"The right honourable gentleman in the speech he has just made has treated me in every sentence with uncommon harshness ... by declaring a censure upon my whole life, conduct, and opinions. Notwithstanding this great and serious, though on my part unmerited, attack.... I shall not be dismayed; I am not yet afraid to state my sentiments in this House or anywhere else.... I will tell all the world that the Constitution is in danger.... It certainly is indiscretion at any period, but especially at my time of life, to provoke enemies, or to give my friends occasion to desert me; yet if my firm and steady adherence to the British Constitution places me in such a dilemma, I will risk all; and as public duty and public prudence teach me, with my last words exclaim, 'Fly from the French Constitution!'" Mr. Fox having said that there was "no loss of friends," Mr. Burke exclaimed: "Yes, there is a loss of friends! I know the price of my conduct; I have done my duty at the price of my friend; our friendship is at an end.... I warn the two right honourable gentlemen who are the great rivals in this House, that whether they hereafter move in the political atmosphere as two flaming meteors, or walk together like brethren hand in hand, to preserve and cherish the British Constitution, to guard against innovation, and to save it from the danger of these new theories[355]." A memorable time in the world's history! [Illustration: Edmund Burke.] Mr. Burke, whom I knew towards the close of his life, crushed by the death of his only son, had founded a school for the benefit of the children of the poor Emigrants. I went to see what he called his "nursery." He was amused at the vivacity of the foreign race which was growing up under his paternal genius. Looking at the careless little exiles hopping, he said to me: "Our boys could not do that." And his eyes filled with tears. He thought of his son who had set out for a longer exile. [Sidenote: William Pitt.] Pitt, Fox, and Burke are no more, and the British Constitution has undergone the influence of the "new theories." One must have witnessed the gravity of the parliamentary debates of that time, one must have heard those orators whose prophetic voices seemed to announce a coming revolution, to form an idea of the scene which I am recalling. Liberty, confined within the limits of order, seemed to struggle, at Westminster under the influence of anarchical liberty, which spoke from the still blood-stained rostrum of the Convention.