Select Works of Edmund Burke: Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents and The Two Speeches on America. Edmund Burke

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СКАЧАТЬ of the democratic port, and to vest the nomination of counsellors, judges, and magistrates of all kinds, including sheriffs, in the Crown, and in some cases in the King’s governor, and all to be removable at the pleasure of the Crown.”

      Burke consented to the publication of this speech at the earnest solicitation of his friends. It is difficult to realise the great effect which it seems to have produced. Colonel Barré declared, in his excitement, that if it could be written out, he would nail it on every church door in the kingdom. Sir George Savile called it the greatest triumph of eloquence within his memory. Governor Johnstone said on the floor of the House that it was fortunate for the noble lords (North and Germaine) that spectators had been excluded during that debate, for if any had been present, they would have excited the people to tear the noble lords in pieces on their way home.

      It seems to have been from a generous wish to give the ministry an opportunity of doing their best to restore tranquillity, and from an indisposition to appear in the light of a demagogue, while equally unwilling to soften down the terms in which he had spoken, that Burke deferred the publication of the Speech until the beginning of the ensuing year. It was several times reprinted, and, like most of Burke’s publications, provoked an “Answer,” which is not worthy of attention.

      As to the Speech on Conciliation with America, and its relation to the former, the student is commended to the following note by Dr. Goodrich:

      It would hardly seem possible that in speaking so soon again on the same subject, he could avoid making this speech to some extent an echo of his former one. But never were two productions more entirely different. His stand-point in the first was England. His topics were the inconsistency and folly of the ministry in their “miserable circle of occasional arguments and temporary expedients” for raising a revenue in America. His object was to recall the House to the original principles of the English colonial system—that of regulating the trade of the colonies and making it subservient to the interests of the mother country, while in other resects she left them “every characteristic mark of a free people in all their internal concerns.” [lviii] His stand-point in the second speech was America. His topics were her growing population, agriculture, commerce, and fisheries; the causes of her fierce spirit of liberty; the impossibility of repressing it by force, and the consequent necessity of some concession on the part of England. His object was (waiving all abstract questions about the right of taxation) to show that Parliament ought “to admit the people of the colonies into an interest in the constitution” by giving them (like Ireland, Wales, Chester, Durham) a share in the representation; and to do this by leaving internal taxation to the Colonial Assemblies, since no one could think of an actual representation of America in Parliament at the distance of three thousand miles. The two speeches were equally diverse in their spirit. The first was in the strain of incessant attack, full of the keenest sarcasm, and shaped from beginning to end for the purpose of putting down the ministry. The second, like the plan it proposed, was conciliatory; temperate and respectful towards Lord North; designed to inform those who were ignorant of the real strength and feeling of America; instinct with the finest philosophy of man and of social institutions; and intended, if possible, to lead the House through Lord North’s scheme, into a final adjustment of the dispute, on the true principles of English liberty. It is the most finished of Mr. Burke’s speeches; and though it contains no passage of such vividness and force as the description of Hyder Ali in his Speech on the Nabob of Arcot’s debts, it will be read probably more than any of his other speeches, for the richness of its style and the lasting character of the instruction it conveys. Twenty years after Mr. Fox said, in applying its principles to the subject of parliamentary reform, “Let gentlemen read this speech by day, and meditate on it by night; let them peruse it again and again, study it, imprint it on their minds, impress it on their hearts: they will then learn that representation is the sovereign remedy for every evil.”

      Nowhere else, according to Dr. Goodrich, who is well qualified to speak, notwithstanding all that has been written since, is there to be found so admirable a view of the causes which produced the American Revolution as in these two speeches. “They both deserve to be studied with the utmost diligence by every American scholar.”⁶³

      The history of the events which happened between the dates of the two speeches, the action of the Congress which had now assembled, the renewed penal measures of the government, and [lix] the respective merits of the various conciliatory measures which were advocated by Chatham, North, Burke, and Hartley, though desirable to be known, are not material to the principles of colonial statesmanship which it embodies, it is to be found in the use made of them by Sir Robert Peel in his Speech on the Jamaica Government Bill, May 3, 1839.⁶⁴

      It is believed that the sources from which help and information have been derived, in the compilation of this edition, are sufficiently indicated by the references. In addition, the Editor has to express his grateful acknowledgment of the assistance and encouragement he has received from many friends, and particularly from Dr. Watson and Mr. Boyes, both of St. John’s College, Oxford.

       London,

       March 1874.

THOUGHTS ON THE CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS

       [1770. Sixth Edition, Dodsley, 1784.]

      [Argument

      INTRODUCTION, DISCONTENTS in general, p. 70. The Present Discontents, p. 71. Attributed to the old spirit of tyranny in a new guise, p. 75.

      PART I, pp. 78–106. THE NEW SYSTEM OF THE DOUBLE CABINET THE CAUSE OF THE PRESENT DISCONTENTS, p. 78. Circumstances which facilitated its introduction, p. 82. Court representations against the Old System, p. 85. Details of the New System, p. 90. The New System proved to be at variance with the spirit of the Constitution, p. 99.

      PART II, pp. 106–42. EFFECTS OF THE DOUBLE CABINET SYSTEM. 1. On the Executive Government, p. 106. 2. On the Temper of the People, p. 110. 3. On the Interests of the Sovereign, p. 111. 4. On Parliament, p. 116, by inducing it to exercise unlawful powers (Middlesex Election, p. 121, Civil List Debt, p. 131). Inefficiency (1) of a Triennial Bill, p. 138, (2) of a Place-Bill, p. 140, for remedying the distempers of Parliament.

      CONCLUSION, pp. 142–56. DEFENCE OF PARTY, p. 145.]

      Hoc vero occultum, intestinum ac domesticum malum, non modo non existit, verum etiam opprimit, antequam prospicere atque explorare potueris.—CICERO.

      IT IS AN UNDERTAKING of some degree of delicacy to examine into the cause of public disorders. If a man happens not to succeed in such an enquiry, he will be thought weak and visionary; if he touches the true grievance, there is a [2] danger that he may come near to persons of weight and consequence, who will rather be exasperated at the discovery of their errors, than thankful for the occasion of correcting them. If he should be obliged to blame the favourites of the people, he will be considered as the tool of power; if he censures those in power, he will be looked on as an instrument of faction. But in all exertions of duty something is to be hazarded. In cases of tumult and disorder, our law has invested every man, in some sort, with the authority of a magistrate. When the affairs of the nation are distracted, private people are, by the spirit of that law, justified СКАЧАТЬ