Whether an early discovery of evil designs, an early declaration, and an early precaution against them be more wise than to stifle all inquiry about them, for fear they should declare themselves more early than otherwise they would, and therefore precipitate the evil,--all this depends on the reality of the danger.
Burke reflects on the wisdom of addressing potential threats rather than ignoring them.
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Of this consolation whoever deprives them deadens their industry, and strikes at the root of all acquisition as of all conservation.
They rob only to enable them to cheat; but in a very short time they defeat the ends both of the robbery and the fraud, by making out accounts for other purposes, which blow up their whole apparatus of force and of deception.
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.
To tell the people that they are relieved by the dilapidation of their public estate is a cruel and insolent imposition.
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