Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

3

SUBSTANCE OF THE SPEECH

OF THE

RIGHT HONOURABLE

EDMUND BURKE.

MR. Burke's fpeech on the Report of the army has not been correctly stated in fome of the public papers, It is of confequence to him not to be mifunderstood. The matter which incidentally came into difcuffion is of the most serious importIt is thought that the heads and

ance.

[blocks in formation]

substance of the fpeech will answer the purpose fufficiently. If in making the abstract, through defect of memory, in the person who now gives it, any difference at all fhould be perceived from the fpeech as it was fpoken, it will not, the editor imagines, be found in any thing which may amount to a retraction of the opinions he then maintained, or to any foftening in the expreffions in which they were conveyed.

Mr. Burke spoke a confiderable time in answer to various arguments which had been infifted upon by Mr. Grenville and Mr. Pitt, for keeping an increafed peace establishment, and against an improper jealoufy of the Minifters, in whom a full confidence, fubject to refponfibility, ought to be placed, on account of their knowledge of the real fituation of affairs; the exact ftate of which it frequently

quently happened, that they could not disclose, without violating the conftitutional and political fecrecy, neceffary to the well being of their country.

Mr. Burke faid in fubftance, that confidence might become a vice, and jealoufy a virtue, according to circumftances. That confidence, of all public virtues, was the most dangerous, and jealoufy in an Houfe of Commons, of all public vices, the most tolerable; especially where the number and the charge of ftanding armies, in time of peace, was the question.

That in the annual mutiny bill, the annual army was declaredly to be for the purpose of preferving the balance of power in Europe. The propriety of its being larger or smaller depended, therefore, upon the true ftate of that balance. If the increafe

B 2

crease of peace establishments demanded of Parliament agreed with the manifest appearance of the balance, confidence in Minifters, as to the particulars, would be very proper. If the increafe was not at all supported by any fuch appearance, he thought great jealousy might, and ought to be, entertained on that subject.

That he did not find, on a review of all Europe, that, politically, we ftood, in the smallest degree, of danger from any one state or kingdom it contained; nor that any other foreign powers than our own allies were likely to obtain a confiderable preponderance in the scale.

That France had hitherto been our first object, in all confiderations, concerning the balance of power. The pre

fence or absence of France totally varied

6

every

« ПредишнаНапред »