It would hardly be believed, I imagine, unless strong proof appeared, that any man could be so daring as to hold up such a resource to a regular government, which had three million of known, avowed, a great part of it territorial, revenue.
Burke expresses disbelief that someone could exploit government resources so audaciously.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
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.
They have little regard to the obvious consequences of their doctrine, though they may see that it leaves positive authority in very few of the positive institutions of this country.
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…
But supposing they had ranked as they ought to do, and as with us they do actually, the sides of sick-beds are not the academies for forming statesmen and legislators.
Other voices in this conversation
