If these few plain rules are observed, no corruption ought to be suspected; if any of them are violated, suspicion will attach in proportion; if all of them are violated, a corrupt motive of some kind or other will not only be suspected, but must be violently presumed.
Burke emphasizes the importance of adhering to rules to avoid corruption in governance.
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More from Edmund Burke
Who could doubt but that, at any expense to the state, of which they understood nothing, they must pursue their private interests, which they understood but too well?
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.
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.
Always acting as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful gravity.
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