The indifference of the mercantile sovereign to his trading advantages naturally relaxed the diligence of his subordinate factor-magistrates through all their gradations and in all their functions; it gave rise, at least so far as the principal was concerned, to much neglect of price and of goodness in their purchases.
Burke discusses how the neglect of trading advantages affects the diligence of officials.
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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.
By adhering in this manner and on those principles to our forefathers, we are guided, not by the superstition of antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy.
The engagement and pact of society, which generally goes by the name of the Constitution, forbids such invasion and such surrender.
Always acting as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful gravity.
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