Edmund Burke's Speech on Conciliation with the American Colonies: Delivered in the House of Commons, March 22, 1775

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D. Appleton, 1900 - Great Britain - 185 pages

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Page 3 - Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such, We scarcely can praise it, or blame it too much; Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind. Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote...
Page 3 - Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat, To persuade Tommy Townshend* to lend him a vote ; Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining, And thought of convincing, while they thought of -dining. Though equal to all things, for all things unfit: Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit ; For a patriot, too cool ; for a drudge, disobedient ; And too fond of the right, to pursue the expedient. In short, 'twas his fate, unemployed or in place, sir, To eat mutton cold,...
Page 21 - 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.
Page 27 - 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 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.
Page 52 - An act for granting certain duties in the British colonies and plantations in America ; for allowing a drawback of the duties of customs* upon the exportation from this kingdom, of coffee and...
Page 55 - All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.
Page 23 - I do not 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 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.
Page 17 - Refined policy 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 mankind.
Page 29 - 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 thousand miles of ocean lie between you and them. No contrivance can prevent the effect of this distance, in weakening 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 system.
Page 22 - First, sir, permit me to observe that the use of force 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.

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