The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 05 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
History
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 05 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
But if the rude inroad of Gallic tumult, with its sophistical rights of
man to falsify the account, and its sword as a make-weight to throw into
the scale, shall be introduced into our city by a misguided populace,
set on by proud great men, themselves blinded and intoxicated by a
frantic ambition, we shall all of us perish and be overwhelmed in a
common ruin. If a great storm blow on our coast, it will cast the whales
on the strand, as well as the periwinkles. His Grace will not survive
the poor grantee he despises,--no, not for a twelvemonth. If the great
look for safety in the services they render to this Gallic cause, it is
to be foolish even above the weight of privilege allowed to wealth. If
his Grace be one of these whom they endeavor to proselytize, he ought to
be aware of the character of the sect whose doctrines he is invited to
embrace. With them insurrection is the most sacred of revolutionary
duties to the state. Ingratitude to benefactors is the first of
revolutionary virtues. Ingratitude is, indeed, their four cardinal
virtues compacted and amalgamated into one; and he will find it in
everything that has happened since the commencement of the philosophic
Revolution to this hour. If he pleads the merit of having performed the
duty of insurrection against the order he lives in, (God forbid he ever
should!) the merit of others will be to perform the duty of insurrection
against him. If he pleads (again God forbid he should, and I do not
suspect he will) his ingratitude to the crown for its creation of his
family, others will plead their right and duty to pay him in kind. They
will laugh, indeed they will laugh, at his parchment and his wax. His
deeds will be drawn out with the rest of the lumber of his
evidence-room, and burnt to the tune of _Ça, ira_ in the courts of
Bedford (then Equality) House.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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