This prosecution, if weakly conceived, ill digested, or intemperately pursued, ought never to have been brought to your Lordships' bar: but being brought to your Lordships' bar, the nation is committed to it, and the least appearance of uncertainty in our minds would disgrace us forever.
Burke critiques the prosecution's quality and emphasizes the nation's commitment to it.
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More from Edmund Burke
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.
Not being illuminated with the light of which the gentlemen of France tell us they have got so abundant a share, they acted under a strong impression of the ignorance and fallibility of mankind.
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.
I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.
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