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
itself; that in whose ever hands the military command is placed, he must
be, in the necessary course of affairs, sooner or later the master; and
that, being the master of various unconnected countries, he may keep
them all in order by employing a military force which to each of them is
foreign. This maxim, too, however formerly plausible, will not now hold
water. This scheme is full of intricacy, and may cause him everywhere to
lose the hearts of his people. These counsellors forget that a corrupted
army was the very cause of the ruin of his brother-in-law, and that he
is himself far from secure from a similar corruption.
[Sidenote: Brabant.]
Instead of reconciling himself heartily and _bonâ fide_, according to
the most obvious rules of policy, to the States of Brabant, _as they are
constituted_, and who in _the present state of things_ stand on the same
foundation with the monarchy itself, and who might have been gained with
the greatest facility, they have advised him to the most unkingly
proceeding which, either in a good or in a bad light, has ever been
attempted. Under a pretext taken from the spirit of the lowest chicane,
they have counselled him wholly to break the public faith, to annul the
amnesty, as well as the other conditions through which he obtained an
entrance into the Provinces of the Netherlands under the guaranty of
Great Britain and Prussia. He is made to declare his adherence to the
indemnity in a criminal sense, but he is to keep alive in his own name,
and to encourage in others, a _civil_ process in the nature of an
action of damages for what has been suffered during the troubles.
Whilst he keeps up this hopeful lawsuit in view of the damages he may
recover against individuals, he loses the hearts of a whole people, and
the vast subsidies which his ancestors had been used to receive from
them.
[Sidenote: Emperor's conduct with regard to France.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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