We looked upon them to be, what they have since proved to be, the cause of inflaming discontent into disobedience, and resistance into revolt.
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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We could not conceive, when disorders had arisen from the complaint of one violated right, that to violate every other was the proper means of quieting an exasperated people.
It seemed to us absurd and preposterous to hold out, as the means of calming a people in a state of extreme inflammation, and ready to take up arms, the austere law which a rigid conqueror would impose as the sequel of the most decisive…
Recourse, indeed, was at the same time had to force; and we saw a force sent out, enough to menace liberty, but not to awe opposition,--tending to bring odium on the civil power, and contempt on the military,--at once to provoke and…
This mode of proceeding, by harsh laws and feeble armies, could not be defended on the principle of mercy and forbearance.
We apprehend that mild measures may be powerfully enforced, and that acts of extreme rigor and injustice may be attended with as much feebleness in the execution as severity in the formation.
No distinction of persons or merits was observed: the peaceable and the mutinous, friends and foes, were alike involved, as if the rigor of the laws had a certain tendency to recommend the authority of the legislator.
The nation would have been alarmed, and taught the necessity of some means of reconciliation with our countrymen in America, who, whenever they are provoked to resistance, demand a force to reduce them to obedience full as destructive to…
But Parliament and the people, by a premeditated concealment of their real situation, were drawn into perplexities which furnished excuses for further armaments, and whilst they were taught to believe themselves called to suppress a riot…
At length British blood was spilled by British hands: a fatal era, which we must ever deplore, because your empire will forever feel it.
The whole trading property of America (even unoffending shipping in port) was indiscriminately and irrecoverably given, as the plunder of foreign enemies, to the sailors of your navy.
Every course of action in hostility, however that hostility may be just or merited, is not justifiable or excusable.
It is the duty of those who claim to rule over others not to provoke them beyond the necessity of the case, nor to leave stings in their minds which must long rankle even when the appearance of tranquillity is restored.
We therefore assure your Majesty that it is with shame and sorrow we have seen several acts of hostility which could have no other tendency than incurably to alienate the minds of your American subjects.
To excite, by a proclamation issued by your Majesty's governor, an universal insurrection of negro slaves in any of the colonies is a measure full of complicated horrors, absolutely illegal, suitable neither to the practice of war nor to…
Of the same quality we look upon all attempts to bring down on your subjects an irruption of those fierce and cruel tribes of savages and cannibals in whom the vestiges of human nature are nearly effaced by ignorance and barbarity.
These and many other acts we disclaim as having advised, or approved when done; and we clear ourselves to your Majesty, and to all civilized nations, from any participation whatever, before or after the fact, in such unjustifiable and…
Every proposition made in your Parliament to remove the original cause of these troubles, by taking off taxes obnoxious for their principle or their design, has been overruled,--every bill brought in for quiet rejected, even on the first…
The supreme power, being in ordinary cases the ultimate judge, can, as we conceive, suffer nothing in having any part of his rights excepted to, or even discussed before himself.
This refusal to admit even the discussion of any part of an undefined prerogative will naturally tend to annihilate any privilege that can be claimed by every inferior dependent community, and every subordinate order in the state.
It is an encouragement to the innocent and meritorious, that they at least shall enjoy those advantages which they patiently expected rather from the benignity of Parliament than their own efforts.
Persons more contumacious may also see that they are resisting terms of perhaps greater freedom and happiness than they are now in arms to obtain.
The glory and propriety of offered mercy is neither tarnished nor weakened by the folly of those who refuse to take advantage of it.
To say that we do not know, at this day, what the grievances of the colonies are (be they real or pretended) would be unworthy of us.
But whilst we are thus waiting to be informed of what we perfectly know, we weaken the powers of the commissioners,--we delay, perhaps we lose, the happy hour of peace,--we are wasting the substance of both countries,--we are continuing…
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