All would have been a golden age, full of peace, order, and liberty,--and philosophy, raying out from Europe, would have warmed and enlightened the universe; but, unluckily, irritable philosophy, the most irritable of all things, was pat into a passion, and provoked into ambition abroad and tyranny at home.
Burke reflects on an idealized vision of peace and enlightenment that could have emerged from a supportive relationship with France.
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But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service.
To tell the people that they are relieved by the dilapidation of their public estate is a cruel and insolent imposition.
The only difference among their financial factions is on the greater or the lesser quantity of assignats to be imposed on the public sufferance.
Every honest mind, every true lover of liberty and humanity, must rejoice to find that injustice is not always good policy, nor rapine the high-road to riches.
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