They decline a general engagement,--prudently enough, if their object had been to make the war attend upon a treaty of good terms of subjection; but when they look further, this will not do.
Edmund Burke: “They decline a general engagement,--prudently enough, if their object had been to make the war attend upon a treaty of…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke critiques the American strategy of avoiding general engagements in the war.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
No experience has taught us that in any other course or method than that of an hereditary crown our liberties can be regularly perpetuated and preserved sacred as our hereditary right.
Who could flatter himself that these men, suddenly, and as it were by enchantment, snatched from the humblest rank of subordination, would not be intoxicated with their unprepared greatness?
When such an unwarrantable maxim is once established, that no throne is lawful but the elective, no one act of the princes who preceded this era of fictitious election can be valid.
They look upon the legal hereditary succession of their crown as among their rights, not as among their wrongs,--as a benefit, not as a grievance,--as a security for their liberty, not as a badge of servitude.





