This ally, (or rather, this principal in the war,) by the confession of the Regicide himself, was more formidable to him than all his other foes united.
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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Warring there, we should have led our arms to the capital of Wrong.
We are probably the only nation who have declined to act against an enemy when it might have been done in his own country, and who, having an armed, a powerful, and a long victorious ally in that country, declined all effectual…
On the plan of a war in France, every advantage that our allies might obtain would be doubled in its effect.
Had we brought the main of our force to bear upon that quarter, all the operations of the British and Imperial crowns would have been combined.
The war would have had system, correspondence, and a certain direction.
Well might we call for a recompense in America for those services to which Europe owed its safety.
Having abandoned this obvious policy connected with principle, we have seen the Regicide power taking the reverse course, and making real conquests in the West Indies, to which all our dear-bought advantages (if we could hold them) are…
They have no counterpart; and if they had, the enemy's conduct cancels such declarations,--and, I trust, along with them, cancels everything of mischief and dishonor that they contain.
At what period of time was it that our country has deserved that load of infamy of which nothing but preternatural humiliation in language and conduct can serve to clear us?
If we have deserved this kind of evil fame from anything we have done in a state of prosperity, I am sure that it is not an abject conduct in adversity that can clear our reputation.
Well is it known that ambition can creep as well as soar.
The pride of no person in a flourishing condition is more justly to be dreaded than that of him who is mean and cringing under a doubtful and unprosperous fortune.
Whenever your enemy chooses to accuse you of perfidy and ill faith, will you put it into his power to throw you into the purgatory of self-humiliation?
Is every word in the declaration from Downing Street concerning their conduct, and concerning ours and that of our allies, so obviously false that it is necessary to give some new-invented proofs of our good faith in order to expunge the…
We know that there is a legal presumption against men, quando se nimis purgitant; and if a charge of ambition is not refuted by an affected humility, certainly the character of fraud and perfidy is still less to be washed away by…
They sometimes grow out of the necessities, always out of the habits, of slavish and degenerate spirits; and on the theatre of the world, it is not by assuming the mask of a Davus or a Geta that an actor will obtain credit for manly…
It is an erect countenance, it is a firm adherence to principle, it is a power of resisting false shame and frivolous fear, that assert our good faith and honor, and assure to us the confidence of mankind.
For whose use, entertainment, or instruction are all those overstrained and overlabored proceedings in council, in negotiation, and in speeches in Parliament intended?
In what heart is it intended to kindle pity towards our multiplied mortifications and disgraces?
It has been more than seen, it has been felt,--not only by those who have been the victims of their imperious rapacity, but, in a degree, by those very powers who have consented to establish this robbery, that they might be able to copy…
The woods are wasted, the country is ravaged, property is confiscated, and the people are put to bear a double yoke, in the exactions of a tyrannical government and in the contributions of an hostile irruption.
Is it to him we are to prove our good faith in the peace which we are soliciting to receive from the hands of his and our robbers, the enemies of all arts, all sciences, all civilization, and all commerce?
Is it to the Cispadane or to the Transpadane republics, which have been forced to bow under the galling yoke of French liberty, that we address all these pledges of our sincerity and love of peace with their unnatural parents?
Without such a naval force, France must become despotic mistress of that sea, and of all the countries whose shores it washes.
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