This excellent Governor foresaw that he would have a bad account of this business to give to the contractors in Leadenhall Street, who consider laws, religion, morality, and the principles of state policy of empires as mere questions of profit and loss.
Burke reflects on the moral implications of governance, contrasting ethical considerations with profit-driven motives.
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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.
Who could flatter himself that these men, suddenly, and as it were by enchantment, snatched from the humblest rank of subordination, would not be intoxicated with their unprepared greatness?
Who could doubt but that, at any expense to the state, of which they understood nothing, they must pursue their private interests, which they understood but too well?
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.
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