1766; when the project of taxing the colonies was revived, and relations with them were becoming strained and dangerous, he came forward with a plan for leaving the general assemblies of the colonies to grant supplies and aids, instead of giving and granting supplies in Parliament, to be raised and paid in the colonies. It is hardly necessary to say that the project was rejected; but Burke's speeches against the war will last as long as our literature.

His keen insight and indefatigable labors in search of truth enabled him to see the situation in its fullest light, and in all its bearings. Others there were who, through love of justice and humanity, favored a more generous policy on the part of England toward her colonies in America; but none among the English saw so plainly as did he the outcome toward which the English spirit was tending. Not a moment did he shrink from his duty. He knew the members of the Parliament with which he was dealing, and he knew that arguments based on sentiments, or abstract ideas of right, would have no force. He spoke out in plain words, and appealed to their reason and their own interest. "The question with me is not whether you have a right to render your people miserable, but whether it is not your interest to make them happy."

Near the close of the year 1780 Burke steadily gave himself to economical reform. In February, 1780, he presented to the legislature " A Plan for the Better Security of the Independence of Parliament, and the Economical Reformation of the Civil and other Establishments." One of his reforms was the reduction of the income of the Paymaster of the Forces from £25,000 to a regular salary of £4,000 per year. He himself was the first to accept this

curtailed income.

The year 1780 was the high-water mark of Burke's popularity and influence; later he fell upon evil times.

In 1783 the Shelburne ministry gave place to the new administration known as the Coalition. Fox was Secretary of State, Lord North was his colleague, under the lead of the Duke of Portland, and Burke was made Paymaster of the Forces. It has often. been asked why Burke, who had such talents, and who deserved so well from his party and the nation, was not honored with a seat in the Cabinet. The reasons assigned are many, and for the most part they agree. Briefly given they are these: (1) Burke was poor and in debt. (2) He was not of high or noble lineage; his relatives were a discredit to him. (3) With increasing years, and the burden of life's cares, certain infirmities of temper increased, and rendered

to

him unfit for great public service. (4) Burke's wife and mother were Catholics, and Burke detested, and most warmly opposed, the unjust disabilities under which the Catholics suffered. (5) Burke was an Irishman. Burke himself ascribed the slight "that hunt of obloquy which has ever pursued me with a full cry through life." "I was not," he says, "like his Grace of Bedford, swaddled and rocked and dandled into a legislator. Nitor in adversum is the motto for a man like me. I possessed not one of the qualities, nor cultivated one of the arts, that recommend men to the favor and protection of the great. I was not made for a minion or a tool. As little did I follow the trade of winning hearts by imposing on the understanding of the people. At every step of my progress in life, for in every step was I traversed and opposed, and at every turnpike I met I was obliged to show my passport, and again and again to prove my sole title to the honor of being useful to my country, by a proof that I was not wholly unacquainted with its laws, and the whole system of its interests, both abroad and at home; otherwise no rank, no toleration even for me."

Time rights many a wrong, and it has set its seal of approval upon the work of Edmund Burke.

"There is no political figure of the eighteenth cen

tury," says Mr. W. E. H. Lecky, "which retains so enduring an interest or which repays so amply a careful study, as Burke."

"Bacon alone excepted, the greatest political thinker who has ever devoted himself to the prac tice of English politics," says Buckle.

"The greatest of England's political thinkers and writers," says Matthew Arnold.

"A great mind, a great nature, a great character," says Mr. Edward Dowden.

The six years that followed the downfall of the Coalition, for its reign was brief, have been considered the most mortifying period of Burke's troubled

career.

In 1785 Warren Hastings returned from India after a career of mingled greatness and infamy.

"For years," says Mr. Morley, "Burke had been watching India. With rising wonder, amazement, and indignation, he had steadily followed that long train of intrigue and crime which had ended in the consolidation of a new empire. With the return of Hastings he felt that the time had come for striking a severe blow and making a signal example."

In the spring of 1786 the articles charging Hastings with high crimes and misdemeanors were presented to the House of Commons. In February,

1788, in the old historic hall at Westminster, Burke opened the cause in a speech "wound up to such a pitch of eloquence and passion that every listener, including the great criminal, held his breath in an agony of horror."

In 1795, six years after Burke's great arraignment, the Lords were ready with their verdict. Hastings was acquitted. "If I were to call for a reward,” Burke said, "it would be for the services in which, for fourteen years, without intermission, I showed the most industry, and had the least success.

I mean the affairs of India; they are those on which I value myself the most: most for the importance; most for the labor; most for the judgment; most for constancy and perseverance in the pursuit."

"Looking back across the ninety years," says Mr. Morley, "we may see that Burke had more success than at first appeared. If he did not convict the man, he overthrew a system, and stamped its principles with lasting censure and shame. The lesson of Hastings' impeachment had been taught with impressive force, the great lesson that Asiatics have rights, and that Europeans have obligations; that a superior race is bound to observe the highest current morality of the time in all its dealings with the subject race. Burke is entitled to our lasting reverence,