For immediately after the conversion of Ethelbert, King of Kent, the missionaries, who had introduced the use of letters, and came from Rome full of the ideas of the Roman civil establishment, must have observed the gross defect arising from a want of written and permanent laws.
Burke highlights the challenges faced by missionaries in establishing written laws after the conversion of Ethelbert.
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They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.
In some people I see great liberty, indeed; in many, if not in the most, an oppressive, degrading servitude.
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.
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