Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund BurkeBurke, Edmund
Philosophy
Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke
Burke, Edmund
Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797; Essays; Political science; Speeches, addresses, etc.
In this state things will be suffered to proceed, lest measures of
vigour should precipitate a crisis. The timid will act thus from
character; the wise from necessity. Our laws had done all that the old
condition of things dictated to render our judges erect and independent;
but they will naturally fail on the side upon which they had taken
no precautions. The judicial magistrates will find themselves safe
as against the crown, whose will is not their tenure; the power of
executing their office will be held at the pleasure of those who deal
out fame or abuse as they think fit. They will begin rather to consult
their own repose and their own popularity, than the critical and
perilous trust that is in their hands. They will speculate on
consequences when they see at court an ambassador whose robes are lined
with a scarlet dyed in the blood of judges. It is no wonder, nor are
they to blame, when they are to consider how they shall answer for
their conduct to the criminal of to-day turned into the magistrate of
to-morrow.
SANTERRE AND TALLIEN.
Is it only an oppressive nightmare with which we have been loaded? Is
it then all a frightful dream, and are there no regicides in the world?
Have we not heard of that prodigy of a ruffian, who would not suffer his
benignant sovereign, with his hands tied behind him, and stripped for
execution, to say one parting word to his deluded people;--of Santerre,
who commanded the drums and trumpets to strike up to stifle his voice,
and dragged him backward to the machine of murder? This nefarious
villain (for a few days I may call him so) stands high in France, as in
a republic of robbers and murderers he ought. What hinders this monster
from being sent as ambassador to convey to his majesty the first
compliments of his brethren, the regicide Directory? They have none that
can represent them more properly. I anticipate the day of his arrival.
He will make his public entry into London on one of the pale horses of
his brewery. As he knows that we are pleased with the Paris taste
for the orders of knighthood, he will fling a bloody sash across his
shoulders with the order of the Holy Guillotine, surmounting the Crown,
appendant to the riband. Thus adorned, he will proceed from Whitechapel
to the further end of Pall Mall, all the music of London playing the
Marseillais hymn before him, and escorted by a chosen detachment of
the Legion de l'Echaffaud. It were only to be wished, that no ill-fated
loyalist for the imprudence of his zeal may stand in the pillory at
Charing Cross, under the statue of King Charles the First, at the
time of this grand procession, lest some of the rotten eggs, which the
constitutional society shall let fly at his indiscreet head, may hit the
virtuous murderer of his king. They might soil the state dress, which
the ministers of so many crowned heads have admired, and in which Sir
Clement Cotterel is to introduce him at St. James's.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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