I produce it to your Lordships to prove to you, from this dreadful example, the horror which that government felt, when any person subject to it assumed to himself a privilege to receive presents.
Burke uses a historical example to demonstrate the fear that rulers had towards corruption and the consequences of receiving presents.
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More from Edmund Burke
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.
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.
The improvements of the National Assembly are superficial, their errors fundamental.
Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our neighbors the example of the British Constitution than to take models from them for the improvement of our own.
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