He sold the people to utter extirpation, for the sum of four hundred thousand pounds.
Edmund Burke: “He sold the people to utter extirpation, for the sum of four hundred thousand pounds.”
Editor's note · Context
Burke denounces the sale of people to their doom for monetary gain, illustrating the moral depravity of such actions.
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Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.
Our people will find employment enough for a truly patriotic, free, and independent spirit, in guarding what they possess from violation.
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.
If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.





