At best, it will appear to such wavering persons, (if such there are,) whom we mean to fix with us, a choice whether they are to continue a prey to domestic banditti, or to be fought for as a carrion carcass and picked to the bone by all the crows and vultures of the sky.
Burke describes the dire choices faced by people caught between domestic strife and foreign exploitation.
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More from Edmund Burke
Governments must be abused and deranged indeed, before it can be thought of; and the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the past.
The House of Lords, for instance, is not morally competent to dissolve the House of Commons,--no, nor even to dissolve itself, nor to abdicate, if it would, its portion in the legislature of the kingdom.
As he is not to obey us, but we are to obey the law in him, our Constitution has made no sort of provision towards rendering him, as a servant, in any degree responsible.
Those who are servants in name, as well as in effect, do not like to be told of their situation, their duty, and their obligations.
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