But we conjure you by the invaluable pledges which have hitherto united, and which we trust will hereafter lastingly unite us, that you do not suffer yourselves to be persuaded or provoked into an opinion that you are at war with this…
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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The same wicked men, for the same bad purposes, have so far surprised the justice of Parliament as to cut off all communication betwixt us, except what is to go in their own fallacious and hostile channel.
As our last resource, we turn ourselves to you.
In such a deplorable situation, an adherence to the common forms of business appears to us rather as an apology to cover a supine neglect of duty than the means of performing it in a manner adequate to the exigency that presses upon us.
The distempers of the state are grown to such a degree of violence and malignity as to render all ordinary remedies vain and frivolous.
The very dangerous crisis into which the British empire is brought, as it accounts for, so it justifies, the unusual step we take in addressing ourselves to you.
If but the smallest hope should from any circumstances appear of a return to the ancient maxims and true policy of this kingdom, we shall with joy and readiness return to our attendance, in order to give our hearty support to whatever…
All our endeavors having proved fruitless, we are fearful at this time of irritating by contention those passions which we have found it impracticable to compose by reason.
Those particular proceedings which cause and inflame this disorder, after many years' incessant struggle, we find ourselves wholly unable to oppose and unwilling to behold.
The British empire is in convulsions which threaten its dissolution.
We should be ashamed to stand before your Majesty, boldly asserting in our own favor inherent rights which bind and regulate the crown itself, and yet insisting on the exercise, in our own persons, of a more arbitrary sway over our…
Another use has produced other consequences; and a power which refuses to be limited by moderation must either be lost, or find other more distinct and satisfactory limitations.
Parliament is a security provided for the protection of freedom, and not a subtile fiction, contrived to amuse the people in its place.
Such, Sir, being, amongst us, the foundation of monarchy itself, much more clearly and much more peculiarly is it the ground of all Parliamentary power.
Every hour of your Majesty's reign, your title stands upon the very same foundation on which it was at first laid; and we do not know a better on which it can possibly be placed.
Those statutes have not given us our liberties: our liberties have produced them.
At that ever memorable and instructive period, the letter of the law was superseded in favor of the substance of liberty.
The people at that time reentered into their original rights; and it was not because a positive law authorized what was then done, but because the freedom and safety of the subject, the origin and cause of all laws, required a proceeding…
The Revolution is a departure from the ancient course of the descent of this monarchy.
It was not to passive principles in our ancestors that we owe the honor of appearing before a sovereign who cannot feel that he is a prince without knowing that we ought to be free.
These may possibly be the foundation of other thrones: they must be the subversion of yours.
The consequence is not certain; but a general change of principles rarely happens among a people without leading to a change of government.
What, gracious sovereign, is the empire of America to us, or the empire of the world, if we lose our own liberties?
If we could flatter ourselves that this would not happen, we must be the weakest of men; we must be the worst, if we were indifferent whether it happened or not.
It will become an apt, powerful, and certain engine for the destruction of our freedom here.
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