The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03 (of 12)

Indeed, the theatre is a better school of moral sentiments than churches where the feelings of humanity are thus outraged. Poets who have to deal with an audience not yet gradua...

Being asked, Whether he was not authorized and required by the Presidency at Madras to demand a large sum of money over and above the four lacs of pagodas that were to be annual...

Upon a review of this treaty, the only point now in dispute, which appears to us to be so immediately connected with it as to bring it within the strict line of our duty to asce...

The debt thus exonerated of so great a weight of its odium, and otherwise reduced from its alarming bulk, the agents thought they might venture to print a list of the creditors....

First I beg leave to speak of our Church Establishment, which is the first of our prejudices,--not a prejudice destitute of reason, but involving in it profound and extensive wi...

These expressions, concerning the ground of the transaction, its effect, and its clandestine nature, are in the letters bearing date March 17, 1769. After receiving a more full...

Such is the state to which the Company's servants have reduced that country. Now come the reformers, restorers, and comforters of India. What have they done? In addition to all...

On this scheme of their servants, the Company was to appear in the Carnatic in no other light than as a contractor for the provision of armies, and the hire of mercenaries for h...

Here, Mr. Speaker, you have the whole art and mystery, the true free-mason secret, of the profession of _soucaring_; by which a few innocent, inexperienced young Englishmen, suc...

The English people are satisfied, that to the great the consolations of religion are as necessary as its instructions. They, too, are among the unhappy. They feel personal pain...

It is not the confiscation of our Church property from this example in France that I dread, though I think this would be no trifling evil. The great source of my solicitude is,...

If they had set up this new, experimental government as a necessary substitute for an expelled tyranny, mankind would anticipate the time of prescription, which through long usa...

In this estimate, we see, as I have just observed, the Nabob's farms rated so high as 570,000_l._ Hitherto all is well: but follow on to the effective net revenue; there the ill...

When I see the spirit of liberty in action, I see a strong principle at work; and this, for a while, is all I can possibly know of it. The wild gas, the fixed air, is plainly br...

We have taken into our consideration the several advices and papers received from India, relative to the assignment of the revenues of the Carnatic, from the conclusion of the B...

Were all these dreadful things necessary? Were they the inevitable results of the desperate struggle of determined patriots, compelled to wade through blood and tumult to the qu...

[32] Report of the Select Committee, Madras Consultations, January 7, 1771. See also papers published by the order of the Court of Directors in 1776; and Lord Macartney's corres...

Such is the character and disposition of the municipal society which is to reclaim the soldiery, to bring them back to the true principles of military subordination, and to lend...

I confess I feel a degree of disgust, almost leading to despair, at the manner in which we are acting in the great exigencies of our country. There is now a bill in this House a...

What must be your feelings for your ancient and faithful friend, on his receiving such insults to his honor and understanding from your principal servant, armed with your author...

Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind; the alliance, therefore, of these writers with the moneyed interest[...

I do not, my dear Sir, conceive you to be of that sophistical, captious spirit, or of that uncandid dullness, as to require, for every general observation or sentiment, an expli...

The two Houses, in the act of King William, did not thank God that they had found a fair opportunity to assert a right to choose their own governors, much less to make an electi...

The confusion which attends on all such proceedings they even declare to be one of their objects, and they hope to secure their Constitution by a terror of a return of those evi...

We cannot conclude this subject without adverting in the strongest terms to the prohibitions which have from time to time issued under the authority of different Courts of Direc...

[69] The Trichinopoly countries let for the above sum, exclusive of the expenses of sibbendy and saderwared, amounting, by the Nabob's accounts, to rupees 1,30,00 per annum, whi...

When all the frauds, impostures, violences, rapines, burnings, murders, confiscations, compulsory paper currencies, and every description of tyranny and cruelty employed to brin...

In all this process, which in its fundamental elements affects to consider only _population_, upon a principle of natural right, there is a manifest attention to _property_,--wh...

Government is not made in virtue of natural rights, which may and do exist in total independence of it,--and exist in much greater clearness, and in a much greater degree of abs...

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Kings, in one sense, are undoubtedly the servants of the people, because their power has no other rational end than that of the general advantage; but it is not true that they a...

As little genius and talent am I able to perceive in the plan of judicature formed by the National Assembly. According to their invariable course, the framers of your Constituti...

Undoubtedly, the natural progress of the passions, from frailty to vice, ought to be prevented by a watchful eye and a firm hand. But is it true that the body of your clergy had...

The second material of cement for their new republic is the superiority of the city of Paris; and this, I admit, is strongly connected with the other cementing principle of pape...

What a dreadful thing is a standing army for the conduct of the whole or any part of which no man is responsible! In the present state of the French crown army, is the crown res...

This address was made with much good-nature and affection, to be sure. But among the revolutions in France must be reckoned a considerable revolution in their ideas of politenes...

The advocates for this Revolution, not satisfied with exaggerating the vices of their ancient government, strike at the fame of their country itself, by painting almost all that...

The effects of the incapacity shown by the popular leaders in all the great members of the commonwealth are to be covered with the "all-atoning name" of Liberty. In some people...

To establish a current circulating credit upon any _land-bank_, under any circumstances whatsoever, has hitherto proved difficult at the very least. The attempt has commonly end...

Neither have they left any principle by which any of their municipalities can be bound to obedience,--or even conscientiously obliged not to separate from the whole, to become i...

We much regret that the situation of the Arcot province will not admit of the same settlement which has been made for the other districts; but the enemy being in possession of t...

[118] "Si plures sunt ii quibus improbe datum est, quam illi quibus injuste ademptum est, idcirco plus etiam valent? Non enim numero hæc judicantur, sed pondere. Quam autem habe...