Edmund Burke: “I am ready to answer every particular question that may be put against myself, upon honor or upon oath.”

Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.

But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service.

They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life.

Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our neighbors the example of the British Constitution than to take models from them for the improvement of our own.