfran- 
 chised Catholics, and to the swarming millions of India, that he 
 made his most fervent pleas. Such pleas were not " splendid 
 
 1 Letter to the Bishop of Chester, 1771, Correspondence, I, 332. 
 
 2 Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, Works, II, 220. 
 
 8 Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, Works, IV, 163.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xliii 
 
 commonplaces " at that time ; for the idea that a nation was 
 bound by the same code of justice as an individual was far less 
 generally accepted than now. Every European power regarded 
 the acquisition of territory as ample excuse for unprovoked 
 rapine and slaughter, as is proved by the very crimes of 
 Hastings which Burke labored to punish, by the general sympa- 
 thy for the great criminal, by the defence that he had extended 
 the bounds of the British Empire, and by his final acquittal. 
 Such pleas as Burke's are not "splendid commonplaces" to- 
 day ; for although the civilized world ought long since to have 
 discovered the "ill-husbandry of injustice," 1 scarcely a year 
 passes without some outrage committed against a weaker nation 
 by a stronger. 
 
 A second principle to which Burke often appealed is, as 
 might be expected from his character, generosity. When 
 leading statesmen held the belief, still common among ignorant 
 people, that the surest method of enlarging national commerce 
 is to restrict and 'retaliate, Burke advocated liberality. His 
 narrow-minded constituents remonstrated, but he replied with 
 a truth which is not yet well understood: " It is but too natu- 
 ral for us to see our own certain ruin in the possible prosperity 
 of other people. It is hard to persuade us that everything 
 which is got by another is not taken from ourselves. But it is 
 fit that we should get the better of these suggestions, which 
 come from what is not the best and soundest part of our 
 nature." 2 When Burke's colleagues maintained that they 
 were dealing justly with America, he answered that they should 
 not be content with mere grudging justice, but should follow 
 the higher policy of generosity. This idea underlies all his 
 utterances on America, and the special emphasis which he 
 lays on it in the Speech on Conciliation is perhaps the one thing 
 which makes that the noblest of his productions. " Magna- 
 
 1 See 45 21. 
 
 2 Two Letters to Gentlemen in Bristol, Works, II, 260.
 
 xliv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 nimity in politics," he said in closing, "is not seldom the truest 
 wisdom ; and a great empire and little minds go ill together. 
 . . . Our ancestors have made the most extensive, and the 
 only honorable conquests, not by destroying but by promoting 
 the wealth, the number, the happiness of the human race." 1 
 This same ideal, which seems almost as far from realization 
 to-day as it was in 1797, he presented again in almost his last 
 piece of writing : " Not ... a sort of England detached from 
 the rest of the world, and amusing herself with the puppet- 
 show of a naval power, . . . but . . . that sort of England 
 who, sympathetic with the adversity or the happiness of man- 
 kind, felt that nothing in human affairs was foreign to her." 2 
 
 Many men have been as zealous as Burke for justice and 
 generosity, but comparatively few have added to their zeal the 
 saving knowledge that perfect justice can never be attained in 
 this world ; that human institutions are at best " compromises, 
 sometimes between good and evil and sometimes between evil 
 and evil." 3 By this knowledge he was kept from being a 
 stickler for abstract principles, a theorist. He never advo- 
 cated, except in the case of the French Revolution, mere 
 technical rights, which may be " the most odious of all wrongs 
 and the most vexatious of all injustice." 4 The thing for 
 which he looked was the utilitarian effect, " the happiness of 
 the whole," 6 or, to use Bentham's phrase, " the greatest happi- 
 ness of the greatest number." In theory the British Constitu- 
 tion, for example, might be as illogical as possible : if as a matter 
 of fact it protected person and property, Burke was well content 
 to let it stand unchanged. " A man of warm speculative 
 benevolence," he wrote, "may wish his society otherwise con- 
 
 1 Pages 73, 74. 
 
 2 First Letter on a Regicide Peace, Works, V, 244, 245. 
 
 8 Reflections on the Revolution in France, Works, III, 313. 
 
 4 See 35 8-10 ; 7 14, note. 
 
 5 Speech on the Petition of the Unitarians, Works, VII, 45.
 
 IN TROD UC TION. xlv 
 
 stituted than he finds it ; but a good patriot, and a true politi- 
 cian, always considers how he shall make the most of the 
 existing materials of his country." l 
 
 Burke's antipathy to mere theories also saved him from the 
 fallacy of supposing that the machinery of government may 
 be constructed as if men were uniform, passive units. This 
 error, which was rife among his predecessors and contempora- 
 ries, 2 persists to this day in the minds of those who attempt to 
 suppress evil or reorganize society on the assumption that the 
 enactment of a law will make men wise, temperate, industrious, 
 frugal or unselfish. Burke, however, seized every opportunity 
 to sneer at such " speculative projects " 3 and " paper govern- 
 ment." 4 He invariably tried, as in the Speech on Conciliation^ 
 to take into account temper and environment. " I never," he 
 protested, "was wild enough to conceive that one method 
 would serve for the whole, that the natives of Hindostan and 
 those of Virginia could be ordered in the same manner." 6 
 
 These several phases of Burke's bent for the practical rather 
 than the theoretical point of view are, in the last analysis, a 
 trust in experience, a theme on which he was never tired of 
 dwelling. Men might offer any number of a priori arguments : 
 he simply replied that conjectures were interesting, but not 
 convincing. " Fortunately I am not obliged to tax my own 
 unproductive invention. ... I only wish you to return to that 
 mode which a uniform experience has marked out to you as 
 best." 7 
 
 A man who clings so tenaciously to experience is likely to be 
 an uncompromising conservative ; and Burke was no exception 
 
 1 Reflections on the Revolution in France, Works, III, 440. 
 
 2 Stephen's History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, 
 II, 211. * See 6 15. 
 
 8 See 6 15, note. * See pages 9-25. 
 
 Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, Works, II, 227. 
 7 See 49 15-27.
 
 xlvi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 to the rule. Changes, he thought, should always be grad- 
 ual, and should be made only when, imperatively necessary. 
 Indeed, so strong was his reverence for the wisdom of the 
 ages that he was willing to tolerate abuses till they actually 
 struck "at the root of order." 1 Then he was moved to act, 
 for few things were dearer to his heart than a quiet, well-regu- 
 lated state. Whatever interfered with this, whether rebellion, 
 riot, usurpation, radical reforms, agitation, or the questioning 
 of traditional beliefs in religion or politics, he was prompt to 
 withstand. Such a man, with his face set toward the past, is 
 not well fitted to deal with new social and political conditions, 
 which demand experiments ; and yet without the restraining 
 influence of such men a whole nation might by a rash leap lose 
 the fruit of much toil and pain. Each age, then, must have its 
 conservatives as well as its progressives ; and Burke, with his 
 passion for good government, whether in England, America, 
 Ireland, India or France, was for his generation as indeed 
 he has been for all generations since "the great pleader for 
 conservatism." 
 
 VI. 
 
 BURKE AS AN ORATOR.* 
 
 Though it is customary to speak of Burke as a great orator, 
 the fact is that he frequently produced no immediate effect. 
 These failures were due to several causes, one of which was 
 his unprepossessing appearance. However much Miss Burney 3 
 may have been charmed when she first met him, yet as he rose 
 in Parliament he was not attractive with his heavy, Quaker-like 
 
 1 Tract on the Popery Laws, Works, VI, 340. 
 
 2 Burke's oratory and his style are discussed at some length in Morley's 
 Burke, in Goodrich's Select British Eloquence, and the introductions to 
 Payne's edition of \heSelect Works and to Professor Bliss Perry's Selections 
 
 from Burke, Henry Holt Company, New York, 1896. 
 8 Afterwards Madame D'Arblay.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xlvii 
 
 figure, scratch wig, round spectacles and a cumbrous roll of 
 paper loading his pocket. l To these disadvantages he added 
 clumsy gestures, a voice somewhat harsh when he spoke in 
 public, a strong Irish brogue, and at times a hurried articula- 
 tion. Moreover in later years he now and then spoiled a 
 speech by losing his temper. But above all, he was deficient 
 in tact : often he either overestimated the capacity of his 
 hearers or else he refused to condescend to it. They wanted a 
 concise presentation of leading points : he insisted upon view- 
 ing the matter from every side and in every light. They were 
 too slow-witted to comprehend anything except the obvious : he 
 insisted upon applying profound principles. They were looking 
 for personal or partisan advantage : he offered them maxims of 
 statesmanship. He was, as Goldsmith drew him, a speaker 
 
 Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining, 
 And thought of convincing while they thought of dining. 2 
 
 Indeed, by some of the younger wits he was called " the 
 dinner-bell." So widely did he miss the mark that the Speech 
 on the Nabob of Arcofs Debts did not impress Pitt and Grenville 
 as worth a reply, and the Speech on Conciliation emptied the 
 benches. 
 
 In spite of these mistakes in casting pearls of philosophy and 
 statesmanship before the House, Burke was at times unsur- 
 passed. His first speeches, as has been said, " filled the town 
 with wonder " ; and during his earlier career many of his con- 
 tributions to the debates were so compact, pointed, and telling s 
 that he was everywhere recognized as one of the ablest speakers 
 in Parliament. Finally, at the trial of Hastings he swept his 
 audience up to a pitch of uncontrollable emotion. These 
 
 1 Green's History of the English People, IV, 234. 
 
 2 Retaliation. 
 
 * Few of these speeches have been printed in his collected Works, but 
 some of them appear in brief reports in the Parliamentary History.
 
 xlviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 triumphs, which establish beyond peradventure his fame as an 
 orator, were due in part to his natural ardor, which in his 
 happiest moments kindled all who came within range of his 
 voice. He owed yet more of his success to his amazing knowl- 
 edge of his subjects. He had never visited India, for example : 
 nevertheless he had read and studied huge masses of facts 
 about that country, and had animated them by his imagination 
 until, as Macaulay puts it, " India and its inhabitants were not 
 to him, as to most Englishmen, mere names and abstractions, 
 but a real country and a real people. The burning sun, the 
 strange vegetation of the palm and the cocoa-tree, the ricefield, 
 the tank, the huge trees older than the Mogul Empire, under 
 which the village crowds assemble, the thatched roof of the 
 peasant's hut, the rich tracery of the mosque where the imaum 
 prays with his face to Mecca, the drums and banners and gaudy 
 idols, the de votee swinging in the air, the graceful maiden with 
 the pitcher on her head, descending the steps to the river-side, 
 the black faces, the long beards, the yellow streaks of sect, the 
 turbans and the flowing robes, the spears and the silver maces, 
 the elephants with their canopies of state, the gorgeous palan- 
 quin of the prince, and the close litter of the noble lady, all 
 these things were to him as the objects amidst which his own 
 life had been passed, as the objects which lay on the road 
 between Beaconsfield and St. James's Street." * With all India 
 thus present to his eye, Burke drew pictures of such startling 
 reality, he showed such thorough and easy mastery of every 
 detail, that his listeners could not but value his opinion as that 
 of a man who knew everything to be known about the matter ; 
 they could not help feeling with him that " oppression in Ben- 
 gal was the same thing as oppression in the streets of London." 2 
 
 1 Essay on Warren Hastings. Goodrich has already quoted this pas- 
 sage to illustrate the same point. 
 
 2 Macaulay's Essay on Warren Hastings. The phrase was evidently 
 suggested by a sentence from Burke's Speech in Opening the Impeachment
 
 INTRODUCTION. xlix 
 
 Other important elements in Burke's oratory are the brilliancy 
 of expression and the logical development of ideas, elements 
 which have helped to give lasting influence to some of the 
 speeches which at the moment were failures. An instance in 
 point is the Speech on the Nabob of Arcofs Debts, which Erskine 
 is said to have slept through, but which he afterwards thumbed 
 to pieces in the printed copy. These qualities, however, may 
 be discussed more properly in relation to Burke's style. 
 
 VII. 
 
 BURKE AS A WRITER. 
 
 One of the first things to strike the reader of Burke is the 
 vigor which he displays in nearly every kind of prose : in 
 never-to-be-forgotten descriptions of the soft beauty of Marie 
 Antoinette or of the horrors of war in India ; in blood-curdling 
 tales of the cruelty of Debi Sing at Rungpore ; in clear-cut 
 expositions of the effect of poetry upon the emotions, or the 
 effect of Popery laws in Ireland ; in arguments for toleration 
 or conciliation which carry one along with the rush of rapid 
 narrative ; in the pathos of his laments for the death of his 
 son ; in the irony of the Vindication of Natural Society ; in the 
 terrific invective of the Letters on a Regicide Peace ; in the 
 splendor of the appeal at the close of the Speech on Conciliation ; 
 in the unadorned gravity of the Address to the King. Through 
 all this range, from which humor alone is excluded, Burke 
 moves with a sure and imperious stride. 
 
 Since there is no notable piece of description in the Speech 
 on Conciliation, the student of Burke's style should read such a 
 
 of Warren Hastings, Second Day, Works, IX, 448: "The laws of morality 
 are the same everywhere, and . . . there is no action which would pass for 
 an act of extortion, of peculation, of bribery and of oppression in England, 
 that is not an act of extortion, of peculation, of bribery and oppression in 
 Europe, Asia, Africa and all the world over."
 
 1 ^ INTRODUCTION. 
 
 passage as that which tells of the tortures at Rungpore l or of 
 the devastation of the Carnatic by Hyder Ali. 2 Two fragments 
 from the latter are worth quoting here to show in what large 
 measure Burke had the poet's power of realizing by the imagi- 
 nation a scene on which his eyes had never rested : " All the 
 horrors of war before known or heard of were mercy to that 
 new havoc. A storm of universal fire blasted every field, con- 
 sumed every house, destroyed every temple. The miserable 
 inhabitants, flying from their flaming villages, in part were 
 slaughtered ; others, without regard to sex, to age, to the 
 respect of rank or sacredness of function, fathers torn from 
 children, husbands from wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of 
 cavalry, and amidst the goading spears of drivers and the 
 trampling of pursuing horses, were swept into captivity in an 
 unknown and hostile land. Those who were able to evade 
 this tempest fled to the walled cities ; but escaping from fire, 
 sword and exile, they fell into the jaws of famine. . . . For 
 eighteen months without intermission this destruction raged 
 from the gates of Madras to the gates of Tanjore ; and so com- 
 pletely did these masters in their art, Hyder Ali and his more 
 ferocious son, absolve themselves of their impious vow, that, 
 when the British armies traversed, as they did, the Carnatic 
 for hundreds of miles in all directions, through the whole line 
 of their march they did not see one man, not one woman, not 
 one child, not one four-footed beast of any description whatever. 
 One dead, uniform silence reigned over the whole region." 8 
 
 In exposition Burke has done nothing better in small com- 
 pass than his explanation of the causes of the American love 
 of freedom in this Speech on Conciliation, 4 As regards choice 
 
 1 Speech in Opening the Impeachment of Warren Hastings, Third Day, 
 Works, X, 83-90. 
 
 2 This bit is in Professor Perry's Selections from Burke, a book which, 
 though it contains nothing from the Speech on Conciliation, is useful for 
 the study of Burke's style in general. 
 
 8 Works, III, 63-65. * Pages 19-25.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 \\ 
 
 of words as well as arrangement of ideas the English language 
 hardly furnishes a better model of expository method. Here, 
 as in Burke's descriptions and narrations, definite words bite 
 the meaning into the mind, and concrete examples vivify the 
 general statements. The effect of such specific terms is well 
 brought out by Payne, 1 who compares a quotation from this 
 passage with one from Lord Brougham which is made up of 
 general, or abstract, words : 
 
 In large bodies the circulation of 
 power must be less vigorous at the 
 extremities. Nature has said it. 
 The Turk cannot govern Egypt 
 and Arabia and Kurdistan as he 
 governs Thrace ; nor has he the 
 same dominion in Crimea and Al- 
 giers which he has at Brusa and 
 Smyrna. Despotism itself is obliged 
 to truck and huckster. The Sultan 
 gets such obedience as he can. 
 Pages 24, 25. 
 
 In all the despotisms of the East 
 it has been observed that the fur- 
 ther any part of the empire is re- 
 moved from the capital the more 
 do its inhabitants enjoy some sort 
 of rights and privileges; the more 
 inefficacious is the power of the 
 monarch ; and the more feeble and 
 easily decayed is the organization 
 of the government. Inquiry into 
 the Colonial Policy of the European 
 Powers. 
 
 These two bits show clearly enough Burke's superiority and 
 one of the sources of it. 
 
 Another excellent example this time argumentative is the 
 paragraph beginning "Ireland before the English conquest." 5 
 Here figurative touches are not infrequent, but the figures are 
 simple, even colloquial : " The roots of our primitive constitu- 
 tion were early transplanted into that soil, and grew and flour- 
 ished there " ; 3 " Your ancestors did not churlishly sit down 
 alone to the feast of Magna Charta " ; 4 " Your standard could 
 never be advanced an inch before your privileges." ' The whole 
 speech, in fact, is strewn with such turns, which perhaps do 
 more than anything else to impart vitality to a style : " The 
 
 1 Burke's Select Works, I, xxxix. 4 42 31, 32. 
 
 42 17. 8 42 26-28. 6 43 2, X
 
 Hi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 public would not have patience to see us play the game out " ; * 
 " They are not squeezed into this happy form by the constraints 
 of watchful and suspicious government " ; 2 " They will <://>/ and 
 grapple to you " ; 8 " I put my foot in the tracks of our forefathers, 
 where I can neither wander nor stumble." * 
 
 But Burke's exuberant imagination would not allow him to 
 stop at such simple tropes. His mind was teeming with sug- 
 gestions of subtle likenesses and relations, suggestions which, 
 when translated into words, became similes or metaphors, many 
 of which surpass in poetic force most of the verse of his cen- 
 tury. Oddly enough, as Macaulay notes, his imagination grew 
 more active, his style more florid, with his advancing years. In 
 his youth, in the Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas on the 
 Sublime and Beautiful, " he wrote on the emotions produced by 
 mountains and cascades, by the masterpieces of painting and 
 sculpture, by the faces and necks of beautiful women, in the 
 style of a parliamentary report. In his old age he discussed 
 treaties and tariffs in the most fervid and brilliant language of 
 romance." 5 It is interesting to notice the gradual change. 
 The Inquiry contains only one or two bits which can be called 
 flowery, such as "In the morning of our days, when the senses 
 are unworn and tender." 6 There is one bold metaphor, " In 
 this description the terrible and sublime blaze out together." 7 
 At the period of the Speech on Conciliation Burke was at his 
 best, splendid and yet restrained. The page 8 containing the 
 sentence, "If ... that angel should have drawn up the cur- 
 tain and unfolded the rising glories of his country," and the 
 impassioned peroration with the imagery of " the sanctuary of 
 liberty, the sacred temple consecrated to our common faith," 9 
 these passages, though in a manner to be attempted by a 
 genius only, and even then too ornate for modern taste, were 
 
 1 5 24, 25. * 51 27, 38. 7 Ibid., 140. 
 
 2 17 13, 14. 6 Essay on Lord Bacon. 8 14. 
 
 8 72 2. 6 Works, I, 97. 9 72 10, 11.
 
 INTRODUCTION. liij 
 
 for the time and place proper and effective. But ten years 
 later in the Speech on the Nabob of Arcofs Debts Burke passed 
 the bounds set by an age when the florid was more admired 
 than now, the repulsive more readily tolerated. Of all the 
 " purple patches," however, the most gorgeous is in the Reflec- 
 tions on the Revolution, the description of Marie Antoinette, 
 which begins, " Surely never lighted on this orb, which she 
 hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her 
 just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated 
 sphere she just began to move in, glittering like the morning 
 star, full of life and splendor and joy." * 
 
 Such opulence of style was in no sense an affectation. But 
 though it was his natural mode of expression, he has left two 
 noteworthy exceptions, the austerely phrased Report on the 
 Lords' Journal, 1794, and the sober Address to the King, 1777. 
 The latter contains a passage deemed by some the noblest 
 Burke ever wrote. It begins, " What, gracious sovereign, is 
 the empire of America to us, or the empire of the world, if we 
 lose our own liberties ? " 2 
 
 This sentence, which is modeled upon the well-known verse 
 from St. Matthew, " What is a man profited if he shall gain 
 the whole world and lose his own soul ? " 3 is one of 
 many in which Burke, though an independent writer, has 
 enriched his style either by direct quotation or by adaptation 
 from the Bible. In this very Speech on Conciliation there are 
 upwards of twenty of these passages, 4 such as, " When the day- 
 star of the English Constitution had arisen in their hearts" 6 
 In like manner Burke drew upon the Roman and the English 
 poets, especially Virgil, Horace and Juvenal, Shakspere, Milton 
 
 1 Works, III, 331. 2 Ibid., VI, 177. 8 xvi, 26. 
 
 4 The parallels are pointed out in the notes to the following lines : 4 16, 
 13 32, 14 31, 24 29, 30 4, 30 6, 31 16, 31 27, 37 l, 38 5, 46 6, 49 8, SO 33, 51 22, 
 51 30, 51 31, 63 16, 72 12, 72 20, 73 25, 73 34. 
 
 6 46 6, 7.
 
 liv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and Pope. l Indeed it is said that whenever he wrote, he kept 
 a " ragged Delphin Virgil " near his elbow. He was thoroughly 
 acquainted, not only with the writers just mentioned, but with 
 others of the best, including Plutarch, Plautus, Terence, Cicero, 
 Lucretius, Bacon and Dryden. In spite of his knowledge of 
 literature and in spite of the current fashion of quoting, partic- 
 ularly from the Greek and Latin classics, Burke seldom erred by 
 quoting too frequently or by patching an incongruous element 
 into the context. Having reached the right pitch of thought or 
 expression, then, by the poetic force of a borrowed turn, by the 
 familiarity and power of suggestion or by the aptness, he added 
 the finishing touch. 
 
 Brilliant as Burke's phrasing is, he did not rely upon mere 
 brilliancy : he was generally careful to arrange his thoughts so 
 that each fell into its proper place and contributed its due 
 share towards the total effect. His skill in planning need not 
 be discussed here, for at a glance it is evident in the analysis 
 of the Speech on Conciliation a few pages farther on. 
 
 Moreover, Burke took every precaution to make the logical 
 relations of his ideas unmistakable. For this purpose he used 
 many connective words or phrases. For example, the first line 
 of each paragraph on pages 35 and 36 contains a phrase which 
 serves as a connective with what precedes : " There is, Sir, 
 also a circumstance which convinces me that this mode of crim- 
 inal proceeding" ;* "In this situation, let us seriously and 
 coolly ponder " ; 8 " If then the removal of the causes of this 
 spirit of American liberty";* "If we adopt this mode." 5 
 Another of Burke's methods was to construct the paragraph so 
 as to throw as much emphasis as possible upon the main idea 
 in it. By a word or phrase at the beginning he would indicate 
 
 1 See 14 10, 17 4, 18 6, 19 31, 22 31, 24 8, 24 25, 25 18, 26 2, 30 4, 31 9, 32 33, 
 37 19, 46 9, 49 2, 49 21, 51 16, 51 20, 63 2, 69 27, 70 29, 70 33, 71 34, 72 2, 73 i, 
 73 17. 
 
 2 35 19, 20. 8 36 l. <36 12, 13. 6 36 19.
 
 INTRODUCTION. l v 
 
 the topic ; he would next present the various details ; and he 
 would close with a summarizing phrase or sentence. A good 
 instance is the paragraph beginning " The proposition is 
 peace." l This sentence names the topic, peace. Then come 
 several explanations, and at the end the gist of the whole 
 matter, "To reconcile them to each other in the same act 
 and by the bond of the same interest which reconciles them to 
 the British government." The next two paragraphs are con- 
 structed in much the same way. The artifices just mentioned 
 are but two out of many, for Burke was expert in most of the 
 devices used in writing good prose. 
 
 Every criticism of Burke's style, however, is wholly inade- 
 quate. To say that he is vigorous, brilliantly imaginative, at 
 times severely simple, at times florid, to say that he quotes aptly, 
 arranges his ideas logically and is dexterous in constructing 
 sentences and paragraphs, all this is much like saying that a 
 human being is made up of water, iron, lime, carbon and 
 sodium. The most important element still eludes the analysis 
 of the chemist and the critic. The only way, then, to under- 
 stand Burke and his style is to study him and see for oneself 
 how " a generous nature took her own way to perfection." 
 
 VIII. 
 STRUCTURE OF THE SPEECH ON CONCILIATION. 
 
 The Speech on Conciliation is one of the best examples of 
 Burke's skill in organizing material so that each idea falls into 
 its proper place and contributes its due share to the total 
 effect. This perfection of structure is most easily seen in a 
 skeleton, or outline, in which the divisions stand out clearly. 
 Such an outline may be drawn in several forms, but the one 
 here chosen is the argumentative brief, which is treated
 
 Ivi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 minutely in the third chapter of Professor G. P. Baker's Prin- 
 ciples of Argumentation.^ According to this scheme the main 
 body of the argument is included in the brief proper. In this 
 part the lettering and numbering of heads does not indicate 
 the relative importance of arguments, but merely their relation 
 to the chief proposition. Thus arguments marked with capital 
 Roman numerals directly support the proposition ; those marked 
 with capital letters support the arguments marked with capital 
 Roman numerals, and so on. The arguments in support of a 
 statement are always arranged under it the reverse of the 
 order of the syllogism. In cases where Burke has presented 
 his material in the form of the syllogism, arguments first and 
 then conclusion, his order has been changed for a few sen- 
 tences. The numbers in parentheses in the following brief 
 refer to pages and lines of the text. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 1 
 
 The return of the "grand penal bill " gives a fresh opportunity 
 to choose a plan for dealing with America. (3 1-25) 
 II. The subject is a most serious one. (4 i) 
 
 A. Since it was the most important matter before Parliament 
 when Burke took his seat, he was at more than common pains 
 to instruct himself in regard to it. (4 2-19) 
 
 B. He has held to his original sentiments in regard to it. 
 
 (4 20-27) 
 
 C. Parliament has frequently changed its sentiments and policy. 
 
 (4 28-31) 
 
 D. Each remedy has been followed by a heightening of the dis- 
 temper. (4 32-5 8) 
 
 III. It is evident that those who are opposing the action of the gov- 
 ernment must present a definite policy. (5 9-32) 
 A. Burke, on account of his insignificance, is reluctant to sug- 
 gest a plan. (5 33-6 13) 
 
 1 Boston, 1895.
 
 INTRODUCTION. Ivii 
 
 B. Yet the situation is so grave that he must embrace the 
 slightest chance of doing good. (6 14-25) 
 
 C. And his insignificance will make it possible for his plan to 
 be discussed wholly on its merits. (6 26-7 9) 
 
 IV. JBurke's proposition is to secure peace by removing the grounds 
 
 of difference^ (7 10-25) 
 
 V. This simple plan, though it has none of the splendor of Lord 
 North's project, and does not propose an auction of finance, 
 derives advantage from the proposition and registry of Lord 
 North's project (7 26-8 15); for 
 
 A. The house, in accepting Lord North's resolution, has voted 
 that conciliation is admissible. (8 16-20) 
 
 B. The house has gone farther and admitted that complaints 
 in regard to taxation are not wholly unfounded. (8 21-32) 
 
 C. Though Burke's plan differs from Lord North's in regard 
 to the means, it is based upon the same principle of geace 
 and reconciliation. (8 33-9 4) 
 
 VI. The proposal for peace ought to come from England (9 8, 9) ; for 
 
 A. One side or the other must concede. (9 6, 7) 
 
 B. England, as the superior power, may offer peace with 
 honor and safety. (9 10-18) 
 
 VII. There are two leading questions to consider : (9 19) 
 
 A. Whether England ought to concede. (9 20) 
 
 B. ;What the concession should be. (9 21) 
 
 VIII. The determination of both these questions depends, not upon 
 abstract ideas and general theories, but upon the nature and 
 circumstances of America. (9 22-10 4) 
 
 BRIEF PROPER. 
 
 England should secure peace by conciliation, because 
 
 I. The condition of America requires this method ; for 
 
 A. The population of America is too large to be trifled with. 
 
 (105-11 7) 
 
 B. The commerce of the colonies is greater in proportion than 
 the numbers of the people (11 8-12) ; for 
 
 i. Such an eminent authority as Mr. Glover has already 
 furnished proofs in this matter. (11 13-26)
 
 Iviii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 2. The growth has been more rapid than any one would have 
 dreamed at the beginning of the century (13 31-15 9); for 
 
 a. Statistics show that the export trade from England 
 to the colonies increased from ,569,930 in 1704 to 
 ^6,022,132 in 1772. (11 27-13 2) 
 
 b. The whole export trade of England in 1 704 was not 
 much larger than the export trade to the colonies 
 alone in 1772. (133-30) 
 
 c. Pennsylvania in 1772 demanded commodities worth 
 fifty times as much as those it demanded in 1 704. 
 (15 10-19) 
 
 C. Their agriculture now enables them to feed the Old World. 
 (16 1-13) 
 
 D. Their fisjieries_have extended over the whole world. 
 (16 14-17 21) 
 
 Refutation. 
 
 The argument that we should use force because America is 
 worth fighting for is untenable (17 22-18 3); for 
 
 A. Force is temporary. (184-7) 
 
 B. It is uncertain. (18 8-14) 
 
 C. It impairs the object. (18 15-27) 
 
 D. We have no experience in favor of force. (18 28-34) 
 
 Direct Proof. 
 
 III. The temper and character of the Americans make it necessary 
 for us to conciliate them (19 1-9); for 
 
 A. The spjrit of liberty is stronger among them than among any 
 other people on earth (19 10-21); for 
 
 1. They are descendants of Englishmen and have the Eng- 
 lish conception offreedom. (1922-214) 
 
 2. Their form of government fosters a spirit of freedom. 
 (21 5-12) 
 
 3. Their religion fosters this spirit. (21 13-22 17) 
 
 4. In the South slavery has made those who are free still 
 more jealous of their freedom. (22 18-23 11) 
 
 5. Their education fosters the spirit of liberty. (23 12-24 16)
 
 INTRODUCTION. lix 
 
 6. Their distance from the center of government fosters it. 
 
 (24 n-25 ia)__ 
 IV. Coercion has been found unwise (25 24-2623); for 
 
 A. The dissolution of the assembly of Virginia has resulted in 
 the establishment of a government by " tacit consent " which 
 is better obeyed than the former government. (26 24-27 15) 
 
 B. Massachusetts has subsisted very well in spite of the abro- 
 gation of her charter. (27 16-28) 
 
 C. The arguments for subverting liberty in America may be 
 applied to England. (27 29-28 12) y 
 
 V. Of the three possible methods of dealing with America 4- remov- 
 ing the causes of the love of freedom,, prosecuting it as crimi- 
 nal^! and complying with it as necessaryl the last is the only 
 one possible (28 13-30); for 
 A. It is difficult to remove the causes (28 31-29 2); for 
 
 1. It is hard to remove the conditions which exist in America; 
 for 
 
 a. It is impossible to check the growth in population 
 (29 3-8)7 for~~ 
 
 i. There is plenty of unsettled land. (29 9-16) 
 ii. The people would occupy land without grants. 
 (29 17-3079) 
 
 b. To crush out American commerce and agriculture and 
 especially the marine enterprises would injure Kng- 
 land. (3020-319) 
 
 2. It is impossible to alter the temper and character of the 
 colonists (31 10-11); for 
 
 a. Their pedigree cannot be altered. (31 12-18) 
 
 b. Their religion cannot be changed. (31 19-24) 
 
 c. Their education cannot be changed. (31 25-29) 
 
 d. To annihilate their popular assemblies is impracticable. 
 
 (31 30-34) 
 
 e. To break the spirit of the South by enfranchising the 
 slaves would also be impracticable (32 1-6) ; for 
 
 i. The offer of liberty might not be accepted. (32 7-11) 
 ii. The Americans might retaliate by arming the slaves. 
 
 (32 12-16)
 
 Ix INTRODUCTION. 
 
 iii. An offer of enfranchisement from slave-trading 
 
 England would be inconsistent. (32 n-28) 
 f. You cannot pump the ocean dry. (32 29-33 3) 
 B. It is impolitic to pfosec_ule the spirit as criminal (33 4-n); for 
 
 1. It is impossible to draw up anjindictment against a whole 
 people. ' (33 12-32) 
 
 2/In an empire the head cannot insist that a privilege 
 pleaded against his will constitutes rebellion) (33 33-34 28) 
 
 3. England should noi. act as a judge in her own cause. 
 (34 29-35 18) 
 
 4. The attempts at criminal punishment have not proved 
 expedient (35 19-21); for 
 
 a. Though rebellion has been declared in Massachusetts, 
 it has not been proceeded against as such. (35 22-34) 
 
 b. All the menaces and penal laws have failed of effect. 
 (36 1-11)"^" 
 
 C. Since the causes of the spirit of liberty cannot be removed, 
 and since it is impracticable to prosecute the spirit as criminal, 
 England should comply and satisfy the complaint of the colo- 
 nies that they are taxed without representation (36 12-18) ; for 
 ri. To please a people you must give them what they ask for. 
 (36 19-31) 
 
 Refutation. 
 
 2. The argument that England has a legal right to tax is 
 irrelevant (36 32-37 25) ; for 
 
 a. The question is not one of technical right but of policy. 
 (37 26-38 3) 
 
 b. Even if the Americans had abjured their rights, it 
 would be worth while to yield in order to secure tran- 
 quillity. (38 4-18) 
 
 3. The argument that a repeal of the revenue laws would lead 
 to a repeal of the trade laws is unsound (39 1-20); for 
 
 a. It is an argument to keep mischievous laws in order 
 to preserve laws that are useless (40 3-n); for 
 i. Lord North says the restraints on trade are useless. 
 
 (39 21-28)
 
 INTRODUCTION. Ixi 
 
 ii. The revenue laws produce no revenue. (39 29-40 2) 
 b. As a matter of fact the revenue laws do not protect the 
 trade laws (40 12-23) ; for "~ 
 i. The quarrel is about revenue laws and there have been 
 
 few complaints of the trade laws. (40 24-41 11) 
 4. The argument that concession on the part of England will 
 lead to further demands on the part of the colonists is un- 
 sound (41 12-19) ; for 
 
 a. It is not true that the fewer causes of dissatisfaction there 
 are, the more the subject will be inclined to rebel. 
 
 (41 20-22) 
 
 b. The argument is urged in defiance of fact and experience. 
 
 (41 23-27) 
 
 Direct Proof. 
 
 5._Concssian is in accordance with the genius of the English 
 constitution (41 28-42^13) ;~fbr 
 
 a. It has been successfully tried in four cases (42 14-16); for 
 i. Ireland was won by concessions. (42 17^14 5) 
 ii. Wales was won by concessions (44 6-11); for 
 
 x. Military force made the people ferocious. (44 12-24) 
 y. Rigorous laws failed to subdue their fierce spirit. 
 
 (44 25-45 16) 
 
 z. When under Henry the Eighth the Welsh received 
 the rights and privileges of the English, order was 
 restored. (45 n-46 14) 
 
 iii. Chester was won by concessions. (46 15-47 26) 
 iv. Durham was pacified in the same manner. (47 27-48 3) 
 
 6. These precedents apply to America (48 4-7) ; for 
 a. The conditions are almost identical, (48 8-31) 
 
 7. Although on account of the distance of the colonies it is 
 impossible to give them representation in Parliament, yet 
 there is a plan which will give almost complete satisfaction 
 both to them and to England (48 32-49 14); for 
 
 a. The plan of having Parliament stop imposing taxe.s and of 
 giving the colonies the right to grant money will help to 
 give satisfaction (49 15-52 a) ; for
 
 Ixii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 [Here are inserted from time to time the resolutions which express 
 in formal terms the ideas already presented.] 
 
 Refutation. 
 
 i. The argument that their grievances are not real lis 
 
 unsound. (52 3-53 4) 
 
 ii. The competence of the colonial assemblies to grant is 
 certain. (53 20-54 7) 
 
 Direct Proof. 
 
 iii. The colonial assemblies have been generous in their 
 grants (54 8-14) ; for 
 
 y. Their generosity has been frequently acknowledged 
 by Parliament. (54 15-56 2) 
 
 Refutation. 
 
 z. The miserable stories that America has not borne her 
 share of the burden are unfounded (56 3-12) ; for 
 a. The colonies have had to run heavily into debt. 
 
 (56 13-28) 
 
 Direct Proof. 
 
 iv. The revenue by grant has been more productive than 
 
 the revenue by imposition. (56 29-57 28) 
 b. The repeal of the penal laws will help to give satisfaction 
 
 (5729-5827); for 
 
 / . i. The Boston Port Bill is unjust. (58 28-59 5) 
 y ii. The abrogation of the charter of Massachusetts sub- 
 verted public and private justice. (59 6-22) 
 iii. The act for bringing persons accused of committing 
 murder under the orders of government to England for 
 trial was but temporary. (59 23-29) 
 
 iv. The act for the trial of treasons has been turned from 
 i 
 
 its original intention. (59 30-34) 
 
 '
 
 INTRODUCTION. belli 
 
 f. Securing to the colonies a fair and unbiased judicature will 
 help to give satisfaction (60 1-15) ; for 
 i. The courts of admiralty are incommodiously situated. 
 (60 ifr-33) 
 
 Refutation. 
 
 d. The argument that the grievance in regard to taxation 
 logically extends to all legislation is unsound (61 9-17) ; for 
 i. The words are those of the Chester Act passed by Par- 
 liament. (61 18-62 10) 
 
 ii. The colonies have not in any cool hour gone beyond a 
 
 demand for immunity in regard to taxes. (62 11-63 21) 
 iii. The Americans will have no interest contrary to the 
 grandeur and glory of England when they are not 
 oppressed by the weight of it. (63 22-34) 
 
 e. The argument that the power of granting, if vested in 
 American assemblies, would dissolve the unity of the empire 
 is unsound (64 1-9); for 
 
 i. Ireland has had a separate but not an independent gov- 
 ernment. (64 10-22) 
 
 f. Burke's plan will be more satisfactory than Lord North's 
 (64 23-34) ; for 
 
 i. The latter contains the unwise proposition of a ransom 
 
 by auction. (65 1-9) 
 Qii. It is an unconstitutional experiment of taxing the colonies 
 
 in the cabinet. (65 10-31)^ 
 
 iii. It does not give satisfaction to the colonies. (65 32-66 13) 
 iv. Unless the plan is universally accepted, it will plunge 
 England into great difficulties (66 14, 15); for 
 y. The settlement of proportions of payment will be 
 
 almost impossible. (66 16-25) 
 z. The obedient colonies will be heavily taxed: the 
 
 refractory will remain unburdened. (66 26-67 27) 
 v. It will give either a trifling permanent revenue or con- 
 tinual quarrels at each change of quotas, (67 28-32) 
 vi. It is impossible to provide for punctual payments. 
 (67 33-68 13)
 
 Ixiv INTRODUCTION. 
 
 vii. It is a scheme of disunion. (6S 14-27) 
 g. The argument that Burke's plan will furnish no revenue 
 has little weight (69 17, 18); for 
 i. By giving the colonies freedom it will increase their 
 
 power of producing revenue. (69 19-70 16) 
 ii. The political parties in the colonies will advocate grants 
 in order to obtain the favor of the home government. 
 (70 17-71 6) 
 
 h. As a matter of fact our experience with India shows that 
 America is too remote to be taxed. (71 7-28) 
 
 Direct Proof. 
 
 8. England will be best served by winning the loyalty and affec- 
 tion of her colonies (71 29-72 19) ; for 
 
 a. The British Empire is held together not by laws but by 
 loyalty (7220-734); for 
 
 i. It is so with the revenue, the army, and the navy. 
 
 (73 5-15) 
 
 b. Magnanimity is the thing which has built up the empire 
 and which will preserve it. (73 16-74 10)
 
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 Paine s Age of Reason. 
 93. Execution of the king. 
 
 Reign of Terror. 
 
 War declared by France against 
 England, Holland and 
 
 Spain. 
 94. Fall of Robespierre. 
 
 
 95. Bonaparte's Italian campaign. 1795. Birth of Carlyle. 
 
 1 
 
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 Bonaparte. 
 
 
 
 
 
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 Reflections on the Revolution 
 France. 
 
 Breach with Fox and Sherid; 
 
 Letter to a Member of , 
 National Assembly. 
 
 ** 
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 <5 
 
 P 
 
 Thoughts on French Affairs 
 Observations on the Conduct 
 
 the Minority. 
 
 f 
 
 Vj 
 
 1 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 Closing speeches in the trial 
 
 Hastings. 
 Retirement from Parliame 
 
 Death of his son Richard. 
 Thoitghts and Details on 
 
 Scarcity. 
 Letter to a Noble Lord. 
 
 S 
 
 s 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 J 
 
 "s 
 
 8
 
 BIBLI.O GRAPHICAL NOTE. 
 
 There is so much material of interest in the study of the Speech on Con- 
 ciliation and of Burke's writings and speeches in general that a complete 
 bibliography is out of the question in this volume. The books named 
 below are, however, the more important. Most of them are specifically 
 referred to in the Introduction or the Notes. 
 
 The most accessible American edition of Burke's Works is that in twelve 
 volumes, Little, Brown & Company, Boston, 1894. The Account of the 
 European Settlements in America is not in this edition, though it was in an 
 earlier edition published by the same firm, and now rather hard to get. 
 The European Settlements may now and then be bought in one of the two- 
 volume editions published in London in the last century. There are 
 several English editions of Burke, of which that by Bohn, 1893, in eight 
 volumes, is on the whole the best. No edition contains Burke's contribu- 
 tions to the Annual Register, which are often difficult to identify. No 
 edition contains more than a fraction of the many fragmentary reports 
 of his speeches scattered through the Parliamentary History and other 
 collections. Indeed, he himself prepared for press but very few speeches 
 and left notes on but few more. His Correspondence was published at 
 London in four volumes in 1844. 
 
 The Speech on Conciliation is printed with annotations in the following 
 editions : C. A. Goodrich, Select British Eloquence, Harpers, New York ; 
 E. J. Payne, Burke's Select Works, Clarendon Press, 1892, vol. I ; F. 
 G. Selby, Burke's Speeches, Macmillan, New York, 1895 > A. S. Cook, 
 Speech on Conciliation, Longmans, New York, 1896; Henry Morley, Uni- 
 versal Library, London, 1892. The volume of Perry's Selections from 
 Burke, though it does not contain the Speech an Conciliation, presents well- 
 chosen specimens of the whole range of Burke's writing and oratory. 
 
 The above-mentioned annotated editions, except that of the Universal 
 Library, devote more or less space to an account of Burke's life and a 
 criticism of his style. The best life, however, is that by John Morley in 
 the English Men of Letters. Morley has also considered Burke's states- 
 manship in an earlier work, Edmund Burke : a Historical Study, London,
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. Ixxi 
 
 1869. A more detailed biography is that of James Prior, two volumes, 
 London, 1854. A later and better work is Thomas MacKnight's History 
 of the Life and Times of Edmund Burke, three volumes, London, 1858. 
 The life in the Dictionary of National Biography furnishes many references 
 and a bibliography. Several other short accounts of Burke are also valu- 
 able: those hi the Annual Register for 1797 and 1798; J. R. Green's in 
 chapter X of the History of the English People ; H. T. Buckle's in volume 
 I of his History of Civilization in Europe ; Sir Joseph Napier's lecture on 
 Burke before the Young Men's Christian Association of Dublin, in 1862 ; 
 Lord Brougham's sketch in his Statesmen of the Time of George the Third ; 
 Augustine Birrell's in Obiter Dicta, Second Series, New York, 1887; F. D. 
 Maurice's lecture on Burke hi Friendship of Books, 1874; and Woodrow 
 Wilson's essay, The Interpreter of English Liberty, in the volume Mere 
 Literature, 1896. In the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society 
 for October, 1893, Calvin Stebbins discusses Burke's agency for the prov- 
 ince of New York. 
 
 Vivid pictures of the time, and often of Burke himself, are presented in 
 BoswelFs Life of Johnson, Horace Walpole's Letters and Memoirs, Madame 
 D'Arblay's Diary and Letters, Jesse's George Selwyn and His Contempora- 
 ries and Memoirs of George the Third, Wraxall's Historical and Posthu- 
 mous Memoirs, the Rockinghatn Memoirs, the Grenville Papers, Lord 
 Chesterfield's Letters, Thackeray's Four Georges and English Humorists, 
 and Macaulay's essays on Warren Hastings and Chatham. There is also 
 an interesting passage on Burke in Macaulay's Essay on Bacon. 
 
 Of the English historians who deal with the period of the Speech on Con- 
 ciliation, Adolphus, in the History of England from the Accession to the 
 Decease of George the Third, is prejudiced against the Americans ; W. E. H. 
 Lecky, in the History of England in the Eighteenth Century, is not an 
 ardent admirer of republican institutions, but he is fair in his statements ; 
 J. R. Green, in History of the English People, and H. T. Buckle, in History 
 of Civilization in Europe, are more decidedly pro-American in tone ; Leslie 
 Stephen, in the History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, 
 treats more especially the development of political ideas. Goldwin Smith's 
 residence in Canada has given him a more intimate knowledge of America 
 than most Englishmen possess, and accordingly in his United States he has 
 given perhaps the best succinct account written by an Englishman. Of 
 the Americans Bancroft is decidedly unfair to England ; E. B. Andrews, in 
 his History of the United States, and John Fiske, in the American Revolu- 
 tion, are both brief and impartial. 
 
 Many details which are omitted from the regular histories but which 
 form the basis for the generalizations of history may be found in the Par-
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 liamentary History, the Journals of the American Congress, the Statutes at 
 Large, and the Annual Register. Low and Polling's Dictionary of English 
 History and J. F. Jameson's Dictionary of United States History, 1492- 
 1894., Boston, 1894, are very convenient for reference. 
 
 The attitude of Burke's contemporaries may be studied in the speeches 
 of Chatham and of FoxJ in the Letters of Junius, in the writings of Frank- 
 lin, and in the innumerable political tracts of the time, such as Dr. Johnson's 
 Taxation No Tyranny, Dean Tucker's Four Tracts on Political and Com- 
 mercial Subjects, Thomas Paine's Common Sense, and Richard Price's Civil 
 Lilterty.
 
 THE 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 OF 
 
 EDMUND BURKE, Efq; 
 
 ON 
 
 MOVING HIS RESOLUTIONS 
 
 FOR 
 
 CONCILIATION with the COLONIES, 
 
 MARCH 22, 1775. 
 
 
 
 LONDON: 
 PRINTED FOR J. DODSLEY. 
 
 MDCCLXXV.
 
 AS^^jS 
 
 -if 
 
 . SPEECH ON 
 
 XT*' 
 CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 <^r 
 
 I HOPE, Sir, that notwithstanding the austerity of the 
 Chair, your good nature will incline you to some degree of 
 indulgence towards human frailty. You will not think it 
 unnatural that those who have an object depending which 
 strongly engages their hopes and fears should be somewhat 5 
 inclined to superstition. As I came into the House, full of 
 anxiety about the event of my motion. I found, to my infi- 
 nite surprise, that the grand penaLMH by which we had 
 passed sentence on the trade and sustenance of America is 
 to be returned to us from the other House. I do confess, ro 
 I could not help looking on this event as a fortunate omen. 
 I look upon it as a sort of providential favor by which we 
 are put once more in possession of our deliberative capacity, 
 upon a business so very questionable in its nature, so very 
 uncertain in its issue. By the return of this bill, which 15 
 seemed to have taken its flight forever, we are at this very 
 instant nearly as free to choose' a plan for our American 
 government as we were on the irfrsrxQty of ^the session. If, 
 Sir, we incline to the side of conciliation, we are not at all 
 embarrassed (unless we please to make ourselves so) by any 20 
 incongruous mixture of coercion and restraint. We are 
 therefore called upon, as it were by a superior warning 
 voice, again to attend to America ; to attend to the whole 
 of it together ; and to review the subject with an unusual 
 degree of care and calmness. 25
 
 4 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 Surely it is an awful subject, or there is none so on this^ 
 side of the grave. When I firsi had the honor of a setffin 
 jthis House, the affairs of that continent pressed themselves 
 -upon us as the most important and most delicate object of 
 ^parliamentary attention. My little share in this great delib- 
 [eration oppressed me. I found myself a partaker in a very 
 high trust ; and having no sort of reason to rely on the 
 strength of my natural abilities for the proper execution of 
 that trust, I was obliged to take more thaj^jcojnmorj. pains 
 10 to instruct myself in everything which relates to our colo- 
 nies. I was not less under the necessity of forming some 
 fixed ideas concerning the general policy of the British 
 Empire. Something of this sort seemed to be indispen- 
 sable, in order, amidst so vast a fluctuation of passions 
 15 and opinions, to concentre my thoughts, to ballast my 
 conduct, to preserve me from being , 'blown about by every 
 
 wind of fashionable doctrine. I really did not think it safe 
 to 
 ^ or manly to have fresh principles to seek upon every fresh 
 
 y mail which should arrive from America. 
 
 2o-^_At that_period I had the fortune to find myself in perfect 
 concurrence with a large majority in this House. Bowing 
 under that high authority, and penetrated with the sharp- 
 ness and strength of that early impression, I have continued 
 ever since, without the least deviation, in my original senti- 
 
 25 ments. Whether this be owing to an obstinate persever- 
 ance in error, or to a religious adherence to what appears 
 to me truth and reason, it is in your equity to judge. 
 
 Sir, Parliament having an enlarged view of objects, 
 made, during this interval, more frequent changes in their 
 
 30 sentiments and their conduct than could be justified in 
 a particular person upon the contracted scale of private 
 information. But though I do not hazard anything ap- 
 proaching to a censure on the motives of former Parlia- 
 ments to all those alterations, one fact is undoubted, that
 
 HISTORY OF THE DISCUSSION. 5 
 
 under them the state of America has been kept in continual 
 agitation. Everything administered as remedy to the public 
 complaint, if it did not produce, was at least, follpwed by, 4 
 an heightening of the distemper ; until by a variety of 
 experiments that important country has been brought into 5 
 her present situation a situation which I will not miscall, 
 which I dare not name, which I scarcely know how to com- 
 prehend in the terms of any description. 
 
 In this posture, Sir, things stood at the beginning of the 
 session. About that time a worthy member, of great par- 10 
 liamentary experience, who in the year 1766 filled the Chair 
 of the American Committee with much ability, took me 
 aside and, lamenting the present aspect of our politics, 
 told me things were come to such a pass that qur__former 
 methods of proceeding in the House would be no longer 15 
 tolerated ; that the public tribunal (never too indulgent to 
 a long and unsuccessful opposition) would now scrutinize 
 our conduct with unusual severity; that the very vicissi- 
 tudes and shiftings of ministerial measures, instead of con- 
 victing their authors of inconstancy and want of system, 20 
 would be taken as an occasion of charging us with a prede- 
 termined discontent which nothing could satisfy, whilst we 
 accused every measure of vigor as cruel, and every proposal 
 of lenity as weak and irresolute. The public, he said, 
 would not have patience to see us play the game out with 25 
 our adversaries ; we must produce our hand : it would be 
 expected that those who for many years had been active in 
 such affairs should show that they had formed some clear 
 and decided idea of the principles of colony government ; -T 
 and were capable of drawing out something like a glatfonrfjo 
 of the ground which might be laid for future and permanent 
 tranquillity. 
 
 I felt the truth of what my honorable friend represented ; 
 but I felt my situation too. His application might have 
 
 .
 
 6 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 been made with far greater propriety to many other gentle- 
 men. No man was indeed ever better disposed, or worse 
 qualified, for such an undertaking than myself. Though I 
 gave so far into his opinion that I immediately threw my 
 
 5 thoughts into a sort of parliamentary form, I was by no 
 means equally ready to produce them. It generally argues 
 some degree of natural impotence of mind, or some want of 
 knowledge of the world, to hazard plans of government, 
 except from a seat of authority. Propositions are made, 
 
 10 not only ineffectually, but somewhat disreputably, when the 
 minds of men are not properly disposed for their reception ; 
 and for my part, I am not ambitious of ridicule, not abso- 
 lutely a candidate for disgrace. 
 
 Besides, Sir, to speak the plain truth, I have in general 
 
 15 no very exalted opinion of the virtue of pager government, 
 nor of any politics in which the plan is to be wholly sepa- 
 rated from the execution. But when I saw that anger and 
 violence prevailed every day more and more, and that things 
 were hastening towards an incurable alienation of our colo- 
 
 20 nies, I confess my caution gave way. I felt this as one of 
 those few moments in which decorum yields to an higher 
 duty. Public calamity is a mighty leveller ; and there are 
 occasions when any, even the slightest, chance of doing 
 good must be laid hold on, even by the most inconsiderable 
 
 25 person. 
 
 To restore order and repose to an empire so great and so 
 distracted as ours, is, merely in the attempt, an undertaking 
 that would ennoble the flights of the highest genius and 
 obtain pardon for the efforts of the meanest understanding. 
 
 30 Struggling a good while with these thoughts, by degrees I 
 felt myself more firm. I derived, at length, some confidence 
 from what in other circumstances usually produces timidity. 
 I grew less anxious, even from the idea of my own insignifi- 
 cance. For judging of what you are by what you ought, to
 
 THE PROPOSITION IS PEACE. 7 
 
 be, I persuaded myself that you would not reject a reason- 
 able proposition, because it had nothing but its reason to 
 recommend it. On the other hand, being totally destitute 
 of all shadow of influence, natural or adventitious, I was 
 very sure that if my proposition were futile or dangerous, 5 
 if it were weakly conceived or improperly timed, there was 
 nothing exterior to it, of power to awe, dazzle or delude 
 you. You will see it just as it is, and you will treat it just 
 as it deserves. 
 
 The proposition is peace. Not peace through the medium 10 
 of war ; not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of 
 intricate and endless negotiations ; not peace to arise out 
 of universal discord fomented from principle in all parts 
 of the empire ; not peace to depend on the juridical deter- 
 mination of perplexing questions, or the precise marking 15 
 the shadowy boundaries^ or a complex government. It is 
 simple peace, sought in its natural course and its ordinary 
 haunts. It is peace sought in the spirit of peace, and 
 laid in principles purely pacific. I propose, by removing 
 the ground of the difference, and by restoring the former 20 
 unsuspecting confidence of the colonies in the mother country, to 
 give permanent satisfaction to your people ; and (far from a 
 scheme of ruling by discord) to reconcile them to each other 
 in the same act and by the bond of the very same interest 
 which reconciles them to British governments^-*-*-''''" 25 
 
 My idea is nothing more. Rejineapolicy ever has been 
 the parent of confusion ; and ever will be so, as long as the 
 world endures. Plain good intention, which is as easily 
 discovered at the first view as fraud is surely detected at 
 last, is, let me say, of no mean force in the government of 3 
 mankind. Genuine simplicity of heart is an healing and 
 cementing principle. My plan, therefore, being formed 
 upon the most simple grounds imaginable, may disappoint 
 some people when they hear it. It has nothing to recom-
 
 8 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 mend it to the pruriency of curious ears. There is nothing 
 at all new ancfcaptivating in it. It has nothing of the 
 splendor of the project which has been lately laid upon your 
 table by the noble lord in the blue j-ibbon. It does not 
 5 propose to fill your lobby with squabbling colony agenls, 
 who will require the interposition of your mace^ at every" 
 instant to keep the peace amongst them. It does not in- 
 stitute a magnificent auction of finance, where captivated 
 provinces come to general ransom by bidding against each 
 
 10 other, until you knock down the hammer, and determine a 
 proportion of payments beyond all the powers of algebra to 
 equalize and settle. 
 
 The plan which I shall presume to suggest derives, how- 
 ever, one great advantage from the proposition and registry 
 
 15 of that noble lord's project. The idea of conciliation is 
 admissible. First, the House, in accepting the resolution 
 moved by the noble lord, has admitted, notwithstanding the 
 
 r r jJJtb.Viiy .,, t ,. , 
 
 menacing front of our address, notwithstanding our heavy 
 f P ams an d penalties, that we do not think ourselves 
 
 20 precluded from all ideas of free grace and bounty. 
 
 The House has gone farther : it has declared conciliation 
 admissible, previous to any submission on the part of Amer- 
 ica. It has even shot a good deal beyond that mark, and 
 has admitted that the complaints of our former mode of 
 
 25 exerting the right of taxation were not wholly unfounded. 
 That right thus exerted is allowed to have had something rep- 
 rehensible in it, something unwise or something grievous ; 
 since, in the midst of ouj heat ^ndmsentment, we of our- 
 selves have proposed a capital alteration; and, in order to 
 
 30 get rid of what seemed so very exceptionable, have instituted 
 
 a mode that is altogether new, one that is, indeed, wholly 
 
 alien from all the ancient methods and forms of Parliament. 
 
 The principle of this proceeding is large enough for my 
 
 purpose. The means proposed by the noble lord for carry-
 
 THE TWO CAPITAL QUESTIONS. 9 
 
 ing his ideas into execution, I think, indeed, are very indif- 
 ferently suited to the end ; and this I shall endeavor to 
 show you before I sit down. But, for the present, I take 
 my ground on the admitted principle. I mean to give peace. 
 Peace implies reconciliation ; and where there has been a 5 
 material dispute, reconciliation does in a manner always 
 imply concession on the one part or on the other. In this 
 state of things I make no difficulty in affirming that the 
 proposal ought to originate from us. Great and acknowl- 
 edged force is not impaired, either in effect or in opinion, 10 
 by an unwillingness to exert itself. The superior power 
 may offer peace with honor and with safety. Such an offer 
 from such a power will be attributed to magnanimity. But 
 the concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear. 
 When such a one is disarmed, he is wholly at the mercy of 15 
 his superior ; and he loses forever that time and those 
 chances which, as they happen to all men, are the strength 
 and resources of all inferior power. 
 
 The capital leading questions on which you must this 
 day decide are these two : first, whether you ought to con- 20 
 cede ; and secondly, what your concession ought to be. 
 On the first of these questions we have gained (as I have 
 just taken the liberty of observing to you) some ground. 
 But I am sensible that a good deal more is still to be done. 
 Indeed, Sir, to enable us to determine both on the one and 25 
 the other of these great questions with a firm and precise 
 judgment, I think it may be necessary to consider distinctly 
 the true nature and the peculiar circumstances of the object 
 which we have before us : because after all our struggle, 
 whether we will or not, we must govern America according 3 
 to that nature and to those circumstances, and not according 
 to our own imaginations, not according to abstract ideas of -r*"*-''^ 
 right; by no means according to mere general theories of 
 government, the resort to which appears to me in our pres-
 
 10 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 ent situation no better than arrant trifling. I shall there- 
 fore endeavor, with your leave, to lay before you some of the 
 most material of these circumstances in as full and as clear 
 
 __ a manner as I am able to state them. 
 
 5 The first thing that we have to consider with regard to 
 the nature of the object is the number of people in the 
 colonies. I have taken for some years a good deal of pains 
 on that point. I can by no calculation justify myself in 
 placing the number below two millionsjjf inhabitants of our 
 
 10 own European blood and color ; besides at least 500,000 
 others, who form no inconsiderable part of the strength and 
 opulence of the whole. This, Sir, is, I believe, about the 
 true number. There is no occasion to exaggerate where 
 plain truth is of so much weight ^ind importance. But 
 
 15 whether I put the present numbers too high or too low is a 
 matter of little moment. Such is the strength with which 
 population shoots in that part of the world, that, state the 
 numbers as high as we will, whilst the dispute continues, 
 the exaggeration ends. Whilst we are discussing any given 
 
 20 magnitude, they are grown to it. Whilst we spend our time 
 in deliberating on the mode of governing two millions, we 
 shall find we have millions more to manage. Your children 
 do not grow faster from infancy to manhood than they 
 spread from families to communities, and from villages to 
 
 25 nations. 
 
 I put this consideration of the present and the growing 
 numbers in the front of our deliberation ; because, Sir, this 
 consideration will make it evident to a blunter discernment 
 than yours, that no partial, narrow, contracted, pinched, 
 
 30 occasional^ system will be at all suitable to such an object. 
 It will show you that it is not to be considered as one of 
 those minima which are out of the eye and consideration of 
 the law ; not a paltry excrescence of the state ; not a mean 
 dependent, who may be neglected with little damage and
 
 COMMERCE OF THE COLONIES. 11 
 
 provoked with little danger. It will prove that some degree 
 of care and caution is required in the handling such an 
 object ; it will show that you ought not, in reason, to trifle 
 with so large a mass of the interests and feelings of the 
 human race. You could at no time do so without guilt ; 5 
 and be assured you will not be able to do it long with 
 impunity. 
 
 But the population of this country, the great and growing 
 population, though a very important consideration, will lose 
 much of its weight, if not combined with other circum- 10 
 stances. The commerce of your colonies is out of all pro- 
 portion beyond the numbers of the people. This ground of 
 their commerce, indeed, has been trod some days ago, and 
 with great ability, by a distinguished, person at your bar. 
 This gentleman, after thirty-five years, it is so long since 15 
 he first appeared at the same place to plead for the com- 
 merce of Great Britain, has come again before you to 
 plead the same cause, without any other effect of time 
 than that to the fire of imagination and extent of erudition, 
 which even then marked him as one of the first literary 20 
 characters of his age, he has added a consummate knowl- 
 edge in the commercial interest of his country, formed by a 
 long course of enlightened and discriminating experience. 
 
 Sir, I should be inexcusable in coming after such a person 
 with any detail, if a great part of the members who now fill 25 
 the House had not the misfortune to be absent when he 
 appeared at your bar. Besides, Sir, -I propose to take the 
 matter at periods of time somewhat different from his. 
 There is, if I mistake not, a point of view from whence, if 
 you will look at this subject, it is impossible that it should 3 
 not make an impression upon you. 
 
 I have in my hand two accounts : one a comparative state 
 of the export trade of England to its colonies, as it stood in 
 the year 1704, and as it stood in the year 1772 ; the other
 
 12 SPEECH ON CONCILIA TION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 a state of the export trade of this country to its colonies 
 alone, as it stood in 1772, compared with the whole trade of 
 England to all parts of the world (the colonies included) in 
 the year 1704. .They are from good vouchers : the latter 
 5 period from the accounts on your taWe ; the earlier from an 
 original manuscript of Davenant, who first established the 
 Inspector-General's office, which has been even since his 
 time so abundant a source of parliamentary information. 
 
 The export trade to the colonies consists of three great 
 
 10 branches : the African, which, terminating almost wholly 
 
 injhe colonies, must be put to the account of their com- 
 
 merce ; the West Indian ; and the North American. All 
 
 these are so interwoven that the attempt to separate them 
 
 would tear to pieces the contexture of the whole; and if not 
 
 15 entirely destroy, would very much depreciate, the value of 
 
 all the parts. I therefore consider these three denomina- 
 
 tions to be, what in effect they are, one trade. 
 
 The trade to the colonies, taken on the export side, at 
 the beginning of this century, that is, in the year 1704, stood 
 20 thus : 
 
 Exports to North America and the West Indies, .483,265 
 To Africa ............. 86,665 
 
 In the year 1772, which I take as a middle year between 
 25 the highest and lowest of those lately laid on your table, 
 the account was as follows : 
 
 To North America and the West Indies . . 4,791,734 
 
 To Africa ............ 866,398 
 
 To which if you add the export trade from 
 
 30 Scotland, which had in 1704 no existence 364,000 
 
 ^6,022,132 
 
 From five hundred and odd thousand it has grown to six 
 millions. It has increased no less than twelvefold. This is
 
 TRADE WITH THE COLONIES. 13 
 
 the state of the colony trade, as compared with itself at 
 these two periods within this century ; and this is matter 
 for meditation. But this is not all. Examine my second 
 account. See how the export trade to the colonies alone in 
 1772 stood in the other point of view, that is, as compared to 
 the whole trade of England in 1704 : 
 
 The whole export trade of England, including 
 
 that to the colonies, in 1704 .... .6,509,000 
 Export to the colonies alone in 1772 . . . 6,024,000 
 
 Difference .... ,485,000 10 
 
 The trade with America alone is now within less than 
 .500,000 of being equal to what this great commercial 
 nation, England, carried on at the beginning of this century 
 with the whole world ! If I had taken the largest year of 
 those on your table, it would rather have exceeded. But, it 15 
 will be said, is not this American trade an unnatural protu- 
 berance that has drawn the juices from the rest of the body ? 
 The reverse. It is the very food that has nourished every 
 other part into its present magnitude. Our general trade 
 has been greatly augmented, and augmented more or less in 20 
 almost every part to which it ever extended, but with this 
 material difference : that of the six millions which in the 
 beginning of the century constituted the whole mass of our 
 export commerce, the colony trade was but one-twelfth part ; 
 it is now (as a part of sixteen millions) considerably more 25 
 than a third of the whole. This is the relative proportion 
 of the importance of the colonies at these two periods : and 
 all reasoning concerning our mode of treating them must 
 have this proportion as its basis ; or it is a reasoning weak, 
 rotten and sophistical. 3 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I cannot prevail on myself to hurry ovej L 
 this great consideration. It is good for us to be here. We 
 stand where we have an immense view of what is, and what
 
 14 SPEECH ON CONCILIA TION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 is past. Clouds, indeed, and darkness rest upon the future. 
 Let us, however, before we descend from this noble emi- 
 nence, reflect that this growth of our national prosperity has 
 happened within the short period of the life of man. It has 
 5 happened within sixty-eight years. There are those alive 
 whose memory might touch the two extremities. For 
 instance, my Lord Bathurst might remember all the stages 
 of the progress. He was in 1704 of an age at least to be 
 made to comprehend such things. He was then old enough 
 
 \Q_acta_parentun^^am kger^jttjjuaeritpoterit^ cognoscere_virtus. 
 Suppose, Sir, that the angel of this auspicious youth, fore- 
 seeing the many virtues which made him one of the most 
 amiable, as he is one of the most fortunate, men of his age, 
 had opened to him in vision, that when in the fourth gener- 
 
 15 ation the third prince of the House of Brunswick had sat 
 twelve ^gars on the throne of that nation which (by the 
 happy issue of moderate and healing counsels) was_tojbe 
 made Great Britain, he should see his son, Lord Chancellor 
 of England, turn back the current of hereditary dignity to its 
 
 20 fountain, and raise him to an higher rank of peerage, whilst 
 he enriched the family with a new one ; if, amidst these 
 bright and happy scenes of domestic honor and prosperity, 
 that angel should have drawn up the curtain and unfolded 
 the rising glories of his country, and, whilst he was gazing 
 
 25 with admiration on the then commercial grandeur of England, 
 the genius should point out to him a little speck, scarcely 
 visible in the mass of the national interest, a small seminal 
 principle rather than a formed body, and should tell him, 
 "Young man, there is America, which at this day serves 
 
 3 for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men 
 and uncouth manners ; yet shall, before you taste of dea^h, 
 show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now 
 attracts the envy of the world. Whatever England has been 
 growing to by a progressive increase of improvement,
 
 TRADE WITH PENNSYLVANIA. 15 
 
 brought in by varieties of people, by succession of civilizing 
 conquests and civilizing settlements in a series of seventeen 
 hundred years, you shall see as much added to her by 
 America in the course of a single life ! " If this state of his 
 country had been foretold to him, would it not require all 5 
 the sanguine credulity of youth and all the fervid glow of 
 enthusiasm to make him believe it ? Fortunate man, he has 
 lived to see it ! Fortunate indeed, if he lives to see nothing 
 that shall vary the prospect and cloud the setting of his day ! 
 
 Excuse me, Sir, if, turning from such thoughts, I resume 10 
 this comparative view once more. You have seen it on a 
 large scale ; look at it on a small one. I will point out to 
 your attention a particular instance of it in the single prov- 
 ince of Pennsylvania. In the year 1704 that province called 
 for 11,459 in value of your commodities, native and for- 15 
 eign. This was the whole. What did it demand in 1772? 
 Why, nearly fifty times as much ; for in that year the export 
 to Pennsylvania was 507,909, nearly equal to the export to 
 all the colonies together in the first period. 
 
 I choose, Sir, to enter into these minute and particular 2 
 details ; because generalities, which in all other cases are 
 apt to heighten and raise the subject, have here a tendency 
 to sink it. When we speak of the commerce with our 
 colonies, fiction lags after truth, invention is unfruitful, and 
 imagination cold and barren. 25 
 
 So far, Sir, as to the importance of the object in the view 
 of its commerce, as concerned in the exports from England. 
 If I were to detail the imports, I could show how many en- 
 joyments they procure which jieceive the burden of life, 
 how manyjnaterials which invigorate the springs of national 30 
 industry, and extend and animate every part of our foreign 
 and domestic commerce. This would be a curious subject 
 indeed, but I must prescribe bounds to myself in a matter 
 so vast and various.
 
 16 SPEECH ON CONCILIA TION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 I pass, therefore, to the colonies in another point of view, 
 
 their agriculture. This they have prosecuted with such 
 
 a spirit that, besides feeding plentifully their own growing 
 
 multitude, their annual export of grain, comprehending rice, 
 
 5 has some years ago exceeded a million in value. Of their 
 
 last harvest, I am persuaded, they will export much more. 
 
 'At the beginning of the century some of these colonies 
 
 imported corn from the mother country. For some time past 
 
 the Old World has been fed from the New. The scarcity 
 
 10 which you have felt would have been a desolating famine, if 
 this child of your old age, with a true filial piety, with a 
 Roman charity, had not put the full breast of its youthful 
 exuberance to the mouth of its exhausted parent. 
 
 As to the wealth which the colonies have drawn from the 
 
 15 sea by their fisheries, you had all that matter 
 
 at your bar. You surely thought those acquisitions of value, 
 for they seemed even to exciteyour envy ; and yet the spirit 
 by which that enterprising employment has been exercised 
 ought rather, in my opinion, to have raised your esteem and 
 
 20 admiration. And pray, Sir, what in the world is equal to 
 it ? Pass by the other parts, and look at the manner in 
 which the people of New England have of late carried on 
 the whale fishery. Whilst we follow them among the tum- 
 bling mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into 
 
 25 the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson Bay and Davis 
 Strait, whilst we are looking for them beneath the Arctic 
 Circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite 
 region of polar cold, that they are at the antipodes and 
 engaged under the frozen Serp_ent of the south. Falkland 
 
 30 Island^which seemed too remote and romantic an object 
 for the grasp of national ambition, is but a stage and resting- 
 place in the progress of their victorious industry. Nor is 
 the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them than the 
 accumulated winter of both the poles. We know that whilst
 
 AMERICAN FISHERIES. 17 
 
 some of them draw the line and strike the harpoon on the 
 coast of Africa, others run_the longitude and pursue their 
 gigantic game along the coast of Brazil. No sea but what 
 is yexed by their fisheries. No climate that is not witness 
 to their toils. Neither the perseverance of Holland nor the 5 
 activity of France nor the dexterous and firm sagacity of 
 English enterprise ever carried this most perilous mode of 
 liardy_industry to the extent to which it has been pushed by 
 this recent people a people who are still, as it were, but 
 in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of man- 10 
 hood. When I contemplate these things ; when I know that 
 the colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of 
 ours, and that they are not squeezed into this happy form 
 by the constraints of watchful and suspicious government, 
 but that through a wise and salutary neglect a generous 15 
 nature has been suffered to takeTKer own way to perfec- 
 tion ; when I reflect upon these effects, when I see how 
 profitable they have been to us, I feel all the pride of power 
 sink, and all presumption in the wisdom of human contriv- 
 ances melt and die away within me. My rigor relents. I 20 
 pardon something to the spirit of liberty. 
 
 I am sensible, Sir, that all which I have asserted in my 
 detail is admitted in the gross, but that quite a different 
 conclusion is drawn from it. America, gentlemen say, is a 
 noble object ; it is an object well worth fighting for. Cer- 25 
 tainly it is, if fighting a people be the best way of gaining 
 them. Gentlemen in this respect will be led to their choice 
 of means by their complexions and their habits. Those 
 who understand the military art will of course have some 
 predilection Nfor it. Those who wield the thunder of the 30 
 state may have more confidence in the efficacj of arms. But 
 I confess, possibly for want of this knowledge, my opinion is 
 much more in favor of prudent management than of force, 
 considering force not as an odious, but a feeble, instrument
 
 18 SPEECH ON CONCILIA TION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 for preserving a people so numerous, so active, so growing, 
 so spirited as this, in a profitable and subordinate connec- 
 tion with us. 
 
 First, Sir, permit me to observe that the use of force 
 
 5 alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment, but 
 
 it does not remove the necessity of subduing again : and a 
 
 nation is not governed which is perpetually to be conquered. 
 
 My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror is not always 
 
 the effect of force ; and an armament is not a victory. If 
 
 10 you do not succeed, you are without resource : for concilia- 
 tion failing, force remains ; but force failing, no further hope 
 of reconciliation is left. Power and authority are sometimes 
 bought by kindness ; but they can never be begged as alms 
 by an impoverished and defeated violence. 
 
 15 A further objection to force is that you impair the, object 
 by your very endeavors to preserve it. The thing you 
 fought for is not the thing which you recover; but depre- 
 ciated, sunk, wasted and consumed in the contest. Noth- 
 ing less will content me . than whole America. I do not 
 
 20 choose to consume its strength along with our own ; because 
 in all parts it is the British strength that I consume. I do 
 not choose to be caught by a foreign enemy at the end of 
 this exhausting conflict ; and still less in the midst of it. I 
 may escape ; but I can make no insurance against such an 
 
 25 event. Let me add that I do not choose wholly to break 
 the^American spirit ; because it is the spirit that has made 
 the country. 
 
 Lastly, we have no sort of experience in favor of force as 
 an instrument in the rule of our colonies. Their growth 
 
 30 and their utility has been owing to methods altogether 
 different. Our ancient indulgence has been said to be pur- 
 sued to a fault. It may be so ; but we know, if feeling is 
 evidence, that our fault was more tolerable than our attempt 
 to mend it, and our sin far more salutary than our penitence.
 
 AMERTCAN LOVE OF FREEDOM. 19 
 
 These, Sir, are my reasons for not entertaining that high 
 opinion of untried force, by which many gentlemen, for 
 whose sentiments in other particulars I have great respect, 
 seem to be so greatly captivated. But there is still behind 
 a third consideration concerning this object, which serves to 5 
 determine my opinion on the sort of policy which ought to 
 be pursued in the management of America, even more than 
 its population and its commerce : I mean its ^temper and 
 character. 
 
 In this character of the Americans a love of freedom is 10 
 the predominating feature which marks and distinguishes 
 the whole : and as an ardent is always a jealous affection, 
 your colonies become suspicious, restive and untractable, 
 whenever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by 
 force or shuffle from them by chicane what they think the 15 
 only advantage worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty 
 is stronger in the English colonies probably than in any 
 other people of the earth ; and this from a great variety of 
 powerful causes, which, to understand the true temper of 
 their minds and the direction which this spirit takes, it will 20 
 not be amiss to lay open somewhat more largely. 
 
 First, the people of the colonies are descendants^ of 
 Englishmen. England, Sir, is a nation which still, I hope, 
 respects, and forrjOLgrly adored, her freedom. The colonists 
 emigrated from you when this part of your character was 25 
 most predominant ; and they took this bias and direction 
 the moment they parted from your hands. They are there- 
 fore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to 
 English ideas and on English principles. Abstract liberty, 
 like other mere abstractions, is not to be found. Liberty 3 
 inheres in some sensible object ; and eyejy__n<itipri has 
 formed to itself some favorite point, which by way of emi- 
 nence becomes the criteriorr of their happiness. It hap- 
 pened, you know, Sir, that the great contests for freedom in 
 I- ' M. 
 
 4.
 
 20 SPEECH ON CONCILIA TION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 this country were from the earliest times chiefly upon the 
 question of taxing. Most of the contests in the ancient 
 gommon wealth s turned primarily on the right of election of 
 magistrates or on the balance among the several orders of 
 
 5 the state. The question of money was not with them so 
 immediate. But in England it was otherwise. On this 
 point of taxes the ablest pens and most eloquent tongues 
 have been exercised, the greatest spirits have acted and 
 suffered. In order to give the fullest satisfaction concern- 
 
 10 ing the importance of this point, it was not only necessary 
 for those who in argument defended the excellence of the 
 English Constitution to insist on this privilege of granting 
 money as a dry point of fact, and to prove that the right 
 had been acknowledged in ancient parchments and blind 
 
 15 usages to reside in a certain body called a House of Com- 
 mons. They went much further : they attempted to prove, 
 and they succeeded, that in theory it ought to be so, from 
 the particular nature of the House of Commons as an imme- 
 diate representative of the people, whether the old records 
 
 20 had delivered this oracle or not. They took infinite pains 
 to inculcate as a fundamental principle, that in all mon- 
 archies the people must in effect themselves, mediately or 
 immediately, possess the power of granting their own money, 
 or no shadow of liberty could subsist. The colonies draw 
 
 25 from you, as with their life-blood, these ideas and principles. 
 Their love of liberty, as with you, fixed and attached on this 
 specific point of taxing. Liberty might be safe or might be 
 endangered in twenty other particulars without their being 
 much pleased or alarmed. Here they felt its pulse ; and as 
 
 30 they found that beat, they thought themselves sick or sound. 
 I do not say whether they were right or wrong in applying 
 your general arguments to their own case. It is not easy, 
 indeed, to make a monopoly of theorems and corollaries. 
 The fact is that they did thus apply those general argu- 
 
 U^VYXXi/\JLA'>'
 
 PROTESTANTISM OF THE AMERICANS. 21 
 
 ments ; and your mode of governing them, whether through 
 lenity or indolence, through wisdom or mistake, confirmed 
 them in the imagination that they, as well as you, had an 
 interest in these common principles. 
 
 They were further confirmed in this pleasing error by the $ 
 form of their provincial legislative assemblies. Their gov- 
 ernments are popular in an high degree : some are merely 
 popular; in all the popular representative is the most 
 weighty ; and this share of the people in their ordinary 
 government never fails to inspire them with lofty senti- 10 
 ments and with a strong aversion from whatever tends to 
 deprive them of their chief importance. 
 
 If anything were wanting to this necessary operation of 
 the form of government, religion would have given it a com- 
 plete effect. Religion, always a principle of energy, in this 15 
 new people is no way worn out or impaired ; and their mode 
 of professing it is also one main cause of this free spirit. 
 The people are ^Protestants, and of that kind which is the 
 most adverse to all implicit submission of mind and opinion. 
 This is a persuasion not only favorable to liberty, but built 20 
 upon it. I do not think, Sir, that the reason of this averse- 
 ness in the dissenting churches from all that looks like 
 absolute government is so much to be sought in their 
 religious tenets as in their history. Every one knows that 
 the Roman Catholic religion is at least coeval with most of 25 
 the governments where it prevails ; that it has generally 
 gone hand in hand with them, and received great favor and 
 every kind of support from authority. The Church of Eng- 
 land too was formed from her cradle under the nursing care 
 of regular government. But the dissenting interests have 3 
 sprung up in direct opposition to all the ordinary powers of 
 the world, and could justify that opposition only on a 
 strong claim to natural liberty. Their very existence de- 
 pended on the powerful and unremitted assertion of that
 
 22 SPEECH ON CONCILIA TION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 claim. All Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, 
 is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our 
 northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resist- 
 ance : it is the dissidence of dissent and the Protestantism 
 5 of the Protestant religion. This religion, under a variety of 
 denominations agreeing in nothing but in the communion of 
 the spirit of liberty, is predominant in most of the northern 
 provinces, where the Church of England, notwithstanding 
 its legal rights, is in reality no more than a sort of private 
 
 10 sect, not composing most probably the tenth of the people. 
 The colonists left England when this spirit "was high, and in 
 the emigrants was the highest of all ; and even that stream 
 of foreigners which has been constantly flowing into these 
 colonies has, for the greatest part, been composed of dis- 
 
 15 senters from the estabhshments^oF their several countries, 
 and have brought with them a temper and character far 
 from alien to that of the people with whom they mixed. 
 
 Sir, I can perceive by their manner that some gentlemen 
 object to the latitude of this description, because in the 
 
 20 southern colonies the Church of England forms a large 
 body and has a regular establishment. It is certainly true. 
 There is, however, a circumstance attending these colonies, 
 which, in my opinion, fully counterbalances this difference 
 and makes the spirit of liberty still more high and haughty 
 
 25 than in those to the northward. It js, that in Virginia and 
 the Carolinas they have a vast multitude of slaves. Where 
 this is the case in any part of the world, those who are free 
 are by far the most proud and jealous of their freedom. 
 Freedom is to them not only an enjoyment, but a kind of 
 
 3 rank and privilege. Not seeing there that freedom, as in 
 countries where it is a common blessing and as broad and 
 general as the air, may be united with much abject toil, with 
 great misery, with all the exterior of servitude, liberty looks, 
 amongst them, like something that is more noble and liberal.
 
 LEGAL STUDIES IN AMERICA. 23 
 
 I do not mean, Sir, to commend the superior morality of 
 this sentiment, which has at least as much pride as virtue 
 in it ; but I cannot alter the nature of man. The fact is 
 so ; and these people of the southern colonies are much 
 more strongly and with a higher and more stubborn spirit 5 
 attached to liberty than those to the northward. Such 
 were all the ancient commonwealths ; such were our Gothic 
 ancestors ; such in our days were the Poles ; and such will 
 be all masters of slaves, who are not slaves themselves. In 
 such a people the haughtiness of domination combines with 10 
 the spirit of freedom, fortifies it, and renders it invincible. 
 
 Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance in our colo- 
 nies, which contributes no mean part towards the growth 
 and effect of this untractable spirit : I mean their education.^ 
 In no country perhaps in the world is the taw so general a 15 
 study. The profession itself is numerous and powerful, and 
 in most provinces it takes the lead. The greater number of 
 the deputies sent to the Congress were lawyers. But all 
 who read (and most do read) endeavor to obtain some smat- 
 tering in that science. I have been told by an eminent 20 
 bookseller that in no branch of his business, after tracts of 
 popular devotion, were so many books as those on the law 
 exported to the plantations. The colonists have now fallen 
 into the way of printing them for their own use. I hear 
 that they have sold nearly as many of Blackstone's Commen- 25 
 tgries in America as in England. General Gage marks out 
 this disposition very particularly in a letter on your table. 
 He states that all the people in his government are lawyers 
 or smatterers in law ; and that in Boston they have been 
 enabled by successful chicane wholly to evade many parts 30 
 of one of your capital penal constitutions. The smartness 
 of debate will say that this knowledge ought to teach them 
 more clearly the rights of legislature, their obligations to 
 obedience and the penalties of rebellion. All this is mighty 
 
 /UJ
 
 24 SPEECH ON CONCILIA TION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 t^rf 
 
 well. But my honorable and learned friend on the floor, 
 who condescends to mark what I say for aniniadversion, 
 will disdain that ground. He has heard, as well as I, that 
 when great honors and great emoluments v do not win over 
 5 this knowledge to the service of the state, it is a formidable 
 adversary to government. If the spirit be not tamed and 
 broken by these happy methods, it is stubborn and litigiousr 
 Abeunt studia in mores. This study renders men acute, 
 inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defence, 
 
 10 full of resources. In other countries the people, more sim- 
 ple and of a less mercuriarcast, judge of an ill principle in 
 government only by an actual grievance ; here they antici- 
 pate the evil and judge of the pressure of the grievance by 
 the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment 
 
 15 at a distance and snuff the approach of tyranny in every 
 tainted breeze. 
 
 The last cause of this disobedient spirit in the colonies is 
 hardly less powerful than the rest, as it is not merely moral, 
 but laid deep in the natural constitution of things. Three 
 
 20 thousand miles of ocean lie between you and them. No 
 contrivance can prevent the effect of this distance in weak- 
 ening government. Seas roll and months pass between 
 the order and the execution^ and the want of a speedy 
 explanation of a single point is enough to defeat a whole 
 
 25 system. You have, indeed, winged ministers of vengeance, 
 who carry your bolts in their pounces to the remotest verge 
 of the sea. But there a power steps in that limits the 
 arrogance" of raging passions and furious elements, and 
 says, " So far shalt thou go, and no farther." Who are you, 
 
 30 that should fret and rag^ and bite the chains of Nature ? 
 Nothing worse happens to you than does to all nations who 
 have extensive empire ; and it happens in all the forms into 
 which empire can be thrown. In large bodies the circu- 
 lation of power must be less vigorous at the extremities. 
 
 ^' 
 
 . V
 
 DISTANCE FROM CENTRE OF AUTHORITY. 25 
 
 Nature has said it. The Turk cannot govern Egypt and 
 Arabia and Kurdistan as he governs Thrace ; nor has he 
 the same dominion in Crimea and Algiers which he has at X^* 
 Brusa and Smyrna. Despotism itself is obliged to truck-' 
 and huckster. The sultan gets such obedience as he can. 5 
 He governs with a loose rein, that he may govern at all ; 
 and the whole of the force and vigor of his authority in his 
 centre is derived from a prudent relaxation in all his bor- 
 ders. Spain, in her provinces, is perhaps not so well obeyed 
 as you are in yours. She complies too ; she submits ; she 10 
 watches times. This is the immutable condition, the eternal 
 law, of extensive and detached empire. 
 
 Then, Sir, from these six capital sources : of descent, of 
 form of government, of religion in the northern provinces, of 
 manners in the southern, of education, of the remoteness 15 
 of situation from the first mover of government, from all 
 these causes a fierce spirit of liberty has grown up. It has 
 grown with the growth of the people in your colonies, and 
 increased with the increase of their wealth : a spirit, that 
 unhappily meeting with an exercise of power in England, 20 
 which, however lawful, is not reconcilable to any ideas of 
 liberty, much less with theirs, has kindled this flame that is 
 ready to consume .us. 
 
 I do not mean to commend either the spirit in this excess 
 or the moral causes which produce it. Perhaps a more 25 
 smooth and accommodating spirit of freedom in them would 
 be more acceptable to us. Perhaps ideas of liberty might 
 be desired more reconcilable with an arbitrary and bound- 
 less authority. Perhaps we might wish the colonists to be 
 persuaded that their liberty is more secure when held in 30 
 trust for them by us, as their guardians during a perpetual 
 minority, than with any part of it in their own hands. The 
 question is not whether their spirit deserves praise or blame, 
 but what, in the name of God, shall we do with it ? You
 
 26 SPEECH ON CONCILIA TION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 have before you the object, such as it is, with all its glories, 
 with all its imperfections on its head. You see the magni- 
 tude, the importance, the temper, the habits, the disorders. 
 By all these considerations we are strongly urged to deter- 
 
 5 mine something concerning it. We are called upon to fix 
 some rule and line for our future conduct, which may give a 
 little stability to our politics and prevent the return of such 
 unhappy deliberations as the present. Every such return 
 will bring the matter before us in a still more untractable 
 
 10 form. For what astonishing and incredible things have we 
 not seen already ! What monsters have not been generated 
 from this unnatural contention ! Whilst every principle of 
 authority and resistance has been pushed, upon both sides, 
 as far as it would go, there is nothing so solid and certain, 
 
 15 either in reasoning or in practice, that has not been shaken. 
 Until very lately all authority in America seemed to be 
 nothing but an emanation* from yours. Even the popular 
 part of the colony constitution derived all its activity, and 
 its first vital movement, from the pleasure of the crown. 
 
 20 We thought, Sir, that the utmost which the discontented 
 colonists could do was to disturb authority ; we never dreamt 
 they could of themselves supply it, knowing in general what 
 an qpejrose business it is to establish a government abso- 
 lutely new. But having for our purposes in this conten- 
 
 25 tion resolved that none but an obedient assembly should 
 sit, the humors of the people there, finding all passage 
 through the legal channel stopped, with great violence broke 
 out another way. Some provinces have tried their experi- 
 ment, as we have tried ours ; and theirs has succeeded. 
 
 30 They have formed a government sufficient for its purposes, 
 without the bustle of a revolution or the troublesome 
 formality of an election. Evident necessity and tacit con- 
 sent have done the business in an instant. So well they 
 have done it, that Lord Dump ore (the account is among the
 
 SELF-GOVERNMENT IN AMERICA. 27 
 
 fragments on your table) tells you that the new institution 
 is infinitely better obeyed than the ancient government ever 
 was in its most fortunate periods. Obedience is what makes 
 government, and not the names by which it is called : not 
 the name of governor, as formerly ; or committee, as at 5 
 present. This new government has originated directly from 
 the people, and was not transmitted through any of the ordi- 
 nary artificial media of a positive constitution. It was not a 
 manufacture ready formed, and transmitted to them in that 
 condition from England. The evil arising from hence is 10 
 this : that the colonists having once found the possibility of 
 enjoying the advantages of order in the midst of a struggle 
 for liberty, such struggles will not henceforward seem so 
 terrible to the settled and sober part of mankind, as they 
 had appeared before the trial. 15 
 
 Pursuing the same plan of punishing by the denial of the 
 exercise of government to still greater lengths, we wholly 
 abrogated the ancient government of Massachusetts. We 
 were confident that the first feeling, if not the very prospect 
 of anarchy, would instantly enforce a complete submission. 20 
 The experiment was tried. A new, strange, unexpected 
 face of things appeared. Anarchy is found, tolerable. A 
 vast province has now subsisted, and subsisted in a consider- 
 able degree of health and vigor, for near a twelvemonth, 
 without governor, without public council, without judges, 25 
 without executive magistrates. How long it will continue 
 in this state, or what may arise out of this unheard-of situa- 
 tion, how can the wisest of us conjecture ? /^ur late experi- 
 ence has taught us that many of those fundamental principles 
 formerly believed infallible are either not of the importance 30 
 they were imagined to be, or that we have not at all adverted 
 to some other far more important and far more powerful 
 principles, which entirely overrule those we had considered 
 as omnipotent. I am much against any further experiments
 
 28 SPEECH ON CONCILIA TION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 which tend to put to the proof any more of these allowed 
 opinions which contribute so much to the public tranquillity. 
 In effect, we suffer as much at home by this loosening of all 
 ties and this concussion' of all established opinions, as we do 
 
 5 abroad. For, in order to prove that the Americans have no 
 right to their liberties, we are every day endeavoring to sub- 
 vert the maxims which preserve the whole spirit of our own. 
 To prove that Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged 
 to depreciate the value of freedom itself ; and we never seem 
 
 10 to gain a paltry advantage over them in debate, without 
 attacking some of those principles, or deriding some of those 
 feelings, for which our ancestors have shed their bloodj 
 
 f\ " 
 
 But, Sir, in wishing to put an end to pernicious experi- 
 ments, I do not mean to preclude the fullest inquiry. Far 
 
 15 from it. Far from deciding on a sudden or partial view, I 
 would patiently go round and round the subject, and survey 
 it minutely in every possible aspect. Sir, if I were capable 
 of engaging you to an equal attention, I would state that, as 
 far as I am capable of discerning, there are but three ways 
 
 20 of proceeding relative to this stubborn spirit which prevails 
 in your colonies and disturbs your government. These are : 
 to change that spirit as inconvenient, by removing the causes ; 
 to prosecute it as criminal ; or to comply with it as neces- 
 sary. I would not be guilty of an imperfect enumeration ; 
 
 25 I can think of but these three. Another has indeed been 
 started, that of giving up the colonies; but it met so slight a 
 reception that I do not think myself obliged to dwell a 
 great while upon it. It is nothing but a little sally of anger, 
 like the frowardness of peevish children, who, when they 
 
 30 cannot get all they would have, are resolved to take nothing. 
 The first of these plans, to change the spirit as inconven- 
 ient, by removing the causes, I think is the most like a sys- 
 tematic proceeding. It is radical in its principle ; but it is 
 attended with great difficulties, some of them little short, as
 
 POPULATION CANNOT BE CHECKED. 29 
 
 I conceive, of impossibilities. This will appear by examin- 
 ing into the plans which have been proposed. 
 
 As the growing population in the colonies is evidently one 
 cause of their resistance, it was last session mentioned in 
 both Houses by men of weight, and received not without 5 
 applause, that in order to check this evil, it would be proper 
 for the crown to make no further grants of land. But to 
 this scheme there are two objections. The first, that there 
 is already so much unsettled land in private hands as to 
 afford room for an immense future population, although the 10 
 crown not only withheld its grants, but annihilated its soil. 
 If this be the case, then the only effect of this avarice of 
 desolation, this hoarding of a royal wilderness, would be to 
 raise the value of the possessions in the hands of the great 
 private monopolists, without any adequate check to the 15 
 growing and alarming mischief of population. 
 
 But if you stopped your grants, what would be the conse- 
 quence ? The people would occupy without grants. They 
 have already so occupied in many places. You cannot sta- 
 tion garrisons in every part of these deserts. If you drive 20 
 the people from one place, they will carry on their annual 
 tillage and remove with their flocks and herds to another. 
 Many of the people in the back settlements are already little 
 attached to particular situations. Already they have topped 
 the Appalachian Mountains. From thence they behold 25 Y 
 before them an immerise plain, one vast, rich, level meadow ; 
 a square of five hundred miles. Over this they would 
 wander without a possibility of restraint ; they would change 
 their manners with the habits of their life ; would soon 
 forget a government by which they were disowned ; would 30 
 become hordes o English Tartars, and pouring down upon 
 your unfortified frontiers a fierce and irresistible cavalry, 
 become masters of your governors and your counsellors, 
 your collectors and comptrollers, and of all the slaves that
 
 30 SPEECH ON CONCILIA TION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 adhered to them. Such would, and in no long time must, 
 be the effect of attempting to forbid as a crime, and to sup- 
 press as an evil, the command and blessing of Providence, 
 " Increase and multiply." Such would be the happy result 
 5 of an endeavor to keep as a lair of wild beasts that earth 
 which God, by an express charter, has given to the children 
 of men. Far different and surely much wiser has been our 
 policy hitherto. Hitherto we have invited our people, by 
 every kind of bounty, to fixed establishments. We have 
 
 10 invited the husbandman to look to authority for his title. 
 We have taught him piously to believe in the mysterious 
 virtue of wax and parchment. We have thrown each tract 
 of land, as it was peopled, into districts, that the ruling 
 power should never be wholly out of sight. We have settled 
 
 15 all we could; and we have carefully attended every settle- 
 ment with government. 
 
 Adhering, Sir, as I do, to this policy, as well as for the 
 reasons I have just given, I think this new project of hedg- 
 ing-in population to be neither prudent nor practicable. 
 
 20 To impoverish the colonies in general, and in particular 
 to arrest the noble course of their marthe enterprises, would 
 be a more easy task. I freely confess it. We have shown 
 a disposition to a system of this kind, a disposition even 
 to continue the restraint after the offence, looking on our- 
 
 25 selves as rivals to our colonies, and persuaded that of 
 course we must gain all that they shall lose. Much mis- 
 chief we may certainly do. The power inadequate to all 
 other things is often more than sufficient for this. I do not 
 look on the direct and immediate power of the colonies to 
 
 30 resist our violence as very formidable. In this, however, I 
 may be mistaken. But when I consider that we have colo- 
 nies for no purpose but to be serviceable to us, it seems 
 to my poor understanding a little preposterous to make 
 them unserviceable in order to keep them obedient. It is,
 
 UNALTERABLE CHARACTER OF AMERICANS. 31 
 
 in truth, nothing more than the old and, as I thought, 
 exploded problem of tyranny, which proposes to beggar its 
 subjects into submission. But remember, when you have 
 completed your system of impoverishment, that Nature still 
 proceeds in her ordinary course ; that discontent will in- 5 
 crease with misery ; and that there are critical moments in 
 the fortune of all states, when they who are too weak to 
 contribute to your prosperity may be strong enough to com- 
 plete your ruin. SpoliAtis arma supersunt. 
 
 The temper and character which prevail in our colonies 10 
 are, I am afraid, unalterable by any human art. We can- 
 not, I fear, falsify the pedigree of this fierce people and 
 persuade them that they are not sprung from a nation in 
 whose veins the blood of freedom circulates. The language 
 in which -they would hear you tell them this tale would de- 15 
 tect the imposition ; your speech would betray you. An 
 Englishman is the unfittest person on earth to argue another 
 Englishman into slavery. 
 
 I think it is nearly as little in our power to change their 
 republican religion as their free descent, or to substitute the 20 
 Roman Catholic as a penalty, or the Church of England as 
 an improvement. The mode of inquisition and dragooning 
 is going out of fashion in the Old World ; and I should not 
 confide much to their efficacy^ in the New. The education 
 of the Americans is also on the same unalterable bottom with 25 
 their religion. You cannot persuade them to burn their books 
 of curious science ; to banish their lawyers from their courts 
 of laws ; or to quench the lights of their assemblies by refus- 
 ing to choose those persons who are best read in their privi- 
 leges. It would be no less impracticable to think of wholly 3 
 annihilating the popular assemblies in which these lawyers sit. 
 The army, by which we must govern in their place, would 
 be far more chargeable to us ; not quite so effectual ; and 
 perhaps in the end full as difficult to be kept in obedience.
 
 32 SPEECH ON CONCILIA TLON WITH AMERICA. 
 
 With regard to the high aristocratic spirit of Virginia and 
 the southern colonies, it has been proposed, I know, to re- 
 duce it by declaring a general enfranchisement of their 
 slaves. This project has had its advocates and panegyrists ; 
 5 yet I never could argue myself into any opinion of it. Slaves 
 are often much attached to their masters. A general wild 
 offer of liberty would not always be accepted. History fur- 
 nishes few instances of it. It is sometimes as hard to per- 
 suade slaves to be free as it is to compel freemen to be 
 
 10 slaves ; and in this auspicious scheme we should have both 
 these pleasing tasks on our hands at once. But when we 
 talk of enfranchisement, do we not perceive that the Ameri- 
 can master may enfranchise too, and arm servile hands in 
 defence of freedom ? a measure to which other people 
 
 15 have had recourse more than once, and not without success, 
 in a desperate situation of their affairs. 
 
 Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and dull as 
 all men are from slavery, must they not a little suspect the 
 offer of freedom from that very nation which has sold them 
 
 20 to their present masters ? from that nation, one of whose 
 causes of quarrel with those masters is their refusal to deal 
 any more in that inhuman traffic ? An offer of freedom 
 from England would come rather oddly, shipped to them in 
 an African vessel, which is refused an entry into the ports 
 
 25 of Virginia or Carolina, with a cargo of three hundred An- 
 gola negroes. It would be curious to see the Guinea captain 
 attempting at the same instant to publish his proclamation 
 of liberty and to advertise his sale of slaves. 
 
 But let us suppose all these moral difficulties got over. 
 
 30 The ocean remains. You cannot pump this dry; and as 
 long as it continues in its present bed, so long all the causes 
 which weaken authority by distance will continue. 
 
 Ye .li'ods, annihilate hut space and time, 
 And make two lovers happy !
 
 INDICTING A WHOLE PEOPLE. 33 
 
 was a pious and passionate prayer, but just as reasonable 
 as many of the serious wishes of very grave and solemn 
 politicians. 
 
 If then, Sir, it seems almost desperate to think of any 
 alterative course for changing the .moral causes (and not 5 
 quite easy to remove the natural) which produce prejudices 
 irreconcilable to the late exercise of our authority, but that 
 the spirit infallibly will continue ; and continuing, will pro- 
 duce such effects as now embarrass us, the second mode 
 under consideration is to prosecute that spirit in its overt 10 
 acts as criminal. 
 
 At this proposition I must pause a moment. The thing 
 seems a great deal too big for my ideas of jurisprudence.. 
 It should seem to my way of conceiving such matters, that 
 there is a very wide difference in reason and policy between 15 
 the mode of proceeding on the irregular conduct of scattered 
 individuals, or even of bands of men, who disturb order 
 within the state, and the civil dissensions which may, from 
 time to time, on great questions, agitate the several commu- 
 nities which compose a great empire. It looks to me to be 20 
 narrow and pedantujl to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal 
 justice to this great public contest. I do not know the 
 method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people. 
 I cannot insult and ridicule the feelings of millions of my 
 fellow-creatures, as Sir Edward Coke insulted one excellent 25 
 individual (Sir Walter Ralegh) at the bar. I am not ripe 
 to pass sentence on the gravest public bodies, entrusted 
 with magistracies of great authority and dignity, and charged 
 with the safety of their fellow-citizens, upon the Yery^sajne 
 jiikL that I am. I really think that for wise men this is not 30 
 judicious ; for sober men, not decent ; for minds tincturedy c -<Aj>->^ 
 with humanity, not mild and merciful. 
 
 Perhaps, Sir, I am mistaken in my idea of an empire as 
 distinguished from a single state or kingdom. But my idea 
 
 jO-v/vxxi fr-y-
 
 34 
 
 SPEECH ON CONCILIA TION WITH 
 
 RICA. 
 
 of it is this : that an empire is the aggregate, of many states 
 under onLjSQjmmpji_Jiad, whether this head be a monarch 
 or a presiding republic. It does in such constitutions fre- 
 quently happen (and nothing but the dismal, cold, dead uni- 
 5 formity of servitude can prevent its happening) that the sub- 
 ordinate parts have many local privileges and immunities. 
 Between these privileges and the supreme common authority 
 the line may be extremely nice. Of course disputes often, 
 too, very bitter disputes and much ill blood will arise. But 
 
 10 though every privilege is an exemption (in the case) from 
 the ordinary exercise of the supreme authority, it is no denial 
 of it. The claim of a privilege seems rather, ex vi termini, 
 to imply a superior power ; for to talk of the privileges of a 
 state, or of a person who has no superior, is hardly any 
 
 15 better than speaking nonsense. Now in such unfortunate 
 quarrels among the component parts of a great political 
 union of communities, I can scarcely conceive anything 
 more completely imprudent than for the head of the empire 
 to insist that, if any privilege is pleaded against his will or 
 
 20 his acts, [that] his whole authority is denied ; instantly to pro- 
 claim rebellion, to beat to arms, and to put the offending prov- 
 inces under the ban^) Will not this, Sir, very soon teach the 
 provinces to make no distinctions on their part ? Will it 
 not teach them that the government against which a claim 
 
 25 of liberty is tantamountjto high treason is a government to 
 which submission is equivalent to slavery? It may not 
 always be quite convenient to impress dependent communi- 
 ties with such an idea. 
 
 We are, indeed, in all disputes with the colonies, by the 
 
 30 necessity of things, the judge. It is true, Sir. But I confess 
 that the character of judge in my own cause is a thing that 
 frightens me. Instead of filling me with pride, I am exceed- 
 ingly humbled by it. I cannot proceed with a stern, assured, 
 judicial confidence, until I find myself in something more
 
 CRIMINAL PROSECUTION INEXPEDIENT. 35 
 
 like a judicial character. I must have these hesitations as 
 long as I am compelled to recollect that, in my little read- 
 ing upon such contests as these, the sense of mankind has 
 at least as often decided against tiie superior as the subor- 
 dinate power. Sir, let me add, too, that the opinion of my 5 
 having some abstract right in my favor would not put me 
 much at my ease in passing sentence, unless I could be sure 
 that there were no rights which, in their exercise under cer- 
 tain circumstances, were not the most odious of all wrongs JT 
 and the most vexatious of alHnjjisiice. Sir, these considera- 10 V ,J 
 tions have great weight with me, when I find things so cir- j>^r 
 cumstanced, that I see the same party at once a civil litigant ^jr 
 against me in point of right and a culprit before me, while 
 I sit as a criminal judge on acts of his, whose moral quality 
 is to be decided upon the merits of that very litigation. 15 
 Men are every now and then put, by the complexity of 
 human affairs, into strange situations ; but justice is the 
 same, let the judge be in what situation he will. 
 
 There is, Sir, also a circumstance which convinces me V$ 
 
 that this mode of criminal proceeding is not (at least in the 20 > f 
 present stage of our contest) altogether expedient, which is<N*^ 
 nothing less than the conduct of those very persons^who 
 have seemed to adopt that mode, by lately declaring a rebel^ 
 lion in Massachusetts Bay, as they had formerly addressed- 
 to have traitors brought hither, under an act of ^Henry the 25 
 Eighth,) for trial. For though rebellion is declared, it is not 
 proceeded against as such ; nor have any steps been taken 
 towards the apprehension or conviction of any individual 
 offender, either on our late or our former address; but modes 
 of public coercion have been adopted, and such as have much 3 
 more resemblance to a sort of qualified hostility towards an 
 independent power than the punishment of rebellious subjects. 
 All this seems rather inconsistent ; but it shows how difficult 
 it is to apply these juridical ideas to our present case. 
 
 r\CU>^ 
 
 Q-
 
 36 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 In this situation, let us seriously and coolly ponder. What 
 is it we have got by all our niejiacfis, which have been many 
 and ferocious ? What advantage have we derived from the 
 penal laws we have passed, and which, for the time, have 
 5 been "severe and numerous ? What advances have we made 
 towards our object, by the sending of a force which, by land 
 and sea, is no contemptible strength ? Has the disorder 
 abated ? Nothing less. When I see things in this situa- 
 tion, after such confident hopes, bold promises and active 
 
 10 exertions, I cannot for my life avoid a suspicion that the 
 plan itself is not correctly right. 
 
 If, then, the removal of the causes of this spirit of Ameri- 
 can liberty be for the greater part, or rather entirely, imprac- 
 ticable ; if the ideas of criminal process be inapplicable) or, 
 
 15 if applicable, are in the highest degree inexpedient; what 
 way yet remains ? No way is open but the third and last, 
 to comply with the American spirit as necessary ; or, if you 
 please, to submit to it as a necessary evil. 
 
 If we adopt this mode, if we mean to conciliate and con- 
 
 20 cede, let us see of what nature the concession ought to be. 
 To ascertain the nature of our concession, we must look at 
 their complaint. The colonies complain that they have not 
 the characteristic mark and seal of British freedom. They 
 complain that they are taxed in a Parliament in which they 
 
 25 are not represented. If you mean to satisfy them at all, 
 you must satisfy them with regard to this complaint. If 
 you mean to please any people, you must give them the 
 boon which they ask, not what you may think better for 
 them, but of a kind totally different. Such an act may be 
 
 30 a wise regulation, but it is no concession ; whereas our pres- 
 ent theme is the mode of giving satisfaction. 
 ' Sir, I think you must perceive that I am resolved this 
 day to have nothing at all to do with the question of the 
 right of taxation. Some gentlemen startle,. but it is true ;
 
 NOT A QUESTION OF ABSTRACT RIGHT. 37 
 
 I put it totally out of the question. It is less than nothing 
 in my consideration. I do not indeed wonder, nor will you, 
 Sir, that gentlemen of profound learning are fond of display- 
 ing it on this profound subject. But my consideration is 
 narrow, confined, and wholly limited to the policy of the 5 
 question. I do not examine whether the giving away a 
 man's money be a power excepted and reserved out of the 
 general trust of government ; and how far all mankind, in 
 all forms of polity, are entitled to an exercise of that right 
 by the charter of Nature ; or whether, on the contrary, a 10 
 right of taxation is necessarily involved in the general princi- 
 ple of legislation and inseparable from the ordinary supreme 
 power. These are deep questions, where great names mili^ \tf* 
 tate/ against each other; where reason is perplexed; and an 
 appeal to authorities only thickens the confusion : for high 15 
 and reverend authorities lift up their heads on both sides ; 
 and there is no sure footing in the middle. This point is 
 the great 
 
 Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old, 20 
 
 Where armies whole have sunk. 
 
 I do not intend to be overwhelmed in that bog, though in 
 such respectable company. The question with me is not 
 whether you have a right to render your people miserable, 
 but whether it is not your interest to make them happy. It 25 
 is not what a lawyer tells me I may do, but what humanity, 
 reason and justice tell me I ought to do. Is a politic act 
 the worse for being a generous one ? Is no concession 
 proper but that which is made from your want of right to 
 keep what you grant ? Or does it lessen the grace or dig- 30 
 nity of relaxing in the exercise of an odious claim, because 
 you have your evidence-room full of titles and your magazines 
 stuffed with arms to enforce them ? What signify all those 
 titles and all those arms? Of what avail are they, when
 
 38 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 the reason of the thing tells me that the assertion of my 
 title is the loss of my suit ; and that I could do nothing but 
 wound myself by the use of my own weapons ? 
 
 Such is steadfastly my opinion of the absolute necessity 
 
 5 of keeping up the concord of this empire by a unity of 
 spirit, though in a diversity of operations, that if I were 
 sure the colonists had at their leaving this country sealed a 
 regular compact of servitude, that they had solemnly abjured 
 .alMhe rights of citizens, that they had made a vow to re- 
 
 10 nounce all ideas of liberty for them and their posterity to 
 all generations; yet I should hold myself obliged to conform 
 to the temper I found universally prevalent in my own day, 
 and to govern two million of men, impatient of servitude, 
 on the principles of freedom. I am not determining a point 
 
 15 of law; I am restoring tranquillity: and the general char- 
 acter and situation of a people must determine what sort of 
 government is fitted for them. That point nothing else can 
 or ought to determine. 
 
 My idea, therefore, without considering whether we yield 
 
 20 as matter of right or grant as matter of favor, is to admit the 
 people of our colonies into an interest in the Constitution; and 
 by recording that admission in the journals of Parliament, 
 to give them as strong an assurance as the nature of the 
 thing will admit, that we mean forever to adhere to that 
 
 25 solemn declaration of systematic indulgence. 
 
 Some years ago, the repeal of a revenue act, upon its 
 understood principle, might have served to show that we 
 intended an unconditional abatement of the exercise of a 
 taxing power. Such a measure was then sufficient to re- 
 
 3 move all suspicion and to give perfect content. But unfor- 
 tunate events since that time may make something further 
 necessary ; and not more necessary for the satisfaction of 
 the colonies than for the dignity and consistency of our own 
 future proceedings.
 
 TAX A TION IS USELESS. 39 
 
 I have taken a very incorrect measure of the disposition 
 of the House, if this proposal in itself would be received 
 with dislike. I think, Sir, we have few American financiers. 
 But our misfortune is, we are too acute ; we are too exquisite 
 in our conjectures of the future, for men oppressed with 5 
 such great and present evils. The more moderate among 
 the opposers of parliamentary concession freely confess that 
 they hope no good from taxation ; but they apprehend the 
 colonists have further views^. and if this point were con- 
 ceded, they would instantly attack the trade laws. These 10 
 gentlemen are convinced that this was the intention from 
 the beginning, and the quarrel of the Americans with taxa- 
 tion was no more than a cloak and cover to this design. 
 Such has been the language, even of a gentlemanfof real 
 moderation and of a natural temper well adjusted to fair 15 
 and equal government. I am, however, Sir, not a little sur- 
 prised at this kind of discourse whenever I hear it ; and I 
 am the more surprised on account of the arguments which 
 I constantly find in company with it, and which are often 
 urged from the same mouths and on the same day. 20 
 
 For instance, when we allege that it is against reason to 
 tax a people under so many restraints in trade as the Ameri- 
 cans, the noble lord in the blue ribbon shall tell you that 
 the restraints on trade are futile and useless, of no advan- 
 tage to us, and of no burden to those on whom they are 25 
 imposed ; that the trade to America is not secured by the 
 Acts of Navigation, but by the natural and irresistible 
 advantage of a commercial preference. 
 
 Such is the merit of the trade laws in this posture of the 
 debate. But when strong internal circumstances are urged 30 
 against the taxes ; when the scheme is dissected ; .when ex- 
 perience and the nature of things are brought to prove, and 
 do prove, the utter impossibility of obtaining an effective 
 revenue from the colonies ; when these things are pressed,
 
 40 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 or rather press themselves, so as to drive the advocates ot- 
 colony taxes to a clear admission of the futility of the scheme; 
 then, Sir, the sleeping trade laws revive from their trance, 
 and this useless taxation is to be kept sacred, not for its own 
 5 sake, but as a counterguard and security of the laws of 
 trade. 
 
 Then, Sir, you keep up revenue laws which are mischiev- 
 ous, in order to preserve trade laws that are useless. Such 
 is the wisdom of our plan in both its members. They are 
 
 10 separately given up as of no value; and yet one is always to 
 be defended for the sake of the other. But I cannot agree 
 with the noble lord nor with the pamphlet from whence he 
 seems to have borrowed these ideas concerning the inutility 
 of the trade laws; for without idolizing them, I am sure they 
 
 15 are still in many ways of great use to us, and in former 
 times they have been of the greatest. They do confine, and 
 they do greatly narrow, the market for the Americans. But 
 my perfect conviction of this does not help me in the least 
 to discern how the revenue laws form any security what- 
 
 20 soever to the commercial regulations ; or that these commer- 
 cial regulations are the true ground of the quarrel; or that 
 the giving way in any one instance of authority is to lose all 
 that may remain unconceded. 
 
 One fact is clear and indisputable: the public and avowed 
 
 25 origin of this quarrel was on taxation. This quarrel has 
 indeed brought on new disputes on new questions; but 
 certainly the least bitter and the fewest of all on the trade 
 laws. To judge which of the two be the real, radical cause 
 of quarrel, we have to see whether the commercial dispute 
 
 30 did, in order of time, precede the dispute on taxation ? 
 There is not a shadow of evidence for it. Next, to enable 
 us to judge whether at this moment a dislike to the trade 
 laws be the real cause of quarrel, it is absolutely necessary 
 to put the taxes out of the question by a repeal. See how
 
 DEFIANCE OF FACT AND EXPERIENCE. 41 
 
 the Americans act in this position, and then you will be able 
 to discern correctly what is the true object of the contro- 
 versy, or whether any controversy at all will remain. Unless 
 you consent to remove this cause of difference, it is impos- 
 sible with decency to assert that the dispute is not upon what 5 
 it is avowed to be. And I would, Sir, recommend to your 
 serious consideration, whether it be prudent to form a rule 
 for punishing people, not on their own acts, but on your 
 conjectures. Surely it is preposterous at the very best. It 
 is not justifying your anger by their misconduct, bjtffit is 10 
 converting your ill-will into their delinquency^ ' 
 
 But the colonies will go further. Alas ! alas ! when will 
 this speculating against fact and reason end ? What will 
 quiet these panic fears which we entertain of the hostile 
 effect of a conciliatory conduct ? Is it true that no case can 15 
 exist in which it is proper for the sovereign to accede to the 
 desires of his discontented subjects? Is there anything 
 peculiar in this case to make a rule for itself? Is all 
 authority of course lost, when it is not pushed to the 
 extreme? Is it a certain maxim that the fewer causes of 20 
 dissatisfaction are left by government, the more the subject 
 will be inclined to resist and rebel ? 
 
 All these objections being in fact no more than suspicions, 
 conjectures, divinations, formed in defiance of fact and ex- 
 perience, they did not, Sir, discourage me from entertaining 25 
 the idea of a conciliatory concession, founded on the prin- 
 ciples which I have just stated. 
 
 in forming a plan for this purpose, I endeavored to put 
 myself in that frame of mind which was the most natural 
 and the most reasonable, and which was certainly the most 30 
 probable means of securing me from all error. I set out 
 with a perfect distrust of my own abilities, a total renuncia- 
 tion of every speculation of my own; and with a profound 
 reverence for the wisdom of our ancestors, who have left us
 
 42 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 the inheritance of so happy a constitution and so flourishing 
 an empire, and, what is a thousand times more valuable, the 
 treasury of the maxims and principles which formed the one 
 and obtained the other. 
 
 During the reigns of the kings of Spain of the Austrian 
 family, whenever they were at a loss in the Spanish councils, 
 it was common for their statesmen to say -that they ought to 
 consult the genius of Philip the Sfecbnd. The genius of 
 Philip the Second might mislead them; and the issue of 
 
 10 thejyr jiff airs showed that they had noT~chosen the most 
 
 Tperfect standard. But, Sir, I am sure that I shall not be 
 
 ^ I misled, when in a case of constitutional difficulty I consult 
 
 / the genius of the English Constitution. Consulting at that 
 
 oracle (it was with all due humility and piety), I found four 
 
 15 capital examples in a similar case before me: those of 
 Ireland, Wales, Chester and Durham. 
 
 Ireland before the English conquest, though never 
 governed by a despotic power, had np^ Parliament How 
 far the English Parliament itself was at that time modelled 
 
 20 according to the present form is disputed among antiquarians. 
 
 But we have all the reason in the world to be assured that 
 
 . a form of Parliament such as England then enjoyed she 
 
 instantly communicated to Ireland; and we are equally sure 
 
 that almost every successive improvement in constitutional 
 
 25 liberty, as fast as it was made here, was transmitted thither. 
 The feudal baronage and the feudal knighthood, the roots of 
 our primitive constitution, were early transplanted into that 
 soil, and grew and flourished there. Magna Charta a if it 
 did not give us originally the House of Commons, gave us 
 
 30 at least an House of Commons of weight and consequence. 
 But your ancestors did not churlishly sit down alone to the 
 feast of Magna Charta. Ireland was made immediately a 
 partaker. This benefit of English laws and liberties, I con- 
 fess, was not at first extended to a^jreland. Mark the
 
 THE CASE OF IRELAND. 43 
 
 consequence. English authority and English liberties had 
 exactly the sanie boundaries. Your standard could never 
 be advanced an inch before your privileges. Sir John Davies 
 shows beyond a doubt that the refusal of a general commu- 
 nication of these rights was the true cause why Ireland was 5 
 five hundred years in subduing; and after the vain projects 
 of a military government, attempted in the reign of Queen 
 ^Elizabeth, it was soon disMveredjthat nothing could make 
 V that country English inciviiuvXmd allegiance, but your laws 
 \ and your forms of legislature. It was not English arms, but 10 
 the English Constitution, that conquered Ireland. From 
 that time Ireland has ever had a general Parliament, as she 
 had before a partial Parliament. You changed the people, 
 you altered the religion, but you never touched the form or 
 ~~th"e vital substance of free government in that kingdom. 1 5 
 You deposedL kings ; you, restored them; you altered the 
 successioft rotheirs as wen as fo your own crown ; but you 
 never altered their constitution, the principle of which was 
 respected by as"urpaubn, restored with the restoration of 
 monarchy, and established, I trust, forever by the glorious 2 o 
 Revolution. This has made Ireland the great and flourish- 
 ing kingdom that it is; and from a disgrace and a burden 
 intolerable to this nation, has rendered her a principal part 
 of our strength and ornament. This country cannot be said 
 to have ever formally taxed her. The irregular things done 25 
 in the confusion of mighty troubles and on the hinge of .great 
 revolutions, even if all were done that is said to have been 
 done, form no example. If they have any effect in argu- 
 ment, they make an exception to prove the rule. None of 
 your own liberties could stand a moment, if the casual 30 
 deviations from them at such times were suffered to be 
 used as proofs of their nullity. By the [lucrative amount of 
 such casual breaches in the Constitution, judge what the 
 stated and fixed rule of supply has been in that kingdom.
 
 44 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 Your Irish_pensioners would starve, if they had no other 
 fund to live on than taxes granted by English authority. 
 Turn your eyes to those popular grants from whence all your 
 great supplies are come, and learn to 'respect that only 
 $ source of public wealth in the British Empire. 
 
 My next example is Wales. This country was said to be 
 reduced by He 
 
 so by Edward the First. T.ut though then conquered, it was 
 not looked upon as any part of the realm of England. Its 
 
 10 old constitution, whatever that might have been, was 
 destroyed, and no good one was substituted in its place. 
 The care of that tract was put into the hands of Lords 
 Marchers, a form of government of a very singular kind, 
 a strangeaheterogeneous/'monster, something between hos- 
 
 15 tility and government; perhaps it has a sort of resemblance, 
 according to the modes of those times, to that of commander- 
 in-chief at present, to whom all civil power is granted as 
 secondary. The manners of the Welsh nation followed the 
 genius of the government : the people were ferocious, restive, 
 
 20 savage and. uncultivated, sometimes composed, never paci- 
 fied. Wales, within itself, was in perpetual disorder ; and 
 it kept the frontier of England in perpetual alarm. Benefits 
 from it to the state there were none. Wales was only known 
 to England by incursion and invasion. 
 
 25 Sir, during that state of things Parliament was not idle. 
 They attempted to subdue the fierce spirit of the Welsh by 
 all sorts of rigorous laws. They prohibited by statute the 
 sending all sorts of arms into Wales, as you prohibit by 
 proclamation (with something more of doubt on the legality) 
 
 30 the sending arms to America. They disarmed the Welsh 
 by statute, as you attempted (but still with more question 
 on the legality) to disarm New England by an instruction. 
 They made an act to drag offenders from Wales into Eng- 
 land for trial, as you have done (but with more hardship) 
 
 3L
 
 >tvJjsher 
 was r 
 
 THE CASE OF WALES. 45 
 
 with regard to America. By another act, where one of the 
 parties was an Englishman, they ordained that his trial 
 should be always by English. They made acts to restrain 
 trade, as you do ; and they prevented the Welsh from the 
 use of fairs and^markets, aa you do the Americans from 5 
 fisheries and foreign "p^orls. Ih'shortf"when the statute-book 
 as not quite so much swelled as it is now, you find no 
 less than fifteen acts of penalregulation on the subject of 
 Wales. 
 
 Here we rub our hands A fine body of precedents for 10 
 the authority of Parliament and the use of it ! I admit it 
 fully ; and pray add likewise to these precedents, that all 
 the while Wales rid this kingdom like an l/^^^v^tnafTc^^" 
 was an unprofitable and oppressive burden ; and that an 
 Englishman travelling in that country could not go six yards 15 
 from the highroad without being murdered. 
 
 The march of the human mind is slow. Sir, it was not 
 until after two hundred years discovered that by an eternal 
 law Providence had decreed vexation to violence, and pov- 
 erty tOj_r_apine. Your ancestors did, however, at length open 20 
 their eyes to the ill-husbandry of injustice. They found 
 that the tyranny of a free people could of all tyrannies the 
 least be endured ; and that laws made against an whole nation 
 were not the most effectual methods for securing its obedi- 
 
 / j 5 <T 
 
 ence. Accordingly, in the twenty-seventh year of Henry the 25 
 Eighth, the course was entirely altered. With a preamble 
 stating the entire and perfect rights of the crown of Eng- 
 land, it gave to the Welsh all the rights and privileges of 
 English subjects. A political order was established; the 
 military power gave way to the civil ; the marches were 30 
 turned into counties. But that a nation should have a right 
 to English liberties, and yet no share at all in the lunda- 
 nf thpsp liberties, the grant of their own 
 
 property, seemed a thing so incongruous that eight years
 
 46 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 after, that is, in the thirty-fifth of that reign, a com- 
 plete and not ill-proportioned representation by counties 
 and boroughs was bestowed upon Wales by act of Parlia- 
 ment. From that moment, as by a charm, the tumults sub- 
 5 sided ; obedience was restored ; peace, order and civilization 
 followed in the train of liberty. When the day-star of the 
 English Constitution had arisen in their hearts, all was 
 harmony within and without : 
 
 Simul_alba nautis 
 
 Stella refulsit, 
 
 Defluit saxis agitatus humor ; 
 Concidunt venti, fugiuntque nubes, 
 j Et minax (quod sic voluere) ponto 
 
 Unda recumbit.^^ 
 
 15 The very same year the County Palatine of Chester re- 
 ceived the same relief from its oppressions and the same 
 remedy to its disorders. Before this time Chester was little 
 less distempered than Wales. The inhabitants, without 
 rights themselves, were the fittest to destroy the riahts of 
 
 20 others : and from thence Richard the Second drew the 
 
 Q_ rt-BTM 
 
 standing army of archers with which for a time he op- 
 pressed England. The people of Chester applied to Par- 
 liament in a petition penned as I shall read to you : 
 
 ! I 
 
 To the King our Sovereign Lord, in most humble wise 
 25 unto your most excellent Majesty the inhabitants of your Grace's 
 County Palatine of Chester : (i) That where the said County Pala- 
 tine of Chester is and hath been always hitherto exempt, excluded 
 and separated out and from your high court of Parliament, to 
 have any knights and burgesses within the said court ; by reason 
 30 whereof the said inhabitants have hitherto sustained manifold 
 Q ^disherisons, losses and damages, as well in their lands, goods 
 and bodies, as in the good, civil and politic governance and 
 maintenance of the commonwealth of their said country. (2) 
 / And forasmuch as the said inhabitants have always hitherto been
 
 THE CASE OF CHESTER. 47 
 
 bound by the acts and statutes made and ordained by your said 
 Highness and your most noble Ypjogenitors.' by authority of the 
 said court, as far forth as other counties, cities and boroughs -,- 
 have been, that have had their knights and burgesses within your lO 
 said court of Parliament, and yet have had neither knight^ne 5 
 burgess there for the said County Palatine ; the said inhabitants, 
 for lack thereof, have been oftentimes touched and grieved with 
 acts and statutes made within the said court, as well derogatory^* 
 unto the most ancient jurisdictions, liberties and privileges of 
 your said County Palatine, as prejudicial unto the commonwealth, 10 
 quietness, rest and peace of your Grace's most bounden subjects 
 inhabiting within the same. 
 
 What did Parliament with this audacious address ? Re- 
 ject it as a libel ? Treat it as an affront to government? 
 Spurn it as a derogation*~from the rights of legislature ? 15 
 Did they toss it over the table ? Did they burn it by the 
 hands of the common hangman ? They took the petition 
 of grievance, all rugged as it was, without softening or 
 temperament, unpurged of the original bitterness and in- 
 dignation of complaint ; they made it the very preamble to 20 
 their act of redress, and consecrated its principle to all 
 ages in the sanctuary of legislation. 
 
 Here is my third example. It was attended with the 
 success of the two former. Chester, civilized as well as 
 Wales, has demonstrated that freedom, and not servitude, 25 
 is the cure for anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the 
 true remedy for superstition. Sir, this pattern of Chester 
 was followed in the reign of Charles the Second with regard 
 to the County Palatine of Durham, which is my fourth 
 example. This county had long lain out of the pale of 30 
 free legislation. So scrupulously was the example of Ches- 
 ter followed, that the style of the preamble is nearly the 
 same with that of the Chester act ; and without affecting 
 the abstract extent of the authority of Parliament, it recog-
 
 48 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 nizes the equity of not suffering any considerable district 
 in which the British subjects may act as a body, to be taxed 
 without their own voice in the grant. 
 
 Now if the doctrines of policy contained in these pre- 
 5 ambles and the force of these examples in the acts of 
 Parliaments avail anything, what can be said against apply- 
 ing them with regard to America ? Are not the people of 
 America as much Englishmen as the Welsh ? The preamble 
 of the act of Henry the Eighth says the Welsh speak a 
 
 10 language no way resembling that of his Majesty's English 
 subjects. Are the Americans not as numerous ? If we >_^r 
 may trust the learned and accurate Judge Barrington's 
 account of North Wales, and take that as a standard to 
 measure the rest, there is no comparison. The people 
 
 15 cannot amount to above 200,000, not a tenth part of the 
 number in the colonies. Is America in rebellion ? Wales 
 was hardly ever free from it. Have you attempted to gov- 
 ern America by penal statutes ? You made fifteen for 
 Wales. But your legislative authority is perfect with re- 
 
 20 gard to America. Was it less perfect in Wales, Chester, 
 and Durham ? But America is virtually represented. 
 What ! does the electric force of lyirtuali representation 
 more easily pass over the Atlantic than pervade Wales, 
 which lies in your neighborhood ? or than Chester and 
 
 25 Durham, surrounded by abundance of representation that 
 is actual and palpable ? But, Sir, your ancestors thought 
 this sort of virtual representation, however ample, to be 
 totally insufficient for the freedom of the inhabitants of 
 territories that are so near and comparatively so inconsid- 
 
 30 erable. How then can I think it sufficient for those which 
 are infinitely greater and infinitely more remote? 
 
 You will now, Sir, perhaps imagine that I am on the 
 point of proposing to you a scheme for a representation of 
 the colonies in Parliament. Perhaps I might be inclined to
 
 REPRESENTA TION IMPOSSIBLE. 
 
 ^wJJU/^. T 
 
 entertain some such thought ; but a great flood stops me in 
 my course. Ofrposmt natura I cannot remove the eternal 
 barriers of the creation. The thing, in that mode, I do not 
 know to be possible. As I meddle with no theory, I do 
 not absolutely assert the impracticability of such a represen- 5 
 tation : but I do not see my way to it ; and those who have 
 been more confident have not been more successful. How- 
 ever, the arm of public benevolence is not shortened, and 
 there are often several means to the same end. What 
 Nature has disjoined in one way Wisdom may unite in 10 
 another. When we cannot give the benefit as we would 
 wish, let us not refuse it altogether. If we cannot give the 
 principal, let us find a substitute. But how ? Where ? What 
 substitute ? 
 
 Fortunately I am not obliged for the ways and means of 15 
 this substitute to tax my own unproductive invention. I am 
 not even obliged to go to the rich treasury of the fertile 
 framers of imaginary commonwealths, not to the Republic 
 of Plato, not to the IJlapia of More, not to the Oceqna of 
 Harrington. It is before me ; it is at my feet, 20 
 
 And the rude swain 
 Treads daily on it with his clouted shoon. 
 
 I only wish you to recognize, for the theory, the ancient 
 constitutional policy of this kingdom with regard to repre- 
 sentation, as that policy has been declared in acts of Parlia- 25 
 ment ; and as to the practice, to return to that mode which 
 an uniform experience has marked out to you as best, and 
 in which you walked with security, advantage and honor, 
 until the year 1363. k\Js**^*s\Juljb A^Uvv^/v\!jLOJU 
 My resolutions therefore mean to establish. the equity and 30 
 justice of a taxation of America byVrajiTfana not^by iyipo- .ix-tut" 
 sition^; to mark the /';;,"<// competency of the colony assemblies 
 for the support of their government in peace and for public
 
 50 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 aids in time of war ; to acknowledge that this legal com- 
 petency has had a dutiful and beneficial exercise ; and that 
 experience has shown the benefit of their grants and the 
 futility of parliamentary taxation as a method of supply. 
 5 These solid truths compose six fundamental propositions. 
 There are three more resolutions corollary to these. If you 
 admit the first set, you can hardly reject the others. But 
 if you admit the first, I shall be far from solicitous whether 
 you accept or refuse the last. I think these six massive 
 
 10 pillars will be of strength sufficient to support the temple' 
 of British concord. I have no more doubt than 1 entertain 
 of my existence that, if you admitted these, you would com- 
 mand an immediate peace and, with but tolerable future 
 management, a lasting obedience in America. I am not 
 
 15 arrogant in this confident assurance. The propositions are 
 all mere matters of fact ; and if they are such facts as draw 
 irresistible conclusions even in the stating, this is the power 
 of truth, and not any management of mine. 
 
 Sir, I shall open the whole plan to you together, with 
 
 20 such observations on the motions as may tend to illus- 
 trate them where they may want explanation. The first is 
 a resolution, 
 
 ji That the colonies and plantations of Great Britain in North 
 
 America, consisting of fourteen separate governments, and con- 
 25 taining two millions and upwards of free inhabitants, have not 
 had the liberty and privilege of electing and sending any knights 
 and burgesses, or others, to represent them in the high court of 
 Parliament. 
 
 This is a plain matter of fact, necessary to be laid down, 
 30 and (excepting the description) it is laid down in the lan- 
 guage of the constitution ; it is taken nearly "verbatim from 
 acts of Parliament. 
 
 The second is like unto the first,
 
 THE SECOND RESOLUTION. 51 
 
 2. That the said colonies and plantations have been liable to, 
 and bounden by, several subsidies, payments, rates and taxes, 
 given and granted by Parliament, though the said colonies and r 
 plantations have not their knights and burgesses in the said high 
 court of Parliament, of their own election, to represent the condi- 5 
 tion of their country ; by lack whereof they have been oftentimes 
 touched and grieved by subsidies given, granted and assented to, 
 in the said court, in a manner prejudicial to the commonwealth, 
 quietness, rest and peace of the subjects inhabiting within the 
 same. 10 
 
 Is this description too ^ hot or too cold, too strong or too 
 weak? Does it arrogate too much to the supreme legis- 
 lature ? Does it lean too much to the claims of the people ? 
 If it runs into any of these errors, the fault is not mine. It 
 is the language of your own ancient acts of Parliament : 15 
 
 Non meus hie sermo, sed quae praecepit Ofellus, 
 Rusticus, abnormis sapiens. 
 
 It is the genuine produce of the ancient, rustic, manly, home- 
 bred sense of this country, I did not dare to rub off a 
 particle of the venerable rust that rather adorns -and pre- 20 
 serves, than destroys, the metal. It would be a profanation 
 to |ouch with_a_iQQl_the stones which construct the sdcred 
 altar of peace. I would not violate with modern polish the 
 ingenuous and noble roughness of these truly constitutional 
 materials. Above all things, I was resolved not to be guilty 25 
 of tampering, the odious vice of restless and unstable 
 minds. I put my foot in the tracks of our forefathers, 
 where I can neither wander nor stumble. Determining to 
 fix articles of peace, I was resolved not to In.- \\isc beyond 
 what was written ; I was resolved to use nothing else than 30 
 the form of sound words, to let others abound in their own 
 sense, and carefully to abstain from all expressions of my 
 own. What the law has said, I say. In all things else I 
 
 U-T^^LAAJLXM
 
 4 
 
 52 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 am silent. I have no organ but for her words. This, if it 
 be not ingenious, I am sure is safe. 
 
 There are indeed words expressive of grievance in this 
 
 second resolution, which those who are resolved always to 
 
 5 be in the right will deny to contain matter of fact, as ap- 
 
 plied to the present case, 'although Parliament thought them 
 
 true with regard to the counties of Chester and Durham. 
 
 They will deny that the Americans were ever " touched and 
 
 grieved " with the taxes. If they consider nothing in taxes 
 
 10 but their weight as pecuniary impositions, there might be 
 
 some pretence for this denial. But men may be sorely 
 
 touched and deeply grieved in their .privileges as. well as in 
 
 r 1-1 F/VV/v-&A^SLf>i . 
 
 their purses. Men may lose little m_ property by the act 
 which takes away all their freedom. When a man is robbed 
 
 15 of a trifle on the highway, it is not the twopence lost that 
 constitutes the capital outrage. This is not confined to 
 privileges. Even ancient indulgences withdrawn, without 
 offence on the part of those who enjoyed such favors, 
 operate as grievances. But were the Americans then not 
 
 20 touched and grieved by the taxes, in some measure, merely 
 as taxes ? If so, why were they almost all either wholly 
 repealed o^r exceedingly reduced ? jWere they not touched 
 and grieved even by the regulating duties of the sixth of 
 George the Second ? Else why were the duties first reduced 
 
 25 to one- third in 1764, and afterwards to a third of that third 
 in the year 1766 ? Were they not touched and grieved by 
 the Stamp Act ? I shall say they were, until that tax is 
 revived. Were they not touched and grieved by the duties 
 of L3.67. which were likewise repealed, and which Lord 
 
 ^""^w 
 
 30 Hillsborough tells you (for the ministry) were laid contrary 
 
 " to the true 1 principle of commerce ? Is not the assurance 
 
 * W given by that noble person to the colonies of a resolution 
 
 to lay no more taxes on them, an admission that taxes would 
 
 touch and grieve them ? Is not the resolution of the noble 
 
 tx> .-rv-v-A- -M
 
 COMPETENCE OF COLONIAL ASSEMBLIES. 53 
 
 JorcL in the blue ribbon, now standing on your journals, the 
 strongest of all proofs that parliamentary subsidies really 
 touched and grieved them ? Else why all these changes, 
 modifications, repeals, assurances and resolutions ? 
 
 The next proposition is, 5 
 
 That, from the distance of the said colonies and from other 
 circumstances, no method hath hitherto been devised for procuring 
 a representation in Parliament for the said colonies. 
 
 This is an assertion of a fact. I go no further on the 
 paper; though in my private judgment a useful representa- 10 
 tion is impossible. I am sure it is not desired by them; nor 
 ought it, perhaps, by us: but I abstain from opinions. 
 The fourth resolution is, 
 
 That each of the said colonies hatJL*vithin itself a body, chosen 
 -* n_^aXj^ 
 
 in part or in the whole by the 'freemen, freeholders or other free 15 
 inhabitants thereof, commonly called the general assembly, or 
 general court ; with powers legally to raise, levy and assess, ac- 
 cording to the several usage of such colonies, duties and taxes 
 towards defraying all sorts of public services. 
 
 This competence in the colony assemblies is certain. It 20 
 is proved by the whole tenor of their acts of supply in all the 
 assemblies, in which the constant style of granting is, "An 
 aid to his Majesty " ; and acts granting to the crown have 
 regularly for near a century paired the public;.. offices without 
 dispute. Those whoMfave^Venpreased paradoxically to 25 
 deny this right, holding that none but the British Parliament 
 can grant to the crown, are wished to look to what is done, 
 not only in the colonies, but in Ireland, in one uniform, un- 
 broken tenor every session. Sir, I am surprised that this 
 doctrine should come from some of tl\e law servants of the 
 crown. I say that if the crown^ could be responsible^ his 
 Majesty but certainly the ministers, and even these law 
 officers themselves through whose hands the acts pass, 
 
 V
 
 54 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 biennially in Ireland or annually in the colonies, are in an X 
 
 habitual course of committing impeachable offences. What prj 
 
 habitual offenders have been all presidents .of the cpuncil^ll 
 
 secretaries of state, all fiTsffioVcisortra^ and 
 
 5 all_solicitors-general \ ^However, they are safeTiafe no one 
 
 impeaches them ; and there is no ground of charge against 
 
 them, except in their own unfounded theories. 
 
 The fifth resolution is also a resolution of fact, 
 
 J That the said general assemblies, general courts, or other 
 
 10 bodies legally qualified as aforesaid, have at sundry times freely 
 
 granted several large subsidies and public aids for his Majesty's 
 
 service, according to their abilities, when required thereto by letter 
 
 from one of his Majesty's principal secretaries of state; and that 
 
 their right to grant the same and their cheerfulness and sufficiency 
 
 15 in the said grants have been at sundry times acknowledged by 
 
 Parliament. 
 
 | 
 To say nothing of their great expenses in the Indian war,i 
 
 and not to take theii exertion in foreign ones so high^as the 
 supplies in the year i^g^Vnot to go ,b^ck to their public 
 
 20 contributions in the year 1710, I shall begin to travel only 
 where the journals give~me~light, resolving to deal in 
 nothing but fact authenticated by parliamentary record, and 
 to build myself wholly on that solid basis. 
 
 On the 4th of April, 1^8, _a committee of this House came 
 
 25 to the following resolution: 
 
 Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee that it is just 
 and reasonable that the several provinces and colonies of Massa- 
 chusetts Bay, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island, 
 be reimbursed the expenses they have been at in taking and 
 30 securing to the crown of Great Britain the island of Cape Breton 
 and its dependencies. 
 
 These expenses were immense for such colonies. They 
 were above ^200,000 sterling: money first raised and ad- 
 vanced on their public credit.
 
 LIBERALITY OF THE COLONIES. 55 
 
 ' 
 
 On the 28th of January, 1756, a message from the king 
 came to us to this effect : 
 
 His Majesty, being sensible of the zeal and vigor with which 
 his faithful subjects of certain colonies in North America have 
 exerted themselves in defence of his Majesty's just rights and 5 
 possessions, recommends it to this House to take the same into 
 their consideration, and to enable his Majesty to give them such 
 assistance as may be a proper reward and encouragement. 
 
 On the 3d of February, 1756, the House came to a suit- 
 able resolution, expressed in words nearly the same as those 10 
 of the message; but with the further addition that the 
 money then voted was as an encouragement to the colonies to 
 exert themselves with vigor. It will not be necessary to go 
 through all the testimonies which your own records have 
 given to the truth of my resolutions. I will only refer you 15 
 to the places in the journals: 
 
 Vol. XXVII. i6th and iQth May, 1757. 
 Vol. XXVIII. June ist, 1758; April 26th and 3oth, 1759; 
 March 26th and 3ist, and April 28th, 1760; Jan. pth and 2oth, 1761. 
 Vol. XXIX. Jan. 22nd and 26th, 1762; March i4th and 20 
 176 
 
 Sir, here is the repeated acknowledgment of Parliament 
 that the colonies not only gave, but gave to satiety. This 
 nation has formally acknowledged two things : first, that the 
 colonies had gone beyond their abilities, Parliament having 25 
 thought it necessary to reimburse them ; secondly, that they 
 had acted legally and laudably in their grants of money 
 and their maintenance of troops, since the compensation 
 is expressly given as reward and encouragement. Reward 
 is not bestowed for acts that are unlawful ; and encourage- 30 
 ment is not held out to things that deserve reprehension. 
 My resolution therefore does nothing more than collect into 
 one proposition what is scattered through your journals. I
 
 56 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 give you nothing but your own ; and you cannot refuse in 
 the gross what you have so often acknowledged in detail. 
 The admission of this, which will be so honorable to them 
 and to you, will indeed be mortal to all the miserable stories 
 
 r ., . 
 
 5 by which the passions of the misguioed Jpeofole have been 
 engaged in an unhappy system. The people heard, indeed, 
 from the beginning of these disputes, one thing continually 
 dinned in their ears, that reason and justice demanded 
 that the Americans, who paid no taxes, should be compelled 
 
 10 to contribute. How did that fact of their paying nothing 
 stand when the taxing system began ? When Mr. Gjen- 
 yjlle began to form his system of American revenue, he 
 stated in this House that the colonies were then in debt two 
 millions six hundred thousand pounds sterling money, and 
 
 15 was of opinion they would discharge that debt in four years. 
 On this state, those untaxed people were actually subject to 
 the payment of taxes to the amount of six hundred and fifty 
 thousand a year. In fact, however, Mr. Grenville was mis- 
 taken. The funds given for sinking the debt did not prove 
 
 20 quite so ample as both the colonies and he expected. The 
 calculation was too sanguine : the reduction was not com- 
 pleted till some years after, and at different times in different 
 colonies. However, the taxes after the war continued too 
 great to bear any addition with prudence or propriety ; and 
 
 25 when the burdens imposed in consequence of former reqtusi-2" 
 tions were discharged, our tone became too high to resort 
 again to requisition. No colony since that time ever has had 
 any requisition whatsoever made to it. 
 
 We see the sense of the crown and the sense of Parliament 
 
 30 on the productive nature of a revenue by grant. Now search 
 the same journals for the produce of. the revenue by imposi- 
 tion. Where is it ? Let us know the volume and the page. 
 What is the gross, what is the net produce ? To what ser- 
 vice is it applied? How have you appropriated its surplus?
 
 THEORY VS. EXPERIENCE. 57 
 
 What, can none of the many skilful index-makers that we 
 are now employing find any trace of it? Well, let them 
 and that rest together. But are the journals, which say 
 nothing of the revenue, as silent on the discontent ? Oh, 
 no ! a child may find it. It is the melancholy burden and 5 
 blot of every page. 
 
 I think, then, I am, from those journals, justified in the 
 sixth and last resolution, which is, 
 
 t That it hath been found by experience that the manner of 
 granting the said supplies and aids by the said general assemblies 10 
 hath been more agreeable to the said colonies, and more beneficial 
 and conducive to the public service, than the mode of giving and 
 granting aids in Parliament, to be raised and paid in the said 
 colonies. 
 
 This makes the whole of the fundamental part of the plan. 15 
 The conclusion is irresistible. You cannot say that you 
 were driven by any necessity to an exercise of the utmost 
 rights of legislature. You cannot assert that you took on 
 yourselves the task of imposing colony taxes, from the want 
 of another legal body that is competent to the purpose of 20 
 supplying the exigencies of the state without wounding the 
 prejudices of the people. Neither is it true that the body so 
 qualified and having that competence had neglected the duty. 
 
 The question now, on all this accumulated matter, is, 
 whether you will choose to abide by a profitable experience 25 
 or a mischievous theory ; whether you choose to build on 
 imagination or fact ; whether you prefer enjoyment or hope ; 
 satisfaction in your subjects or discontent ? 
 
 If these propositions are accepted, everything which has 
 been made to enforce a contrary system must, I take it for 30 
 granted, fall along with it. On that ground I have drawn 
 the following resolution, which, when it comes to be moved, 
 will naturally be divided in a proper manner :
 
 58 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 That it may be proper to repeal an act made in the! seventh 
 year of the reign of his present Majesty, entitled, /\n act for 
 granting certain duties in the British colonies and plantations in 
 America ; for allowing a drawback of the duties of customs upon 
 5 the exportation from this kingdom, of coffee and cocoanuts of the 
 produce of the said colonies or plantations ; for discontinuing the 
 drawbacks payable on China earthenware exported to America ; 
 ^nd for more effectually preventing the clandestine running of 
 goods in the said colonies and plantations." And that it may be 
 
 10 proper to repeal an act made in the fourteenth year of the reign 
 of his present Majesty, entitled, l ^Kn act to discontinue, in such 
 manner and for such time as are therein mentioned, the landing 
 and discharging, lading or shipping, of goods, wares and merchan- 
 dise, at the town and within the harbor of B.oston, in the province 
 
 15 of Massachusetts Bay, in North America." And that it may be 
 proper to repeal an act made in the fourteenth year of the reign 
 of his present Majesty, entitled, "^.n act for the impartial admin- 
 istration of justice in the cases of persons questioned for any acts 
 done by them in the execution of the law, or for the suppression 
 
 20 of riots and tumults, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in New 
 England." And that it may be proper to repeal an act made in 
 thej fourteenth year of the reign of his present Majesty, entitled, 
 
 L/(*M^*!L4L n act ^ or *^e t> etter regulating the government of the province f 
 
 'of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England." And also, that it 
 25 may be proper to explain and amend an act made in the 
 fifth year of the reign of King Henry the Eighth, entitled, 
 act for the trial of treasons committed out of the king's dominions.'// 
 
 \*\ \ 
 
 I wish, Sir, to repeal the Boston Port Bill, because (inde- 
 
 pendently of the dangerous precedent of suspending the 
 
 3 rights of the subject during the king's pleasure) it was 
 
 passed, as I apprehend, with less regularity and on more 
 
 partial principles than it ought. The corporation of Boston 
 
 wasnot heard before it was condemned. Other towns, full 
 
 n ** ^ - ? 
 
 as guilty as she was, have not had their ports blocked up. 
 35 Even the Restraining' Bill of the present session does not go
 
 REASONS FOR REPEAL. 59 
 
 to the length of the Boston Port Act. The same ideas of 
 prudence which induced you not to extend equal punishment 
 to equal guilt, even when you were punishing, induced me, 
 who mean not to chastise but to reconcile, to be satisfied 
 with the punishment already partially inflicted. 5 
 
 Ideas of prudence and accommodation to circumstances 
 prevent you from taking away the charters of Connecticut 
 and Rhode Island, as you have taken away that of Massa- 
 chusetts Colony, though the crown has far less power in the 
 two former provinces than it enjoyed in the latter, and 10 
 though the abuses have been full as great and as llagrant in 
 the exempted as in the punished. The same reasons of 
 prudence and accommodation have weight with me in restor- 
 ing the charter of Massachusetts Bay. Besides, Sir, the act 
 which changes the charter of Massachusetts is in many par- 15 
 ticulars so exceptionable that, if I did not wish absolutely to 
 repeal, I would by all means desire to alter it, as several of 
 its provisions tend to the subversion of all public and private 
 justice. Such, among others, is the power in the governor 
 to change the sheriff at his pleasure, and to make a new 20 
 returning officer for every special cause. It is shameful to 
 behold such a regulation standing among English laws. 
 
 The act for bringing persons accused of committing 
 murder under, the orders .of government to England for trial 
 is but tejiirjQraiy. " "That act has calculated the probable 25 
 duration of our quarrel with the colonies, and is accomo- 
 dated to that supposed duration. I would hasten the happy 
 moment of reconciliation; and therefore must, on my princi- 
 ple, get rid of that most justly obnoxious act. 
 
 The act of Henry the Eighth for the trial of treasons I do 3 
 not mean to take away, but to confine it to its proper 
 bounds and original intention; to make it expressly for trial 
 of treasons (and the greatest treasons may be committed) in 
 places where the jurisdiction of the crown does not extend.
 
 60 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 Having guarded the privileges of local legislature, I would 
 next secure to the colonies a fair and unbiased judicature \ 
 for which purpose, Sir, I propose the following resolution : 
 
 That, from the time when the general assembly, or general 
 5 court, of any colony or plantation in North America shall have 
 appointed by act of assembly duly confirmed, a settled salary to 
 the offices of the chief justice and other judges of the superior 
 court, it may be proper that the said chief justice and other judges 
 of the superior courts of such colony shall hold his and their office 
 
 10 and offices during theirgoodbehavior, and shall not be removed 
 therefrom but when the said removal shall be adjudged by his 
 Majesty in council, upon a hearing on complaint from the general 
 assembly, or on a complaint from the governor or council or the 
 house of representatives, severally, of the colony in which the said 
 
 15 chief justice and other judges have exercised the said offices. 
 
 The next resolution relates to the courts of admiralty. It 
 is this : 
 
 That it may be proper to regulate the .courts of admiralty or 
 vice-admiralty authorized by the fifteenth chapter of the fourth of 
 20 George the Third, in such a manner as to make the same more 
 commodious to those who sue or are sued in the said courts ; and 
 to provide for the more decent maintenance of the judges in 
 the same. 
 
 These courts I do not wish to take away : they are in 
 25 themselves proper establishments. This court is one of the 
 capital securities of the Act of Navigation. The extent of 
 its jurisdiction, indeed, has been increased ; but this is alto- 
 gether as proper, and is indeed on many accounts more 
 eligible, where new powers were wanted, than a court abso- 
 30 lutely new. But courts incommodiously situated in effect 
 deny justice ; and a court partaking in the fruits of its own 
 condemnation is a robber. The Congress complain, and 
 complain justly, of this grievance.
 
 PARLIAMENTARY PRECEDENTS. 61 
 
 These are the three consequential propositions. I have 
 thought of two or three more ; but they come rather too near 
 detail and to the province of executive government, which I 
 wish Parliament always to superintend, never to assume. If 
 the first six are granted, congruity will carry the latter three. 5 
 If not, the things that remain unrepealed will be, I hope, 
 rather unseemly incumbrances on the building than very 
 materially detrimental to its strength and stability. 
 
 Here, Sir, I should close ; but I plainly perceive some 
 objections remain, which I ought, if possible, to remove. 10 
 The first will be that, in resorting to the doctrine of our 
 ancestors as contained in the preamble to the Chester Act, 
 I prove too much ; that the grievance from a want of repre- 
 sentation, stated in that preamble, goes to the whole of legis- 
 lation as well as to taxation ; and that the colonies, ground- 15 
 ing themselves upon that doctrine, will apply it to all parts 
 of legislative authority. 
 
 To this objection, with all possible deference and humility, 
 and wishing as little as any man living to impair the smallest 
 particle of our supreme authority, I answer that the words are 20 
 the words of Parliament, and not mine ; and that all false and 
 inconclusive inferences drawn from them are not mine, for I 
 heartily disclaim any such inference. I have chosen the 
 words of an act of Parliament which Mr. Grenville, surely a 
 tolerably zealous and very judicious a ,dYP rafp fnr-thp trw- 25 
 ereignty of Parliament, formerly moved to have read at your 
 table in confirmation of his tenets. It is true that LorcL 
 Chatham considered these, preambles as declaring strongly 
 in favor of his opinions. He was a no less powerful advo- 
 cate for the privileges of the Americans. Ought I not from 30 
 hence to presume that these preambles are as favorable as 
 possible to both, when properly understood, favorable both 
 to the rights of Parliament and to the privilege of the de- 
 pendencies of this crown? But, Sir, the object of grievance
 
 62 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 in my resolution I have not taken from the Chester, but 
 from the Durham Act, which confines the hardship of want 
 of representation to the case of subsidies, and which there- 
 fore falls in exactly with the case of the, colonies. But) 
 
 -M/kOOocU ,/w'Vs > 
 
 5 whether the unrepresented counties were de jure or dc facto 
 bound, the preambles do not accurately distinguish ; nor 
 indeed was it necessary ; for whether de jure or de facto, the 
 legislature thought the exercise of the power of taxing, as of 
 right or as of fact without right, equally a grievance and 
 
 10 equally oppressive. 
 
 I do not know that the colonies have, in any general way 
 or in any cool hour, gone much beyond the demand of 
 immunity in relation to taxes. It is not fair to judge of the 
 temper or disposition of any man or any set of men, when 
 
 15 they are composed and at rest, from their conduct or their 
 expressions in a state of disturbance and irritation. It is, 
 besides, a very great mistake to imagine that mankind 
 follow up practically any speculative principle, either of 
 government or of freedom, as far as it will go in argument 
 
 20 and logical illation. We Englishmen stop very short of the 
 principles upon which we support any given part of our 
 Constitution, or even the whole of it together. I could 
 easily, if I had not already tired you, give you very striking 
 and convincing instances of it. This is nothing but what is 
 
 25 natural and proper. All government, indeed every human 
 benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, 
 is founded on compromise and barter. We balance incon- 
 veniencies ; we give and take ; we remit some rights that we 
 may enjoy others ; and we choose rather to be happy 
 
 30 citizens than subtle disputants. As we must give away 
 some natural liberty to enjoy civil advantages, so we must 
 sacrifice some civil liberties for the advantages to be derived 
 from the communion and fellowship of a great empire. But 
 in all fair \iealings the thing bought must bear some propor-
 
 UNION OF INTERESTS DESIRABLE. 63 
 
 tion to the purchase paid. None will barter away the imine- - 
 cliate jewel of his soul. Though a great house is apt to 
 make slaves haughty, yet it is purchasing a part of the arti- 
 ficial importance of a great empire too dear to pay for it all 
 essential rights and all the intrinsic* dignity of human nature. 5 
 None of us who would not risk his life rather than fall under 
 a government purely arbitrary. But although there are 
 some amongst us who think our Constitution wants many 
 improvements to make it a complete system of liberty, per- 
 haps none who are of that opinion would think it right to 10 
 
 -v>-W fucv-^v v "CAT . ' 
 
 aim at such improvement by disturbing his country and risk- 
 ing everything that is dear to him. In every arduous enter- 
 prise we consider what we are to lose as well as what we 
 are to gain : and the more and better stake of liberty every 
 people possess, the less they will hazard in a vain attempt li/^a '0J 
 to make it more. These are the cords of man. Man acts 
 from adequate motives relative to his interest, and not on 
 metaphysical speculations. Aristotle, the great master of 
 reasoning, cautions us, and with great weight and propriety, 
 against this species of delusive geometrical accuracy in 20 
 moral arguments, as the most fallacious of all sophistry. 
 
 The Americans will have no interest contrary to the 
 grandeur and glory of England, when they are not oppressed 
 by the weight of it ; and they will rather be inclined to re- 
 spect the acts of a superintending legislature, when they see 25 
 them the acts of that power which is itself the security, not 
 the rival, of their secondary importance. In this assurance 
 my mind most perfectly acquiesces ; and I confess I feel not 
 the least alarm from the discontents which are to arise from .. 
 putting people at their ease ; nor do I apprehend the destruc- 30 
 tion of this empire from giving, by an act of free grace and 
 indulgence, to two millions of my fellow-citizens, some share 
 of those rights upon which I have always been taught to 
 value myself. 

 
 64 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 It is said, indeed, that this power of granting, vested in 
 American assemblies, would dissolve the unity of the empire/ 
 which was preserved entire, although Wales and Chester and 
 Durham were added to it. Truly, Mr. Speaker, I do not 
 
 5 know what this unity means ; nor has it ever been heard of, 
 that I know, in the constitutional policy of this country. 
 The very idea of subordination of parts excludes this notion 
 of simple and undivided unity. England is the head, but 
 she is not the head and the members too. Ireland has ever 
 
 10 had from the beginning a separate, but not an independent, 
 legislature, which, far from distracting, promoted the union 
 of the whole. Everything was sweetly and harmoniously 
 disposed through both islands for the conservation of Eng- 
 lish dominion and the communication of English liberties. 
 
 15 I do not see that the same principles might not be carried 
 into twenty islands, and with the same good effect. This is 
 my model with regard to America, as far as the internal cir- 
 cumstances of the two countries are the same. I know no 
 other unity of this empire than I can draw from its example 
 
 20 during these periods when it seemed to my poor understand- 
 ing more united than it is now, or than it is likely to be by 
 the present methods. 
 
 But since I speak of these methods, I recollect, Mr. 
 Speaker, almost too late, that I promised, before I finished, 
 
 25 to say something of the proposition of the noble lord on the 
 floor, which has been so lately received, and stands on your 
 journals. I must be deeply concerned whenever it is my 
 misfortune to continue a difference with the majority of 
 this House. But 'as the reasons for that difference are 
 
 30 my apology for thus troubling you, suffer me to state them 
 in a very few words. I shall compress them into as 
 small a body as I possibly can, having already debated 
 that matter at large when the question was before the 
 committee.
 
 RANSOM BY AUCTION A MERE PROJECT. 65 
 
 First, then, I cannot admit that proposition of a ransom 
 by auction, because it is a mere project. It is a thing new, 
 unheard of, supported by no experience, justified by no 
 analogy, without example of our ancestors or root in the 
 Constitution. It is neither regular parliamentary taxation 5 
 nor colony grant. Experimentum in corpore vili is a good 
 rule, which will ever make me adverse to any trial of experi- 
 ments on what is certainly the most valuable of all subjects, 
 the peace of this empire. 
 
 Secondly, it is an experiment which must be fatal in the 10 
 end to our Constitution. For what is it but a scheme for 
 taxing the colonies in the ajitechamber of the noble lord 
 his successors ? To settle the quotas 1 and proportions 
 this House is clearly impossible. You, Sir, may flatter your- 
 self you shall sit a state auctioneer with your hammer in 15 
 your hand, and knock down to each colony as it bids. But 
 to settle (on the plan laid down by the noble lord) the true 
 proportional payment for four or five and twenty governments, 
 according to the absolute and the relative wealth of each, 
 and according to the British proportion of wealth and 20 
 burden, is a wild and chimericarhotion. This new taxation 
 must therefore come in by the back door of the Constitution. 
 Each quota must be brought to this House ready formed. 
 You can neither add nor alter. You must register it. You 
 can do nothing further. For on what grounds can you 25 
 deliberate either before or after the proposition ? You can- 
 not hear the counsel for all these provinces, quarrelling each 
 on its own quantity of payment and its proportion to others. 
 If you should attempt it, the committee of provincial ways 
 and means, or by whatever other name it will delight to be 30 
 called, must swallow up all the time of Parliament. 
 
 Thirdly, it does not give satisfaction to the 'complaint of 
 the colonies. They complain that they are taxed without 
 their consent : you answer that you will fix the sum at which 
 
 '. 'SV/CKy^f- 
 
 <JL
 
 66 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 they shall be taxed. That is, you give them the very griev- 
 ance for the remedy. You tell them, indeed, that you will 
 leave the mode to themselves. I really beg pardon ; it 
 gives me pain to mention it ; but you must be sensible that 
 5 you will not perform this part of the compact. For suppose 
 the colonies were to lay the duties which furnished their 
 contingent upon the importation of your manufactures, you 
 know you would never suffer such a tax to be laid. You 
 know, too, that you would not suffer many other modes of 
 
 10 taxation. So that when you come to explain yourself, it 
 will be found that you will neither leave to themselves the 
 quantum nor the mode ; nor indeed anything. The whole 
 is delusion from one end to the other. 
 
 Fourthly, this method of ransom by auction, unless it be 
 
 15 universally accepted, will plunge you into great and inex- 
 tricable difficulties. In what year of our Lord are the pro- 
 portions of payments to be settled? To say nothing of the 
 impossibility that colony agents should have general powers 
 of taxing the colonies at their discretion, consider, I implore 
 
 20 you, that the communication by special messages and orders 
 between these agents and their constituents on each variation 
 of the case, when the parties come to contend together and 
 to dispute on their relative proportions, will be a matter of 
 delay, perplexity and confusion that never can have an 
 
 25 end. 
 
 If all the colonies do not appear at the outcry, what is the 
 condition of those assemblies who offer, by themselves or 
 their agents, to tax themselves up to your ideas of their 
 proportion ? The refractory colonies who refuse all ,pnv_ 
 
 3 position will remain taxed only to your old impositions, 
 which, however grievous in principle, are trifling as to pro- 
 duction. The obedient colonies in this scheme are heavily 
 taxed ; the refractory remain unburdened. What will you 
 do ? -Will you lay new and heavier taxes by Parliament on
 
 A LABYRINTH OF DETAIL. 67 
 
 the disobedient ? Pray consider in what way you can do it. 
 You are perfectly convinced that in the way of taxing you 
 can do nothing but at the ports. Now suppose it is Virginia 
 that refuses to appear at your auction, while Maryland and 
 North Carolina bid handsomely for their ransom, and are 5 
 taxed to your quota, how will you put these colonies on a 
 par ? Will you tax the tobacco of Virginia ? If you do, 
 you give its death-wound to your English revenue at home 
 and to one of the very greatest articles of your own foreign 
 trade. If you tax the import of that rebellious colony, what 10 
 do you tax but your own manufactures or the goods of some 
 other obedient and already well-taxed colony ? Who has 
 said one word on this labyrinth of detail which bewilders 
 you more and more as you enter into it? Who has pre- 
 sented, who can present you with a clue to lead you out of 15 
 it ? I think, Sir, it is impossible that you should not recol- 
 lect that the colony bounds are so implicated in one another 
 (you know it by your other experiments in the bill for prohib- 
 iting the New England fishery) that you can lay no possible 
 restraints on almost any of them which may not be presently 20 
 eluded, if you do not confound the innocent with the guilty, 
 and burden those whom, upon every principle, you ought to 
 exonerate. He must be grossly ignorant of America who 
 thinks that, without falling into this confusion of all rules of 
 equity and policy, you can restrain any single colony, espe- 25 
 daily Virginia and Maryland, the central and most important 
 of them all. 
 
 Let it also be considered that, either in the present con- 
 fusion you settle a permanent contingent, which will and 
 must be trifling, and then you have no effectual revenue ; 30 
 or you change the quota at every exigency, and then on 
 every new repartition you will have a new quarrel. 
 
 Reflect besides, that when you have fixed a quota for 
 every colony, you have not provided for prompt and punctual
 
 68 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 payment. Suppose one, two, five, ten years' arrears. You 
 cannot issue a treasury extent against the failing colony. 
 You must make new Boston Port Bills, new restraining laws, 
 new acts for dragging men to England for trial. You must 
 5 send out new fleets, new armies. All is to begin again. 
 From this day forward the empire is never to know an 
 hour's tranquillity. An intestine fire will be kept alive in 
 the bowels of the colonies, which one time or other must 
 consume this whole empire. I allow indeed that the empire 
 
 10 of Germany raises her revenue and her troops by quotas '." 
 .and contingents ; but the revenue of the empire and the 
 army of the empire is the worst revenue and the worst army 
 in the world. 
 
 Instead of a standing revenue, you will therefore have a 
 
 15 perpetual quarrel. Indeed, the noble lord who proposed 
 this project of a ransom by auction seemed himself to be of 
 that opinion. His project was rather designed for breaking 
 the union of the colonies than for establishing a revenue. 
 He confessed he apprehended that his proposal would not 
 
 20 be to their taste. I say this scheme of disunion seems to be 
 at the bottom of the project ; for I will not suspect that the 
 noble lord meant nothing but merely to delude the nation 
 by an airy phantom which he never intended to realize. 
 But whatever his views may be, as I propose the peace and 
 
 25 union of the colonies as the very foundation of my plan, 
 it cannot accord with one whose foundation is perpetual 
 discord. 
 
 Compare the two. This I offer to give you is plain and 
 simple : the other full of perplexed and intricate mazes. 
 
 30 This is mild : that harsh. This 'is found by experience 
 effectual for its purposes: the other is a new project. This 
 is universal : the other calculated for certain colonies only, 
 This is immediate in its conciliatory operation : the other 
 remote, contingent, full of hazard. Mine is what becomes
 
 , 
 
 THE POWER OF REFUSAL. 
 
 the dignity of a ruling people, gratuitous, unconditional, 
 and not held out as a matter of bargain and sale. I have 
 done my dutyjn proposing it to you. I have indeed tired 
 you by a long qiscourse ; but this is the misfortune of those 
 to whose influence nothing will be conceded, and who must 5 
 win every inch of their ground by argument. You have 
 heard me with goodness. May you decide with wisdom ! 
 For my part, I feel my mind greatly disburdened by what I 
 have done to-day. I have been the less fearful of trying 
 your patience, because on this subject I mean to spare it 10 
 altogether in future. I have this comfort, that in every 
 stage of the American affairs I have steadily opposed the 
 measures that have produced the confusion, and may bring 
 on the destruction, of this empire. I now go so far as to 
 risk a proposal of my own. If I cannot give peace to my 15 
 country, I give it to my conscience. 
 
 " But what," says the financier, " is peace to us without 
 money ? Your plan gives us no revenue." No ! But it 
 does ; for it secures to the subject the power of REFUSAL, 
 the first of all revenues. Experience is a cheat and fact a 20 
 liar, if this power in the subject of proportioning his grant, 
 or of not granting at all, has not been found the richest mine 
 of revenue ever discovered by the skill or by the fortune of 
 man. It does not indeed vote you .152,750 i is. 2^ths, nor 
 any other paltry limited sum ; but it gives the strong-box 25 
 itself, the 'fund, the bank, from whence only revenues can 
 arise amongst a people sensible of freedom : Posita luditur 
 OjXfl. Cannot you in England, cannot you at this time of 
 day, cannot you, an House of Commons, trust to the principle 
 which has raised so mighty a revenue and accumulated a 30 
 debt of near 140 millions in this country? Is this principle 
 to be true in England and false everywhere else ? Is it not 
 true in Ireland ? Has it not hitherto been true in the colo- 
 nies ? Why should you presume that in any country a body
 
 70 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 duly constituted for any function will neglect to perform its 
 duty and abdicate its trust ? Such a presumption would go 
 against all governments in all modes. But in truth this 
 dread of penury .of supply from a free assembly has no 
 
 5 foundation in nature. For first observe, that besides the 
 desire which all men have naturally of supporting the honor 
 of their own government, that sense of dignity and that 
 security to property which ever attends freedom has a 
 tendency to increase the stock of the free community. 
 
 io^ Most may be taken where most is accumulated. And what 
 is the soil or climate where experience has not uniformly 
 proved that the voluntary flow of heaped-up plenty, bursting 
 from the weight of its own rich luxuriance, has ever run 
 with a more copious stream of revenue than could be 
 
 15 squeezed from the dry husks of oppressed indigence /by jr 
 the straining of all the politic machinery in the world ?J^ jS^ 
 
 Next, we know that parties must ever exist in a free 
 country. We know, too, that the emulations of such parties, 
 their contradictions, their reciprocal necessities, their hopes 
 
 20 and their fears, must send them all in their turns to him 
 that holds the balance of the state. The parties are the 
 gamesters ; but government keeps the table, and is sure to 
 be the winner in the end. When this game is played, I 
 really think it is more to be feared that the people will 
 
 25 be exhausted than that government will not be supplied. 
 Whereas, whatever is got by acts of absolute ' power, ill 
 obeyed because odious, or by contracts ill kept because con- 
 strained, will be narrow, feeble, uncertain and precarious. 
 
 Ease would retract 
 30 Vows made in pain, as violent and void. 
 
 I, for one, protest against compounding our demands : I 
 declare against compounding for a poor limited sum the 
 immense, ever-growing, eternal debt which is due to gen- 
 
 CrT
 
 REVENUE FROM AMERICA IMPOSSIBLE. 71 
 
 erous government from protected freedom. And so may I 
 speed in the great object I propose to you, as I think it 
 would not only be an act of injustice, but would be the worst 
 economy in the world, to compel the colonies to a sum cer- 
 tain, either in the way of ransom or in the way of compulsory 5 
 compact. 
 
 But to clear up my ideas on this subject, a revenue 
 from America transmitted hither, do not delude your- 
 selves : you never can receive it, no, not a shilling. We 
 have experience that from remote countries it is not to be 10 
 expected. If, when you attempted to extract revenue from 
 Bengal, you were obliged to return in loan\what you had 
 taken in imposition, what can you expect from North 
 America ? For certainly, if ever there was a country quali- 
 fied to produce wealth, it is India ; or an institution fit for 15 
 the transmission, it is the East India Company. America has 
 none of these aptitudes. If America gives you taxable ob- 
 jects on which you lay your duties here, and gives you at 
 the same time a surplus by a foreign sale of her commodi- 
 ties to pay the duties on these objects which you tax at 20 
 home, she has performed her part to the British revenue. 
 But with regard to her own internal establishments, she may, 
 I doubt not she will, contribute in moderation. I say 
 in moderation ; for she ought not to be permitted to exhaust 
 herself. She ought to be reserved to a war, the weight of 25 
 which, with the enemies that we are most likely to have, 
 must be considerable in her quarter of the globe. There 
 she may serve you, and serve you essentially. 
 
 For that service, for all service, whether of revenue, trade 
 or empire, my trust is in her interest in the British Constitu- 3 
 tion. My hold of the colonies is in the close affection which 
 grows from common names, from kindred blood, from simi- 
 lar privileges and equal protection. These are ties which, 
 though light as air, are as stroner as links of iron. Let the 
 

 
 72 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights associated 
 with your government, they will cling and grapple to y 
 and no force under heaven will be of power to tear them 
 from their allegiance. But let it be once understood that 
 5 your government may be one thing and their privileges 
 another ; that these two things may exist without any 
 mutual relation, the cement is gone, the cohesion is loosened 
 and everything hastens to decay and dissolution. As long 
 as you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of 
 
 10 this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sacred temple 
 consecrated to our common faith, wherever the chosen race 
 and sons of England worship freedom, they will turn their 
 faces towards you. The more they multiply, the more 
 friends you will have ; the more ardently they love liberty, 
 
 15 the more perfect will be their obedience. Slavery they can 
 have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in 'every soil. They 
 may have it from Spain ; they may have it from Prussia. 
 But until you become lost to all feeling of your true interest 
 and your natural dignity, freedom they cajjhavefra-none, 
 
 20 but you. This is the commodity of price^ofwhich you have^ 
 the monopoly. This is the true Act of Navigation which 
 binds to you the commerce of the colonies, and through 
 them secures to you the wealth of the world. Deny them 
 this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond 
 
 25 which originally made and must still preserve the unity of 
 the empire. Do not entertain so weak an imagination as 
 that y9urregistersand^Qut.bonds, your affidavits and your 
 
 qj"S*flfe?a v ncgs^~your cocketsaVid your clearances, are what form 
 the great securities of your commerce. Do not dream that 
 
 30 your letters of office and your instructions and your suspend- 
 ing clauses are the things that hold together the great con- 
 texture of the mysterious whole. These things do not make 
 your government. Dead instruments, passive tools as they 
 are, it is the spirit of the English communion that gives all
 
 MAGNANIMITY THE TRUEST WISDOM. 73 
 
 their life and efficacy to them. It is the spirit of the English 
 Constitution, which, infused through the mighty mass, per- 
 vades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies every part of the 
 empire, even down to the minutest member. 
 
 Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here 5 
 in England ? Do you imagine, then, that it is the Land Tax 
 Act: which raises your revenue ? that it is the annual vote in 
 the Committee of Supply which gives you your army ? or 
 that it is the TVjutiny Rilljvhirh inspires it with bravery and 
 discipline ? No ! surely no ! It is the love of the people : 10 
 it is their attachment to their government, from the sense 
 of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, 
 which gives you your army and your navy, and infuses into 
 both that liberal obedience without which your army would 
 be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber. 15 
 
 All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimer- 
 ical to the profapp hpjH of those vulgar and mechanical 
 politicians who have no place among us, a sort of people 
 who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material ; 
 and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors 20 
 of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel 
 in the machine. But to men truly initiated and rightly 
 taught, these ruling and master principles, which in the 
 opinion of such men as I have mentioned have no substan-yo 
 tial existence, are in truth everything and all in all^ Mag- 25 
 nanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom ; and a 
 great empire and little minds go ill together. If we are con- 
 scious of our situation and glow with zeal to fill our places 
 as becomes our station and ourselves, we ought to auspicate 
 all our public proceedings on America with the old warning 30 
 of the church, Sursum cordal We ought to elevate our 
 minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order of 
 Providence has called us. By adverting to the dignity of 
 this high calling, our ancestors have turned a savage wilder-
 
 74 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 ness into a glorious empire ; and have made the most ex- 
 tensive, and the only honorable conquests, not by destroying, 
 but by promoting the wealth, the number, the happiness of 
 the human race. Let us get an American revenue as we 
 
 5 have got an American empire. English privileges have 
 made it all that it is ; English privileges alone will make it 
 all it can be. 
 
 In full confidence of this unalterable truth, I now (quod 
 felix faustumque sitf) lay the first stone of the Temple of 
 
 10 Peace ; and I move you, 
 
 That the colonies and plantations of Great Britain in North 
 America, consisting of fourteen separate governments, and con- 
 taining two millions and upwards of free inhabitants, have not had 
 the liberty and privilege of electing and sending any knights and 
 15 burgesses, or others, to represent them in the high court of 
 Parliament. 
 
 Upon this resolution thp^prpvinns niip.fljinn,was put and Vw 
 carried: for the previous question, (27^; against it, 
 
 As the propositions were opened separately in the body 
 
 20 of the speech, the reader perhaps may wish to see the whole 
 
 of them together in the form in which they were moved for. 
 
 The first four motions and the last had the previous question 
 
 put on them. The others were negatived. The words in 
 
 italics were, by an amendment that was carried, left out of 
 
 25 the motion. 
 
 Moved, 
 
 That the colonies and plantations of Great Britain in North 
 America, consisting of fourteen separate governments, and con- 
 taining two millions and upwards of free inhabitants, have not had 
 30 the liberty and privilege of electing and sending any knights 
 and burgesses, or others, to represent them in the high court of 
 Parliament.
 
 
 RESOLUTIONS. 75 
 
 That the said colonies and plantations have been made liable to, 
 and bounden by, several subsidies, payments, rates and taxes, given 
 and granted by Parliament, though the said colonies and planta- 
 tions have not their knights and burgesses in the said high court 
 of Parliament, of their own election/ to represent the condition of 5 
 their country ; by lack whereof they have been oftentimes touched 
 and grieved by subsidies given, granted and assented to, in the 
 said court, in a manner prejudicial to the commonwealth, quiet- 
 ness, rest and peace of the subjects inhabiting within the same. 
 
 That, from the distance of the said colonies and from other 10 
 circumstances, no method hath hitherto been devised for procuring 
 a representation in Parliament for the said colonies. 
 
 That each of the said colonies hath within itself a body, chosen 
 in part or in the whole by the freemen, freeholders or other free 
 inhabitants thereof, commonly called the general assembly, or 15 
 general court ; with powers legally to raise, levy and assess, 
 according to the several usage of such colonies, duties and taxes 
 towards defraying all sorts of public services. 
 
 , That the said general assemblies, general courts, or other bodies 
 
 legally qualified as .aforesaid, hajje at sundry times freely granted 20 
 
 i i tfMi^^^V^S^-^ t u- . 
 
 several large sjobsrajes ana public aids for his Majesty s service, 
 
 according to their abilities, when required thereto by letter from 
 one of his Majesty's principal secretaries of state ; and that their 
 right to grant the same and their cheerfulness and sufficiency in 
 the said grants have been at sundry times acknowledged by 25 
 Parliament. 
 
 That it hath been found by experience that the manner of 
 granting the said supplies and aids by the said general assemblies 
 hath been more agreeable to the inhabitants of the said colonies, 
 and more beneficial and conducive to the public service, than the 30 
 mode of giving and granting aids in Parliament, to be raised and 
 paid in the said colonies. Oie^- ^1 ITS* 
 
 That it may be proper to repeal an act made in the seventh 
 year of the reign of his present Majesty, entitled, "An act for 
 granting certain duties in the British colonies and plantations in 35
 
 76 SPEECH OAT CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 
 
 America ; for allowing a drawback of the duties of customs upon 
 the exportation from this kingdom, of coffee and cocoanuts of the 
 produce of the said colonies or plantations ; for discontinuing the 
 drawbacks payable on China earthenware exported to America ; 
 $ and for more effectually preventing the clandestine running of 
 goods in the said colonies and plantations." 
 
 That it may be proper to repeal an act made in the fourteenth 
 year of the reign of his present Majesty, entitled, " An act to dis- ft* 
 continue, in such manner and for such time as are therein mentioned, 
 10 the landing and discharging, lading or shipping, of goods, wares 
 and merchandise, at the town and within the harbor of Boston, in 
 the province of Massachusetts Bay, in North America." 
 
 That it may be proper to repeal an act made in the fourteenth 
 year of the reign of his present Majesty, entitled, " An act for the L^ 
 15 impartial administration of justice in the cases of persons ques- \L* 
 tioned for any acts done by them in the execution of the law, or 
 for the suppression of riots and tumults, in the province of Massa- 
 chusetts Bay, in New England." Vw/v_/CftL V 
 
 That it may be proper to repeal an act made in the fourteenth 
 20 year of the reign of his present Majesty, entitled, " An act for 
 the better regulating the government of the province of the 
 Massachusetts Bay, in New England." r W\>u3CA/V\AJl di 
 
 That it may be proper to explain" and amend an act made in 
 the thirty-fifth year of the reign of King Henry the Eighth, A 
 25 entitled, " An act for the trial of treasons committed out of the 
 king's dominions." Or- 
 
 That from the time when the general assembly, or general 
 of any colony or plantation in North America shall have 
 ^ appointed by act of assembly duly confirmed, a settled salary to 
 30 the offices of the chief justice and other judges of the superior 
 court, it may be proper that the said chief justice and other judges 
 of the superior courts of such colony shall hold his and their office 
 and offices during their good behavior, and shall not be removed 
 therefrom but when the said removal shall be adjudged by his 
 35 Majesty in council, upon a hearing on complaint from the general
 
 THE RESOLUTIONS. 
 
 assembly, or on a complaint from the governor or coHincil or the 
 house of representatives, severally, of the colony in which the 
 said chief justice and other judges have exercised the said offices. 
 
 That it may be proper to regulate the courts of admiralty 
 vice-admiralty authorized by the fifteenth chapter of the fourth of 
 George the Third, in such a manner as to make the same more 
 commodious to those who sue or are sued in the said courts ; and 
 to provide for the more decent maintenance of the judges ofti 
 same. I
 
 
 
 
 vo 
 Y 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 W 
 
 
 V . 
 
 ! 
 
 % '! ; /7jr 
 
 
 

 
 NOTES. 
 
 References to passages in Burke's other writings are to the twelve-volume edition 
 of the Works (abbreviation IV.), Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1894 ; and to 
 the four volumes of the Correspondence (C.), Rivington, London, 1844. Both sets of 
 books, especially the first, are desirable for the reference library of any school where 
 Burke is studied. References to Dodsley's Annual Register are marked A. R. ; those 
 to the Parliamentary History, London, 1806-1820, P.H., and unless otherwise noted 
 are to volume XV11I; those to the Dictionary of National Biography, D. N. B. 
 References to Bancroft are to the History of the United States, six volumes, Apple- 
 ton, New York, 1888; to Lecky, England in the Eighteenth Century, eight volumes, 
 Appleton, New York, 1878-1890; to Green, History of the English People, four vol- 
 umes, Harper, New York, 1880 ; to Journals of the American Congress, the edition 
 published at Washington, 1823. References to volumes are in capital Roman numer- 
 als ; to chapters or similar subdivisions, in small Roman. 
 
 3 i. Sir, that notwithstanding the austerity of the Chair. In the 
 House of Commons and similar bodies speeches are nominally addressed, 
 not to the members, but to the presiding officer, called the Speaker, the 
 Chairman, or often the Chair. Instances of this form of address are 
 found in the following passages : 10 27-29 and 28 17. The Speaker at this 
 time was Sir Fletcher Norton, who held the office from 1770 to 1780. 
 Any one interested in his career may study it in the Dictionary of National 
 Biography. He is bitterly attacked in letter xxxix of Junius. The phrase 
 austerity of the Chair refers to the fact that in impartially preserving order 
 the Speaker is necessarily austere and sometimes even severe. 
 
 3 7. event. Result, my motion. The motion made at the end of 
 the speech. 
 
 grand penal bill. A bill to prevent the New England colonies 
 trading with any countries except Great Britain, Ireland, and the 
 ritish Islands in the West Indies ; and to prohibit the colonies from 
 thi- Newfoundland fisheries except under certain conditions. When Lord 
 ^orth brought in this bill, February 10, 1775 (f- &> 2 99)> ne defended it 
 -yon the ground that, because the Americans refused to trade with England, 
 England should not suffer them to trade with any other nation. Burke
 
 80 NOTES. 
 
 replied (ibid., 304) that the bill by destroying the source of the colonists' 
 income would make it impossible for them to pay their large debts to 
 English merchants and manufacturers. The bill came up again February 
 24 and 28 and March 6. On the last of these days Burke attacked it 
 again (ibid., 389), declaring that it attempted to preserve authority by 
 destroying dominion ; and that it passed sentence of beggary, if not 
 famine, on four great provinces. In another debate on May 8, when the 
 bill was passed, Burke said (ibid., 396) that it " did not mean to shed blood ; 
 but, to suit some gentleman's humanity, it only meant to starve five hun- 
 dred thousand people." For an account of the bill and the debates on it, 
 see P. H., 298-305, 379-400, 421-461. For another good account, perhaps 
 written by Burke himself, see A. J?., 1775, chapter vi. Since chapters i to 
 viii all deal with American affairs, they contain much matter of interest in 
 connection with this speech. 
 
 3 10. returned to us from the other House. The House of Lords 
 thought the provisions of the bill might well be extended to New Jersey, 
 Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, and therefore re- 
 turned it to the Commons for amendment. See P. //., 455-458. 
 
 3 13. once more in possession of our deliberative capacity. On the 
 return of the bill the Commons could again discuss it. 
 
 3 18. first day. November 29, 1774. P. ff., i. 
 
 3 21. coercion and restraint. The coercion was the attempt to crush 
 the resistance of New England to the tea duty ; the restraint, the restric- 
 tions upon trade. It is hard to see why these two things, prompted by 
 the same spirit, are called incongruous. 
 
 4 2. first. In 1765 Burke was elected to Parliament as member for 
 the borough of Wendover, but he did not take his seat till early in 1766. 
 
 4 4. delicate. Requiring careful treatment. Compare, " These deli- 
 cate points ought to be wholly left to the crown." Letter to the Sheriffs of 
 Bristol, W., II, 222. 
 
 4 8. trust. The idea that powers of government are held in trust for 
 the people comes out again and again in Burke's writings. Compare the 
 following passages: "They [Parliament and' the crown] all are trustees 
 for the people." Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, W., I, 
 492. " I had . . . very earnest wishes to keep the whole body of this 
 authority perfect . . . principally for the sake of those on whose account 
 all just authority exists: I mean the people to be governed." Letter to the 
 Sheriffs of Bristol, W., II, 223, 224. 
 
 4 9. more than common pains. Burke had in 1757 written, or helped 
 to write, an Account of the European Settlements in America, and since that 
 date his work in Parliament and on the Annual Register had kept him
 
 NOTES. 81 
 
 thoroughly informed on American affairs. As a result, he probably knew 
 more about the subject than any one in England. In his Letter to the 
 Sheriffs of Bristol, IV., II, 209, he says : " I think I know America. If I 
 do not, my ignorance is incurable, for I have spared no pains to under- 
 stand it." 
 
 4 16. blown about by every wind of fashionable doctrine. Compare, 
 " Henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about 
 with every wind of doctrine." Ephesians, iv, 14. 
 
 4 18. fresh principles. Burke is constantly urging the necessity of 
 more fixed principles in public policy. For example, in a letter to Charles 
 James Fox, October 8, 1777, he says: "I have ever wished a settled plan 
 of our own, founded in the very essence of the American business, wholly 
 unconnected with the events of the war." W., VI, 137. See also 26 7. 
 
 4 20. that period. In 1766 Parliament was inclined to conciliate the 
 colonies, and so repealed the Stamp Act by a vote of 275 to 161. See 
 P. If., XVI, 161-206 ; and A. R., 1766, chapter viii. 
 
 4 29. more frequent changes. See Introduction, xv-xviii. 
 
 5 3. complaint. Disease. 
 
 5 10. a worthy member. Mr. Rose Fuller, member for Rye. It was 
 during a debate on April 19, 1774, on a motion by Mr. Fuller to repeal the 
 American tea duty, that Burke made what is known as the Speech on 
 American Taxation. See IV., II, 5; and P. H., XVII, 1210-1273. 
 
 5 11. filled the Chair of the American Committee. Presided when the 
 whole House sat as a committee on American affairs. 
 
 5 14. our former methods. Both Burke and Fuller belonged to the 
 minority which had been criticising the action of the majority in regard to 
 America. 
 
 5 26. produce our hand. Show the cards in our hand ; that is, set 
 forth our own policy. The prevalence of gambling in Burke's day made 
 allusions to it more natural than they would be now. See 69 27, 70 22, 23 ; 
 also George Selwyn and His Contemporaries, London, 1843, I '^> 2 7 2 &- 
 
 5 30. platform. Outline, ground plan. 
 
 6 4. gave so far into his opinion. Compare, " This [the natural 
 slavery of barbarians] was so general a notion, that Aristotle himself, with 
 all his penetration, gave into it very seriously." European Settlements in 
 America, London, 1757, I, 31. (Payne.) 
 
 6 10. disreputably. To the damage of the reputation of those who 
 make them. 
 
 6 15. paper government. Burke's contempt for a plan based on theory 
 rather than experience is often strongly expressed, not only in this speech, 
 but throughout his writings. Compare 9 30-34, 18 28, 41 24, 49 16-18, 65 3 ;
 
 82 NOTES. 
 
 also the following passages : " It is proposed merely as a project of specu- 
 lative improvement." Present State of the Nation, IV., I, 372. " I reprobate 
 no form of government merely upon abstract principles." Reflections on 
 the Revolution in France, III, 396. " But the practice and knowledge of 
 the world will not suffer us to be ignorant that the Constitution on paper 
 is one thing, and in fatt and experience is another." Speech on the Dura- 
 tion of Parliaments, VII, 77. 
 
 6 24. most inconsiderable person. Compare, "When the affairs of 
 the nation are distracted, private people are . . . justified in stepping a little 
 out of their ordinary sphere." Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discon- 
 tents, W., I, 435. 
 
 7 4. natural. Arising from natural, or inborn, abilities, adventitious, 
 Due to external causes, such as rank or wealth. 
 
 7 13. discord fomented from principle. On February 20, 1775, Lord 
 North brought in a resolution (P. H., 319) that when any colony made 
 proper provision for contributing its proportion for the common defence 
 and for maintaining civil government, Parliament should no longer levy 
 taxes on it, except for the regulation of commerce. In the course of the 
 debate Colonel Barre said (ibid., 333) : " Though the noble lord's new 
 motion will cause no new divisions amongst us here, yet it is founded on 
 that wretched, low, shameful, abominable maxim which has predominated 
 in every measure of our late minister, divide et impera. This is to divide 
 the Americans ; this is to break those associations, to dissolve that gener- 
 ous union in which the Americans, as one man, stand in defence of their 
 rights and liberties." Lord North answered (334) : " The gentleman has 
 charged me with mean, low and foolish policy in grounding my measures 
 on that maxim, divide et impera. Is it foolish, is it mean, when a people, 
 heated and misled by evil councils, are running into unlawful combina- 
 tions, to hold out those terms which will sift the reasonable from the 
 unreasonable ? that will distinguish those who act upon principle from 
 those who only wish to profit of the general confusion ? If propositions 
 that the conscientious and the prudent will accept will at the same time 
 recover them from the influence and fascination of the wicked, I avow the 
 using that principle which will thus divide the good from the bad, and give 
 support to the friends of peace and good government." Later in the 
 debate Mr. Temple Luttrell asked (349) : " What is the aim and scope of 
 the resolution ? To lure some of the less refractory provinces of America 
 to dissociate from and betray their fellow-sufferers ; to join in raising a 
 contribution throughout one half of the colonies to support your armaments 
 and outrages against the other half, with a view to annihilate trade, cut off 
 every natural channel of livelihood and subsistence, and butcher the dis-
 
 NOTES. 83 
 
 obedient ; and how are these seceders to be recompensed for such signal 
 perfidy ? " For a full account of this debate, to which Burke evidently 
 alludes, see P. ff., 319-358, and A. fi., 1775, chapter vii. See also 68 
 17-21. 
 
 7 14. juridical determination. Juridical is sometimes used as if exactly 
 synonymous with/aY'a/. The latter, according to the Century Dictionary, 
 means pertaining to a judge, proper to the character of a judge, pertaining 
 to the administration of justice: juridical, however, means founded upon, 
 or in accordance with the strict forms of law, or abstract legal conceptions, 
 rather than with general principles of justice. A juridical determination is 
 one which might be reached on purely legal grounds, according to the 
 technical forms of law. The idea that an act of government should be 
 based not so much on strict legal forms as on a broad policy of reason 
 and justice, is a favorite one with Burke, and is frequently urged in this 
 and other speeches. Compare 37 26, 38 14 ; also, " Men of sense, when 
 new projects come before them, always think a discourse proving the mere 
 right or mere power of acting in the manner proposed, to be no more than a 
 very unpleasant way of misspending time." Present State of the Nation, IV., 
 I, 367. " Those reasonings which infer from the many restraints under 
 which we have already laid America to our right to lay it under still more, 
 and indeed under all manner of restraints, are conclusive ; conclusive as to 
 right; but the very reverse as to policy and practice." Ibid.,y)>. "Whether 
 all this can be reconciled in legal speculation is a matter of no consequence. 
 It is reconciled in policy : and politics ought to be adjusted, not to human 
 reasonings, but to human nature." 398. 
 
 7 16. boundaries. Not geographical boundaries, but limits of power, 
 especially in regard to taxing, the question in dispute. Compare, " I am 
 not here going into distinctions of rights nor attempting to mark their 
 boundaries." Speech on American Taxation, IV., II, 73. 
 
 7 21. unsuspecting confidence. These words refer to a passage in a 
 declaration by the Continental Congress, which met at Philadelphia, Sep- 
 tember 5, 1774. On October 21 this Congress issued two addresses, one 
 to Great Britain and one to the colonies. In the latter occurs the follow- 
 ing paragraph : " After the repeal of the Stamp Act, having again resigned 
 ourselves to our ancient unsuspicious affections for the parent state, and 
 anxious to avoid any controversy with her, in hopes of a favorable altera- 
 tion in sentiments and measures towards us, we did not press our objec- 
 tions against the above-mentioned statutes made subsequent to that 
 repeal." Journals of Congress, I, 33. In the Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, 
 1777, Burke, in speaking of the Stamp Act, again brings up this declaration : 
 " After the repeal of the Stamp Act, ' the colonies fell,' says this assembly,
 
 84 NOTES. 
 
 1 into their ancient state of unsuspecting confidence in the mother country? 
 This unsuspecting confidence is the true centre of gravity amongst man- 
 kind, about which all the parts are at rest. It is this unsuspecting confi- 
 dence that removes all difficulties and reconciles all the contradictions 
 which occur in the complexity of all ancient puzzled political establish- 
 ments. Happy are the rulers which have the secret of preserving it ! " 
 W., II, 234. 
 
 7 26. Refined. Fine-spun, elaborate. Compare, " This fine-spun scheme 
 had the usual fate of all exquisite policy." American Taxation, W., II, 68. 
 
 8 i. pruriency. The primary meaning is itching ; the secondary, de- 
 sire, or affetite. The word is always used in a bad sense. 
 
 8 3. project. See 7 13, note. This resolution moved by Lord North 
 was finally passed, February 27. 
 
 V _S -1. noble lord. Lord North: born 1732; Prime Minister from 1770 
 to 1782; died 1792. He steadily opposed all concessions to the Ameri- 
 cans, though it is said that in this mistaken policy he often followed the 
 king's judgment rather than his own. He has been so bitterly attacked by 
 all partisans of America, that few of us are aware that he was able and 
 fluent in debate ; that he had a remarkably quick wit and a temper which 
 scarcely anything could ruffle ; and that in all private intercourse he was 
 scrupulously honorable. An interesting sketch of his character may be 
 found in Brougham's Statesmen of the Time of George the Third, First 
 Series. For the best short account of his life, see D. N. B. The presence 
 of a so-called lord'm the House of Commons is due to the custom of giving 
 a title by courtesy to the eldest son of a peer while the father is yet living. 
 blue ribbon. The badge of a Knight of the Garter, to which order Lord 
 North had belonged since 1772. Though the order was instituted in 1344, 
 the honor of membership has been bestowed on only three other com- 
 moners, Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Castlereagh, and Lord Palmerston. 
 
 8 5. colony agents. The colonies had agents in England to look after 
 their interests. At one time Franklin, for example, was agent for Pennsyl- 
 vania, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Georgia. 
 
 8 6. mace. The sergeant-at-arms, the executive officer of the House, 
 bears a mace as the sign of his authority. 
 
 8 8. auction of finance. See 65 15. When Lord North introduced his 
 resolution, February 20, 1775, Burke is reported as saying during the 
 debate : " They [the colonists] are to be held prisoners of war, unless they 
 consent to a ransom by bidding at an" auction against each other and 
 against themselves, until the king and Parliament shall strike down the 
 hammer and say, ' Enough.' This species of auction, to be terminated, 
 not at the discretion of the bidder, but at the will of the sovereign power,
 
 NOTES. 85 
 
 is a kind of absurd tyranny which I challenge the ministers to produce any 
 example of in the practice of this or of any other nation." P. H., 336. 
 In the report of the debate in A. R., *ioo, this sentence occurs: "The 
 House is to be converted into an auction room, the Speaker to hold the 
 hammer." 
 
 8 18. address. February 9, 1775, the houses of Parliament had pre- 
 sented to the king a joint address on the disturbances in America, declar- 
 ing that no part of the sovereign authority over the colonies should be 
 relinquished, and closing with this sentence : " We consider it as our 
 indispensable duty humbly to beseech your Majesty that you will take the 
 most effectual measures to enforce due obedience to the laws and authority 
 of the supreme legislature ; and we beg leave in the most solemn manner 
 to assure your Majesty that it is our fixed resolution, at the hazard of our 
 lives and properties, to stand by your Majesty against all rebellious 
 attempts, in the maintenance of the just rights of your Majesty and the 
 two houses of Parliament." P. If., 297, 298. 
 
 8 19. bill. See 3 8. In the debate in the House of Lords, March 16, 
 Lord Shelburne said that " he entirely coincided in sentiments with the 
 noble lord [Camden] who called this a bill of pains, penalties, and coer- 
 cion." P. H., 448. 
 
 8 20. grace and bounty. Lord North's resolutions were entitled 
 Propositions for Conciliating the Differences with America. P. H., 319. In 
 the course of the debate Lord North referred to " the idea of the indul- 
 gence which the address held out," and said the same idea appeared in his 
 propositions. 334. In the report in A. R., *95, he is made to say that 
 Parliament meant to show its " tenderness and conciliatory disposition." 
 
 8 22. previous to any submission. On February 6, during a debate 
 on the address to the king touching the disturbances in North America, 
 Mr. Hans Stanley " said he wanted nothing but the Americans to submit ; 
 would then hang out the olive branch, propose an amnesty, an act of grace 
 and oblivion." P. H., 248. On February 27, Mr. Ackland expressed the 
 same view. 340. 
 
 8 29. capital. Important or fundamental. Compare 9 19, 23 31. 
 
 9 31. that nature and those circumstances. Compare, "A statesman, 
 never losing sight of principles, is to be guided by circumstances ; and 
 judging contrary to the exigencies of the moment, he may ruin his country 
 forever." Speech on the Petition of the Unitarians, IV., VII, 41. "The happi- 
 ness or misery of mankind, estimated by their feelings and sentiments and 
 not by any theories of their rights, is, and ought to be, the standard for 
 the conduct of legislators towards the people." Ibid., 45. 
 
 9 33. mere general theories. Compare 6 is, note.
 
 86 NOTES. 
 
 10 9. two millions. Bancroft (II, 390) puts the number in 1770 as 
 1,850,000 whites and 462,000 blacks, total, 2,312,000; in 1780, as 2,383,000 
 whites, 562,000 blacks, total, 2,945,000. Lecky says the number of whites 
 slightly exceeded two millions at the time of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence. Ill, 290. Burke's estimate for 1775 seems, therefore, to be 
 pretty accurate. 
 
 10 30. occasional. Designed merely for the occasion. See 4 18, note ; 
 18 5. Compare, " Sir, it is not a pleasant consideration, but nothing in 
 the world can read so awful and so instructive a lesson as the conduct of 
 ministry in this business, upon the mischief of not having large and liberal 
 ideas in the management of great affairs. Never have the servants of the 
 state looked at the whole of your complicated interests in one connected 
 view. They have taken things by bits and scraps, some at one time and 
 one pretence, and some at another, just as they pressed, without any sort 
 of regard to their relations or dependencies. They never had any kind of 
 system, right or wrong; but only invented occasionally some miserable 
 tale for the day in order meanly to sneak out of difficulties into which they 
 had proudly strutted." Speech on American Taxation, W., II, 14. 
 
 10 32. minima. A reference to the maxim, De minimis non ciirat lex, 
 the law takes no account of trifles. 
 
 11 4. so large a mass. Compare, " This consideration of the magni- 
 tude of the object ought to attend us through the whole inquiry : if it 
 does not always affect the reason, it is always decisive on the importance 
 of the question." Tract on the Popery Laws, W., VI, 319. 
 
 11 13. some days ago. March 16. The American Congress, which 
 met in Philadelphia in the autumn of 1774, passed a resolution October 20, 
 declaring that to obtain redress of grievances a non-importation agree- 
 ment was necessary, under the terms of which the colonies should not 
 import any goods from Great Britain or Ireland, and should not import 
 "molasses, syrups, paneles, coffee, or pimento" from the West Indies. 
 Journals of Congress, I, 23. Alarmed at this threat, the West India 
 planters presented to Parliament, February 2, 1775, a petition "praying 
 the House to take into their most serious consideration that great political 
 system of the colonies heretofore so very beneficial to the mother country 
 and her dependencies, and adopt such measures as to them shall seem 
 meet to prevent the evils with which the petitioners are threatened, and to 
 preserve the intercourse between the West India Islands and the northern 
 colonies, to the general harmony and lasting benefit of the whole British 
 Empire." P. H., 219-221. On March 16 Mr. Richard Glover appeared for 
 the petitioners and discussed in detail the trade of the colonies. Ibid., 
 461-478,
 
 NOTES. 87 
 
 11 14. distinguished person. Mr. Glover, who was born in 1712, pub- 
 lished in 1737 Leonidas, an epic in nine books, which gave him great repu- 
 tation at the time, and which was often reprinted during the eighteenth 
 century. In 1787, two years after his death, another epic of his, the 
 Athenaid, was published. One of his popular ballads, Admiral Hosier's 
 Ghost, is in book vi of Percy's Reliques. In 1761 he was elected to Parlia- 
 ment. Nineteen years before, however, he had appeared before the House 
 in behalf of the merchants of London, who had petitioned for the protec- 
 tion of their commerce from the Spanish privateers. The petition was 
 presented January 20, 1742, and January 27 Mr. Glover summed up the 
 evidence in the matter. Since 1742 is the date in D. N. B., XXII, 6, 
 and in the History and Proceedings of the House of Commons, Chandler, 
 London, 1743, XXII, 109, it is to be inferred, as Cook notes, that Burke, 
 speaking in 1775, should have said thirty-three instead of thirty-five years. 
 bar. A rod across the entrance to the chamber of Parliament. Members 
 and officers only are admitted within. 
 
 11 32. state. Statement. Compare, " They who are inclined to think 
 favorably of that event [the French Revolution] will undoubtedly object 
 to every state of facts which comes only from the authority of a royalist." 
 Preface to Brissofs Address, W., V, 67. 
 
 12 5. on your table. Officially presented to the House. 
 
 12 6. Davenant. Charles Davenant: born, 1656; appointed inspector- 
 general of exports and imports, 1705; died, 1714. He was a writer on 
 economics, author of Discourses on Revenue and Trade. See D. N. B. 
 
 12 10. terminating almost wholly in the colonies. English wares 
 were carried to Africa and exchanged for slaves who were sold in the 
 colonies. 
 
 13 32. It is good for us to be here. Compare Matthew, xvii, 1-4 : 
 "And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and 
 bringeth them up into a high mountain apart, and was transfigured before 
 them : and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the 
 light. And behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking 
 with him. Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, ' Lord, it is good 
 for us to be here.' " 
 
 14 7. Lord Bathurst. Allen Bathurst : born, 1684; made Baron 
 Bathurst, 1712. After his son Henry was in 1771 made Lord Chancellor, 
 the highest judicial officer of the crown, the father was in 1772 raised to 
 the rank of earl. He was a friend of Pope, Swift, Prior, and the other 
 wits of the reign of Queen Anne. He died in September, 1775, six months 
 after this speech. See D. N. B. 
 
 14 10. acta parentum. He was able to study the deeds of his fore-
 
 88 NOTES. 
 
 fathers and to learn what virtue is. Altered from Virgil's Eclogues, iv, 
 26, 27 : 
 
 Facta parentis 
 Jam legere et quae sit poteris cognoscere virtus. 
 
 14 11. auspicious. Favored. 
 
 14 14. fourth generation the third prince. George the Second was 
 succeeded by his grandson George the Third, who thus belonged to the 
 fourth generation. 
 
 14 16. twelve years. George the Third came to the throne in 1760. 
 
 14 17. was to be made. It was not until 1707 that the Act of Union 
 made England and Scotland one nation. 
 
 14 20. fountain. The sovereign, who bestows titles of nobility, is 
 represented as the fountain of hereditary dignities. 
 
 14 31. taste of death. Compare Matthew, xvi, 28 : " There be some 
 standing here, which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of man 
 coming in his kingdom." John, viii, 52 : " If a man keep my saying, he 
 shall never taste of death." Shakspere'syw/*'.r Caesar, act ii, scene 2, 33 : 
 "The valiant never taste of death but once." 
 
 15 29. Deceive. A Latinism: the Latin fallere deceive sometimes 
 means to cause anything not to be observed or felt, to lighten anything 
 difficult. Compare Horace, Satires, ii, 7, 114: "Jam somno fallere 
 curam," by sleep to lighten care. Ovid, Tristia, iii, 2, 16 : " Fallebat 
 curas aegraque corda labor," work was lightening our cares and our heavy 
 hearts. 
 
 15 30. materials. England received, and still receives, from America 
 many of the raw materials for her manufactures. 
 
 15 32. curious. Interesting. 
 
 16 12. Roman charity. A reference to a story told by Hyginus in his 
 Fabularum Liber. Cymon, condemned to death by starvation in prison, 
 was visited by his daughter Xanthippe, who kept him alive with the milk 
 from her breast. 
 
 16 15. fully opened. See 3 8, note. In the course of the debate on restrict- 
 ing the colonies from the Newfoundland fisheries, the general question 
 of the fisheries was pretty fully discussed, and most of the facts mentioned 
 in this paragraph were brought out. Testimony was offered at the bar of 
 the lords by merchants, fishermen, and others. See P. If., 38^385, 
 387-390, 423-43. 433> 437. 43 8 ' 459- See also A - R -> T 775. chapter vi. 
 
 16 17. excite your envy. A reference to some of the remarks during 
 the discussion of the fisheries. On February 28 a petition was presented 
 from the inhabitants of Pool, an English fishing town, who said the
 
 NOTES. 89 
 
 restrictions "will not by any means be injurious to commerce, . . . because 
 the foreign markets can be amply supplied by extending the Newfoundland 
 fishery of subjects resident in England." P. ff., 382. On March 1 5 Mr. 
 Brooke Watson, a merchant, testified that "the greatest part of the profits 
 arising from the American fishery centres in America " (427) ; and " that if 
 New England was restrained forever from this fishery, it would be a benefit 
 to Great Britain." 428. Mr. George Davis, a merchant, added " that if 
 this act should pass, he should reap benefit from it ; that he has already 
 enlarged his capital, and shall enlarge it more, if the act passes." 429. 
 Molyneux Shuldham, governor of Newfoundland, declared "that if this 
 temporary restraint on the New England fishery was made perpetual, it 
 would be a benefit to Great Britain." 430. Sir Hugh Palliser, formerly a 
 governor of Newfoundland, testified " that whether the restraining of the 
 New England fishery is temporary or perpetual, it will be an advantage to 
 Great Britain." 430. 
 
 16 29. Serpent. The Hydrus, or Water Serpent, a small constellation 
 within the Antarctic Circle. Falkland Island. The Falkland Islands, 
 southeast of South America, were discovered in 1592, but were not regarded 
 as worth occupying till in 1763 the French built Port Louis on East Falk- 
 land. Then the Spanish laid claim to the islands ; and finally in 1770 
 and 1771 Spain and England disputed possession. Although many Eng- 
 lishmen thought the islands not worth fighting for, a fact to which 
 Burke may refer in line 31, both nations were preparing for war, when 
 in 1771 the Spanish yielded to the English. Later the islands became a 
 place where whalers obtained provisions and water. The Annual Register, 
 1771, chapters i-v, contains a long account of the islands and the trouble 
 with Spain. Cook notes that just a week before Burke's speech, Seth 
 Jenkins, a sailor, testified before the House of Lords that the " limits of 
 the whale fishery extend to Falkland's Island and the coast of Africa." 
 P. ff., 423- 
 
 17 2. run the longitude. Literally, run east or west, but here the 
 direction is evidently southwest. 
 
 17 4. vexed. A Latinism founded on similar uses of the Latin vexare. 
 Compare, " From the still-vex'd Bermoothes." Tempest, act i, scene 2, 229. 
 " As mad as the vex'd sea." King Lear, iv, 4, 2. 
 
 When with fierce winds Orion arm'd 
 Hath vex'd the Red Sea coast. 
 
 Paradise Lost, i, 305, 306. 
 
 No climate. Compare, "Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?" 
 What region of the earth is not full of our toils ? Virgil's Aencid, i, 460.
 
 90 NOTES. 
 
 17s. hardy. Bold, adventurous. Compare, " In the last session the 
 corps called the king's friends made a hardy attempt, all at once, to alter 
 the right of election itself." Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discon- 
 tents, W., I, 496. 
 
 17 15. generous. High-spirited : originally high-born ; then having the 
 qualities which should accompany high birth. 
 
 17 25. well worth fighting for. This argument had been more than 
 once advanced in Parliament. For example, on January 26 Mr. Hans 
 Stanley had said that " to support the sovereignty was to support the trade 
 of Great Britain ; and if in attempting this arduous task, our commerce 
 should be suspended, our funds should sustain a shock, and the landed 
 property of individuals should experience a diminution, yet all these were 
 evils gentlemen should patiently endure with firmness and magnanimity; 
 the merchants should forego their own interests for the sake of those per- 
 manent advantages which they would undoubtedly reap when the Americans 
 were subdued." P. H., 186. 
 
 17 28. complexions. Used in the old sense of temperaments or 
 characters. 
 
 17 29. military art. Several members of the House who were, or had 
 been, in the army were urging force. On February 2 Colonel Grant had 
 declared that force would overawe the Americans, for " they would never 
 dare to face an English army." P. If., 226. Four days later Captain 
 Harvey had demanded the most firm and vigorous measures. 243. Then 
 on February 27 General Burgoyne had made a fiery speech in favor of 
 force. He said : " It must not be forgot we are contending in the crisis 
 and for the fate of the British Empire. ... Is there a man in England 
 (I am confident there is not an officer or soldier in the king's service) who 
 does not think the parliamentary rights of Great Britain a cause to fight 
 for, to bleed and die for ? . . . If this [unwillingness to use force] be our 
 wretched state, I agree that the sooner a formal surrender is made, the 
 better ; let Great Britain revert to her primitive insignificancy in the map 
 of the world, and the Congress of Philadelphia be the legislature to dis- 
 pense the blessings of empire. Let us spare the blood of our subjects, let 
 us spare the treasures of the state ; but let us at the same time confess we 
 are no longer a people." 355-357- 
 
 17 30. wield the thunder. An allusion to Jove and his thunderbolts. 
 Lord North, it will be remembered, advocated force. 
 
 18 5. temporary. See 10 30, note. 
 
 18 6. subduing again. Compare Milton, Paradise Lost, i, 648, 649 : 
 
 Who overcomes 
 By force, hath overcome but half his foe.
 
 NOTES. 91 
 
 i 
 
 18 10. without resource. It had been argued in Parliament that since 
 the Americans now refused to obey, England, even after a war, could be 
 no worse off than at present. Lord North is reported to have said : " If 
 we fail in our attempt of forcing America, we shall still be in the same 
 situation we are in at present." P. If., 262. 
 
 IS 13. never be begged. Compare, " Power and eminence and con- 
 sideration are things not to be begged ; they must be commanded : and 
 they who supplicate for mercy from others can never hope for justice 
 through themselves. What justice they are to obtain, as the alms of an 
 enemy, depends upon his character." First Letter on a Regicide Peace, IV., 
 V, 242. 
 
 18 is. impair the object. See 3 8, note; 30 34 ; 38 i. 
 
 18 21. British strength. A little later, 26 12, Burke calls this contest 
 of Englishmen with English an " unnatural contention." 
 
 18 22. foreign enemy. Throughout the debates on American affairs 
 the fact was constantly urged that France or Spain might take advantage 
 of England, when she was weakened by war with her colonies. For exam- 
 ple, on February 2 Captain Luttrell had used this argument (P. H., 231); 
 and February 6 Lord Irnham had brought it up again. 251. 
 
 18 26. break the American spirit. Members of both houses had 
 argued that it was desirable to break the rebellious spirit of the colonies. 
 On January 20 in the Lords the Earl of Suffolk " insisted strongly that 
 the mother country should never relax till America confessed her suprem- 
 acy." P. H., 161. On February 6 in the Commons Mr. Hans Stanley 
 urged forcing the colonists to submission. 248. On February 27 Lord 
 North wanted them reduced to "unconditional obedience" (352); and 
 on March 6 Mr. Henry Dundas wished to give them the alternative of 
 starvation or submission. 388. 
 
 18 28. experience. See 6 15, note. 
 
 18 31. indulgence. On April 19, 1774, during the debate on the motion 
 to repeal the American Tea Duty Bill, General Burgoyne said : " I look 
 upon America to be our child, which I think we have already spoiled by 
 too much indulgence." P. H., XVII, 1271. Similar expressions may be 
 found in the remarks of Mr. Harris (ibid., 1282) and Mr. Stanley. 1304. 
 
 19 8. temper. Compare, " The temper of the people amongst whom 
 he presides ought therefore to be the first study of a statesman." Thoughts 
 on the Cause of the Present Discontents, W., I, 436. 
 
 19 13. restive. Disposed to rest, or stay, unwilling to move forward, 
 balky, obstinate, impatient under restraint. 
 
 19 22. descendants of Englishmen. In a proposed address to the 
 king, drawn up two years later, Burke says : " Your English subjects in
 
 92 NOTES. 
 
 the colonies, still impressed with the ancient feelings of the people from 
 whom they are derived, cannot live under a government which does not 
 establish freedom as its basis." W,, VI, 164. 
 
 19 24. formerly adored. Burke, in his Thoughts on the Cause of the 
 Present Discontents, published in 1770, argued that Englishmen were losing 
 their zeal for liberty and allowing the crown to encroach on their rights. 
 
 19 25. emigrated from you. During the struggles against the Stuarts 
 in the first half of the seventeenth century. 
 
 19 29. abstract liberty. Compare, " There are people who have split 
 and anatomized the doctrine of free government, as if it were an abstract 
 question concerning metaphysical liberty and necessity, and not a matter 
 of moral prudence and natural feeling. . . . Civil freedom, Gentlemen, is 
 not, as many have endeavored to persuade you, a thing that lies hid in the 
 depth of abstruse science. It is a blessing and a benefit, not an abstract 
 speculation." Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, W., II, 228, 229. (Cook.) 
 
 19 31. sensible. The primary meaning, capable of being perceived by 
 the senses. There is a similar passage in Burke's speech upon his arrival at 
 Bristol the preceding October: " It [liberty] inheres in good and steady 
 government, as in its substance and vital principle." W., II, 87. every 
 nation. Compare Goldsmith's Traveller, 93-96 : 
 
 Hence every state to one lov'd blessing prone, 
 Conforms and models life to that alone. 
 Each to the favorite happiness attends, 
 And spurns the plan that aims at other ends. 
 
 19 34. great contests. For example, the contest for Magna Charta. 
 
 20 2. ancient commonwealths. Rome and the states of Greece. 
 
 20 4. several orders. For example, the patricians and the plebeians. 
 20 7. ablest pens. Pym, Hampden, Selden, St. John. (Payne.) 
 
 20 14. blind usages. Usages for which no clear reason can be given. 
 
 21 l. mode of governing. " The colonies were from the beginning 
 subject to the legislature of Great Britain on principles which they never 
 examined ; and we permitted to them many local privileges, without ask- 
 ing how they agreed with that legislative authority." Letter to the Sheriffs 
 of Bristol, W., II, 231. 
 
 21 6. provincial legislative assemblies. " The colonies ... had formed 
 within themselves, either by royal instruction or royal charter, assemblies 
 so exceedingly resembling a Parliament in all their forms, functions, and 
 powers, that it was impossible they should not imbibe some opinion of a 
 similar authority. At ... first . . . these assemblies . . . were probably not 
 intended for anything more than the municipal corporations within this 
 island. . . . But nothing in its progression can rest on its original plan. . . .
 
 NOTES. 93 
 
 Therefore, as the colonies prospered, ... it was natural that they should 
 attribute to assemblies so respectable . . . some part of the dignity of the 
 great nations which they represented. No longer tied to by-laws, these 
 assemblies made acts of all sorts and in all cases whatsoever." Letter to 
 the Sheriffs of Bristol, W., II, 232. 
 
 21 7. popular. Used in the primary sense of belonging directly to the 
 people. See Bryce's American Commonwealth, New York, 1888, I, 562 : 
 " Each [early New England settlement] was a religious as well as a civil 
 body politic, gathered round the church as its centre; and the equality 
 which prevailed in the congregation prevailed also in civil affairs, the 
 whole community meeting under a president or moderator to discuss 
 affairs of common interest. Each such settlement was called a town, or 
 township, and was in fact a miniature commonwealth, exercising a practical 
 sovereignty over the property and persons of its members, for there was 
 as yet no state, and the distant home government scarcely cared to interfere, 
 but exercising it on thoroughly democratic principles." merely. Wholly. 
 Compare, " The one sort we may for distinction call mixedly, and the other 
 merely human." Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, i, 10. (Payne.) 
 
 21 11. aversion from. Aversion to is now more common. 
 
 21 18. that kind. Dissenters from the Church of England. 
 
 22 3. refinement on the principle of resistance. Burke has a fondness 
 for this mode of phrasing. See the next two lines. Compare also the fol- 
 lowing passages : " The first fruits of that insurrection grafted on insurrec- 
 tion and of that rebellion improving upon rebellion." Preface to Brissofs 
 Address to his Constituents, W., V, 85, 86. " They have apostatized from 
 their apostasy." Fourth Letter on a Regicide Peace, IV., VI, 86. 
 
 22 6. communion. Union in doctrine and discipline. 
 22 11. this spirit was high. See 19 25, note. 
 22 15. establishments. Churches supported by the state. 
 22ai. has a regular establishment. Is the formally established state 
 church. 
 22 26. vast multitude. See 10 9, note. 
 
 22 31. as broad and general as the air. Compare Macbeth, iii, 4, 23: 
 " As broad and general as the casing air." 
 
 23 7. Gothic. A word which Burke and other eighteenth-century 
 writers often use in the general sense of Germanic or Teutonic. Compare, 
 " The whole of the polity and economy of every country in Europe has 
 been derived from the same sources. It was drawn from the old Germanic, 
 or Gothic, custumary." first Letter on a Regicide Peace, W., V, 319. The 
 English are not descended from the Goths, properly so called. 
 
 23 8. Poles. Till the partition of Poland in 1772, the peasants were
 
 94 NOTES. 
 
 serfs attached to the soil. See A. A'., 1763, 45: "Each noble Pole ... is 
 absolute master of life and death on his own estate, all his tenants being in 
 the strictest sense his slaves." 
 
 23 15. law. Among the papers presented to Parliament in 1766, relat- 
 ing to the disturbances over the Stamp Act, is one written from New York, 
 December 13, 1765, containing the following passages : " The gentlemen of 
 the law, both the judges and the principal practitioners at the bar, are 
 either owners or strongly connected in family interest with the proprietors 
 in general. The gentlemen of the law some years since entered into an 
 association, with intention among other things to assume the direction of 
 government upon them by the influence they had in the assembly, gained 
 by their family connection and by the profession of the law, whereby they 
 are unavoidably in the secrets of many families. Many court their friend- 
 ship, and all dread their hatred ; by these means, though few of them are 
 members, they rule the house of the assembly in all matters of importance. 
 ... By this association, united in interest and family connections with the 
 proprietors of the great tracts, a domination of lawyers was formed in this 
 province, which for some years past has been too strong for the executive 
 powers of government." P. H., XVI, 125. Lecky, in chapter xii, discusses 
 the influence, not only of the study of law, but of general education in the 
 colonies. 111,315-317. 
 
 23 25. Blackstone's Commentaries. Sir William Blackstone was born 
 in 1723 and died in 1780. His Commentaries on the Laws of England was 
 published in 1765-1769, and is still the great authority on the subject. 
 
 23 26. General Gage. Thomas Gage was born in 1721 and died in 
 1787. His part in the Revolutionary War is pretty well known to every 
 schoolboy. In 1760 he became governor of Montreal. Three years later 
 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the English forces in America. 
 Then in 1774 he was made governor-in-chief and captain-general of Massa- 
 chusetts. See D. N. B. 
 
 23 27. letter on your table. During the previous session, Parliament, 
 acting on the idea that town-meetings were likely to stir up sedition, passed 
 an act forbidding them in Massachusetts, except by permission of the gov- 
 ernor. This act Governor Gage was called upon to enforce. A letter 
 which he wrote from Salem, August 27, 1774, and which Lord North laid 
 before the House January 19, 1775, tells of the result of his attempts : " My 
 former letters have acquainted your lordship that the acts in question had 
 been published here, and people have had leisure to consider means to 
 elude them, in doing which they are very expert. At a town-meeting held 
 in Boston in July, in order to avoid the calling a meeting afterwards, they 
 adjourned themselves to the ninth of August, and adjourned again on that
 
 NOTES. 95 
 
 day to some time in October. I assembled the selectmen in Boston, had 
 the clause read respecting town-meetings, told them I expected their obe- 
 dience to it, that I should put the act in force, and that they would be 
 answerable for any bad consequences. They replied they had called no 
 meeting, that a former meeting had only adjourned themselves. I laid the 
 affair of adjournments before the new council, and found some of opinion 
 that the clause was thereby clearly evaded, and nearly the whole unwilling 
 to debate upon it, terming it a point of law which ought to be referred to 
 the crown lawyers, whose opinion is to be taken upon it, and by which I 
 must govern myself." P. If., 90, 91. In a letter of September 2, General 
 Gage writes : " With regard to the clause in the new acts relative to town- 
 meetings, so many elusions are discovered under various pretensions of 
 adjournments, electing to vacant offices, people assembling peaceably with- 
 out notification, upon their own affairs, and withal no penalty, that no 
 persons I have advised with can tell what to do with it ; at a distance they 
 go on as usual, but worse transactions make that matter of little conse 
 quence in the present moment." P. H., 95. See 21 7, note. 
 
 24 i. friend. Lord Edward Thurlow, who was appointed attorney- 
 general in 1771, and who was a warm supporter of Lord North. He was 
 the first speaker to reply to Burke, floor. The benches of the House of 
 Commons are arranged in tiers. The lowest, that on the floor, to the right 
 of the Speaker, is occupied by cabinet members, in which number the 
 attorney-general is included. 
 
 24 8. Abeunt studia in mores. One's studies (or pursuits) become a 
 part of one's character. Ovid, fferoides, xv, 83. Compare Bacon's essay 
 Of Studies : " Histories make men wise ; poets, witty ; the mathematics, 
 subtle ; natural philosophy, deep ; moral, grave ; logic and rhetoric, able 
 to contend. Abeunt studia in mores." 
 
 24 25. winged ministers. Ships, which are compared to the eagle that 
 carried Jupiter's thunderbolts in its pounces, or talons. The image may 
 have been suggested to Burke by Lord Chatham, who in a speech, January 
 22, 1770, said of the army: "They [the ministers] have disarmed the 
 imperial bird, the 'ministrum fulminis alitem.' [Horace, Odes, iv, 4, i.] 
 The army is the thunder of the crown. The ministry have tied up the hand 
 which should direct the bolt." P. H., XVI, 750. (Goodrich.) 
 
 24 29. " So far shalt thou go." Compare Job, xxxviii, n: " Hitherto 
 shall thou come, but no further ; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." 
 Payne and Selby think there is a reference to the story of Canute, popular- 
 ized by Hume about a dozen years before. In order to teach his flatterers 
 a lesson, the king ordered his chair to be set on the seashore while the tide 
 was rising, and then commanded the waves to retire. " But when the sea
 
 % NOTES. 
 
 still advanced towards him, and began to wash him with its billows, he 
 turned to his courtiers and remarked to them that every creature in the uni- 
 verse was feeble and impotent, and that power resided with one being alone, 
 in whose hands were all the elements of nature ; who could say to the 
 ocean, Thus far shalt tliou go, ami no farther ; and who could level with 
 his nod the most towering piles of human ambition." History of England, 
 chapter iii. 
 
 24 30. fret and rage. This phrase occurs in one of the earliest known 
 bits of Burke's writing, a familiar letter sent to a schoolmate, Richard 
 Shackleton, in 1745, when Burke was sixteen years old. "Shall I rage, 
 fret, and accuse Providence of injustice?" C., I, 13. 
 
 25 l. Egypt. Practically under English control since 1883. 
 
 25 3. Crimea. Under Russian rule since 1783. Algiers. In control 
 of the French since 1830. 
 
 25 4. truck. Barter. 
 
 25 5. huckster. A verb from the noun huckster, a peddler of small 
 wares. Huckster is in turn from the old verb huck, to haggle in trading. 
 ^25 16. first mover. Burke must have had in mind the primum mobile 
 of the Ptolemaic astronomy. According to this system the heavenly bodies 
 were set in a series of spheres revolving about the earth as a common cen- 
 tre. The outermost sphere, called the primum mobile, or " first moved," 
 communicated its motion to the inner spheres. 
 
 25 18. grown with the growth. Compare Pope's Essay on Man, ii, 
 136: " Grows with his growth and strengthens with his strength." 
 
 26 2. with all its imperfections. Compare Hamlet, i, 5, 78, 79 : 
 
 But sent to my account 
 With all my imperfections on my head. 
 
 26 7. a little stability. See 4 is, note. ^r^JS**~Qr^*^ 
 26 12. unnatural contention. See 18 21. 6*/v0l> CvO- C/^^^K"* 
 26 15. not been. The Second Edition reads " Been not," which later 
 editors have agreed in changing. 
 
 26 17. popular part. The reference is to the representative assemblies 
 which were convoked by the governors, who were in turn nominated by 
 the crown. 
 
 26 25. none but an obedient assembly. The Virginia Assembly was 
 dissolved by Governor Dunmore in May, 1774, because on receiving news 
 of the closing of the port of Boston, this body had passed resolutions 
 denying the authority of Parliament. The result, to which Burke refers a 
 few lines below, is told by Governor Dunmore in a letter sent from Williams- 
 burg, December 24, 1774, and laid before the House February 15, 1775 '
 
 NOTES. 97 
 
 " As to the power of government which your lordship . . . directs should be 
 exerted to counteract the dangerous measures pursuing here, I can assure 
 your lordship that it is entirely disregarded, if not wholly overturned. There 
 is not a justice of peace in Virginia that acts, except as a committee man 
 [under direction of the local committees organized to carry out the non- 
 importation and non-exportation agreements of the Continental Congress]. 
 The abolishing the courts of justice was the first step taken, in which 
 the men of fortune joined equally with the lowest and meanest. The gen- 
 eral court of judicature of the colony is much in the same predicament ; 
 for though there are at least a majority of his Majesty's council who, 
 with myself, are the judges of that court, that would steadily perform 
 their duty, yet the lawyers have absolutely refused to attend, nor indeed 
 would the people allow them to attend, or evidences to appear. . . . 
 Independent companies, etc., so universally supported, who have set 
 themselves up superior to all other authority, under the auspices of their 
 Congress, the laws of which they talk of in a style of respect, and treat 
 with marks of reverence which they never bestowed on their legal govern- 
 ment or the laws proceeding from it, I can assure your lordship that I 
 have discovered no instance where the interposition of government, in the 
 feeble state to which it is reduced, could serve any other purpose than to 
 suffer the disgrace of a disappointment, and thereby afford matter of great 
 exultation to its enemies, and increase their influence over the minds of 
 the people." P. ff. t 314, 315. 
 
 26 26. humors. An allusion to the old theory that the body contained 
 various humors, or fluids, which might become diseased, and, finding no 
 vent in natural channels, break out in boils or other eruptions. 
 
 26 34. Lord Dunmore. John Murray, fourth Earl of Dunmore : born, 
 1732 ; died, 1809. I n I 77 he was appointed governor of New York, and 
 later of Virginia. In 1775 t ' ie feeling against him ran so high that he had 
 to flee for refuge to a man-of-war. For a time he carried on hostilities 
 against the colony, burning the important town of Norfolk. See D. N. B. 
 
 27 3. Obedience. See 4 8, note. Compare also, " Whether the imme- 
 diate and instrumental cause of the law be a single person or many, the 
 remote and efficient cause is the consent of the people, either actual or 
 implied ; and such consent is absolutely essential to its validity." Tract on 
 the Popery Laws, W., VI.^o. This suggests a sentence in the Declaration 
 of Independence, "To secure these rights, governments are instituted 
 among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." 
 
 27 18. abrogated. The reference is to an act passed May n, 1774, 
 entitled " An Act for the better regulating the government of the province 
 of the Massachusetts Bay in New England." See 58 23. By this act,
 
 98 MOTES. 
 
 which changed the charter of the province, the council, or upper chamber 
 of the legislature, hitherto elected by the assembly, or lower chamber 
 directly representative of the people, was appointed by the crown ; the 
 judges and magistrates of all kinds, including sheriffs, were appointed by 
 the royal governor, who could remove at pleasure ; jurymen, instead of 
 being chosen by popular election, were summoned by the sheriffs ; and no 
 town-meetings could be held without permission of the governor. See 
 Lecky, III, 431; P. H., XVII, 1192-1199, 1277-1289, 1297-1316, 1321- 
 1325; A. R., 1774,69-72. 
 
 27 19. confident. In the parliamentary debates over the changes in 
 the charter of Massachusetts the opinion was more than once expressed 
 that this act would settle the troubles. On March 28, 1774, Lord North 
 said he thought the bill would " effectually purge " the constitution of 
 Massachusetts of its crudities, and give strength and spirit to the civil 
 magistracy and the executive. P. H., XVII, ti93- On the same day Lord 
 George Germain declared : " I make no doubt but by a manly and steady 
 perseverance things may be restored from a state of anarchy and confusion 
 to peace, quietude, and a due obedience to the laws of this country." Ibid., 
 1196. On April 19 Mr. Cornwall said: "If you persist in the measures 
 you have begun with, I think there is not a doubt of your succeeding, and 
 of becoming, if I may use the word, victorious." Ibid., 1215. On the same 
 day Lord North again said : " Let us conduct ourselves with firmness and 
 resolution throughout the whole of these measures, and there is not the 
 least doubt but peace and quietude will soon be restored." Ibid., 1273. 
 
 27 22. Anarchy is found tolerable. General Gage, in a letter from 
 Boston, November 2, 1774, said that the province was "without courts of 
 justice or legislature " ; and also that the edicts of the provincial Congress 
 were " implicitly obeyed throughout the country." P. H., 105. The account 
 in the Annual Registering 1775, 17, is as follows : "The old constitution 
 being taken away by act of Parliament, and the new one being rejected by 
 the people, an end was put to all forms of law and government in the 
 province of Massachusetts Bay, and the people were reduced to that state 
 of anarchy in which mankind are supposed to have existed in the earliest 
 ages. The degree of order, however, which by the general concurrence of 
 the people was preserved in this state of anarchy will forever excite the 
 astonishment of mankind, and continue among the strongest proofs of the 
 efficacy of long-established habits and of a constant submission to laws. 
 Excepting the general opposition to the new government, and excesses 
 arising from it, in the outrages offered to particular persons who were upon 
 that account obnoxious to the people, no other very considerable marks 
 appeared of the cessation of law or of government."
 
 NOTES. 99 
 
 28 5. in order to prove. Compare 19 22, note ; 31 17 ; also, " The feel- 
 ings of the colonies were formerly the feelings of Great Britain. Theirs 
 were formerly the feelings of Mr. Hampden, when called upon for the 
 payment of twenty shillings. Would twenty shillings have ruined Mr. 
 Hampden's fortune ? No ! but the payment of half twenty shillings on 
 the principle it was demanded would have made him a slave." Speech on 
 American Taxation, W., II, 17. " As it will be impossible long to resist 
 the powerful and equitable arguments in favor of the freedom of these 
 unhappy people that are to be drawn from the principle of our own liberty, 
 attempts will be made, attempts have been made, to ridicule and to argue 
 away this principle, and to inculcate into the minds of your people other 
 maxims of government and other grounds of obedience than those which 
 have prevailed at and since the glorious Revolution." Address to the King, 
 W., VI, 177, 178. 
 
 28 19. but three ways. Later in the speech Burke touches on a 
 fourth plan, that of giving the colonies representation. See 53 6-12. This 
 method he discusses at some length in the Present State of the Nation, W., 
 
 I, 372-376. 
 
 28 26. giving up the colonies. This plan, as Cook notes, was proposed 
 in 1774 by Dr. Josiah Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, in a publication, Four 
 Tracts on Political and Commercial Subjects. In the last paper in the vol- 
 ume, entitled The True Interest of Great Britain set forth in regard to the 
 Colonies, and the only Means of living in Pence and Harmony with them, 
 he urged that the colonies be allowed to separate from England. They were, 
 he argued, of no advantage to the mother country, except for trade. If Eng- 
 land offered America the best markets, England would get the trade, even 
 were America independent. If England failed to offer the best markets, 
 she would inevitably lose the trade, and she might at the same time be at 
 a heavy loss in trying to retain the colonies. These tracts and others by 
 Dean Tucker including a reply to this very speech by Burke were 
 often reprinted in England and America. See Lecky, III, 421-424. 
 
 2925. Appalachian Mountains. See Bancroft, III, 467 : "An intrepid 
 population, heedless of proclamations, was pouring westward through all 
 the gates of the Alleghanies ; seating themselves on the New River and 
 the Greenbrier, on the branches of the Monongahela, or even making their 
 way to the Mississippi." (Cook.) 
 
 29 34. comptrollers. The common spelling of controller, an officer 
 who keeps a counter roll, or duplicate account, by which to control, or 
 supervise, the accounts of another officer, usually a treasurer. 
 
 30 4. " Increase and multiply." Compare Genesis, i, 28 : "God said 
 unto them, ' Be fruitful and multiply.' " Paradise Lost, x, 729, 730 :
 
 100 NOTES. 
 
 O voice once heard 
 Delightfully, " Increase and multiply." 
 
 30 6. given to the children of men. Compare Psalms, cxv, 16 : " The 
 earth hath he given to the children of men." Also, " God has given the 
 earth to the children of men." Two Letters to Gentlemen in Bristol, IV., 
 II, 260. 
 
 30 21. marine enterprises. See 3 8, note ; 16 17, note. 
 
 30 26. we must gain. Compare, " It is hard to persuade us that every- 
 thing which is got by another is not taken from ourselves. But it is fit 
 that we should get the better of these suggestions, which come from what 
 is not the best and soundest part of our nature." Two Letters to Gentlemen 
 in Bristol, W., II, 260. 
 
 30 34. unserviceable. See 3 8, note ; 38 i. 
 
 31 2. exploded. From ex and plaudere, to clap the hands. The word 
 was sometimes applied to a play which was hooted off the stage, and it is 
 here used in a similar sense. Compare, " If the affections and opinions of 
 mankind be not exploded as principles of connection, I conceive it would 
 be happy for us if they [the Americans] were taught to believe that there 
 was even a formed American party in England." Letter to the Sheriffs of 
 Bristol, W., II, 215. 
 
 31 9. Spoliatis arma supersunt. Freely translated, The plundered yet 
 have a resource in arms. From Juvenal, Satires, viii, 124. 
 
 31 12. this fierce people. See Introduction, xiii. 
 
 31 16. your speech. Compare Matthew, xxvi, 73: " Thy speech bewray- 
 eth thee." 
 
 31 17. unfittest person. See 19 22, note ; 28 5, note. 
 
 31 27. books of curious science. Law books. Compare Acts, xix, 19: 
 
 ;' Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together 
 md burned them." 
 31 33. chargeable. Costly. 
 
 31 34. obedience. Compare, " Fierce licentiousness begets violent 
 restraints. The military arm is the sole reliance ; and then, call your 
 constitution what you please, it is the sword that governs. The civil 
 power, like every other that calls in the aid of an ally stronger than itself, 
 perishes by the assistance it receives." Thoughts on the Cause of the Pres- 
 ent Discontents, W., I, 484. " That the establishment of such a [military] 
 power in America will utterly ruin our finances though its certain effect 
 is the smallest part of our concern. It will become an apt, powerful, 
 and certain engine for the destruction of our freedom here. Great bodies 
 of armed men, trained to a contempt of popular assemblies representative 
 of an English people, kept up for the purpose of exacting impositions
 
 NOTES. 101 
 
 without their consent, and maintained by that exaction, instruments in 
 subverting, without any process of law, great ancient establishments and 
 respected forms of governments, set free from, and therefore above, the 
 ordinary English tribunals of the country where they serve, these men 
 cannot so transform themselves merely by crossing the sea, as to behold 
 with love and reverence, and submit with profound obedience to, the very 
 same things in Great Britain which in America they had been taught to 
 despise, and had been accustomed to awe and humble." Address to the 
 King, W., VI, 176, 177. 
 
 32 4. advocates and panegyrists. For example, Dr. Johnson, in his 
 Taxation No Tyranny, published not long before this speech was delivered, 
 had said : " It has been proposed that the slaves should be set free, an 
 act which surely the lovers of liberty cannot but commend. If they are 
 furnished with firearms for defence and utensils for husbandry, and settled 
 in some simple form of government within the country, they may be more 
 grateful and honest than their masters." Johnson's Works, London, 1820, 
 VIII, 201, 202. (Cook.) 
 
 32 7. would not always be accepted. In November, 1775, Governor 
 Dunmore of Virginia proclaimed an emancipation of the slaves and sum- 
 moned them to his standard. Comparatively few, however, joined him. 
 The account may be found in most American histories ; for example, Ban- 
 croft, IV, 318. 
 
 32 14. other people. " See Aristophanes, Ranae, 27, from which it 
 appears that the slaves who had distinguished themselves at the battle of 
 Arginusae were presented with their freedom. Plutarch says that Cleo- 
 menes armed two thousand Helots to oppose the Macedonian Leucaspedae, 
 in his war with that people and the Achaeans. According to Pausanias 
 the Helots were present at the battle of Marathon. Among the Romans, 
 as Virgil (Aeneid, ix, 547) tells us, it was highly criminal for slaves to enter 
 the army of their masters ; but in the Hannibalian war, after the battle of 
 Cannae, eight thousand of them were armed, and by their valor in subse- 
 quent actions earned their liberty. See Livy, Book xxiv." (Payne.) 
 
 32 21. their refusal. During the years preceding the Revolution, sev- 
 eral of the colonies attempted to restrict the slave trade, but the English 
 government interfered, and this interference was one cause of grievance to 
 the Americans. In 1761 Virginia proposed to abandon the trade (Ban- 
 croft, II, 549), but in behalf of English merchants, the home government 
 refused to allow restrictions. In the same year South Carolina made a 
 similar proposal (ibid., 550), which met with similar opposition. In 1772 
 Virginia again protested (III, 411); and one of Lord Dunmore's last acts 
 was to veto a bill to check the trade by a heavy duty on slaves. IV, 202.
 
 102 NOTES. 
 
 When he issued his proclamation of freedom, " the Virginians," says Ban- 
 croft (IV, 318), " could plead and did plead that 'their assemblies had 
 repeatedly attempted to prevent the horrid traffic in slaves, and had been 
 frustrated by the cruelty and covetousness of English merchants, who had 
 prevailed on the king to repeal their merciful acts.' " 
 
 32 26. Guinea captain. English captain of a ship engaged in the 
 Guinea trade. 
 
 32 33. " Ye gods." From Martinus Scriblerus, of the Art of Sinking 
 in Poetry, written by Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot, chiefly the last men- 
 tioned; published in 1741. The two lines are in the first part of chapter 
 xi, as an example of hyperbole. Pope's Works, 1776, IV, 169. 
 
 v "33~~7. late. Recent. 
 
 33 11. criminal. The idea of punishing the colonists as criminals was 
 repeatedly urged by the adherents of the ministry. On March 23, 1774, 
 during the debate on the Boston Port Bill,\Mr. Rose Fuller) said : " We all 
 agree that the Bostonians ought to be punished." P. H., XVII, 1176. On 
 the same day Mr. Van said he agreed to the flagitiousness of the offence 
 of the Americans, and therefore was of opinion that the town of Boston 
 ought to be knocked about their ears and destroyed. " Delenda est Car- 
 thago," said he, " I am of opinion you will never meet with proper obedience 
 to the laws of this country until you have destroyed that nest of locusts." 
 Ibid., 1178. On April 15 of the same year Mr. Van advocated burning 
 the forests and leaving the country open, so that the Americans might be 
 deprived of protection. Ibid., 1210. On March 6, 1775, Mr. Henry 
 Dundas declared the " grand penal bill " just, because it was " provoked by 
 the most criminal disobedience : it was merciful, because that disobedience 
 would have justified the severest military execution." P. H., XVIII, 387. 
 On March 16, during a debate in the Lords on the same bill, the Duke of 
 Grafton said the measure was " founded on the principle of retaliation 
 and punishment." Ibid., 451. 
 
 33 23. indictment against a whole people. Compare, " I am not for 
 a total indemnity, nor a general punishment. And first, the body and 
 mass of the people never ought to be treated as criminal. They may 
 become an object of more or less constant watchfulness and suspicion, as 
 their preservation may best require, but they can never become an object 
 of punishment. This is one of the few fundamental and unalterable prin- 
 ciples of politics." On the Policy of the Allies, 1793, ^> IV, 462. 
 
 33 25. Sir Edward Coke. An eminent lawyer: born, 1552; died, 1634. 
 In 1603, while serving as attorney-general, he conducted the trial of Sir 
 Walter Ralegh for treason. On this occasion, according to the D. N. B., 
 XI, 230, 231, "he exhibited a spirit of rancor, descending even to brutality.
 
 NOTES. 103 
 
 for which no one has attempted a defence, his biographers one and all 
 agreeing that his conduct toward Ralegh was simply infamous. ' Thy 
 Machiavelian and devilish policy,' ' thou hast a Spanish heart, and thyself 
 art a spider of hell,' ' I will now make it appear to the world that there 
 never lived a viler viper upon the face of the earth than thou,' these are 
 some of the^owers of his speech. ' The extreme weakness of the evi- 
 dence,' says Sir James Stephen, ' was made up for by the rancorous ferocity 
 of Coke, who reviled and insulted Ralegh in a manner never imitated, so 
 far as I know, before or since in any English court of justice, except per- 
 haps in those in which Jeffreys presided.' " 
 
 33 26. Sir Walter Ralegh. Explorer, author, statesman: born, 1552; 
 executed, 1618. He was accused of complicity in the plots against James 
 the First. 
 
 33 29. very same title. Members of the colonial assemblies, like mem- 
 bers of Parliament, were chosen by popular vote. 
 
 34 2. one common head. Compare, " The Parliament of Great Britain 
 sits at the head of her extensive empire in two capacities : one as the local 
 legislature of this island, providing for all things at home, immediately and 
 by no other instrument than the executive power ; the other, and I think 
 her nobler capacity, is what I call her imperial character, in which, as from 
 the throne of heaven, she_sur2erm(;ends all the several inferior legislatures, 
 and guides and controls them all without annihilating any." Speech on 
 American Taxation, W., II, 75. 
 
 34 8. nice. " Apprehending slight differences or delicate distinc- 
 tions." 
 
 34 12. ex vi termini. From the force of the term, or meaning of the 
 word. The Roman prwfyegium was a law giving an individual some 
 special privilege, or laying him under some special restriction. 
 
 34 20. [that]. This word, though in the Second Edition, is clearly 
 unnecessary, and is therefore bracketed. (Cook.) 
 
 34 31. judge in my own cause. Compare, " One of the first motives 
 to civil society, and which becomes one of its fundamental rules, is that no 
 man should be judge in his own cause. By this each person has at once 
 divested himself of the first fundamental right of uncovenanted man, that 
 is, to judge for himself and to assert his own cause." Reflections on the Rev- 
 olution in France, W., Ill, 309, 310. On February 6, 1775, during a debate 
 in the Commons over an address to the king concerning the disturbances 
 in America, Governor Johnstone said : " Judge Hobert says, ' If an act of 
 Parliament was made constituting a man a judge in his own cause, it would 
 be void by the law of nature.' Yet such is the precise situation in which 
 we contend we ought to be placed respecting the Americans, and for the
 
 104 NOTES. 
 
 denial of which we are ready to condemn our fellow subjects to all the 
 tortures enacted by the laws of treason." P. H., 254. 
 
 35 4. against the superior. Compare, " In all disputes between them 
 [the people] and their rulers, the presumption is at least upon a par in 
 favor of the people. Experience may perhaps justify me in going further. 
 When popular discontents have been very prevalent, it may well be affirmed 
 and supported that there has been generally something found amiss in the 
 constitution or in the conduct of government." Thoughts on the Cause of the 
 Present Discontents, IV., I, 440. " We are convinced that the disorders of 
 the people in the present time and in the present place are owing to the 
 usual and natural cause of such disorders at all times and in all places 
 where such have prevailed, the misconduct of government." Address to 
 the King, W., VI, 163. . 
 
 35 6. abstract right. See 7 14, note. 
 
 35 10. injustice. An allusion to the maxim, Summum jus, summa 
 injuria, The extreme of the law is the extreme of injustice, Cicero, De Offi- 
 ciis,\\Q. Compare, " When confidence is once restored, the odious and 
 suspicious summum jus will perish of course." Speech on American Taxa-' 
 tion, W.,11, 71. 
 
 35 12. civil litigant. A litigant in a suit in which legal rights but not 
 crimes are involved. The first question was whether England had a right 
 to tax the colonies ; the second, whether America was criminal in resisting. 
 
 35 22. those very persons. The majority in Parliament. 
 
 3523. declaring a rebellion. On February 9, 1775, both Houses joined 
 in an address to the king containing the following passage : " We find that 
 a part of your Majesty's subjects in the province of the Massachusetts Bay 
 have proceeded so far to resist the authority of the supreme legislature 
 that a rebellion at this time actually exists within the said province." P. H., 
 297. Against this address the minority of the Lords offered a protest 
 which seems to express Burke's view : " No legal grounds were laid in 
 argument or in fact to show that a rebellion, properly so called, did exist in 
 Massachusetts Bay when the papers of the latest date, and from whence 
 alone we derive our information, were written. The overt acts to which 
 the species of treason affirmed in the address ought to be applied were not 
 established, nor were any offenders marked out. But a general mass of 
 the acts of turbulence, said to be done at various times and places, were all 
 thrown together to make out one" general constructive treason. Neither 
 was there any sort of proof of the continuance of any unlawful force from 
 whence we could infer that a rebellion does now exist. And we are the 
 more cautious of pronouncing any part of his Majesty's dominion to be 
 in rebellion, because the cases of constructive treason under that branch of
 
 NOTES. 105 
 
 the twenty-fifth of Edward the Third which describes the crime of rebellion 
 have been already so far extended by the judges, and the distinctions there- 
 upon so nice and subtle, that no prudent man ought to declare any single 
 person in that situation without the clearest evidence of uncontrovertible 
 overt acts to warrant such a declaration. Much less ought so high an 
 authority as both Houses of Parliament to denounce so severe a judgment 
 against a considerable part of his Majesty's subjects, by which his forces 
 may think themselves justified in commencing a war without any further 
 order or commission." P. H., 294, 295. 
 
 35 24. formerly addressed. On February 13, 1769, a joint address 
 was presented to the king, pledging support in any measures needful to 
 maintain authority in Massachusetts. The address continues : "As ... 
 nothing can be more immediately necessary . . . than to proceed in the 
 most speedy and effectual manner for bringing to condign punishment the 
 chief authors and instigators of the late disorders, we most humbly beseech 
 your Majesty ... to direct your Majesty's governor of Massachusetts Bay 
 to take the most effectual methods for procuring the fullest information 
 that can be obtained touching all treasons, or misprision of treason, com- 
 mitted within this government since the 3Oth day of December last, . . . 
 together with the names of the persons who were most active in the com- 
 mission of such offences, ... in order that your Majesty may issue a special 
 commission for inquiring of, hearing and determining the said offences 
 within this realm, pursuant to the provisions of the statute of the thirty- 
 fifth year of the reign of King Henry the Eighth." P. If., XVI, 479, 480. 
 In the Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, 1777, IV., II, 192, Burke explains 
 the practical operation of the act referred to in the address : " It is neces- 
 sary, Gentlemen, to apprise you that there is an act, made so long ago 
 as in the reign of Henry the Eighth, before the existence or thought of any 
 English colonies in America, for the trial in this kingdom of treasons com- 
 mitted out of the realm. In the year 1769 Parliament thought proper to 
 acquaint the crown with their construction of that act in a formal address, 
 wherein they entreated his Majesty to cause persons charged with high 
 treason in America to be brought into this kingdom for trial. By this act 
 of Henry the Eighth, so construed and so applied, almost all that is sub- 
 stantial and beneficial in a trial by jury is taken away from the subject in 
 the colonies. This is, however, saying too little ; for to try a man under 
 that act is, in effect, to condemn him unheard. A person is brought hither 
 in the dungeon of a ship's hold ; thence he is vomited into a dungeon on 
 land, loaded with irons, unfurnished with money, unsupported by friends, 
 three thousand miles from all means of calling upon or confronting evi- 
 dence, where no one local circumstance that tends to detect perjury can
 
 106 NOTES. 
 
 possibly be judged of; such a person maybe executed according to form, 
 but he can never be tried according to justice." See 59 30-34. The act in 
 question was passed during the session of 1543-1544. 
 
 35 34. juridical. See 7 14, note. 
 
 36 2. menaces. During the previous decade Parliament in addresses 
 to the king had made many direct and indirect threats against the colonies. 
 On January 14, 1766, at the time of the agitations over the Stamp Act, the 
 Lords addressed the king, saying : " We will exert our utmost endeavors 
 to assert and support your Majesty's dignity and honor and the legislative 
 authority of this kingdom over its colonies." P. ff., XVI, 94. On Novem- 
 ber 8, 1768, at the opening of Parliament the Lords, in an address echoed 
 by the Commons, declared : " We most unfeignedly give your Majesty the 
 strongest assurances that we shall ever zealously concur in support of such 
 just and necessary measures as may best enable your Majesty to repress 
 that daring spirit of disobedience, and to enforce a due submission to the 
 laws; always considering that it is one of our most essential duties to 
 maintain inviolate the supreme authority of the legislature of Great Britain 
 over every part of the dominions of your Majesty's crown." Ibid,, 471. 
 For the next menace, that of February 13, 1769, see 35 24, note. On 
 January 9, 1770, the Lords and Commons, in addresses practically the 
 same in sentiment, said : " We shall be ready to give' every assistance in our 
 power . . . for discountenancing those unwarrantable measures practiced in 
 some of your Majesty's colonies, which appear calculated to destroy the 
 commercial connection between them and the mother country." Ibid., 667. 
 On November 1 3 of the same year both Houses declared : " We will neglect 
 no means of ... providing for the protection of your Majesty's good sub- 
 jects there [in the colonies] from every degree of violence and oppression." 
 Ibid., 1080. On November 30, 1774, the Lords expressed their detestation 
 of the disobedience to the laws in Massachusetts, and promised cheerful 
 cooperation in all efforts to suppress it (XVIII, 39); and on December 5 
 the Commons made the king even stronger assurances of support. Ibid., 
 46. For the last threat, that of February 9, 1775, see 8 18, note. 
 
 36 4. penal laws. For a list of laws which Burke regarded as penal 
 and wished to suspend, see 58 1-24. The first, " An act for granting cer- 
 tain duties," passed in 1767, provided for a duty on glass, paper, red and 
 white lead, painters' colors, and tea. P. ff., XVI, 375, 376 ; also Statutes at 
 Large, chapter 46 of 7 George the Third. All the duties except those 
 on tea were repealed in 1769, and thus the act is often known as the Tea 
 Duty Bill. The second, "An act to discontinue," passed March, 1774, 
 provided for the closing of the port of Boston, and is known as the Boston 
 Port Bill. P. ff., XVII, 1164; also Statutes at Large, chapter 19 of 14
 
 NOTES. 107 
 
 George the Third. The third, "An act for the impartial administration of 
 justice," passed May, 1774, provided that if any person in Massachusetts 
 were indicted for murder or any other capital offence, and if it should 
 appear to the governor that the incriminated act was committed in aiding 
 the magistrates to suppress tumult and riot, and also that a fair trial could 
 not be had in the provinces, the prisoner should be sent for trial to any 
 other colony or to Great Britain. P. H., XVII, 1200; also Statutes at Large, 
 chapter 39 of 14 George the Third. The fourth, "An act for the better 
 regulating the government," is explained in 27 18, note. To this last may 
 be added two or three other acts, some of them merely temporary in effect. 
 In 1765 a bill had been passed, commonly called the American Mutiny 
 Act, requiring the colonists to supply the English troops with some of the 
 necessaries of life. On the refusal of New York to comply, a bill was 
 passed temporarily suspending the Assembly. P. //., XVI, 331 ; also Stat- 
 utes at Large, chapter 59 of 7 George the Third. See Introduction, xv-xix. 
 
 36 6. a force. During a debate on the navy estimate in the Commons 
 on December 12, 1774, it was stated that nineteen vessels containing 2835 
 seamen were on duty along the American coast. P. H., 54. On February 
 15, 1775, in answer to a message from the king, the Commons took up a 
 bill to increase the army, so that there might be about ten thousand men 
 in Boston. P. H., 316. 
 
 36 9. confident hopes. See 27 19, note. 
 
 36 ll. correctly. Precisely. 
 
 36 22. colonies complain. See the resolution passed by the American 
 Congress, October 14, 1774: " Resolved, That the foundation of English 
 liberty and all free government is a right of the people to participate in 
 their legislative council : and as the English colonists are not represented, 
 and from their local and other circumstances cannot properly be represented, 
 in the British Parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclusive power 
 of legislation in their several provincial legislatures, where their right of 
 representation can alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation and internal 
 polity, subject only to the negative of their sovereign in such manner 
 as has been heretofore used and accustomed." Journals of Congress, 
 I, 20. 
 
 36 34. startle. Now used transitively. Compare Addison's Cato, 
 
 iii, 2, 80, 8 1 : 
 
 My frightened thoughts run back, 
 And startle into madness at the sound. 
 
 37 1. less than nothing. Compare Isaiah, xl, 17 : " All nations before 
 him are as nothing; and they are counted to him less than nothing, and 
 vanity." Also, " In matters of state a constitutional competence to act is
 
 108 NOTES. 
 
 in many cases the smallest part of the question." First Letter on a Regicidt 
 Peace, W., V, 283. 
 
 37 4. profound subject. For a decade the question of the legal right 
 of Parliament to tax the colonies had been debated. Whenever American 
 affairs had been discussed in Parliament, and whenever it was possible to 
 interject remarks on America into the discussion of other subjects, this 
 question had appeared in one form or another. The pages of the Parlia- 
 mentary History and of various contemporary accounts of the proceedings 
 are filled with arguments on the subject ; the periodicals on both sides of 
 the water gave much space to it, and both England and America were 
 flooded with pamphlets on it. Of these last, Dr. Johnson's Taxation No 
 Tyranny is a sample. One of the best summaries of the whole discussion 
 is to be found in the Annual Register for 1766, reprinted in P. //"., XVI, 
 193-206. This summary shows that the two questions which Burke men- 
 tions, lines 6-13, were the ones most often urged. On the one side it was 
 argued that by natural and inalienable right no man could " be taxed but 
 by himself or by his representative." XVI, 195. This argument was 
 presented at considerable length by Mr. Wilkes, February 6, 1775. XVIII, 
 234-240. On the other hand, it was urged that the very existence of 
 government and the supremacy of Parliament implied the right to tax. 
 XVIII, 241. Each side tried to support its contention (see lines 13-16) 
 by the authority of great lawyers or students of government. " As to the 
 right of taxation, the gentlemen who opposed it produced many learned 
 authorities from Locke, Selden, Harrington, and Puffendorf." P. //., XVI, 
 194. Burke himself seems to have been of opinion that Parliament had a 
 technical right which it was foolish to exercise. " Mr. Burke observed . . . 
 that we had an undoubted right to tax them [the Americans], but that the 
 expediency of putting that right in execution should be very evident before 
 anything of that sort passed." Debate of March 14, 1769, P. If., XVI, 
 605. See Introduction, xvi. 
 
 37 19. Serbonian bog. From Paradise Lost, ii, 592-594. The refer- 
 ence is to Lake Serbonis, near the mouth of the Nile. 
 
 37 26. a lawyer tells me. See 7 14, note. 
 
 38 2. loss of my suit. Compare 3 8, note ; 18 15 ; also, " It would 
 have been a poor compensation that we had triumphed in a dispute, whilst 
 we lost an empire." Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, W., II, 227. 
 
 38 5. unity of spirit. Compare / Corinthians, xii, 4 : " Now there are 
 diversities of gifts, but the same spirit." Ephesians, iv, 3 : " Endeavoring 
 to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace." 
 
 38 9. abjured all the rights of citizens. Dr. Johnson says in Taxa- 
 tion No Tyranny: "The Americans have voluntarily resigned the power
 
 NOTES. 109 
 
 of voting, to live in distant and separate governments ; and what they 
 have voluntarily quitted, they have no right to claim." Works, VIII, 183. 
 38 21. interest in the Constitution. Compare, " It passes my compre- 
 hension in what manner it is that men can be reconciled to the practical 
 merits of a constitution ... by being practically excluded from any of its 
 advantages." Second Letter on the Catholic Question, W., VI, 382. 
 
 38 27. understood principle. As an act for raising revenue, not con- 
 trolling trade. 
 
 39 3. American financiers. Men who expect much actual revenue from 
 America. 
 
 39 4. exquisite. Curious, careful, as in " Over-exquisite to cast the 
 fashion of uncertain evils." Comus, 359. 
 
 39 9. further views. This argument was common from the beginning 
 of the discussion ten years before. Burke clearly alludes to several of the 
 more recent expressions of it. On April 19, 1774, during a debate on a 
 motion to repeal the Tea Duty Act, Mr. Rice said : " Whenever we have 
 made the least concession, they have always required more ; they will 
 think that we acknowledge that we have no right, if we should repeal this 
 law. ... I am greatly afraid that if you give up this, you will be required 
 to give up much more." P. H., XVII, 1211, 1212. On the same day Mr. 
 Solicitor-General Wedderburn argued : " If you give up this tax, it is not 
 here that you must stop ; you will be required to give up much more, nay, 
 to give up all." Ibid., 1270. In a debate in the Lords, January 20, 1775, 
 on Lord Chatham's motion to withdraw the troops from Boston, Lord 
 Lyttelton declared that if Great Britain should give way from mistaken 
 motives of present advantages in trade, such a concession would inevitably 
 defeat its own object ; for it was plain that the Navigation Act and all 
 other regulatory acts, which formed the great basis on which those advan- 
 tages rested, and the true interests of both countries depended, would fall 
 a victim to the interested and ambitious views of America. Every concession 
 would produce a new demand, and in the end bring about that state of 
 traitorous independency at which America was aiming. XVIII, 163. On 
 January 23, while the Commons were considering some petitions for con- 
 ciliation from merchants of London and Bristol, Lord Stanley insisted that 
 if England gave way, the Americans would desire a repeal of the Naviga- 
 tion Act and every other act on the statute book that in the least degree 
 affected them. Ibid., 177. On March 6, during the argument on Lord 
 North's " grand penal bill," Mr. Rice again said the Americans were aiming 
 at independence, and intended to throw off the commercial restrictions as 
 well as the taxes. On this latter point he was as much inclined to relax 
 as any other member, if he could be sure that such relaxation would not
 
 110 NOTES. 
 
 be introductory to a further and worse opposition on their part, 389. To 
 this last speech Burke directly refers in lines 14, 15. See 41 12, note. 
 
 39 10. trade laws. There had been many laws, some of them called 
 Navigation Acts, passed for restricting the trade of the provinces. By the 
 terms of one act, all colonial exports to England were to be shipped only 
 in American or English vessels ; by a second, colonial exports were to go 
 only to England or English colonies ; by a third, the colonies could not 
 export hats ; and by a fourth, they were forbidden to erect mills for rolling 
 iron or furnaces for making steel. These are but a few of the many har- 
 assing regulations laid on the colonies. 
 
 39 14. gentleman. Mr. Rice. See 39 9, note. 
 
 39 23. noble lord. See 8 4, note. 
 
 39 24. futile and useless. The speech in which Lord North made 
 the remarks here attributed to him does not appear in the reports of the 
 debates of 1774 or 1775. On March 5, 1770, during a discussion of the 
 Tea Duty Bill, North argued that American agreements not to buy British 
 goods must speedily be broken, because the colonists could buy more 
 cheaply in England than anywhere else. F. ff., XVI, 855. 
 
 40 12. the pamphlet. By Dr. Tucker. See 28 26, note. 
 
 40 14. idolizing. Compare, " Among regulations that which stood first 
 in reputation was his [George Grenville's] idol : I mean the Act of Navi- 
 gation. He has often professed it to be so." Speech on American Taxa- 
 tion, W., II, 38. 
 
 40 31. not a shadow of evidence. An assertion which Burke could 
 hardly have supported. For a century the Americans had been complain- 
 ing of the trade laws, as any colonial history will show. For example, 
 when in 1733 Parliament had proposed that after the northern colonies had 
 sold their fish, lumber, and provisions in the West Indies, a return cargo 
 of molasses, sugar, or rum from any but the British West India islands 
 should be subject to a duty, Rhode Island strongly remonstrated, and. the 
 New York merchants declared : " The bill is divesting them [the merchants] 
 of their rights as the king's natural-born subjects and Englishmen, in levy- 
 ing subsidies on them against their consent, when they are annexed to no 
 county in Britain, have no representation in Parliament, nor are any part 
 of the legislature of this kingdom. It will be drawn into a precedent here- 
 after." Bancroft, II, 244. 
 
 41 12. colonies will go further. See 39 9, note. Compare also, " But 
 still it sticks in our throats, if we go so far, the Americans will go farther. 
 We do not know that. We ought from experience rather to presume the 
 contrary. Do we not know for certain that the Americans are going on as 
 fast as possible, whilst we refuse to gratify them ? Can they do more, or can
 
 NOTES. Ill 
 
 they do worse, if we yield this point ? I think this concession will rather 
 fix a turnpike to prevent their further progress." Speech on American Taxa- 
 tion, W., II, 29. (Cook.) 
 
 42 5. Austrian family. Emperor Charles the Fifth of Austria inherited 
 the throne of Spain from his mother. This dynasty continued till 1700. 
 
 42 8. Philip the Second. A son of Charles the Fifth : born in 1 527 ; 
 married Queen Mary of England in 1554; came to the throne of Spain in 
 1 556 ; fitted out the Spanish Armada in 1 588 ; and died in 1 598. He was 
 far from a " perfect standard," for he was a dull, bigoted man. issue of 
 their affairs. In 1775 Spain, though relatively stronger than to-day, had 
 already lost much of her ancient power. 
 
 42 13. English Constitution. This is not, like the Constitution of the 
 United States, a definite document ; the phrase refers to the body of tra- 
 ditions, customs, precedents, laws, and institutions, and to the general 
 spirit of the English government. 
 
 42 16. Ireland, Wales, Chester and Durham. These cases had often been 
 cited in the parliamentary debates. See P. H., XVI, 195-198; XVIII, 235. 
 
 42 17. English conquest. By Henry the Second, in 1172. For an 
 account of the conquest, see Greer^ I. 175-178. Sftg.. r\_a 
 
 42 18. no Parliament. Before the conquest Ireland was governed by a 
 number of independent chiefs, each at the head of a sept, corresponding to 
 a Scottish clan. (I i* ") *Q c ^jg^V^ fc>L*JCLrl 
 
 42 22. such as England then enjoyed. " The great councils of barons 
 and prelates which he [Henry the Second] summoned year by year." Green, 
 I, 167. 
 
 42 28. Magna Charta. The Great Charter of rights which the barons 
 forced King John to sign in 1215. It provides among other things that 
 " No scutage or aid . . . shall be imposed in our realm save by the com- 
 mon council of the realm." Green, I, 246. 
 
 42 34. all Ireland. English laws and liberties were enjoyed by Eng- 
 lish settlers only who lived within a certain district called the " Pale." It 
 was not until the time of James the First that the privileges of the Pale 
 were extended to the whole country. See Green, I, 514-517. 
 
 43 3. Sir John Davies. Born, 1569; speaker of the first Irish House 
 of Commons ; died in 1626. He published a number of poems, and in 
 1612 a book called Discovery of the true Causes why Ireland was never 
 entirely Subdued nor brought under Obedience of the Crown of England 
 until the Beginning of his Majesty's happy Reign. 
 
 43 7. military government. A reference to the attempts of the Earl 
 of Essex and Lord Mountjoy to put down rebellions at the close of the six- 
 teenth century. Green, II, 496, 497.
 
 112 NOTES. 
 
 43 9. civility. Civilization. 
 
 43 13. changed the people. A considerable part of the country was 
 settled by the English and Scotch at the Plantation of Ulster, in 1610. 
 Green, III, 154. 
 
 43 14. altered the religion. From the Church of Rome to the Church 
 of England. 
 
 43 16. deposed kings. Charles the First in 1649 ana< James the Second 
 in 1688. restored them. Charles the Second was restored in 1660. 
 altered the succession. In 1714, from the House of Stuart to the House 
 of Hanover. 
 
 43 19. usurpation. The protectorate of Cromwell, 1649-1660. 
 
 43 20. glorious Revolution. Burke calls the Revolution of 1688 glori- 
 ous because it was a triumph of the Whig principles, in which he believed. 
 His views are very fully set forth in his Appeal from the New to the Old 
 Whigs. See 28 5, note. 
 
 43 22. disgrace and a burden. For centuries the government of 
 Ireland was one of the most serious questions with which England had 
 to deal. 
 
 43 24. strength and ornament. Though at this time Ireland was caus- 
 ing comparatively little trouble, Burke certainly exaggerates. 
 
 43 26. mighty troubles. The rebellions put down by Cromwell and 
 William the Third. 
 
 43 32. lucrative. Used ironically. 
 
 43 34. supply. Revenue. Compare 50 4. 
 
 44 l. Irish pensioners. Government pensioners paid out of the Irish 
 revenues. 
 
 44 7. Henry the Third. Fought with Wales, 1265-1267. See Green, 
 I, 280-312. 
 
 44 8. Edward the First. Invaded Wales, 1277 and 1282. "The 
 Statute of Wales which Edward promulgated at Ruddlan in 1 284 proposed 
 to introduce English law and the English administration of justice and 
 government into Wales. But little came of the attempt ; and it was not 
 till the time of Henry the Eighth that the country was actually incorporated 
 with England and represented in the English Parliament." Green, I, 334. 
 See also ibid., 324, 325. 
 
 44 12. Lords Marchers. Lords of the borders. From march, a boundary, 
 or border. The English kings before Edward the First had granted to 
 the lords such lands as they could win from the Welsh, and each lord 
 executed the law in his territory. After the conquest, these lords retained 
 their jurisdiction, though no new ones were created. 
 
 44 29. proclamation. " While providing for reinforcement to its army,
 
 NOTES. 113 
 
 England enjoined the strictest watchfulness on its consuls and agents in 
 every part of Europe to intercept all munitions of war destined for the 
 colonies." Bancroft, IV, 129. 
 
 44 32. disarm New England. General Gage, acting under instructions 
 from the home government, had made the attempt in the autumn of 1774. 
 " He seized upon the ammunition and stores which were lodged in the 
 provincial arsenal at Cambridge, and had them brought to Boston. He 
 also at the same time seized upon the powder which was lodged in the 
 magazines at Charlestown and some other places, being partly private 
 property and partly provincial." A. P., 1775, 18. General Gage's own 
 account of the affair appears in a letter dated November 2, and laid before 
 the House January 19, 1/75. P. If., 104. 
 
 44 34. more hardship. See 35 24, note. 
 
 45 6. fisheries. See 3 8, note, foreign ports. See 39 10, note. 
 
 45 8. penal regulation. In addition to the restrictions Burke mentions, 
 no Welshman could buy land in a town or, with a few exceptions, hold a 
 castle or fortress. 
 
 45 23. laws made against a whole people. Compare 33 23, note. 
 
 45 25. twenty-seventh year. 1535- 
 
 45 27. rights of the crown. " Wherefore the king's most royal majesty 
 of mere droit and very right is very head, king, lord, and ruler." Statutes of 
 the Realm, 1817, III, 563. Chapter 26 of 27 Henry the Eighth. 
 
 45 33. fundamental security. Compare 20 21-24. 
 
 46 6. day-star. Compare // Peter, i, 19: "Until the day dawn and 
 the day-star arise in your hearts." 
 
 46 9. Simul alba. Horace, Odes, i, 12, 27-32: "When once their fair 
 star has shone upon the mariner, the troubled water flows down from the 
 rocks, the winds fall, the clouds flee away, and, since they [Castor and 
 Pollux] have so willed, the threatening wave reposes on the deep." 
 
 46 15. County Palatine. A county in which the owner possessed royal 
 rights, the same as those of the king in his palace. Palatine is from the 
 Latin palatium, a palace. At the time referred to, Chester had its own 
 courts, judges, and other such officers, and also a Parliament. 
 
 46 20. Richard the Second. Deposed for tyranny, 1399. 
 
 46 21. archers. About 2000 in number. 
 
 46 23. petition. The text, modernized in spelling, has been altered 
 slightly from that of Dodsley in order to correspond to that of the 
 Statutes of the Realm, 1817, III, 911. It forms part of chapter 13 of 34 
 and 35 Henry the Eighth. (Cook.) 
 
 46 24. shewen. An obsolete form. 
 
 46 26. where. Whereas.
 
 114 NOTES. 
 
 46 29. knights. Members of Parliament representing a county, bur- 
 gesses. Members from boroughs. 
 46 31. disherisons. Deprivations. 
 
 46 33. commonwealth. Common welfare. 
 
 47 5. ne. Old form for nor. 
 
 47 14. libel. About the middle of June, 1774, the council of Massa- 
 chusetts sent to Governor Gage, then recently appointed, an address 
 reflecting severely on the policy of his two predecessors. Of this incident 
 he says in a letter to the home government dated June 26 : " The council 
 sent me the enclosed libel on my predecessors in this government, in an 
 address ; on which account I refused to receive it." P. H., 86. According 
 to the account in the Annual Register, 1775, 7 : " The address was rejected 
 by the governor, who would not suffer the chairman of the committee to 
 proceed any further, when he had read the part which reflected on his pre- 
 decessors. He afterwards returned an answer to the council in writing, in 
 which he informed them that he could not receive an address which con- 
 tained indecent reflections on his predecessors, who had been tried and 
 honorably acquitted by the Privy Council, and their conduct approved by 
 the king ; that he considered the address as an insult upon his Majesty 
 and the lords of his Privy Council, and an affront to himself." 
 
 47 15. derogation. The argument that a petition questioning or deny- 
 ing the power of Parliament in any point should not be received, because 
 it was a derogation from the rights of Parliament, was urged against the 
 petitions from America. For instance, on March 14, 1769, the general 
 assembly of New York offered a representation denying the right of Parlia- 
 ment to tax the colony. " Lord North opposed its being brought up, see- 
 ing they denied the right of the Parliament to tax them ; if they petitioned 
 to remove any grievance, it was another thing; but Parliament having 
 passed a law declaratory of its right to tax America, nothing should be 
 received arraigning that right." P. ff., XVI, 604. 
 
 47 19. temperament. Tempering, or modification. 
 
 48 10. no way resembling. " And also by cause that the people of the 
 same dominion have and do daily use a speech nothing like ne consonant 
 to the natural mother tongue used within this realm." Statutes of the 
 Realm, 1817, III, 563, chapter 26 of 27 Henry the Eighth. 
 
 48 12. Judge Barrington. Daines Harrington : born, 1727 ; appointed 
 justice of the counties of Merioneth, Carnarvon, and Anglesey, all in 
 Wales, 1757; died, 1800. 
 
 48 16. rebellion. See 35 23, note. 
 
 48 19. legislative authority is perfect. This argument had been urged 
 again and again. For example, on February 6, during a discussion of the
 
 NOTES. 115 
 
 affairs in America, Solicitor-General Wedderburn said that " the clearest 
 rights " of the legislative power were invaded and denied. P. H., 233. 
 
 48 21. virtually represented. Another common argument. The fol- 
 lowing is a passage from the summary of the debates on the Stamp Act in 
 1766: " There can be no doubt but that the inhabitants of the colonies 
 are as much represented in Parliament as the greatest part of the people 
 of England are, among nine millions of whom there are eight who have no 
 votes in electing members of Parliament. Every objection, therefore, to 
 the dependency of the colonies upon Parliament, which arises to it upon 
 the ground of representation, goes to the whole present Constitution of 
 Great Britain. A member of Parliament chosen for any borough repre- 
 sents, not only the constituents and inhabitants of that particular place, 
 but he represents the inhabitants of every other borough in Great Britain ; 
 he represents the city of London and all the other commons of the land, 
 and the inhabitants of all the colonies and dominions of Great Britain, 
 and is in duty and conscience bound to take care of their interests." P. f., 
 XVI, 201, 202. Cook notes that Dr. Johnson also, in Taxation No 
 Tyranny, had written : " It must always be remembered that they [the 
 Americans] are represented by the same virtual representation as the 
 greater part of Englishmen ; and that if by change of place they have less 
 share in the legislature than is proportionate to their opulence, they by 
 their removal gained that opulence, and had originally, and have now, 
 their choice of a vote at home or riches at a distance." Works, VIII, 183. 
 
 49 2. Opposuit natura. Nature opposed. Juvenal, Satires, x, 152. 
 49 4. meddle with no theory. See 6 15, note. 
 
 49 6. those who have been more confident. In this number Franklin 
 may be reckoned. In a letter to Governor Shirley February 22, 1754, he 
 expressed approval of the plan. See Sparks's edition of Franklin, Boston, 
 1840, III, 64. But during his examination before the House of Commons 
 January 28, 1766, he said that before the Stamp Act Pennsylvania, at least, 
 had no desire for representation. P. ff., XVI, 158. Writing in 1769 he 
 seems to have lost faith in the desirability of the plan. " It is in my 
 opinion by no means impracticable to bring representatives conveniently 
 from America to Great Britain ; but I think the present mode of letting 
 them govern themselves by their own assemblies much preferable." Obser- 
 vations on Passages in " An Inquiry into the Natiire and Causes of the 
 Disputes between the British Colonies in America and their Mother Coun- 
 try." Sparks's Franklin, IV, 283. (Cook.) 
 
 49 8. arm ... is not shortened. Compare fsaiak,\\x., i : "The Lord's 
 hand is not shortened, that it cannot save." 
 
 49 18. Republic. A sketch of an ideal commonwealth.
 
 116 MOTS. 
 
 49 19. Utopia. A similar plan published in 1516 by Sir Thomas More, 
 who lived 1478-1535. Oceana. Published in 1656 by James Harrington, 
 who lived 1611-1677. 
 
 49 21. rude swain. Misquoted from Milton's Comus, 634, 635 : "dull 
 swain." 
 
 49 22. clouted shoon. Furnished with clout-nails. See the New Eng- 
 lish Dictionary. 
 
 49 29. 1763. The beginning of the Grenville administration, which 
 passed the Stamp Act. 
 
 49 31. grant. A voluntary contribution. See 57 9-14. imposition. 
 A tax imposed. 
 
 49 33. legal competency. See 53 20-33, 54 1-7. 
 
 50 4. supply. See 43 34, note. 
 
 50 11. temple of British concord. An allusion to the Roman Temple 
 of Concord. Compare 72 10-11. 
 
 50 24. fourteen. The government of Quebec and the thirteen colonies 
 which formed the Union. 
 
 50 30. description. The parties named ; that is, the colonies and 
 plantations. 
 
 50 33. The second is like unto. Compare Matthew, xxii, 39: " And 
 the second [commandment] is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
 thyself." 
 
 51 16. Non meus. Horace, Satires, ii, 2, 2, 3 : " This is not my own 
 doctrine, but that taught by Ofellus, a rustic, wise without rules." 
 
 51 20. rust that rather adorns. Compare Juvenal, Satires, xiii, 147- 
 149: 
 
 Confer et hos, veteris qui tollunt grandia templi 
 Pocula adorandae robiginis et populorum 
 Dona vel antique positas a rege coronas. 
 
 " Compare also those who despoil some old temple of its massive chalices 
 with their venerable rust, and the gifts of nations, or crowns dedicated by 
 some ancient monarch." (Cook.) Burke had used the phrase "venerable 
 rust" before. On November 27, 1770, in a debate on the power of the 
 attorney-general, he said : " They have set before our eyes in every engag- 
 ing light the respect and reverence which it [the power of the attorney- 
 general] has derived from the savory mouldiness and the venerable rust of 
 ages." P. H., XVI, 1151. In another report of the speech Burke is made 
 to say : " Several gentlemen have expressed a kind of superstitious rever- 
 ence for the power of the attorney-general to file official informations, upon 
 account of its supposed antiquity, as the father of Scriblerus venerated the 
 rust and canker which exalted a brazen pot-lid into the shield of a hero.
 
 NOTES. 117 
 
 I hope to scour off the false marks of antiquity which have made this 
 power venerable, as effectually as the honest housewife scoured off the 
 false honors of the pot-lid." Ibid., 1190. The passage here referred to is 
 from the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus, chapter iii : " Behold the shield. 
 Behold this rust, or rather let me call it this precious aerttgo, behold this 
 beautiful varnish of time, this venerable verdure of so many ages." Pope's 
 Works, London, 1776, IV, 79. Possibly this passage rather than that from 
 Juvenal suggested to Burke the phrase "venerable rust"; for, as the quo- 
 tation at 32 33, 34 indicates, he seems to have been familiar with the Scrib- 
 lerus papers. 
 
 51 22. touch with a tool. Compare Exodus, xx, 25 : "And if thou 
 wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shall not build it of hewn stone ; for 
 if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it." 
 
 51 27. tracks of our forefathers. The conservatism which appears so 
 often in this speech runs throughout his work. Compare, " The old build- 
 ing stands well enough, though part Gothic, part Grecian, and part Chinese, 
 until an attempt is made to square it into uniformity. Then it may come 
 down upon our heads altogether, in much uniformity of ruin." Present 
 State of the Nation, W., I, 368. " Has he well considered what an immense 
 operation any change in our Constitution is ? how many discussions, 
 parties, and passions it will necessarily excite ? and when you open it to 
 inquiry in one part, where the inquiry will stop ? " Ibid., 371. "The most 
 dangerous of all principles, that of mending what is well." Ibid., 421. " The 
 dislike I feel to revolutions, the signals for which have so often been given 
 from pulpits ; the spirit of change that is gone abroad ; the total contempt 
 which prevails with you, and may come to prevail with us, of all ancient 
 institutions, when set in opposition to a present sense of convenience or to 
 the bent of present inclination ; all these considerations make it not 
 unadvisable in my opinion to call back our attention to the true principles 
 of our own domestic laws." Reflections on the Revolution in France, III, 
 264. 
 
 5130. wise beyond what was written. Compare / Corinthians, iv, 
 6 : "rt> fj-Tj virtp 3 ytypairTai <f>povflv." Authorized version : " That ye might 
 learn in us not to think of men above that which is written." Revised ver- 
 sion : " Ye might learn not to go beyond the things which are written." See 
 also, " He is resolved not ' to be wise beyond what is written ' in the legis- 
 lative record and practice." Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, W., 
 IV, 134. 
 
 51 31. form of sound words. Compare II Timothy,'\, 13 : " Hold fast 
 the form of sound words." 
 
 52 13. little in property. Compare 28 5, note.
 
 118 NOTES. 
 
 52 22. repealed. See 36 4, note. Compare, " About two years after 
 this act [of 1767] passed, the ministry, I mean the present ministry, thought 
 it expedient to repeal five of the duties and to leave . . . only the sixth 
 standing." Speech on American Taxation, W., II, 10. 
 
 52 23. regulating duties. A reference to what is called the Molasses 
 Act, passed in 1733. For the provisions and the remonstrance, see 40 31, 
 note. " The title of this act of George the Second . . . considers it merely 
 as a regulation of trade : An act for the better securing the trade of his 
 Majesty's sugar colonies in America." Speech on American Taxation, IV., 
 
 II, 31- 
 
 52 28. duties of 1767. See 36 4, note ; 52 22, note. 
 
 52 30. Lord Hillsborough. Born, 1718; secretary of state for the 
 colonies, 1768-1772 ; died, 1793. Though in general opposed to concessions 
 to America, yet on May 13, 1769, he sent to the colonies a public circular 
 letter from which Burke quotes the following passage in the Speech on 
 American Taxation, W., II, 20: "I can take upon me to assure you, not- 
 withstanding insinuations to the contrary from men with factious and sedi- 
 tious views, that his Majesty's present administration have at no time 
 entertained a design to propose to Parliament to lay any further taxes upon 
 America for the purpose of raising a revenue ; and that it is at present their 
 intention to propose the next session of Parliament to take off the duties 
 upon glass, paper, and colors, upon consideration of such duties having 
 been laid contrary to the true principles of commerce." 
 
 52 34. resolution of the noble lord. See 7 is, note ; 8 30, note. 
 
 53 8. representation in Parliament. See 28 19, note ; 49 6. 
 
 53 15. freemen. Those who have full rights of citizenship, free- 
 holders. Those who possess absolutely or for life a piece of property. 
 
 53 24. passed the public offices. Approved by the proper authorities. 
 In regard to the possible royal veto, see 36 22, note. I \ | vf 
 
 53 25. Those who have been pleased. An allusion to Grenville. " He 
 was of opinion, which he has declared in this House an hundred times, that 
 the colonies could not legally grant any revenue to the crown, and that 
 infinite mischiefs would be the result of such a power." Speech on Ameri- 
 can Taxation, W., II, 43. 
 
 53 30. some of the law servants. On February 10, 1766, during a 
 debate in the Lords on the disturbances in America, Lord Chief Justice 
 Mansfield argued that no money could be raised without the consent of 
 Parliament ; for the agreement of any number of people to raise money for 
 the king would be unconstitutional. By the Declaration of Right, pronoun- 
 cing it illegal to levy money except by act of Parliament, all levies, said 
 Mansfield, by "loan, gift, or benevolence " are void. P. H., XVI, 174.
 
 NOTES. 119 
 
 53 31. if the crown could be responsible. Whatever the English sov- 
 ereign does officially is done by the advice of his ministers, who are held 
 responsible. 
 
 54 3. council. A body of specially selected and sworn advisers of the 
 king. 
 
 54 4. first lords of trade. A reference to a committee of the privy 
 council having supervision of commerce and industry. See Introduction, 
 xv. attorney-general. One of the chief legal advisers of the crown, 
 solicitor-general. An officer associated with the attorney-general in the 
 legal business of the crown. 
 
 54 17. great expenses. On January 28, 1766, Dr. Franklin testified to 
 the House : " The colonies raised, paid, and clothed near 25,000 men during 
 the last war [the French and Indian], a number equal to those sent from 
 Britain, and far beyond their proportion. They went deeply into debt in 
 doing this, and all their taxes and estates are mortgaged for many years 
 to come for discharging that debt. . . . The sums reimbursed to them 
 were by no means adequate to the expense they incurred beyond their 
 proportion." P. H., XVI, 153. 
 
 54 18. so high. So far back. 
 
 54 19. 1695. During the long struggle between the French and the 
 English colonists. 
 
 54 20. 1710. The year of the successful expedition against Acadia, in 
 which a number of New England troops took part. 
 
 ^54 24. 1748. The year of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, the end of what 
 is known as King George's War. England then restored to France Cape 
 Breton, which had been colonized by the French but captured by the English. 
 
 55 ]. 1756. The time of the French and Indian War. 
 
 55 17-21. Vol. XXVII. The passages referred to are similar in phras- 
 ing to those quoted above. 
 
 56 4. miserable stories. In Franklin's testimony the following sentence 
 occurs : " America has been greatly misrepresented and abused here in 
 papers and pamphlets and speeches, as ungrateful and unreasonable and 
 unjust, in having put this nation to immense expense for their defence and 
 refusing to bear any part of that expense." P. H., XVI, 152, 153. 
 
 56 5. misguided people. The English. 
 
 56 9. paid no taxes. An argument which appeared in nearly every 
 debate on America. See, for example, the speech of the Duke of Grafton, 
 February 10, 1766, when the repeal of the Stamp Act was proposed. P. ft., 
 XVI, 165. 
 
 56 11. Mr. Grenville. George Grenville: born, 1712; prime minister, 
 1763-1765; died, 1770.
 
 120 NOTES. 
 
 56 25. requisition. Note the distinction which Burke makes between 
 money asked for and taxes imposed. See 54 12. 
 
 57 17. utmost rights. See 37 4, note. 
 
 58 2. An act for granting. See 36 4, note. 
 
 58 4. drawback. Rebate. Duties collected upon the goods mentioned 
 were partly or wholly repaid if the goods were again exported. 
 
 58 8. clandestine running. Smuggling. 
 58 u. An act to discontinue. See 36 4, note. * ^ 
 
 58 17. An act for the impartial administration. See 36 4, note. 
 
 58 23. An act for the better regulating. See 27 18, note. 
 
 58 27. An act for the trial. See 35 24, note. 
 
 58 30. during the king's pleasure. According to a clause of the bill, 
 the decision as to reopening the port was to rest with the crown. P. H., 
 XVII, 1165. 
 
 58 33. was not heard. On March 14, 1774, during the debate on the 
 bill, Mr. Dowdeswell asked if the House would not hear what Boston had 
 to say in defence ; if the House would condemn without evidence in the 
 absence of the parties. P. H., XVII, 1168. other towns. On March 25, 
 Mr. Dowdeswell inquired : " What is the reason that you single out Boston 
 for your particular resentment ? Have there been no other towns in 
 America which have disobeyed your orders ? Has not Philadelphia, New 
 York, and several other provinces sent back the^ir tea?" .$;</., n 80. 
 
 58 35. Restraining Bill. See 3 8, note. 
 
 59 9. less power. In all the colonies, except Maryland, Connecticut, 
 and Rhode Island, the crown had power of veto. See Lecky, III, 324. 
 
 59 11. as great and as flagrant. " A similar language was everywhere 
 held ; or if there was any difference in the language, the measures that 
 were adopted were everywhere directed to the same object." A. R., 1775, 
 13. See 26 25, note. The argument used against Boston was that it had 
 been the ringleader in the disturbances. " Boston has been the ringleader 
 in all riots," said Lord North, when on March 14, 1774, he introduced the 
 Boston Port Bill. P. H., XVII, 1165. 
 
 59 21. returning officer. The officer who summoned the jury. This 
 duty was now put into the hands of the sheriff, who was appointed by the 
 crown. The object, of course, was to obtain juries favorable to the govern- 
 ment. See 27 18, note. 
 
 59 25. temporary. The act was to continue in force three years after 
 June i, 1774. 
 
 60 10. during good behavior. Bancroft thus relates an incident of the 
 autumn of 1761: "On the death of the chief justice of New York, 
 his successor . . . was appointed at the king's pleasure, and not during
 
 NOTES. 121 
 
 good behavior, as had been done before. . . . The assembly held the new 
 tenure of judicial power to be inconsistent with American liberty. . . . 
 But in November the board of trade reported to the king against the tenure 
 of good behavior as ' a pernicious proposition,' ' subversive of all true 
 policy,' ' and tending to lessen the just dependence of the colonies upon . . . 
 the mother country.' The representation found favor with the king ; and 
 as the first fruits of the new system, on the ninth of December, 1761, the 
 instruction went forth through Egremont to all colonial governors to grant 
 no judicial commissions but during pleasure. . . . The assembly of New 
 York rose up against the encroachment, deeming it a deliberate step 
 toward despotic authority ; the standing instruction, they resolved, should 
 be changed, or they would grant no salary whatever to the judges." 
 II, 551, 552. (Cook.) " Hardy, governor of New Jersey, having violated 
 his instructions by issuing a commission to the judges during good behav- 
 ior, was promptly dismissed." Ibid., 557. 
 
 60 18. courts of admiralty. " The jurisdiction of the courts of admi- 
 ralty, which tried smuggling cases without a jury, was strengthened and 
 enlarged, and all the officers of ships of war stationed on the coasts of 
 America were made to take the custom house oaths and act as revenue 
 officers." Lecky, III, 336. "The custom house and revenue officers, 
 unlike other officials in America, were not paid by the local legislatures. 
 They were appointed directly by the crown or by the governors." Ibid., 
 328. 
 
 60 22. more decent maintenance. Since the judges were paid by fines 
 imposed on goods that were condemned, there was a temptation to make large 
 seizures. See Bancroft, II, 553. The original edition of the speech con- 
 tains the following note : " The solicitor-general informed Mr. B. when the 
 resolutions were separately moved, that the grievance of the judges partak- 
 ing of the profits of the seizure had been redressed by office ; accordingly 
 the resolution was amended." See 77 8. 
 
 60 32. Congress complain. In an address to the people of Great 
 Britain issued by the Congress at Philadelphia, October 21, 1774, occurs 
 this passage : " It was ordained that whenever offences should be com- 
 mitted in the colonies against particular acts imposing various duties and 
 restrictions upon trade, the prosecutor might bring his action for the 
 penalties in the courts of admiralty ; by which means the subject lost the 
 advantage of being tried by an honest, uninfluenced jury of the vicinage, 
 and was subjected to the sad necessity of being judged by a single man, a 
 creature of the crown, and according to the course of law which exempts 
 the prosecutor from the trouble of proving his accusation, and obliges the 
 defendant either to evince his innocence or to suffer. To give this new
 
 122 NOTES. 
 
 judicatory the greater importance, and as if with design to protect false 
 accusers, it is further provided that the judge's certificate of their having 
 been probable causes of seizure and prosecution shall protect the prose- 
 cutor from actions at common law for recovery of damages." Journals of 
 Congress, I, 28. 
 
 61 13. prove too much. When the Stamp Act was repealed in 1766, 
 thirty-four of the lords signed a protest, urging that if America pleaded lack 
 of representation as a reason for disobeying the Stamp Act, the same rea- 
 soning extended " to all other laws of what nature soever, which that Par- 
 liament has enacted, or shall enact, to bind them in times to come, and 
 must (if admitted) set them absolutely free from any obedience to the 
 power of the British legislature." P. Jf., XVI, 185. 
 
 61 25. advocate for the sovereignty of Parliament. During a speech 
 of January 14, 1766, Mr. Grenville had said: "That this kingdom has the 
 sovereign, the supreme legislative power over America, is granted. It 
 cannot be denied ; and taxation is a part of that sovereign power. It is 
 one branch of the legislation. It is, it has been exercised, over those who 
 are not, who were never represented. It is exercised over the India Com- 
 pany, the merchants of London, the proprietors of the stocks, and over 
 many great manufacturing towns. It was exercised over the palatinate of 
 Chester and the bishopric of Durham, before they sent any representatives 
 to Parliament. I appeal for proof to the preambles of the acts which gave 
 them representatives : the one in the reign of Henry the Eighth, the other 
 in that of Charles the Second." Mr. Grenville then quoted the acts and 
 desired that they might be read. P. ff., XVI, 101. 
 
 61 28. Lord Chatham. The leading champion of America in Parlia- 
 ment. Born, 1708; though not nominally the prime minister, he was in 
 fact head of the government, 1757-1761 ; died, 1778. 
 
 61 29. in favor of his opinions. Part of the speech of Lord Chatham, 
 
 then Mr. Pitt, in reply to Mr. Grenville was as follows : " I come not 
 here armed at all points with law cases and acts of Parliament, with the 
 statute book doubled down in dog's-ears, to defend the cause of liberty ; if 
 I had, I myself would have cited the two cases of Chester and Durham. I 
 would have cited them to have shown that even under any arbitrary reigns 
 Parliaments were ashamed of taxing people without their consent, and 
 allowed them representatives. Why did the gentleman confine himself to 
 Chester and Durham ? He might have taken a higher example in Wales, 
 
 Wales that never was taxed by Parliament till it was incorporated." 
 P. ff., XVI, 104. 
 
 62 5. de jure. Legally, de facto. In fact. 
 
 62 27. compromise and barter. Burke is fond of applying this princi-
 
 NOTES. 123 
 
 pie in his arguments. Compare, " Of one thing I am perfectly clear : that 
 it is not by deciding the suit but by compromising the difference that peace 
 can be restored or kept." Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, W., II, 231. 
 " Men cannot enjoy the rights of an uncivil and of a civil state together. 
 That he may obtain justice, he gives up his right of determining what it is 
 in points the most essential to him. That he may secure some liberty, he 
 makes a surrender in trust of the whole of it." Reflections on the Revolu- 
 tion in France, W., Ill, 310. "The rights of men in goverments are their 
 advantages ; and these are often in balances between differences of good, 
 in compromises sometimes between good and evil, and sometimes 
 between evil and evil." Ibid., 313. 
 
 62 33. communion and fellowship. From the Book of Common Prayer 
 of the Church of England ; the beginning of the collect for All Saints' 
 Day : " O Almighty God, who hast knit together thine elect in one com- 
 munion and fellowship." 
 
 63 2. immediate jewel of his soul. Compare Othello, Hi, 3, 155, 156: 
 
 Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, 
 Is the immediate jewel of their souls. 
 
 " Our ruin will be disguised in profit, and the sale of a few wretched 
 baubles will bribe a degenerate people to barter away the most precious 
 jewel of their souls." Fourth Letter on a Regicide Peace, W., VI, 98. a 
 great house is apt. Compare Juvenal, Satires, v, 66 : " Maxima quaeque 
 domus servis est plena superbis," Every great house is full of haughty 
 slaves. 
 
 63 11. improvement by disturbing. See 51 27, note. YV4y\^ i 
 
 63 16. cords of man. Compare Hosea, xi, 4 : "I drew them with cords 
 of a man, with bands of love." 
 
 63 19. cautions us. Aristotle, Ethics, i, 3 : " It will be our endeavor 
 to attain that accuracy which the nature of the subject admits ; for perfec- 
 tion is not required in all the labors of the mind any more than in all the 
 works of the hand. Political justice or virtue seems liable to this uncer- 
 tainty. ... In matters so little stable we must be contented, therefore, 
 with catching the general features of truth ; and our conclusions will 
 deserve to be approved, if in most cases they are found to be useful and 
 applicable ; for it is the part of wisdom to be satisfied in each subject with 
 that kind of evidence which the nature of the subject allows ; it not being 
 less absurd to require demonstrations from an orator than to be contented 
 with probabilities from a mathematician." Gillies's Translation, London, 
 1813, I, 242. 
 
 63 25- superintending legislature. See 34 2, note.
 
 124 NOTES. 
 
 64 2. unity of the empire. On January 20, during the debate on 
 Lord Chatham's motion to withdraw the troops from Boston, the Earl of 
 Rochford held that the "unity of the empire should supersede every inferior 
 consideration, because on that its prosperity, stability, and external grandeur 
 immediately depended " ; and he felt that any yielding would destroy this 
 unity. P. If., 1 66. In another debate of February 7, Lord Lyttelton 
 "contended for the universality and unity of the British Empire." Ibid., 
 276. 
 
 64 10. separate. The separate Parliament for Ireland was abolished 
 in 1800. See Green, IV, 338. 
 
 64 24. promised. See 9 2-3. > 
 
 64 25. proposition. See 7 13, note. fc) o^Cxrcw **kjV' 
 64 32. having already debated. See 8 8, note. \Qu**d&j&Sy * 
 64 33. before the committee. When the whole house sat as a com- 
 mittee on the bill, February 20. P. H., 319-338. 
 
 65 2. mere project. See 6 15, note. 
 
 65 6. Experimentum in corpore vili. Commonly, Fiat experimentum 
 in corpore vili, Let us make the experiment on something worthless?} 
 
 65 12. antechamber of the noble lord. In the cabinet or a committee 
 of it. 
 
 65 15. state auctioneer. See 8 8, note. *i c^vA^wXN^Nr^-T.xJ fvyl "v^ 
 
 65 27. quarrelling. See 8 5. CjaX-d-v-x-Xj (Xx^/vOC^ 
 
 65 33. complain. See 36 22, note. "ftv^AAJO^Q^aJQ/a-fi-C^ ^ru&>w\ I 
 
 66 29. composition. Adjustment or agreement. 
 
 67 8. English revenue. England derived revenue from an import duty 
 on tobacco, and also dealt largely in this commodity with foreign countries. 
 
 67 21. confound the innocent. When the Restraining Bill was pro- 
 posed (see 3 8, note) the objection was at once raised by Mr. Dunning 
 that New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut ought not to be 
 included in the punishment of Massachusetts. P. H., 300. On February 
 28 a petition was presented from the Quakers, saying that on Nantucket 
 .about 4500 members of that sect, "entirely innocent in respect to the pres- 
 ent disturbances in America," " would be exposed to all the hardships of ' 
 famine." Ibid., 383. On the same day a number of witnesses were exam- 
 ined, and Mr. David Barclay, agent for the committee of North American 
 merchants, summed up the evidence as showing that "a great number of 
 innocent subjects [would] undergo a punishment which they do not de- 
 serve, as by their occupation the majority of them are the most part of the 
 year at sea, and consequently must have been absent from disturbances at 
 home." Ibid., 384. On March 6 " Mr. T. Townshend urged the cruelty 
 and injustice of an act which made no discrimination between innocence
 
 NOTES. 125 
 
 and guilt." Ibid., 387. On March 15 the same evidence and on March 
 1 6 and 21 much the same arguments were offered in the Lords. Ibid., 
 421-461. 
 
 68 2. treasury extent. A -writ for valuing lands to satisfy a debt to 
 the crown. 
 
 68 10. quotas and contingents. Apportioned to the several states. 
 
 68 17. breaking the union. See 7 is, note. JD ^fr. 
 
 68 20. their taste. On the very day that Lord North introduced his 
 so-called proposition for conciliating America, February 20, he said : " I 
 agree, Sir, that it is very probable the propositions contained in this resolu- 
 tion may not be acceptable to the Americans in general." P. H., 334. 
 
 68 32. certain colonies only. See 7 13, note. 
 
 69 4. long discourse. Three hours. 
 
 69 10. mean to spare it. Before the year 1775 closed, Burke must 
 have spoken at least a dozen times more on America; and on November 
 1 6 he offered another bill for conciliating the colonies. P. H., 963. 
 
 69 12. steadily opposed. In nearly every debate on American affairs 
 Burke had spoken more or less at length in behalf of the colonies. 
 
 69 27. Posita luditur area. The chest (that is, the whole fortune) is 
 put up as a stake. Juvenal, Satires, i, 90. See 5 26, note. 
 
 69 31. debt. An evidence of the strength of the credit of the 
 government. 
 
 70 29. Ease would retract. Paradise Lost, iv, 96, 97. Burke has sub- 
 stituted retract for the original recant. 
 
 70 33. immense, ever-growing, eternal debt. Compare Paradise Lost, 
 iv, 52, "The debt immense of endless gratitude." 
 
 71 12. return in loan. "The Bengal famine of 1770 was followed by 
 Lord North's Regulating Act, by which, in exchange for the loan of a 
 million which the company required and the remission of the annual pay- 
 ment to the government of ,400,000 a year, a new council was appointed 
 by Parliament; a supreme court, of which the judges were appointed by 
 the crown, was established ; and the governor of Bengal was made gov- 
 ernor-general of India." Low and Pulling's Dictionary of English History, 
 London, 1884, 398, 399. The reference was well calculated to appeal to 
 Burke's listeners, because for the last five years Parliament had spent a 
 great deal of time over the affairs of India and the East India Com- 
 pany. This powerful corporation was organized in 1600 and did not 
 finally go out of existence till 1873. 
 
 71 n. taxable objects. See 67 8, note. O; -^ti - 
 71 26. enemies. See 18 22, note. "5 r A>-x-e_AJ^^ ;> ) S 
 71 34. light as air. Compare Othello, iii, 3, 322-324 :
 
 126 NOTES. 
 
 Trifles light as air 
 
 Are to the jealous confirmations strong 
 As proofs of holy writ. 
 
 links of iron. Compare Julius Caesar, i, 3, 94, 95 : 
 
 Nor airless dungeon nor strong links of iron 
 Can be retentive to the strength of spirit. 
 
 72 2. grapple to you. Compare Hamlet, i, 3, 63 : " Grapple them to 
 thy soul with hooks of steel." 
 
 72 10. sacred temple. See SO 10. 
 
 72 12. turn their faces. An allusion to a practice which the Jews, 
 the " chosen race," observed of turning their faces toward Jerusalem to 
 worship. See / Kings, viii, 44, 45 : " If thy people go out to battle against 
 their enemy, whithersoever thou shalt send them, and shall pray unto the 
 Lord toward the city which thou hast chosen and toward the house that I 
 have built for thy name, then hear thou in heaven their prayer and their 
 supplication, and maintain their cause." 
 
 72 20. of price. Compare Matthew, xiii, 46 : " Who, when he had 
 found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it." 
 
 72 28. sufferances. Permits, cockets. Sealed certificates that the 
 duties have been paid on goods. 
 
 73 1. spirit. Compare Aeneid, vi, 726, 727 : 
 
 Spiritus intus alit ; totamque infusa per artus, 
 Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet. 
 
 One common soul 
 
 Inspires and feeds and animates the whole. 
 This active mind infus'd through all the space 
 Unites and mingles with the mighty mass. 
 
 Dryden's Translation, 982-985. 
 
 73 6. Land Tax Act. An act annually passed for raising revenue. 
 
 73 9. Mutiny Bill. In order to keep the army under control of Parlia- 
 ment, two bills were passed annually : one for military supply, and the 
 Mutiny Bill, providing for the trial of soldiers by military law. 
 
 73 17. profane herd. Compare Horace, Odes, iii, i, i : " Odi profanum 
 vulgus et arceo," I hate the profane herd and drive it from me. 
 
 73 25. all in all. Compare / Corinthians, xv, 28 : " That God may be 
 all in all." 
 
 73 29. auspicate. To give a favorable turn to in commencing, a 
 sense derived from the Roman practice of taking the auspicium, or inspec- 
 tion of birds, before entering upon any important business.
 
 NOTES. 127 
 
 73 31. Sursum corda. In the mass of the Church of Rome this phrase, 
 or in the communion service of the Church of England the equivalent, 
 " Lift up your hearts," is used just before the priest turns to the altar to 
 consecrate the elements. 
 
 73 34. high calling. Compare Philippians, iii, 14 : "I press toward 
 the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." 
 
 74 9. quod felix. May it be happy and prosperous. 
 
 74 17. previous question. The motion for closing debate.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Abeunt studia in mores, 24, 95. 
 
 abjured all the rights of citizens, 
 108. 
 
 ablest pens, 92. 
 
 Abridgment of the History of Eng- 
 land, xxii, Ixvi. 
 
 abrogation of Charter of Massa- 
 chusetts, see Massachusetts. 
 
 abstract liberty, 92. 
 
 abstract theories, Burke's oppo- 
 sition to, see theories. 
 
 Acadia, 119. 
 
 Account of the European Settle- 
 ments in America, xxii, Ixvi, 
 Ixx, 80, 8 1. 
 
 Achaeans, 101. 
 
 Ackland, Mr., 85. 
 
 Act of Union, 88. 
 
 acta parentum, etc., 14, 87. 
 
 Acts, loo. 
 
 Acts of Navigation, see Naviga- 
 tion Acts. 
 
 Adams, John, president, Ixix. 
 
 adaptation of government to tem- 
 per and circumstances, see tem- 
 per and circumstances. 
 
 Addison, Joseph, x. 
 
 Address to the King, xlix, liii, Ixviii, 
 91, 99, 101, 104. 
 
 addresses to the king, 8, 85, 106. 
 
 Admiral Hosier's Ghost, Glover, 
 87. 
 
 admiralty, courts of, Ixiii, 60, 121. 
 
 Adolphus, History of England 
 
 from the Accession to the Decease 
 
 of George the Third, xiii, Ixxi. 
 adventitious, 82. 
 advocate for the sovereignty of 
 
 Parliament, 122. 
 advocates and panegyrists, 101. 
 JEneid, 89, 101, 126. 
 Africa, xlix, 17, 32, 89. 
 African trade, 12, 87. 
 against the superior, 104. 
 Age of Reason, Faine, Ixix. 
 agents for the colonies, see colony 
 
 agents, 
 agitation over the Stamp Act, see 
 
 Stamp Act. 
 
 agriculture of the colonies, Iviii, 16. 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, Peace of, 119. 
 Algiers, li, 25, 96. 
 Ali, Hyder, ravages of, xxxv, 1. 
 all in all, 1 26. 
 all Ireland, in. 
 Alleghanies, 99. 
 altered the religion, 112. 
 altered the succession, 112. 
 America, English opinion of, xiii. 
 American Antiquarian Society, 
 
 xxx, Ixxi. 
 
 American Committee, see Chair. 
 American Commonwealth, James 
 
 Bryce, see Bryce.
 
 130 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 American Congress, see Congress; 
 
 Journals of, See Journals of the 
 
 American Congress. 
 American financiers, 39, 109. 
 American imports, duties on, see 
 
 imports. 
 American love of freedom, 1, Iviii, 
 
 19-25- 
 
 American Mutiny Act, 107. 
 
 American revenue impossible, see 
 revenue. 
 
 American Revolution, John Fiske, 
 see Fiske. 
 
 American Taxation, Speech on, 
 see Speech, etc. 
 
 Americans, descendants of Eng- 
 lishmen, 19-21. 
 
 Analogy, Butler, see Butler. 
 
 Anarchy is found tolerable, 98. 
 
 ancient commonwealths, 92. 
 
 And the rude swain, etc., see rude 
 swain. 
 
 Andrews, E. B., History of the 
 United States, xii, Ixxi. 
 
 Anglesey, 114. 
 
 Angola, 32. 
 
 Anne, Queen, xi, 87. 
 
 Annual Register, v, xiii, xx, Ixxii, 
 79, 80, 81, 83, 85, 88, 89, 94, 98, 
 108, 113, 114, 1 20; Burke's con- 
 nection with, xxii, Ixvi, Ixx, Ixxi. 
 
 Anstey, Christopher, New Bath 
 Guide, xi. 
 
 antechamber of the noble lord, 
 124. 
 
 Anti-Jacobin, Ixix. 
 
 Antiquarian Society, American, 
 see American, etc. 
 
 anti-slavery movement, xi. 
 
 Antoinette, Marie, Burke's de- 
 scription of, xlix, liii. 
 
 Appalachian Mountains, 29, 99. 
 Appeal from the New to the Old 
 
 Whigs, xxxvii, xlii, Ixix, 112, 
 
 117. 
 
 Arabia, li, 25. 
 Arbuthnot, Dr., 102. 
 archers, 113. 
 Arcot, Speech on the Nabob of 
 
 Arcot's Debts, see Speech, etc. 
 Arginusae, battle of, 101. 
 Argumentation, Principles of, see 
 
 Baker. 
 
 Aristophanes,. 101. 
 Aristotle, 63, 81, 123. 
 arm is not shortened, 115. 
 Armada, in. 
 as broad and general as the air, 
 
 93- 
 
 as great and as flagrant, 120. 
 
 Asia, xlix. 
 
 assemblies, colonial, dissolved, xix, 
 26, 107; form of, 21, 92, 93; 
 their competency, Ixii, 53. 
 
 atheism, Burke's dread of, xxvii, 
 xxviii. 
 
 Athenaid, Glover, 87. 
 
 attack upon judiciary, see judi- 
 ciary. 
 
 attorney-general, 119. 
 
 auction of finance, Ivii, 8, 65, 84, 
 see also ransom by auction. 
 
 auspicate, 126. 
 
 auspicious, 88. 
 
 austerity of the Chair, 79. 
 
 Austrian family, in. 
 
 aversion from, 93. 
 
 Bacon, Francis, liv, 95 ; Essay on, 
 Macaulay, see Macaulay. 
 
 Baker, G. P., Principles of Argu- 
 mentation, Ivi.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 131 
 
 Bancroft, George, History of the 
 United States, v, xii, Ixxi, 79, 
 86,99, 101, 102, no, 113, 120, 
 121. 
 
 bar, 87. 
 
 Barclay, David, 124. 
 
 Barre, Colonel, xvi. 
 
 Barrington, Daines, 48, 114. 
 
 Barry, James, befriended by 
 Burke, xl. 
 
 barter and compromise, see com- 
 promise. 
 
 Bath Guide, A T ew, Christopher 
 Anstey, see Anstey. 
 
 Bathurst, Lord, 14, 87. 
 
 Beaconsfield, xlviii ; Burke's pur- 
 chase of, xxiv, Ixvii ; Lord, title 
 to have been given to Burke, 
 xxxix. 
 
 Bee, Goldsmith, Ixvi. 
 
 before the committee, 124. 
 
 beggar subjects into submission, 
 
 3i- 
 
 Bengal, xlviii, 71 ; famine, 125. 
 
 Bentham, Jeremy, xliv. 
 
 Bible, 81, 87, 88, 95, 99, 100, 107, 
 108, 113, 115, 1 1 6, 117, 123, 126, 
 127; Burke's quotations from, 
 liii. 
 
 Birmingham, xiv. 
 
 Hirrell, Augustine, Obiter Dicta, 
 Second Series, xxii, Ixxi. 
 
 Black Hole of Calcutta, Ixvi. 
 
 Blackstone, Sir William, Commen- 
 taries, Ixvii, 23, 94 
 
 Blake, William, Ixvi, Ixviii. 
 
 blind usages, 92. 
 
 blown about by every wind of 
 fashionable doctrine, see wind. 
 
 blue ribbon, 84. 
 
 Bolingbroke, Ix>rd, Ixv, Ixvi. 
 
 Bonaparte, Napoleon, Italian cam- 
 paign, Ixix ; puts down rising of 
 1 3th Vendemiaire, Ixix. 
 
 Book of Common Prayer, see Com- 
 mon Prayer. 
 
 books of curious science, 31, 100. 
 
 Boston, xviii, 94, 98 ; Massacre, 
 xviii, Ixvii ; motion to withdraw 
 troops from, see Chatham ; Port 
 Bill, xviii, Ixii, Ixvii, 58, 59, 68, 
 1 02, 1 06, 1 20; Tea Party, see 
 Tea Party. 
 
 Boswell's Life of Johnson, ix, xxiii, 
 xli, Ixix, Ixxi. 
 
 boundaries, 83. 
 
 Brazil, 17. 
 
 break the American spirit, 91. 
 
 Breton, Cape, see Cape. 
 
 Brissofs Address, Preface to, see 
 Preface, etc. 
 
 Bristol chooses Burke as repre- 
 sentative, xxviii, Ixvii ; refuses 
 to reelect Burke, xxx, Ixviii. 
 
 British Eloquence, Select, C. A. 
 Goodrich, see Goodrich. 
 
 British strength, 91. 
 
 broad and general as the air, see 
 as broad. 
 
 Brougham, Lord, Inquiry into the 
 Colonial Policy of the European 
 Powers, li ; Statesmen of the 
 Time of George the Third, Ixxi, 
 84. 
 
 Brusa, li, 25. 
 
 Bryce, James, American Common- 
 wealth, 93. 
 
 Buckle, H. T., History of Civiliza- 
 tion in Europe, Ixxi. 
 
 Bunker Hill, battle of, Ixvii. 
 
 burgesses, 46, 50, 51, 114. 
 
 Burgoyne, General, 90, 91.
 
 132 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, a troublesome 
 colleague, xxxiii; accused of 
 dishonesty, xxiii, xxiv, xxxiii ; 
 acquaintance with literature, liii, 
 liv ; acquaintance with the clas- 
 sics, liv ; advocates economical 
 reform, xxxii ; advocates reform 
 in India, xxxiii-xxxv, xxxviii, 
 xlii ; agent for New York, xxx, 
 Ixvii, Ixxi; aim at utilitarian 
 effect, xliv, xlv ; appeals to love 
 of right, xlii ; arrival in London, 
 Ixv; attitude in the Wilkes con- 
 test, xxiv, xxv ; attitude toward 
 America, xxx-xxxii, xxxviii; 
 attitude toward Ireland, xxix, 
 xxxviii, xxxix, xlii ; attitude 
 toward parliamentary reform, 
 xxvi, xxxii ; attitude toward 
 the French Revolution, xxxvi, 
 xxxvii, xxxviii ; birth, xx, Ixv ; 
 college life, xx, xxi, Ixv ; com- 
 mended by Chatham, xxiii; 
 conservatism, xxvi, xxvii, xxxii, 
 xxxiv, xxxvii, xlv, xlvi, 51, 117 ; 
 Correspondence, xx, xxi, xxii, 
 xxv, xxvi, xxvii, xxviii, xl, xlii, 
 Ixx, 79, 96 ; dies, xxxix, Ixix ; 
 dread of atheism, xxvii, xxviii; 
 efforts to keep the Rocking- 
 ham Whigs united, xxvi, xxvii; 
 elected member for Bristol, 
 xxviii, Ixvii; elected to Parlia- 
 ment, xxiii, Ixvii, 80 ; enthusiasm 
 for study, xxi ; establishes school 
 for children of French emigres, 
 xl; excluded from cabinet, xxxiii; 
 failure to control temper, xxxiii; 
 faults, xli; friendship with Dr. 
 Johnson, ix, xl, xli; gradua- 
 tion from college, Ixv; grief 
 
 over death of son, xli ; improvi- 
 dence, xxiv; in Ireland, xxii, 
 Ixvi; in London, xxi, xxii, xxxiii; 
 in the Literary Club, x, xxiii, 
 Ixvii; indebted to Rockingham, 
 xxiv ; independent of constitu- 
 ents, xxix, xxx; liberality, xliii, 
 xliv ; life of, xix-xli ; loses seat 
 at Bristol, xxx, Ixviii; love of 
 justice, xlii ; marriage, xli, Ixvi ; 
 member for Wendover, xxiii, 
 Ixvii, 80; method of construct- 
 ing paragraphs, liv, Iv; method of 
 quoting, liv ; offered Indian com- 
 missionership, xxvi ; opposed to 
 commercial restriction, xxix ; op- 
 posed to theories, xxxii, xxxiv, 
 xliv, xlv, Ivii, 9, 57 ; opposed to 
 use of force, xxv, xxx, xxxiv, 
 Iviii, 17, 18, 31, 32, 100, 101; 
 oratory, xlvi-xlix ; Paymaster of 
 the Forces, xxxiii, Ixviii ; person- 
 ality, xxxix, xl ; philanthropy, 
 xl ; political tracts, xxiii ; power 
 of his imagination, xlii, xlviii, 
 1, lii; prosecution of Hastings, 
 xxxv, xxxvi, xxxix, xliii, xlvii, 
 Ixviii, Ixix; purchase of Bea- 
 ' consfield, xxiv, Ixvii ; quarrels 
 with Fox, xxxvi, Ixix; quarrels 
 with Hamilton, xxii; quarrels 
 with Sheridan, Ixix ; receives a 
 pension, xxxix; relations with 
 Richard and William Burke, 
 xxiv, xxxiii; reliance on expe- 
 rience, xlv, Iviii, Ixi, 18, 41, 57, 
 65 ; religion, xx ; retires from 
 Parliament, xxxix, Ixix ; school 
 days, xx ; secretary to Lord 
 Rockingham, xxiii, Ixvii ; Select 
 Works, edited by E. J. Payne,
 
 INDEX. 
 
 133 
 
 vi, xlvi, li, Ixx, 81, 92, 93, 95, 
 101; speaks against the Stamp 
 Act, xxiii ; Speeches, edited by 
 F. G. Selby, iv, xii, Ixx, 95 ; 
 statesmanship, xli-xlvi ; study 
 of Irish history, xxi; study of 
 law, xxi; style, xlix-lv; sub- 
 stantial reputation, xxviii ; suc- 
 cess on entering Parliament, 
 xxiii; supported by mercantile 
 organizations, xxviii; suspected 
 of being Junius, xxv ; travels, 
 xxi; use of connectives, liv; 
 visit to France, xxvii, xxviii, 
 Ixvii ; work on Annual Register, 
 xxii, Ixvi, Ixx, Ixxi. 
 
 Burke, Morley, xx, xxii, xxv, xxvi, 
 xxxviii, xli, xlvi, Ixx. 
 
 Burke, Richard, brother of Ed- 
 mund, xxiv, xxxiii. 
 
 Burke, Richard, son of Edmund, 
 dies, xxxix, xli, Ixvi, Ixix ; unpop- 
 ularity, xli. 
 
 Burke, William, xxiv, xxxiii. 
 
 Burns, Robert, Ixvi, Ixviii. 
 
 but three ways, 99. 
 
 Bute ministry, Ixvi. 
 
 Butler's Analogy, Ixv. 
 
 Byron, Lord, born, Ixviii. 
 
 Calcutta, Black Hole of, see Black 
 
 Hole. 
 
 Cambridge arsenal, 113. 
 Camden, Lord, 85. 
 Canada, xviii. 
 Candide, Voltaire, Ixvi. 
 Cannae, 101. 
 Canute, 95. 
 Cape Breton, 54, 119. 
 capital, 85. 
 Carlyle, Thomas, birth, Ixix. 
 
 Carnarvon, 114. 
 
 Carnatic, 1. 
 
 Carolinas, effects of slavery there, 
 22, 32. 
 
 Casius, Mount, 37. 
 
 Castle of Otranto, Walpole, Ixvii. 
 
 Castlereagh, Lord, 84. 
 
 Castor, 113. 
 
 Catholic Question, Letters on, see 
 First Letter, Second Letter, etc. 
 
 Catholics, disabilities of, xxxix, 
 xlii. 
 
 Cato, Addison, 107. 
 
 Cause of the Present Discontents, 
 Thoughts on, see 7"/ioughts, etc. 
 
 cautions us, 123. 
 
 Century Dictionary, 83. 
 
 Chair, 79. 
 
 Chair of the American Committee, 
 81. 
 
 changed the people, 112. 
 
 character and circumstances of 
 people, see temper and cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 chargeable, 100. 
 
 charity, Roman, see Roman charity. 
 
 Charles the Fifth, in. 
 
 Charles the First, 112. 
 
 Charles the Second, 112, 122. 
 
 Charleston, xviii. 
 
 Charlestown, 113. 
 
 Charter of Massachusetts abro- 
 gated, see Massachusetts. 
 
 Chatham, Earl of, xi, xvi, xvii, 
 Ixviii, Ixxii, 95, 122; advocates 
 American cause, 61 ; commends 
 Burke's speeches, xxiii ; leader 
 of the New Whigs, see New 
 Whigs; motion to withdraw 
 troops from Boston, 109, 124; 
 Essay on, Macaulay, Ixxi.
 
 134 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Chatham ministry, Ixvii. 
 
 checking of population, see popu- 
 lation. 
 
 Chester an example for dealing 
 with America, Ixi, 46, 47, 48, 52, 
 
 6l, 62, 64, III, 113, 122. 
 
 Chesterfield's Letters, Ixxi. 
 children of men, see given to, 
 
 etc. 
 
 china earthenware, 58. 
 Chinese, 117. 
 Church of England, 93, 112, 123, 
 
 127; in the colonies, 21, 22, 31. 
 Church of Rome, see Roman 
 
 Catholic. 
 Cicero, liv, 104. 
 circumstances and temper of 
 
 people, see temper and circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Civil Liberty, R. Price, Ixxii. 
 civil litigant, 104. 
 civility, 112. 
 Civilization in Europe, History of, 
 
 H. T. Buckle, Ixxi. 
 clandestine running, 1 20. 
 Clarissa Harlowe, Richardson, x, 
 
 Ixv. 
 
 classics, Burke's knowledge of, liv. 
 Cleomenes, 101. 
 cling and grapple, Hi, 72. 
 closing of Boston Port, see Boston 
 
 Port Bill. 
 
 clouted shoon, 116. 
 Club, The, see Literary Club. 
 Coalition ministry, xxxiii, xxxiv, 
 
 Ixviii. 
 
 cockets, 126. 
 
 coercion and restraint, 80. 
 Coke, Sir Edward, rancor toward 
 
 Ralegh, 33, 102, 103. 
 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, Ixvii. 
 
 colonial agriculture, see agricul- 
 ture. 
 
 colonial assemblies, see assem- 
 blies. 
 
 colonial commerce, see commerce. 
 
 colonial fisheries, see fisheries. 
 
 Colonial Policy of the European 
 Powers, Inquiry into, see 
 Brougham. 
 
 colonies complain, 107 ; irritated 
 at England, xiii; protest, xv, 107; 
 will go further, no. 
 
 colony agents, 84. 
 
 Commentaries, Blackstone, see 
 Blackstone. 
 
 commerce, expansion of, xi, xii, 
 11-15; not secured by Naviga- 
 tion Acts, see Navigation ; of 
 colonies, Ivii, Iviii, 11-15. 
 
 commercial advantages of concili- 
 , ation, xii, 11-15. 
 
 commercial policy of England, 
 xiii. 
 
 commercial restriction, Burke 
 opposed to, xxix. 
 
 commercial restrictions, see com- 
 mercial policy. 
 
 committees of correspondence, 
 xviii, 97. 
 
 common head, see one common 
 head. 
 
 Common Prayer, Book of, 123. 
 
 Common Sense, Paine, Ixviii, Ixxii. 
 
 commonwealth, 114. 
 
 communion, 93. 
 
 communion and fellowship, 123. 
 
 competence of colonial assemblies, 
 see assemblies. 
 
 complaint, 81. 
 
 complaints of the colonies, see 
 colonies complain.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 135 
 
 complexions, 90. 
 
 composition, 124. 
 
 compromise and barter, 62, 122, 
 123. 
 
 comptrollers, 99. 
 
 Comus, 109, 1 1 6. 
 
 Conciliation, Speech on, see Speech, 
 etc. 
 
 Conclusion of the Poll, Speech at, 
 see Speech, etc. 
 
 confidence of the colonies in the 
 mother country, see unsuspect- 
 ing confidence. 
 
 confident, 98. 
 
 confound the innocent, 124. 
 
 Congress, xix, Ixvii, 83,86; com- 
 plaint of, 60, 107, 121 ; Journals 
 of, see Journals of the American 
 Congress ; largely composed of 
 lawyers, 23, 94 ; respected by the 
 colonists, 97. 
 
 Connecticut, xviii, 54, 59, 120, 124; 
 protests against Stamp Act, xv. 
 
 connectives, Burke's use of, liv. 
 
 conservatism of Burke, xxvi, xxvii, 
 xxxii, xxxiv, xxxvii, xlv, xlvi, 
 51,117. 
 
 Constitution of the United States, 
 in; framed, Ixviii. 
 
 Constitution of the year III, Ixix. 
 
 Continental Congress, see Con- 
 gress. 
 
 Contrat Social, Ixvi. 
 
 converting ill-will into delinquency, 
 41. 
 
 Cook, A. S., editor, Speec k on Con- 
 ciliation, iv, v, Ixx, 87, 89, 92, 
 99, 101, 103, in, 113, 115, 116, 
 121. 
 
 cords of man, 1 23. 
 
 Corinthians, I, 108, 117, 126. 
 
 Cornwall, Mr., 98. 
 
 Cornwallis surrenders, Ixviii. 
 
 correctly, 107. 
 
 Correspondence, Burke's, xx, xxi, 
 xxii, xxv, xxvi, xxvii, xxviii, xl, 
 xlii, Ixx, 79, 96. 
 
 correspondence, committees of, 
 see committees. 
 
 County Palatine, see Palatine. 
 
 courts of admiralty, see admiralty. 
 
 Cowper, William, Ixviii. 
 
 Crabbe, George, befriended by 
 Burke, xl. 
 
 Crimea, li, 25, 96. 
 
 criminal prosecution of the colo- 
 nies, Ix, 33-36, 102. 
 
 Cromwell's protectorate, 112. 
 
 crown could be responsible, see if 
 the crown, etc. 
 
 curious, 88. 
 
 Cymon, 88. 
 
 Damiata, 37. 
 
 D'Arblay, Madame, Ixviii ; descrip- 
 tion of Burke, xxxix, xl, xlvi; 
 Diary and Letters, ix, x, xl, Ixxi. 
 
 Davenant, Charles, 12, 87. 
 
 Davies, Sir John, 43, in. 
 
 Davis, George, 89. 
 
 Davis Strait, 16. 
 
 day-star of the English Constitu- 
 tion, liii, 46, 113. 
 
 de facto, 122. 
 
 de jure, 122. 
 
 De minim is non cur at lex, 86. 
 
 De OJficiis, Cicero, 104. 
 
 Debi Sings, see Sing. 
 
 debt, 125. 
 
 debts of the colonies, 56. 
 
 deceive the burden of life, 14, 
 88.
 
 136 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Declaration of Independence.lxviii, 
 86, 97. 
 
 Declaration of Right, 1 18. 
 
 Declaratory Act, xvi, xvii. 
 
 declaring a rebellion, see Massa- 
 chusetts. 
 
 Decline and Fall of the Roman 
 Empire, Gibbon, Ixviii. 
 
 Delaware, xv. 
 
 delicate, 80. 
 
 deposed kings, 112. 
 
 derogation, 114. 
 
 descendants of Englishmen, Iviii, 
 91. 
 
 description, 116. 
 
 Deserted Village, Goldsmith, Ixvii. 
 
 Diary and Letters of Madame 
 D'Arblay, see D'Arblay. 
 
 Dictionary, Johnson, Ixvi. 
 
 Dictionary of English History, 
 Low and Pulling, see Low and 
 Pulling. 
 
 Dictionary of Natiotial Biography, 
 xx, Ixxi, 79, 84, 87, 94, 97, 102. 
 
 Dictionary of United States His- 
 tory, J. F. Jameson, Ixxii. 
 
 dinner-bell, epithet applied to 
 Burke, xlvii. 
 
 disarm New England, 113. 
 
 discord fomented from principle, 
 82. 
 
 Discourses on Revenue and Trade, 
 Davenant, 87. 
 
 Discovery of the True Causes, 
 Davies, in. 
 
 disgrace and a burden, 1 1 2. 
 
 disherisons, 114. 
 
 disreputably, 81. 
 
 dissidence of dissent, 22. 
 
 dissolution of provincial assem- 
 blies, see assemblies. 
 
 divide et impera, 82. 
 
 Dodsley's Annual Register, see 
 
 Annual Register. 
 Dowdeswell, Mr., 120. 
 drawback, 120. 
 drawing up an indictment against 
 
 a whole people, see indictment. 
 Dryden, John, x, liv, 126. 
 Dundas, Henry, advocates sever- 
 ity towards colonies, 91, 102. 
 Dunmore, Governor, xix. 
 Dunmore, Governor, emancipates 
 
 slaves, 101. 
 Dunmore, Governor, suspends 
 
 Virginia assembly, lix, 26, 27, 
 
 96, 97. 
 
 Dunning, Mr., 124. 
 Duration of Parliaments, Speech 
 
 on, see Speech, etc. 
 Durham an example for dealing 
 
 with America, Ixi, 47, 48, 52, 
 
 62, 64, in, 122. 
 during good behavior, 120. 
 during the king's pleasure, 120. 
 duties on imports, see import 
 
 duties. 
 
 Ease would retract, etc., 70, 125. 
 East India Bill, Fox's, see Fox; 
 
 Speech on, see Speech, etc. 
 East India Company, xxiv, xxvi, 
 
 71, 122, 125; cruel system, 
 
 xxxiv. 
 Ecclesiastical Polity, Hooker, see 
 
 Hooker. 
 
 Eclogues, Virgil, 88. 
 economical reforms, xxxii. 
 Economical Reform, Speech on the 
 
 Plan, see Speech, etc. 
 Edmund Burke: a Historical 
 
 Study, John Morley, xii, Ixx.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 J37 
 
 education of the colonists, Iviii, 
 
 23. 24- 
 Edward the First in Wales, 44, 
 
 112. 
 Edward the Third, act of, defining 
 
 rebellion, 105. 
 Egypt, li, 25, 96. 
 Elegy, Gray, Ixvi. 
 Elizabeth, Queen, attempts to 
 
 subdue Ireland, 43. 
 England, France declares war 
 
 against, Ixix. 
 England from the Accession to the 
 
 Decease of George the Third, 
 
 History of, Adolphus, see 
 
 Adolphus. 
 
 England in the Eighteenth Cen- 
 tury, History of, W. E. H. Lecky, 
 
 see Lecky. 
 
 England, social condition, ix-xii. 
 English conquest of Ireland, in. 
 English Constitution, in. 
 English Humorists, Thackeray, 
 
 see Thackeray. 
 English Men of Letters, see Mor- 
 
 ley, John. 
 
 English opinion of America, xiii. 
 English People, History of, J. R. 
 
 Green, see Green. 
 English revenue, 124. 
 English Tartars, 29. 
 English Thought in the Eighteenth 
 
 Century, History of, Leslie Ste- 
 phen, see Stephen. 
 Ephesians, 81, 108. 
 Erskine, Lord, xlix. 
 Esprit des Lois, Montesquieu, Ixv. 
 Essay on Bacon, Macaulay, see 
 
 Macaulay. 
 Essay on Chatham, Macaulay, 
 
 Ixxi. 
 
 Essay on Man, Pope, Ixv, 96. 
 
 Essay on Warren Hastings, Ma- 
 caulay, see Macaulay. 
 
 Essex, Earl of, in. 
 
 establishments, 93. 
 
 eternal debt, see immense. 
 
 Ethics, Aristotle, 123. 
 
 Europe, xlix. 
 
 European Settlements in America, 
 see Account of. 
 
 evangelical movement, see Metho- 
 dist movement. 
 
 Evelina, Madame D'Arblay, Ixviii. 
 
 event, 79. 
 
 ever-growing, eternal debt, see 
 immense. 
 
 ex vi termini, 34, 103. 
 
 excite your envy, 88. 
 
 Exodus, 117. 
 
 experience, Burke's reliance on, 
 xlv, Iviii, Ixi, 18, 41, 57, 65. 
 
 Experimentum in corpore vili, 65, 
 124. 
 
 exploded, 100. 
 
 export trade of England, 11-15. 
 
 exquisite, 109. 
 
 Falkland Island, 16, 89. 
 Fielding, Henry, x, Ixv, Ixvi. 
 filled the Chair of the American 
 
 Committee, see Chair, etc. 
 First Letter on a Regicide Peace, 
 
 xliv, 91, 93, 1 08. 
 
 first lords of trade, see lord, etc. 
 first mover, 96. 
 fisheries of the colonies, Iviii, 16, 
 
 17. 67, 79, 88, 89. 
 Fiske, John, American Revolution, 
 
 xii, xiii, xv, xviii, Ixxi. 
 floor, 95. 
 force, Burke's opposition to, xxv,
 
 138 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 xxx, xxxiv, Iviii, 17, 18, 31, 32, 
 100, 101. 
 
 foreign enemy, 91. 
 
 form of sound words, 117. 
 
 formerly addressed, 105. 
 
 formerly adored, 92. 
 
 fountain of hereditary dignities, 88. 
 
 Four Georges, Thackeray, see 
 Thackeray. 
 
 Four Tracts on Political and Com- 
 mercial Subjects, Josiah Tucker, 
 see Tucker. 
 
 fourteen separate governments, 
 116. 
 
 Fourth Letter on a Regicide Peace, 
 93. 123. 
 
 Fox, Charles James, xi, xxxiii, 
 Ixxii, 8 1 ; Burke's quarrel with, 
 xxxvi, Ixix ; East India Bill, 
 xxxiv; East India Bill, Speech 
 on, see Speech, etc. 
 
 France declares war against Eng- 
 land, Holland and Spain, Ixix. 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, Ixxii ; agent 
 for the colonies, 84 ; letter to 
 Governor Shirley, 115; testi- 
 mony before Parliament, 119. 
 
 freedom, American love of, see 
 American. 
 
 freemen, 118. 
 
 freeholders, 118. 
 
 French and Indian War, xv, Ixvi, 
 119. 
 
 French emigres befriended by 
 Burke, xl. 
 
 French National Assembly, xxxvii. 
 
 French Revolution begins, Ixviii ; 
 Burke's attitude, xxxvi, xxxvii, 
 xxxviii, xlii; Reflections on, see 
 Reflections, etc. 
 
 fresh principles, 4, 81. 
 
 fret and rage, 96. 
 friend, 95. 
 
 Friendship of Books, F. D. Mau- 
 rice, Ixxi. 
 
 frozen Serpent, see Serpent. 
 Fuller, Rose, 81, 102. 
 further views, 109. 
 futile and useless, no. 
 
 Gage, General, 23, 94 ; at Boston, 
 xix, 94,95, 98, 113, 114. 
 
 Garrick, Dayid, x, xxiii, xl. 
 
 Garter, Knight of, 84. 
 
 " Gaspee," burning of, xvii, xviii. 
 
 gave so far into his opinion, 81. 
 
 generosity of the colonies, Ixii, 54- 
 56, 119. 
 
 generous, 90. 
 
 Genesis, 99. 
 
 George Selwyn and His Contempo- 
 raries, Jesse, x, Ixxi, 81. 
 
 George the First, Ixvi. 
 
 George the Second, x, 52, 88. 
 
 George the Second, Thackeray, xi. 
 
 George the Third, x, 14, 88; ac- 
 cession, xiv, 88 ; Memoirs of, 
 Jesse, Ixxi ; policy of, xiv, xvi, 
 xvii, xxv. 
 
 Georgia, Franklin agent for, 84. 
 
 Germain, Lord George, 98. 
 
 Germany, 68. 
 
 Gibbon, Edward, Ixviii ; born, Ixv. 
 
 given to the children of men, 
 100. 
 
 giving up the colonies, 99. 
 
 glorious Revolution, see Revolu- 
 tion. 
 
 Glover, Richard, Ivii, II, 86, 87! 
 
 Goethe, Ixv. 
 
 Goldsmith, Oliver, x, xxiii, xlvii, 
 Ixvi, Ixvii, 92.
 
 INDEX, 
 
 139 
 
 good for us to be here, see it is, 
 etc. 
 
 Goodrich, C. A., Select British Elo- 
 quence, iv, xlvi, xlviii, Ixx, 95. 
 
 Gordon riots, Ixviii. 
 
 Gothic, 117 ; ancestors, 23, 93. 
 
 government a trust for the people, 
 see trust. 
 
 government keeps the table, 70. 
 
 grace and bounty, 85. 
 
 Grafton, Duke of, 102, 119. 
 
 Grafton ministry, xvii, Ixvii. 
 
 grand penal bill, Ivi, 3, 79, 109. 
 
 grant, Ixii, 49, 50, 56, 57, 116. 
 
 Grant, Colonel, 90. 
 
 grapple to you, 126. 
 
 Gray, Thomas, Ixvi, Ixvii. 
 
 great contests, 92. 
 
 great expenses of the colonies, 
 119. 
 
 great house is apt, 123. 
 
 Grecian, 117. 
 
 Greece, 92. 
 
 Green, J. R., History of the Eng- 
 lish People, x, xi, xii, xxii, xxiv, 
 xlvii, Ixxi, 79, in, 112. 
 
 Greenbrier River, 99. 
 
 Grenville, George, xvi, xvii, xxiii, 
 no, 116, 118, 119; on the sover- 
 eignty of Parliament, 61, 122. 
 proposes Stamp Act, xv, 56. 
 
 Grenville ministry, Ixvii. 
 
 Grenville Papers, Ixxi. 
 
 grown with the growth, 96. 
 
 Guinea captain, 32, 102. 
 
 habeas corpus not recognized in 
 Quebec Act, xix ; suspended, 
 xiii. 
 
 Hamilton, William Gerard, xxii, 
 Ixvi. 
 
 Hamlet, 96, 126. 
 
 Hampden, John, 92, 99. 
 
 Hancock, John, seizure of his 
 sloop " Liberty," xviii. 
 
 Hannibalian war, 101. 
 
 Hanover, House of, 112. 
 
 hardy, 90. 
 
 Hardy, Governor, 121. 
 
 Harrington, Sir James, 49, 108, 
 116. 
 
 Harris, Mr., 91. 
 
 Harvey, Captain, 90. 
 
 has a regular establishment, see 
 regular establishment. 
 
 Hastings, Warren, Essay on, Ma- 
 caulay, see Macaulay ; Speech in 
 Opening the Impeachment of, see 
 Speech, etc ; trial of, xxxv, xxxvi, 
 xxxix, xliii, xlvii, Ixviii, Ixix. 
 
 Helots, 101. 
 
 Henry the Eighth, Ixi, 45, 48, 1 1 2, 
 122; act of, for the trial of 
 treasons, Ixii, 35, 58, 59, 105. 
 
 Henry the Second, in. 
 
 Henry the Third in Wales, 44, 
 112. 
 
 Heroides, Ovid, 95. 
 
 high calling, 127. 
 
 Hill, G. Birkbeck, edition of Bos- 
 well's Life of Johnson, see Bos- 
 well. 
 
 Hillsborough, Lord, 52, 118. 
 
 Hindostan, xlv. 
 
 Historical and Posthumous Me- 
 moirs, Wraxall, Ixxi. 
 
 History and Proceedings of the 
 House of Commons, 87. 
 
 History of Civilization in Europe, 
 H. T. Buckle, Ixxi. 
 
 History of England, Burke, xxii, 
 Ixvi.
 
 140 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 History of England, Hume, Ixvi, 95. 
 
 History of England from the Ac- 
 cession to the Decease of George 
 the Third, Adolphus, xiii, Ixxi. 
 
 History of England in the Eighteenth 
 Century, W. E. H. Lecky, v, x, 
 xi, xii, Ixxi, 79, 86, 94, 98, 99, 
 I2O, 121. 
 
 History of English Thought in 
 the Eighteenth Century, Leslie 
 Stephen, x, xli, xlv, Ixxi. 
 
 History of the English People, J. R. 
 Green, x, xi, xii, xxii, xxiv, xlvii, 
 Ixxi, 79, in, 112. 
 
 History of the Life and Times of 
 Edmund Burke, Thomas Mac- 
 Knight, Ixxi. 
 
 History of the United States, E. B. 
 Andrews, xii, Ixxi. 
 
 History of the United States, George 
 Bancroft, v, xii, Ixxi, 79, 86, 99, 
 101, 102, no, 113, 120, 121. 
 
 Robert, Judge, 103. 
 
 Hogarth, William, x. 
 
 Holland, 17 ; France declares war 
 against, Ixix. 
 
 Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, 93. 
 
 Horace, 88, 95, 113, 116, 126; 
 Burke's quotations from, liii. 
 
 Hosea, 123. 
 
 House of Hanover, 112. 
 
 House of Stuart, 112. 
 
 Howard, John, xi. 
 
 huckster, 96. 
 
 Hudson Bay, 16. 
 
 \{\xmz,History of England, Ixvi, 95. 
 
 humors, 97. 
 
 Humphrey Clinker, Smollett, x, 
 Ixvii. 
 
 Hutchinson, Chief Justice, the 
 sacking of his house, xvi. 
 
 Hyder AH, see Ali. 
 Hydrus, see Serpent. 
 Hyginus, 88. 
 
 Idea of a Patriot King, Boling- 
 
 broke, Ixv. 
 Idler, Johnson, Ixvi. 
 idolizing, no. 
 if the crown could be responsible, 
 
 119. 
 
 ill-husbandry of injustice, 45. 
 imagination, Burke's, see Burke, 
 immediate jewel of his soul, 123. 
 immense, ever-growing, eternal 
 
 debt, 125. 
 
 impair the object, 91. 
 impeachment of Warren Hastings, 
 
 see Hastings ; Speech in Opening, 
 
 see Speech, etc. 
 imperial character of Great Britain, 
 
 103. 
 
 import duties, xvii. 
 imposition, Ixii, 49, 50, 56, 57, 116. 
 improvement by disturbing, 123. 
 in favor of his opinions, 122. 
 increase and multiply, 99. 
 indebtedness of the colonies, see 
 
 debts. 
 Independence, Declaration of, 
 
 Ixviii, 86, 97. 
 
 independence of Burke, xxix, xxx. 
 India, xlix ; Burke's championship 
 
 of, xxxiii-xxxv, xxxviii, xlii ; 
 
 Burke's knowledge of, xlviii ; 
 
 revenue from, Ixiv, 71. 
 indictment against a whole people, 
 
 xxxii, xxxix, Ix, 33, 102. 
 indulgence toward the colonies, 91. 
 infidelity, Burke's dread of, see 
 
 atheism, 
 injustice, 104.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 141 
 
 Inquiry into the Colonial Policy of 
 the European Powers, Brougham, 
 li. 
 
 Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas 
 on the Sublime and Beautiful, 
 xxii, Hi, Ixvi. 
 
 inquisition and dragooning, 31. 
 
 inspector-general's office, 12, 87. 
 
 interest in the Constitution, 109. 
 
 Interpreter of English Liberty, 
 Woodrow Wilson, Ixxi. 
 
 Ireland, 112; an example for deal- 
 ing with America, Ixi, Ixiii, 42- 
 44, 64, 69, in; before the con- 
 quest, li, 1 1 1 ; Burke's liberality 
 toward, xxix, xxxviii, xxxix, xlii; 
 catches contagion of French 
 Revolution, xxxix ; effect of 
 Popery laws, xlix ; Parliament 
 of, 124. 
 
 Irish pensioners, 112. 
 
 Irnham, Lord, 91. 
 
 Irving, Washington, born, Ixviii. 
 
 Isaiah, 107, 115. 
 
 issue of their affairs, 1 1 1 . 
 
 It is good for us to be here, 87. 
 
 Italian campaign of Napoleon 
 Bonaparte, Ixix. 
 
 Jacobite Rebellion, Ixv. 
 
 James the First and Ralegh, 103. 
 
 James the Second deposed, xiv, 
 
 112. 
 Jameson, J. F., Dictionary of 
 
 United States History, 1492-1894, 
 
 Ixxii. 
 
 Jeffreys, Judge, 103. 
 Jenkins, Seth, 89. 
 Jerusalem, 126. 
 Jesse, George Selwyn and His 
 
 Contemporaries, see George Sel- 
 
 wyn, etc; Memoirs of George the 
 Third, Ixxi. 
 
 jewel of his soul, see immediate 
 jewel, etc. 
 
 Jews praying toward Jerusalem, 
 126. 
 
 Job, 95. 
 
 John, 88. 
 
 John, King, in. 
 
 Johnson, Dr., x, Ixv, Ixvi, Ixvii. 
 Ixviii, Ixxii ; account of Burke's 
 success in Parliament, xxiii; 
 death, Ixviii; dislike of the 
 Whigs, xl, xli; Life of, Boswell, 
 see Boswell ; regard for Burke, 
 ix, xl, xli ; Taxation no Tyranny, 
 see Taxation, etc. 
 
 Johnstone, Governor, xvi, 103. 
 
 Joseph Andrews, Fielding, Ixv. 
 
 Journals of the American Congress, 
 xiii, xviii, xix, Ixxii, 79, 83, 86, 
 
 IO7, 122. 
 
 judge in my own cause, 34, 103. 
 judiciary, attack upon, 120, 121. 
 Julius Caesar, 88, 126. 
 Junius, xi, xiii, xxiv, Ixvii, Ixxii, 79 ; 
 
 supposed to be Burke, xxv. 
 juridical determination, 83. 
 justice, Burke's love of, xlii. 
 Juvenal, too, 115, 116, 117, 123, 
 
 125; Burke's quotations from, 
 
 liii. 
 
 Keats, John, birth, Ixix. 
 King George's War, 119. 
 King Lear, 89. 
 Kings, /, 126. 
 " king's friends," xvi, 90. 
 Knight of the Garter, see Garter, 
 knights, 46, 50, 51, 114. 
 Kurdistan, li, 25.
 
 142 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Lake Serbonis, see Serbonis. 
 
 Lamb, Charles, born, Ixviii. 
 
 Land Tax Act, 73, 126. 
 
 Laocoon, Lessing, see Lessing. 
 
 late, 1 02. 
 
 law servants, 118. 
 
 law, study of, in the colonies, 23, 94. 
 
 laws made against a whole people, 
 
 US- 
 lawyers in Congress, see Congress. 
 Lecky, W. E. H., England in the 
 
 Eighteenth Century, v, x, xi, 
 
 xii, Ixxi, 79, 86, 94, 98, 99, 120, 
 
 121. 
 
 Leeds, xiv. 
 
 legislative authority is perfect, 114. 
 Leonidas, Glover, 87. 
 less power, 120. 
 less than nothing, 107. 
 Lessing, xxii, Ixv, Ixvii. 
 letter on your table, 94. 
 Letter to a Member of the National 
 
 Assembly, xxxvii, Ixix. 
 Letter to a Noble Lord, xxxiii, xxxvi, 
 
 xxxvii, xxxix, xli, Ixix. 
 Letter to the Sheriff's of Bristol, 
 
 xxxi, xlii, xlv, Ixviii, 80, 81, 83, 
 
 92, 93, 100, 105, 108, 123. 
 Letters, Lord Chesterfield, Ixxi. 
 Letters, Junius, xi, xiii, xxiv, Ixvii, 
 
 Ixxii, 79. 
 
 Letters, Walpole, ix, Ixxi. 
 Letters on a Regicide Peace, xxxvii, 
 
 xxxix, xlix, Ixix, see also First 
 
 Letter, Second Letter, etc. 
 Letters on the Catholic Question, see 
 
 First Letter, Second Letter, etc. 
 Letters to Gentlemen in Bristol, 
 
 xxix, xxx, xliii, 100. 
 Leucaspedae, see Macedonian. 
 Lexington, battle of, Ixvii. 
 
 libel, 114. 
 
 liberality of Burke, xliii, xliv. 
 
 liberty, American love of, see 
 
 American. 
 " Liberty," John Hancock's sloop, 
 
 see Hancock. 
 Life and Times of Edmund Burke, 
 
 History of, Thomas MacKnight, 
 
 Ixxi. 
 Life of Johnson, Boswell, ix, xxiii, 
 
 xli, Ixix, Ixxi. 
 light as air, 125. 
 links of iron, 126. 
 Literary Club, x, xxiii, Ixvii. 
 literature, Burke's acquaintance 
 
 with, liii, liv. 
 
 Lives of the Poets, Johnson, Ixviii. 
 Livy, 101. 
 Locke, John, 108. 
 long discourse, 125. 
 Lord of Trade, xv, 119. 
 Lord North, see North. 
 Lord Rockingham, see Rocking- 
 
 ham. 
 
 lords marchers, 44, 112. 
 loss of my suit, 108. 
 Louis the Sixteenth executed, 
 
 xxxviii, Ixix ; suspension of, Ixix. 
 love of freedom, American, see 
 
 American. 
 Low and Pulling's Dictionary of 
 
 English History, Ixxii, 125. 
 lucrative, 112. 
 Lucretius, liv. 
 Luttrell, Temple, 82, 91. 
 Lyttelton, Lord, 109, 124. 
 
 Macaulay, Essay on Bacon, Hi, 
 Ixxi; Essay on Chatham, Ixxi; 
 Essay on Warren Hastings, xxxv, 
 xlviii, Ixxi.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 143 
 
 Macbeth, 93. 
 
 mace, 84. 
 
 Macedonian Leucaspedae, 101. 
 
 MacKnight, Thomas, History of 
 
 the Life and Times of Edmund 
 
 Burke, Ixxi. 
 
 Macpherson, James, Ixvi. 
 Madras, 1. 
 
 Magna Charta, li, 42, 92, in. 
 magnanimity in politics, Ixiv, 73. 
 Malton, Burke member for, Ixviii. 
 Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice, 1 18. 
 Marathon, 101. 
 march, 112. 
 
 Marie Antoinette, see Antoinette, 
 mark and seal of British freedom, 
 
 36. 
 
 marriage of Burke, see Burke. 
 
 MartinusScriblerus, Pope,iO2, 117. 
 
 Mary, Queen, in. 
 
 Maryland, 67, 80, 120; Franklin 
 agent for, 84 ; protests against 
 Stamp Act, xv. 
 
 Massachusetts, xvi, xviii, 54, 114, 
 1 24 ; abrogation of charter, xviii, 
 xix, lix, Ixii, Ixvii, 27, 58, 59, 97, 
 98, 107 ; declared in rebellion, 
 xix, Ix, 35, 104 ; Franklin agent 
 for, 84 ; protests against Stamp 
 Act, xv ; threatened, 106. 
 
 Matthew, liii, 87, 88, 100, 116, 126. 
 
 Maurice, F. D., lecture on Burke, 
 Ixxi. 
 
 mean to spare it, 125. 
 
 Mecca, xlviii. 
 
 Memoirs of George the Third, 
 Jesse, Ixxi. 
 
 Memoirs, Historical and Post- 
 humous, Wraxall, Ixxi. 
 
 Memoirs, Horace Walpole, Ixxi. 
 
 Memoirs, Rockingham, Ixxi. 
 
 menaces to the colonies, 106. 
 
 mere general theories, 85. 
 
 Mere Literature, Woodrow Wil- 
 son, Ixxi. 
 
 merely, 93. 
 
 Merioneth, 114. 
 
 Methodist movement, xi, Ixv. 
 
 Middlesex Election, Speech on, set 
 Speech, etc. 
 
 mighty troubles, 112. 
 
 military art, 90. 
 
 military force, Burke's dread of, 
 xxv, xxx, xxxiv, Iviii, 17, 18, 31, 
 32, 100, 101. 
 
 military government, 1 1 1 . 
 
 Milton, John, 89, 90, 99, 108, 109, 
 1 1 6, 125; Burke's quotations 
 from, liii. 
 
 minima, 86. 
 
 ministers of vengeance, see winged 
 ministers. 
 
 miserable stories, 1 19. 
 
 misguided people, 119. 
 
 Mississippi, 99. 
 
 mode of governing, 92. 
 
 Mogul Empire, xlviii. 
 
 Molasses Act, 118. 
 
 Monongahela, 99. 
 
 monopoly of theorems and corol- 
 laries, 20. 
 
 Montesquieu, Ixv. 
 
 more decent maintenance, 121. 
 
 More, Sir Thomas, 49, 116. 
 
 Morley, Henry, Universal Library, 
 xii, Ixx. 
 
 Morley, John, Burke, in English 
 Men of Letters, xx, xxii, xxv, 
 xxvi, xxxviii, xli, xlvi, Ixx; Ed- 
 mund Burke: a Historical 
 Study, xli, Ixx. 
 
 most inconsiderable person, 82.
 
 144 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 motion to withdraw troops from 
 Boston, Chatham's, see Chatham. 
 
 Mount Casius, see Casius. 
 
 Mountjoy, Lord, in. 
 
 Murray, John, see Dunmore. 
 
 Mutiny Act, American, 107 ; Mu- 
 tiny Bill, 73, 126. 
 
 Nabob of Arcot 's Debts, Speech on, 
 see Speech, etc. 
 
 Nantucket, 124. 
 
 Napier, Sir Joseph, lecture on 
 Burke, Ixxi. 
 
 National Biography, Dictionary 
 of, see Dictionary. 
 
 natural, 82. 
 
 Natural Society, Vindication of, 
 see Vindication. 
 
 nature and circumstances, see 
 temper and circumstances. 
 
 Navigation Acts, 60, 72, 109, no; 
 not a security to trade, 39. 
 
 ne, 114. 
 
 never be begged, 91. 
 
 New Bath Guide, Christopher 
 Anstey, see Anstey. 
 
 New English Dictionary, 1 1 6. 
 
 New Hampshire, 54, 124. 
 
 New Jersey, 80, 121 ; protests 
 against Stamp Act, xv. 
 
 New River, 99. 
 
 New Whigs, xiv. 
 
 New York, xv, xviii, 97, 120; 
 assembly suspended, xvii, 107 ; 
 attack upon judiciary of, 120, 
 121; denies Parliament's right 
 to tax, 114; protests against 
 Stamp Act, xviii ; secures Burke 
 as agent, xxx, Ixvii, Ixxi. 
 
 Newfoundland fisheries, 89 ; colo- 
 nists restricted from, 79, 88. 
 
 nice, 103. 
 
 Night Thoughts, Young, Ixv. 
 
 Nile, 1 08. 
 
 no climate, 89. 
 
 no Parliament, in. 
 
 no way resembling, 114. 
 
 noble lord, 84. 
 
 Noble Lord, Letter to, see Letter, etc. 
 
 Non meus hie sermo, etc., 51, 116. 
 
 non-exportation agreement, 97. 
 
 non-importation agreement, xv, 
 xvii, xix, 86, 97. 
 
 none but an obedient assembly, 96. 
 
 Norfolk burned, 97. 
 
 North Carolina, 67. 
 
 North, Lord, xxxiii, 84, 94, 95, 
 114, 120; advocates force, 90, 
 91, 98; character of, 84; grand 
 penal bill, 79, 109; leader of 
 the Tories, xiv; propositions for 
 conciliation, Ivii, Ixiii, 8, 53, 64, 
 82, 84, 85, 125; regards trade 
 restraints as useless, Ix, 39, 40, 
 no. 
 
 North ministry, Ixvii. 
 
 Norton, Sir Fletcher, 79. 
 
 not a shadow of evidence, see 
 shadow. 
 
 Nugent, Jane, xli, Ixvi. 
 
 obedience, 100. 
 
 obedience is what makes govern- 
 ment, 27, 97. 
 
 Obiter Dicta, Augustine Birrell, 
 see Birrell. 
 
 Observations on the Conduct of the 
 Minority, xxxvii, Ixix. 
 
 Observations on the Present State 
 of the Nation, xxiii, Ixvii, 82, 83, 
 99, 117. 
 
 occasional, 86.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 145 
 
 Oceana, Harrington, 49, 116. 
 
 Odes, Horace, 95, 113, 126. 
 
 of price, 1 26. 
 
 Ofellus, 51, 1 1 6. 
 
 Old Whigs, xiv, xvi. 
 
 On the Policy of the Allies, see 
 
 Remarks. 
 on your table, 87; see also letter 
 
 on your table, 
 one common head, 103. 
 Opposuit natura, 49, 1 1 5. 
 Origin of our Ideas OH the Sublime 
 
 and Beautiful, see Philosophical 
 
 Inquiry. 
 
 Ossian, Macpherson, Ixvi. 
 Othello, 123, 125. 
 other people, 101. 
 other towns, 120. 
 Ovid, 88, 95. 
 
 paid no taxes, 1 1 9. 
 
 Paine, Thomas, Ixviii, Ixix, Ixxii. 
 
 Palatine, County, 46, 47, 113. 
 
 "Pale," the, in. 
 
 Palliser, Sir Hugh, testimony on 
 fisheries, 89. 
 
 Palmerston, Lord, a Knight of the 
 Garter, 84. 
 
 Pamela, Richardson, Ixv. 
 
 paper government, xxvi, xlv, 6, 81, 
 82. 
 
 Paradise Lost, 89, 90, 99, 108, 
 125. 
 
 paragraphs, Burke's method of 
 constructing, liv, Iv. 
 
 Parliamentary History, v, xi, xii, 
 xiii, xv, xvi, xvii, xviii, xix, xxiv, 
 xxv, xxxi, xlvii, Ixx, Ixxii, 79, 80, 
 81, 82, 83, 85, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 
 94, 95, 97, 98, 102, 103, 104, 105, 
 106, 107, 108, 109, 1 10, 1 1 1, 1 13, 
 
 114, 115, 116, 118, 119, 120, 122, 
 124, 125. 
 
 parliamentary reform, attitude of 
 Burke toward, xxvi, xxxii ; atti- 
 tude of Whigs toward, xiv. 
 
 passed the public offices, 118. 
 
 Patriot King, Idea of, see Idea. 
 
 Pausanias, 101. 
 
 Payne, E. J., editor, Burke's Select 
 Works, iv, xlvi, li, Ixx, 81, 92, 93, 
 95, 101. 
 
 Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, see Aix- 
 la-Chapelle. 
 
 penal bill, see grand penal bill. 
 
 penal laws, 106, 107. 
 
 penal regulation, 113. 
 
 Pennsylvania, Iviii, 80, 1 1 5 ; Frank- 
 lin agent for, 84 ; protests against 
 Stamp Act, xv; trade of, 15. 
 
 people generally in the right, 35, 
 104. 
 
 Percy, Reliques, Ixvii, 87. 
 
 Perry, Bliss, Selections from Burke, 
 xlvi, 1, Ixx. 
 
 personality of Burke, see Burke. 
 
 Peter, II, 113. 
 
 petition of Chester, 46, 47, 113. 
 
 Petition of the Unitarians, Speech 
 on, see Speech, etc. 
 
 Philadelphia, xviii, 120. 
 
 philanthropy in England, xi. 
 
 Philip the Second, 42, in. 
 
 Philippians, 127. 
 
 Philosophical Inquiry into the 
 Origin of our Ideas on the 
 Sublime and Beautiful, xxii, Hi, 
 Ixvi. 
 
 Pitt, William, the Elder, see Chat- 
 ham; William, the Younger, 
 xlvii. 
 
 Pitt ministry, Ixviii.
 
 146 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Plan for Economical Reform, 
 
 Speech on, see Speech, etc. 
 Plantation of Ulster, see Ulster, 
 platform, 81. 
 Plato, Republic, 49, 115. 
 Plautus, liv. 
 Plutarch, liv, 101. 
 Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dia- 
 lect, Burns, Ixviii. 
 Poles, 23, 93. 
 Policy of the Allies, Remarks on, 
 
 see Remarks. 
 political condition of England, xii- 
 
 xix. 
 
 Pollux, 113. 
 Pool, 88. 
 Pope, Alexander, x, xxi, Ixv, 87, 
 
 96, 1 02, 117; Burke's quotations 
 
 from, liv. 
 Popery laws, effect of, xlix ; Tract 
 
 on, xxii, xlvi, 86, 97. 
 popular, 93. 
 popular part, 96. 
 population of the colonies, Ivii, 10, 
 
 ii, cannot be checked, lix, 29. 
 Port Bill, Boston, see Boston. 
 Port Louis, 89. 
 Portugal, American imports from, 
 
 xvii. 
 
 Posita luditur area, 69, 125. 
 pounces, 24, 95. 
 poverty to rapine, 45. 
 powers of government in trust for 
 
 the people, see trust. 
 Preface to Brissofs Address, 87, 
 
 93- 
 
 Present Discontents, Thoughts on 
 the Cause of, see Thoughts, etc. 
 
 Present State of the Nation, Ob- 
 servations on, see Observations, 
 etc. 
 
 previous question, 127. 
 
 previous to any submission, 85. 
 
 Price, Richard, Civil Liberty, Ixxii. 
 primum mobile, 96. 
 
 Principles of Argumentation, 
 Baker, see Baker. 
 
 Prior, James, Life of Burke, xx, 
 Ixxi. 
 
 Prior, Matthew, 87. 
 privilegium, 103. 
 
 Privy Council, xv, 114, 119. 
 
 proclamation, 112. 
 
 produce our hand, 81. 
 
 profane herd, 126. 
 
 profound subject, 108. 
 
 prosecution, criminal, see criminal. 
 
 Protestant Dissenters, Speech on 
 the Relief of , see Speech, etc. 
 
 Protestantism of the Protestant 
 religion, 22. 
 
 protests of the colonies, xv. 
 
 prove too much, 122. 
 
 provincial assemblies, see assem- 
 blies. 
 
 Provincial Congress, see Congress. 
 
 Prussia, 72. 
 
 pruriency, 84. 
 
 Psalms, loo. 
 
 Ptolemaic system, 96. 
 
 Public Advertiser, xi, Ixvii. 
 
 Puffendorf, 108. 
 
 purple patches, liii. 
 
 Pym, 92. 
 
 Quakers, 124. 
 
 Quebec, 116; Act, xviii; capture, 
 
 Ixvi. 
 
 Queensberry, Marquis of, x. 
 quod felix faustumque sit, 74, 127. 
 quotas and contingents, 125. 
 quotations, Burke's use of, liv.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 147 
 
 Ralegh, Sir Walter, trial for 
 treason, 33, 102, 103. 
 
 Rambler, Johnson, Ixv. 
 
 Ranae, Aristophanes, 101. 
 
 ransom by auction, 68. 
 
 Rasselas, Johnson, Ixvi. 
 
 ravages of Hyder Ali, see AIL 
 
 rebellion declared in Massachu- 
 setts, see Massachusetts ; defined 
 by act of Edward the Third, 
 105 ; Jacobite, see Jacobite. 
 
 refined, 84. 
 
 refinement on the principle of re- 
 sistance, 22, 93. 
 
 Reflections on the Revolution in 
 France, xxxvi, xxxvii, xliv, xlv, 
 liii, Ixix, 82, 103, 117, 123. 
 
 reform of Parliament, see parlia- 
 mentary reform. 
 
 reform in India, see India. 
 
 Regicide Peace, Letters on, see 
 First Letter, Second Letter, etc. 
 
 Register, Annual, see Annual 
 Register. 
 
 regular establishment, 93. 
 
 regulating duties, 118. 
 
 Reign of Terror, xxxvii, Ixix. 
 
 reliance on experience, see experi- 
 ence. 
 
 Relief of the Protestant Dissenters, 
 Speech on, see Speech, etc. 
 
 religion of the colonists, Iviii, 21, 
 22. 
 
 Reliques, Percy, see Percy. 
 
 Remarks on the Policy of the Allies, 
 xxxvii, Ixix, 102. 
 
 repeal of Stamp Act, see Stamp 
 Act. 
 
 repealed, 118. 
 
 Report on the Lords' Journal, liii. 
 
 representation in Parliament im- 
 
 possible for America, Ixi, 49, 53, 
 
 107, 115. 
 
 Republic, Plato, see Plato, 
 requisition, 120. 
 responsibility of the crown, see if 
 
 the crown, 
 restive, 91. 
 restored them, 112. 
 Restraining Bill, 58, 124. 
 restriction of commerce, see com- 
 mercial policy. 
 Retaliation, Goldsmith, xlvii. 
 return in loan, 125. 
 returning officer, 120. 
 revenue by grant, see grant; by 
 
 imposition, see imposition; from 
 
 America impossible, 71; from 
 
 India, see India. 
 Revolution, American, John Fiske, 
 
 xii, xiii, xv, xviii, Ixxi. 
 Revolution, glorious, 43, 112. 
 Revolution in France, Reflections 
 
 on, xxxvi, xxxvii, xliv, xlv, liii, 
 
 Ixix, 82, 103, 117, 123. 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, xxiii ; legacy 
 
 to Burke, xl. 
 Rhode Island, 54, 59, 120, 124; 
 
 burning of the " Gaspee," see 
 
 " Gaspee " ; protests against 
 
 Molasses Act, no; protests 
 
 against Stamp Act, xv. 
 Rice, Mr., 109, no. 
 Richard the Second, 46, 113. 
 Richardson, Samuel, Ixv. 
 Richmond, Duke of, xxvii. 
 Rights of Man, Paine, Ixix. 
 rights of the crown, 113. 
 rising of i3th Vende"miaire put 
 
 down by Bonaparte, Ixix. 
 Robespierre, fall of, Ixix. 
 Rochford, Earl of, 124.
 
 148 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Rockingham, Lord, death of, 
 
 xxxiii, Ixviii ; first ministry, xvi. 
 
 xxiii; first ministry ends, xvii, 
 
 xxiii; generosity to Burke, xxiv; 
 
 prime minister, xvi, xxiii, xxvii, 
 
 Ixvii; second ministry, xxxiii, 
 
 Ixviii. 
 
 Rockingham Memoirs, Ixxi. 
 Rockingham Whigs, xvi; Burke's 
 
 efforts to keep them united, 
 
 xxvi, xxvii. 
 
 Roderick Random, Smollett, Ixv. 
 Rolls-chapel, xxvii. 
 Roman Catholic Church, 127 ; 
 
 religion, 21, 31. 
 Roman charity, 16, 88. 
 Roman Temple of Concord, see 
 
 Temple, etc. 
 Rome, 92. 
 
 " rotten boroughs," xiv, xxvi. 
 Rousseau, J. J., x, Ixvi. 
 Ruddlan, 112. 
 rude swain, 1 1 6. 
 run the longitude, 89. 
 Rungpore, xlix, 1. 
 rust that rather adorns, 51, 116, 117. 
 
 St. James's Street, xlviii. 
 
 St. John, 98. 
 
 Salem, 94. 
 
 Satires, Horace, 88, 166; Juvenal, 
 
 100, 115, 116, 123, 125. 
 Schiller, Ixvi. 
 Scott, Sir Walter, Ixvii. 
 second is like unto, 116. 
 Second Letter on the Catholic 
 
 Question, xxxix, 109. 
 seizure of sloop " Liberty," see 
 
 Hancock. 
 Selby, F. G., Burke's Speeches, iv, 
 
 xii, Ixx, 95. 
 
 Selden, 92, 108. 
 
 Select British El ague nee, C. A. 
 Goodrich, see Goodrich. 
 
 Select Works of Burke, edited by 
 E. J. Payne, see Payne. 
 
 Selections from Burke, Perry, see 
 Perry. 
 
 Selwyn, George, and His Contem- 
 poraries, Jesse, see George Sel- 
 wyn, etc. 
 
 seminal principle, 14. 
 
 sensible, 92. 
 
 separate Parliament of Ireland, 
 124. 
 
 sept, in. 
 
 Serbonian bog, 37, 108. 
 
 Serbonis, Lake, 108. 
 
 Serpent, frozen, 16, 89. 
 
 several orders, 92. 
 
 Shackleton, Abraham, xx. 
 
 Shackleton, Richard, xx, xl, 96. 
 
 shadow of evidence, no. 
 
 Shakspere, 88, 89, 93, 96, 123, 
 125, 126; Burke's quotations 
 from, liii. 
 
 Shelburne, Lord, xxxiii, 85. 
 
 Shelburne ministry, Ixviii. 
 
 Shelley, P. B., birth, Ixix. 
 
 Sheridan, R. B., Ixvi; Burke's 
 quarrel with, Ixix. 
 
 Sheriff's of Bristol, Letter to, see 
 Letter, etc. 
 
 shewen, 113. 
 
 Shirley, Governor, Franklin's 
 letter to, see Franklin. 
 
 Shuldham, Molyneux, 89. 
 
 Simul alba nautis, etc., 46, 
 
 "3- 
 
 Sing, Debi, cruelties of, xlix. 
 "Single- Speech" Hamilton, see 
 
 Hamilton.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 149 
 
 slavery in the colonies, Iviii, 22, 23 ; 
 objection of colonies to, 32, 101. 
 
 slaves, enfranchisment of, lix, Ix, 
 32, 101. 
 
 Smith, Adam, Ixviii. 
 
 Smith, Goldwin, United States, xii, 
 Ixxi. 
 
 Smollett, Tobias George, x, Ixv, 
 Ixvii. 
 
 Smyrna, li, 25. 
 
 So far shalt thou go, 95. 
 
 so high, 119. 
 
 so large a mass, 86. 
 
 social conditions of England, ix-xii. 
 
 solicitor-general, 1 19. 
 
 some of the law servants, see law 
 servants. 
 
 Songs of Innocence, Blake, Ixviii. 
 
 South Carolina, 80 ; protests 
 against slave trade, 101 ; pro- 
 tests against Stamp Act, xv. 
 
 Spain, 25,42, 72, in; American 
 imports from, xvii; France de- 
 clares war against, Ixix. 
 
 Spanish Armada, see Armada. 
 
 Speaker, 79. 
 
 Spectator, x. 
 
 speculative projects, xlv. 
 
 Speech at the Conclusion of the Poll, 
 xxix. 
 
 Speech in Opening the Impeachment 
 of Warren Hastings, xlviii, 1. 
 
 Speech on American Taxation, xxxi, 
 Ixvii, 81, 83, 84, 86, 99, 103, 104, 
 no, in, 118. 
 
 Speech on Conciliation, ix, xi, xxvi, 
 xxxi, xxxv, xliii, xlv, xlvii, xlix, 1, 
 lii, liii, liv, lv, Ixvii, Ixx ; edited by 
 A. S. Cook, iv, v, Ixx, 87, 89, 92, 
 99, 101, 103, in, 113, 115, 116, 
 121 ; structure of, Iv-lxiv. 
 
 Speech on Fox's East India Bill, 
 xxxiv, Ixviii. 
 
 Speech on the Duration of Parlia- 
 ments, 82. 
 
 Speech on the Middlesex Election, 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Speech on the Nabob of Arcofs 
 Debts, xii, xxxiv, xxxv, xlvii, xlix, 
 liii, Ixviii. 
 
 Speech on the Petition of the Uni- 
 tarians, xliv, 85. 
 
 Speech on the Plan for Economical 
 Reform, xxxii, Ixviii. 
 
 Speech on the Relief of the Protestant 
 Dissenters, xxviii. 
 
 Speech would betray you, 100. 
 
 Speeches, Burke *s, edited by F. G. 
 Selby, see Selby. 
 
 spirit, 126. 
 
 Spoliatis arma supersunt, 31, too. 
 
 Stamp Act, xl, 115; agitation 
 over, 94, 106 ; Burke speaks 
 against, xxiii ; grieved the Amer- 
 icans, 52 ; passed, xv, Ixvii ; 
 proposed, xv; repeal of, xvi, 
 xvii, Ixvii, 83, 119, 122. 
 
 Stanley, Hans, 85, 90, 91. 
 
 Stanley, Lord, 109. 
 
 startle, 107. 
 
 state, 87. 
 
 State of the Nation, Observations on 
 the Present, see Observations, 
 etc. 
 
 Statesmen of the Time of George the 
 Third, Brougham, see Brougham. 
 
 Statutes at Large, Ixxii, 106, 107. 
 
 Statutes of the Realm, 113, 114. 
 
 steadily opposed, 125. 
 
 Stebbins, Calvin, paper on Burke 
 as agent of New York, xxx, Ixxi. 
 
 Steele, Richard, x.
 
 150 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Stephen, Leslie, History of English 
 Thought in the Eighteenth Cen- 
 tury, x, xli, xlv, Ixxi. 
 
 Stephen, Sir James, on Coke's 
 rancor, 103. 
 
 Sterne, Laurence, x, Ixvi. 
 
 strength and ornament, 112. 
 
 Stuart, House of, 1 12. 
 
 study of law in the colonies, see 
 law. 
 
 style of Burke, xlix-lv. 
 
 subduing again, 90. 
 
 Sublime and Beautiful, see Philo- 
 sophical Inquiry. 
 
 such as England then enjoyed, 
 in. 
 
 sufferances, 126. 
 
 Suffolk, Earl of, 91 . 
 
 Summum jus, etc., 104. 
 
 superintending legislature, 123. 
 
 supply, 112. 
 
 Snrsum corda, 73, 127. 
 
 suspension of habeas corpus, see 
 habeas corpus. 
 
 Swift, Jonathan, x, xi, Ixv, 87, 
 102. 
 
 table, see letter. 
 
 Tan j ore, 1. 
 
 Tartars, English, see English. 
 
 Task, Cowper, Ixviii. 
 
 taste of death, 14, 88. 
 
 Taller, x. 
 
 Taxation no Tyranny, Dr. John- 
 son, Ixvii, Ixxii, 101, 108, 115. 
 
 Taxation, right of, xvi, 37, 108. 
 
 taxes on American imports, see 
 import duties. 
 
 Tea Duty Bill, xvii, xxxi, 91, 110; 
 repeal of, xvii, 109. 
 
 " Tea Party," Boston, xviii, Ixvii. 
 
 temper and circumstances of 
 people, adaptation of govern- 
 ment to, xxvi, xxxii, xlv, Iviii, 
 9, 19, 85, 91. 
 
 temperament, 114. 
 
 Tempest, 89. 
 
 temple of British concord, 50, 116; 
 of Concord, Roman, 116; of 
 Peace, 74. 
 
 temporary, 120. 
 
 Terence, liv. 
 
 terminating almost wholly in the 
 colonies, 87. 
 
 Thackeray, W. M., English Hu- 
 morists, x, Ixxi ; Four Georges, 
 x, xi, Ixxi. 
 
 " The Club," see Literary Club. 
 
 The second is like unto, see 
 second. 
 
 their taste, 125. 
 
 theories, Burke's opposition to, 
 xxxii, xxxiv, xliv, xlv, Ivii, 9, 57. 
 
 those who have been more confi- 
 dent, 115. 
 
 Those who have been pleased, 
 118. 
 
 Thoughts and Details on Scarcity, 
 Ixix. 
 
 Thoughts on French Affairs, xxxvii, 
 xxxviii, Ixix. 
 
 Thoughts on the Cause of the Pres- 
 ent Discontents, xxv, Ixvii, 80, 
 82, 90, 91, 92, 100, 104. 
 
 Thrace, li, 25. 
 
 threats against the colonies, see 
 menaces. 
 
 three ways, 99. 
 
 Tlmrlow, Lord Edward, 95. 
 
 Timothy, 17, 117. 
 
 tobacco, tax on, 67. 
 
 Tom Jones, Ixv.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 151 
 
 Tories, attitude toward the French 
 Revolution, xxxvi; their sup- 
 port of George the Third, xiv, 
 xvi. 
 
 touch with a tool, 117. 
 
 Townshend, Charles, xv. 
 
 Townshend, T., 124. 
 
 tracks of our forefathers, 117. 
 
 Tract on the Popery Laws, xxii, 
 xlvi, 86, 97. 
 
 Tracts on Political and Commer- 
 cial Subjects, Josiah Tucker, see 
 Tucker. 
 
 trade, see commerce. 
 
 trade laws, see Navigation Acts. 
 
 trade, lord of, xv, 119. 
 
 Traveller, Goldsmith, 92. 
 
 treasons under act of Henry the 
 Eighth, see Henry the Eighth. 
 
 treasury extent, 125. 
 
 trial of Warren Hastings, see 
 Hastings. 
 
 Trinity College, Burke at, xx, Ixv. 
 
 Tristia, Ovid, 88. 
 
 Tristram Shandy, Sterne, Ixvi. 
 
 truck, 96. 
 
 True Interest of Great Britain, 
 Josiah Tucker, see Tucker. 
 
 trust, government a trust for the 
 people, xxv, xxvi, 4, 37, 80. 
 
 Tucker, Josiah, Four Tracts on 
 Political and Commercial Sub- 
 jects, Ixxii, 99, no. 
 
 Turk, his government, li, 25. 
 
 Turk's Head, x. 
 
 turn their faces, 1 26. 
 
 two leading questions, Ivii, 9. 
 
 Two Letters to Gentlemen in Bris- 
 tol, xxix, xxx, xliii, 100. 
 
 Ulster, Plantation of, 112. 
 
 understood principle, 109. 
 Union, Act of, see Act, etc. 
 United States, Goldwin Smith, xii, 
 
 Ixxi. 
 United States History, Dictionary 
 
 of, J. F. Jameson, Ixxii. 
 unity of spirit, 108. 
 unity of the empire, Ixiii, 1 24. 
 Universal Library, Henry Morley, 
 
 see Morley. 
 
 unnatural contention, 96. 
 unsuspecting confidence of the 
 
 colonies, 7, 83. 
 usurpation, 112. 
 Utopia, More, see More. 
 
 Van, Mr., advocates severity 
 toward the colonies, 102. 
 
 Vauxhall Gardens.'x. 
 
 Vendemiaire, i3th, rising of, put 
 down by Bonaparte, Ixix. 
 
 venerable rust, see rust. 
 
 Verney, Lord, political patron of 
 Burke, xxiv. 
 
 very same title, 103. 
 
 vexation to violence, 45. 
 
 Vicar of Wakefield, Goldsmith, 
 Ixvii. 
 
 Vindication of Natural Society, 
 xxi, xxii, xlix, Ixvi. 
 
 Virgil, 88, 89, 101, 126; Burke's 
 quotations from, liii ; Delphin, 
 liv. 
 
 Virginia, xviii, xlv, 67, 80 ; assem- 
 bly, see Dunmore ; effects of 
 slavery there, 22, 32 ; protests 
 against slave trade, 101, 102; 
 protests against Stamp Act, 
 xv. 
 
 virtual representation, 48, 115. 
 
 Voltaire, Ixvi.
 
 152 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Wales, 112, 114; an example for 
 dealing with America, Ixi, 44- 
 46, 48, 64, in, 122 ; Statute of, 
 112. . 
 
 Walpole, Horace, Ixvii; Letters, 
 ix, Ixxi. 
 
 Walpole, Sir Robert, xi, 84. 
 
 was not heard, 120. 
 
 Washington, George, first presi- 
 dent, Ixix. 
 
 Watson, Brooke, 89. 
 
 we must gain, too. 
 
 Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith, 
 Ixviii. 
 
 Webster, Daniel, born, Ixviii. 
 
 Wedderburn, Solicitor-General, 
 109, 115. 
 
 well worth fighting for, see worth. 
 
 Wendover, xxiii, Ixvii, 80. 
 
 Wentworth, Governor, xix. 
 
 Wesley, John, xi. 
 
 where, 113. 
 
 Whigs, attitude toward French 
 Revolution, xxxvi ; condition of 
 the party, xiv; New, see New 
 Whigs ; Old, see Old Whigs. 
 
 Whitfield, George, xi. 
 
 wield the thunder, 90. 
 
 Wilkes, John, argument on taxa- 
 tion, 108; contest over his elec- 
 tion, xxiv, xxv, Ixvii. 
 
 Williamsburg, 96. 
 
 William the Third, 112. 
 
 Wilson, Woodrow, Ixxi. 
 
 wind of fashionable doctrine, 4, 
 81. 
 
 winged ministers of vengeance, 24, 
 
 95- 
 
 wise beyond what was written, 
 117. 
 
 with all its imperfections, 96. 
 
 withdrawal of troops from Boston, 
 see Chatham. 
 
 without resource, 91. 
 
 Wordsworth, William, Ixvii. 
 
 worth fighting for, 90. 
 
 Wraxall's Historical and Posthu- 
 mous Memoirs, Ixxi. 
 
 Xanthippe, 88. 
 
 Ye gods, annihilate but space and 
 
 time, 32, 1 02. 
 Young, Edward, Ixv. 
 your speech would betray you, 
 
 100.
 
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