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
This system has very many partisans in every country in Europe, but
particularly in England, where they are already formed into a body,
comprehending most of the Dissenters of the three leading denominations.
To these are readily aggregated all who are Dissenters in character,
temper, and disposition, though not belonging to any of their
congregations: that is, all the restless people who resemble them, of
all ranks and all parties,--Whigs, and even Tories; the whole race of
half-bred speculators; all the Atheists, Deists, and Socinians; all
those who hate the clergy and envy the nobility; a good many among the
moneyed people; the East Indians almost to a man, who cannot bear to
find that their present importance does not bear a proportion to their
wealth. These latter have united themselves into one great, and, in my
opinion, formidable club,[31] which, though now quiet, may be brought
into action with considerable unanimity and force.
Formerly, few, except the ambitious great or the desperate and indigent,
were to be feared as instruments in revolutions. What has happened in
France teaches us, with many other things, that there are more causes
than have commonly been taken into our consideration, by which
government may be subverted. The moneyed men, merchants, principal
tradesmen, and men of letters (hitherto generally thought the peaceable
and even timid part of society) are the chief actors in the French
Revolution. But the fact is, that, as money increases and circulates,
and as the circulation of news in politics and letters becomes more and
more diffused, the persons who diffuse this money and this intelligence
become more and more important. This was not long undiscovered. Views of
ambition were in France, for the first time, presented to these classes
of men: objects in the state, in the army, in the system of civil
offices of every kind. Their eyes were dazzled with this new prospect.
They were, as it were, electrified, and made to lose the natural spirit
of their situation. A bribe, great without example in the history of the
world, was held out to them,--the whole government of a very large
kingdom.
[Sidenote: Grounds of security supposed for England.]
[Sidenote: Literary Interest.]
[Sidenote: Moneyed interest.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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