Incredible as it may seem, you know that you have deliberately thrown away a large duty, which you held secure and quiet in your hands, for the vain hope of getting one three fourths less, through every hazard, through certain litigation, and possibly through war.
Burke critiques the decision to sacrifice a secure revenue for uncertain gains, highlighting the folly of such a choice.
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More from Edmund Burke
A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
Ill would our ancestors at the Revolution have deserved their fame for wisdom, if they had found no security for their freedom, but in rendering their government feeble in its operations and precarious in its tenure,--if they had been able…
But the course of succession is the healthy habit of the British Constitution.
No experience has taught us that in any other course or method than that of an hereditary crown our liberties can be regularly perpetuated and preserved sacred as our hereditary right.
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