Edmund Burke: “Pity, my Lords, the condition of an honest servant in Bengal.”

The improvements of the National Assembly are superficial, their errors fundamental.

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.

Let us add, if we please, but let us preserve what they have left; and standing on the firm ground of the British Constitution, let us be satisfied to admire, rather than attempt to follow in their desperate flights, the aëronauts of…