The country was laid waste with fire and sword; and that land, distinguished above most others by the cheerful face of paternal government and protected labor, the chosen seat of cultivation and plenty, is now almost throughout a dreary desert, covered with rushes, and briers, and jungles full of wild beasts.
Burke vividly describes the devastation of a once-thriving land, serving as a stark reminder of the impacts of war and misrule.
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Governments must be abused and deranged indeed, before it can be thought of; and the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the past.
The people of England will not ape the fashions they have never tried, nor go back to those which they have found mischievous on trial.
Who could conceive that men who are habitually meddling, daring, subtle, active, of litigious dispositions and unquiet minds, would easily fall back into their old condition of obscure contention, and laborious, low, and unprofitable…
The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end and resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable.
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