I really am at a loss to draw any sort of parallel between the public merits of his Grace, by which he justifies the grants he holds, and these services of mine, on the favorable construction of which I have obtained what his Grace so much disapproves.
Burke expresses his confusion over how the Duke justifies his grants compared to his own public service.
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More from Edmund Burke
We procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which Nature teaches us to revere individual men: on account of their age, and on account of those from whom they are descended.
But the course of succession is the healthy habit of the British Constitution.
But an absurd theory on one side of a question forms no justification for alleging a false fact or promulgating mischievous maxims on the other.
This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers of any distinction.
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