Nothing will make government more awful to them than to see that it does not proceed by chance or under the influence of passion.
Edmund Burke
The Public Record
Edmund Burke was an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher, and politician who is widely credited as the founder of the cultural and political philosophy of conservatism. Regarded as one of the most influential conservative thinkers and political writers of the 18th century, Burke spent the majority of his career in Great Britain and was elected as a member of Parliament (MP) from 1766 to 1794 in the House of Commons of Great Britain with the Whig Party. His writings played a significant role in influencing public views and opinions in both Great Britain and France following the French Revolution in 1789, and he remains a major figure in modern conservative circles.
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They ought to be such as will humble, not irritate.
There is no doubt that the approaching executions will very much determine the future conduct of those people.
This keeps their minds in a suspended and anxious state, which may very easily be exasperated by an injudicious severity into desperate resolutions,--or by weak measures on the part of government it may be encouraged to the pursuit of…
In general, they rather approve than blame the principles of the rioters, though the better sort of them are afraid of the consequences of those very principles which they approve.
If I understand the temper of the public at this moment, a very great part of the lower and some of the middling people of this city are in a very critical disposition, and such as ought to be managed with firmness and delicacy.
The first that are brought forward suffer the extremity of the law, with circumstances of mitigation of their case; and after a time, the most atrocious delinquents escape merely by the satiety of punishment.
Without great care and sobriety, criminal justice generally begins with anger and ends in negligence.
I really feel uneasy on this business, and should consider it as a sort of personal favor, if you do something to limit the extent and severity of the law on this point.
Justice and mercy have not such opposite interests as people are apt to imagine.
The scene in Surrey would have affected the hardest heart that ever was in an human breast.
For God's sake entreat of Lord North to take a view of the sum total of the deaths, before any are ordered for execution; for by not doing something of this kind people are decoyed in detail into severities they never would have dreamed…
The executions, taking those which have been made, which are now ordered, and which may be the natural consequence of the convictions in Surrey, will be undoubtedly too many to answer any good purpose.
If I suffer in my reputation for it in Ireland, I am sorry; but it neither does nor can affect me so nearly as my suffering in Bristol for having wished to unite the interests of the two nations in a manner that would secure the supremacy…
But, thank God, my letter to Bristol was in print, my sentiments on the policy of the measure were known and determined, and such as no man could think me absurd enough to contradict.
I stood, therefore, silent with grief and vexation, on that day of the signal shame and humiliation of this degraded king and country.
But however the king and his ministers may settle the question of his dignity and his rights, I thought it became me, by vigilance and foresight, to take care of yours: I thought I ought rather to lighten the ship in time than expose it to…
Amends were made for having refused small, but timely concessions, by an unlimited and untimely surrender, not only of every one of the objects of former restraints, but virtually of the whole legislative power itself which had made them.
The debater obtained credit, but the statesman was disgraced forever.
I never heard a more elaborate, more able, more convincing, and more shameful speech.
I shall be concerned for this, and very much so; but I should be more concerned, if, in gratifying a present humor of theirs, I had rendered myself unworthy of their former or their future choice.
The only thing in which we differ with you is this,--that we do not think your attaching yourselves to the court and quarrelling with the independent part of this people is the way to promote the union of two free countries, or of holding…
We tremble at the idea of a disunion of these two nations.
In that opinion, one of the chief pleasures in my situation, what was first and-uppermost in my thoughts, was the hope, without injury to this country, to be somewhat useful to the place of my birth and education, which in many respects…
I stated to the House what I felt; and I felt, as strongly as human sensibility can feel, the extinction of my Parliamentary capacity, where I wished to use it most.
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