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One who studies the life and work of Edmund Burke will find that it naturally divides itself into four great periods, which are characterized not so much by their duration as by the nature of the work done. The first may be called the period of Preparation; the second, that of the American War; the third, of the Indian Question; and the fourth, of the French Revolution.

Each of these periods is worthy of careful study; and as the selections contained in this volume refer to the second period, their use ought to result in a desire to master the principles which entered into and moulded the life of that great statesman and great man. The present generation must not be allowed to forget that the sources of our political and social well-being are in the lives of those who, in any age and under whatever circumstances, have endeavored to make reason and the will of God prevail.

This work is edited in the hope that by furthering the study of the greatest political classic in the English language, it may also further that spirit which seeks to study history as revealed in literature, and literature as inspired by great historic events.

In the preparation of the notes the editor has confined himself to the historical setting and interpretation of the work, and has left the question of literary merit to be wrought out by the pupil under the inspiration of the class-room exercise. A careful analysis of Burke's style, according to the Scheme on page 224, will be found advantageous.

In the matter of biography, one of the works given on page 242 should be consulted.

BROOKLINE, MASS.,

April, 1891.

A. J. G.

SPEECH OF EDMUND BURKE, Esq.,

ON

AMERICAN TAXATION.

APRIL 19, 1774.

SIR: I agree with the honourable gentleman1 who spoke last, that this subject is not new in this House. Very disagreeably to this House, very unfortunately to this nation, and to the peace and prosperity of this whole empire, no topic has been more familiar to us. For nine long years, 5 session after session, we have been lashed round and round this miserable circle of occasional arguments and temporary expedients. I am sure our heads must turn, and our stomachs nauseate with them. We have had them in every shape; we have looked at them in every point of view. Invention is 10 exhausted; reason is fatigued; experience has given judgment; but obstinacy is not yet conquered.2

The honourable gentleman has made one endeavour more to diversify the form of this disgusting argument. He has thrown out a speech composed almost entirely of challenges. 15 Challenges are serious things; and as he is a man of prudence as well as resolution, I dare say he has very well weighed those challenges before he delivered them. I had long the happiness to sit at the same side of the House, and to agree with the honourable gentleman on all the American 20 questions. My sentiments, I am sure, are well known to him; and I thought I had been perfectly acquainted with

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his. Though I find myself mistaken, he will still permit me to use the privilege of an old friendship; he will permit me to apply myself to the House under the sanction of his authority; and, on the various grounds he has measured out, to submit to you the poor opinions which I have formed upon a matter of importance enough to demand the fullest consideration I could bestow upon it.

He has stated to the House two grounds of deliberation : one narrow and simple, and merely confined to the question 10 on your paper; the other more large and more complicated; comprehending the whole series of the parliamentary proceedings with regard to America, their causes, and their consequences. With regard to the latter ground, he states it as useless, and thinks it may be even dangerous, to enter 15 into so extensive a field of inquiry. Yet, to my surprise, he had hardly laid down this restrictive proposition, to which his authority would have given so much weight, when directly, and with the same authority, he condemns it; and declares it absolutely necessary to enter into the most ample historical 20 detail.1 His zeal has thrown him a little out of his usual accuracy. In this perplexity what shall we do, Sir, who are willing to submit to the law he gives us? He has reprobated in one part of his speech the rule he had laid down for debate in the other; and, after narrowing the ground for all 25 those who are to speak after him, he takes an excursion himself, as unbounded as the subject and the extent of his great abilities.

Sir, when I cannot obey all his laws, I will do the best I can. I will endeavour to obey such of them as have the 30 sanction of his example; and to stick to that rule, which, though not consistent with the other, is the most rational.

He was certainly in the right when he took the matter largely. I cannot prevail on myself to agree with him in his censure of his own conduct. It is not, he will give me leave to say, either useless or dangerous. He asserts, that retrospect is not wise; and the proper, the only proper, subject 5 of inquiry, is "not how we got into this difficulty, but how we are to get out of it." In other words, we are, according to him, to consult our invention, and to reject our experience.1 The mode of deliberation he recommends is diametrically opposite to every rule of reason and every principle of good 19 sense established amongst mankind. For that sense and that reason I have always understood absolutely to prescribe, whenever we are involved in difficulties from the measures we have pursued, that we should take a strict review of those measures, in order to correct our errors, if they should be 15 corrigible; or at least to avoid a dull uniformity in mischief, and the unpitied calamity of being repeatedly caught in the

same snare.

Sir, I will freely follow the honourable gentleman in his historical discussion, without the least management for men 20 or measures, further than as they shall seem to me to deserve it. But before I go into that large consideration, because I would omit nothing that can give the House satisfaction, I wish to tread the narrow ground to which alone the honourable gentleman, in one part of his speech, has so strictly 25 confined us.

He desires to know, whether, if we were to repeal this tax, agreeably to the proposition of the honourable gentleman who made the motion, the Americans would not take post on this concession, in order to make a new attack on the 30 next body of taxes; and whether they would not call for a

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