INTRODUCTION.

ONE of the noblest masterpieces in the literature of civil and political wisdom, is to be found in Burke's three productions on the American War; his speech on Taxation in 1774; on Conciliation in 1775; and his Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, 1777.

These three pieces are the most perfect manual in all literature for the study of great affairs, whether for the purpose of knowledge or action. They are an example without fault of all the qualities which the critic, whether a theorist or an actor, of great political situations should strive by night and by day to possess. No student worthy of the name will lay aside these pieces, so admirable in their literary expression, so important for history, so rich in lessons of civil wisdom, until he has found out something from other sources as to the circumstances from which such writings arose, and as to the man whose resplendent genius inspired them.JOHN MORLEY.

The great value of all his speeches, before and during the American War, is, I apprehend, this, that he treats relations between countries as if they were no less real than the relations between individuals. - REV. F. D. MAURICE.

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Unlike Hume, whose politics were elaborated in the study, Burke wrote his political tracts and speeches face to face with events, and upon them. Philosophical reasoning and poetic passion were wedded together in them on the side of conservatism, and every art of eloquence was used with the mastery that imagination gives. — REV. STOPFORD BROOKE.

Burke's political philosophy was strictly a moral philosophy. The popular notions of good and evil, of right and wrong, as inculcated in the ordinary precepts of the Christian religion, were his standard of estimating all political actions. He can, indeed, only be justly characterized as the greatest political thinker of his time, and perhaps of any time. THOMAS MACKNIGHT, Life and Times of Burke.

Among the eminent men who have influenced legislative assemblies in Great Britain and the United States, during the past hundred and twenty years, it is curious that only two have established themselves as men of the first class in English and American literature. These two men are Edmund Burke and Daniel Webster. - E. P. WHIPPLE.

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In the common principles of all social and civil order, Burke is unquestionably our best and wisest teacher. In handling the particular questions of his time he always involves those principles, and brings them to their practical bearings, where they most come home to the business and bosoms of men." And his pages are everywhere bright with the highest and purest political morality, while at the same time he is a consummate master in the intellectual charms and graces of authorship.-H. N. HUDSON.

SPEECH OF EDMUND BURKE, Esq.,

ON

MOVING HIS RESOLUTIONS

FOR

CONCILIATION WITH THE COLONIES.

MARCH 22, 1775.

I HOPE, Sir, that, notwithstanding the austerity of the Chair, your good-nature will incline you to some degree of indulgence towards human frailty. You will not think it unnatural, that those who have an object depending, which strongly engages their hopes and fears, should be somewhat 5 inclined to superstition. As I came into the House full of anxiety about the event of my motion, I found, to my infinite surprise, that the grand penal bill, by which we had. passed sentence on the trade and sustenance of America, is to be returned to us from the other House.' I do confess, 10 I could not help looking on this event as a fortunate omen. I look upon it as a sort of providential favour; by which we are put once more in possession of our deliberate capacity, upon a business so very questionable in its nature, so very uncertain in its issue. By the return of this bill, which 15 seemed to have taken its flight for ever, we are at this very instant nearly as free to choose a plan for our American government as we were on the first day of the session. If, Sir,

I

we incline to the side of conciliation, we are not at all embarrassed (unless we please to make ourselves so) by any incongruous mixture of coercion and restraint. We are

therefore called upon, as it were by a superior warning 5 voice, again to attend to America; to attend to the whole of it together; and to review the subject with an unusual degree of care and calmness.

Surely it is an awful subject; or there is none so on this side of the grave. When I first had the honour of a seat in 10 this House, the affairs of that continent pressed themselves upon us, as the most important and most delicate object of parliamentary attention. My little share in this great deliberation oppressed me. I found myself a partaker in a very high trust; and having no sort of reason to rely on the 15 strength of my natural abilities for the proper execution of that trust, I was obliged to take more than common pains to instruct myself in everything which relates to our colonies. I was not less under the necessity of forming some fixed ideas concerning the general policy of the British empire.1 Some20 thing of this sort seemed to be indispensable; in order, amidst so vast a fluctuation of passions and opinions, to concentre my thoughts; to ballast my conduct; to preserve me from being blown about by every wind of fashionable doctrine. I really did not think it safe, or manly, to have fresh 25 principles to seek upon every fresh mail which should arrive from America.

At that period I had the fortune to find myself in perfect concurrence with a large majority in this House.2 Bowing under that high authority, and penetrated with the sharp30 ness and strength of that early impression, I have continued ever since, without the least deviation, in my original senti

ments. Whether this be owing to an obstinate perseverance 3 in error, or to a religious adherence to what appears to me truth and reason, it is in your equity to judge.

Sir, parliament having an enlarged view of objects, made, during this interval, more frequent changes in their senti- 5 ments and their conduct, than could be justified in a particular person upon the contracted scale of private information. But though I do not hazard anything approaching to censure on the motives of former parliaments to all those alterations, one fact is undoubted, that under them the state of Amer- 10 ica has been kept in continual agitation. Everything administered as remedy to the public complaint, if it did not produce, was at least followed by, an heightening of the distemper; until, by a variety of experiments, that important country has been brought into her present situation ;—a situ- 15 ation which I will not miscall, which I dare not name; which I scarcely know how to comprehend in the terms of any description.

In this posture, Sir, things stood at the beginning of the session. About that time, a worthy member1 of great parlia- 20 mentary experience, who, in the year 1766, filled the chair of the American committee with much ability, took me aside; and, lamenting the present aspect of our politics, told me, things were come to such a pass, that our former methods of proceeding in the House would be no longer tolerated. 25 That the public tribunal (never too indulgent to a long and unsuccessful opposition) would now scrutinize our conduct with unusual severity. That the very vicissitudes and shiftings of ministerial measures, instead of convicting their authors of inconstancy and want of system, would be taken as 30 an occasion of charging us with a predetermined discontent,