By such management, by the irresistible operation of feeble councils, so paltry a sum as three-pence in the eyes of a financier, so insignificant an article as tea in the eyes of a philosopher, have shaken the pillars of a commercial empire that circled the whole globe.
Edmund Burke: “By such management, by the irresistible operation of feeble councils, so paltry a sum as three-pence in the eyes of a…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke highlights the significant impact of seemingly trivial financial decisions on a vast empire.
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An irregular, convulsive movement may be necessary to throw off an irregular, convulsive disease.
When such an unwarrantable maxim is once established, that no throne is lawful but the elective, no one act of the princes who preceded this era of fictitious election can be valid.
But the king of Great Britain obeys no other person; all other persons are individually, and collectively too, under him, and owe to him a legal obedience.
They have little regard to the obvious consequences of their doctrine, though they may see that it leaves positive authority in very few of the positive institutions of this country.





