The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 04 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
Philosophy
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 04 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
The king of Prussia, in concurrence with us, nobly interfered to save
Holland from confusion. The same power, joined with the rescued Holland
and with Great Britain, has put the Emperor in the possession of the
Netherlands, and secured, under that prince, from all arbitrary
innovation, the ancient, hereditary Constitution of those provinces. The
chamber of Wetzlar has restored the Bishop of Liege, unjustly
dispossessed by the rebellion of his subjects. The king of Prussia was
bound by no treaty nor alliance of blood, nor had any particular reasons
for thinking the Emperor's government would be more mischievous or more
oppressive to human nature than that of the Turk; yet, on mere motives
of policy, that prince has interposed, with the threat of all his force,
to snatch even the Turk from the pounces of the Imperial eagle. If this
is done in favor of a barbarous nation, with a barbarous neglect of
police, fatal to the human race,--in favor of a nation by principle in
eternal enmity with the Christian name, a nation which will not so much
as give the salutation of peace (_Salam_) to any of us, nor make any
pact with any Christian nation beyond a truce,--if this be done in favor
of the Turk, shall it be thought either impolitic or unjust or
uncharitable to employ the same power to rescue from captivity a
virtuous monarch, (by the courtesy of Europe considered as Most
Christian,) who, after an intermission of one hundred and seventy-five
years, had called together the States of his kingdom to reform abuses,
to establish a free government, and to strengthen his throne,--a monarch
who, at the very outset, without force, even without solicitation, had
given to his people such a Magna Charta of privileges as never was given
by any king to any subjects? Is it to be tamely borne by kings who love
their subjects, or by subjects who love their kings, that this monarch,
in the midst of these gracious acts, was insolently and cruelly torn
from his palace by a gang of traitors and assassins, and kept in close
prison to this very hour, whilst his royal name and sacred character
were used for the total ruin of those whom the laws had appointed him to
protect?
The only offence of this unhappy monarch towards his people was his
attempt, under a monarchy, to give them a free Constitution. For this,
by an example hitherto unheard of in the world, he has been deposed. It
might well disgrace sovereigns to take part with a deposed tyrant. It
would suppose in them a vicious sympathy. But not to make a common cause
with a just prince, dethroned by traitors and rebels, who proscribe,
plunder, confiscate, and in every way cruelly oppress their
fellow-citizens, in my opinion is to forget what is due to the honor and
to the rights of all virtuous and legal government.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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