SEARCH
0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Prev | Current Page 85 | Next

Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797

"Thoughts on the Present Discontents, and Speeches, etc."


Has this system provided better for the treatment becoming his high
and sacred character, and secured the King from those disgusts
attached to the necessity of employing men who are not personally
agreeable? This is a topic upon which for many reasons I could wish
to be silent; but the pretence of securing against such causes of
uneasiness, is the corner-stone of the Court party. It has however
so happened, that if I were to fix upon any one point, in which this
system has been more particularly and shamefully blameable, the
effects which it has produced would justify me in choosing for that
point its tendency to degrade the personal dignity of the Sovereign,
and to expose him to a thousand contradictions and mortifications.
It is but too evident in what manner these projectors of Royal
greatness have fulfilled all their magnificent promises. Without
recapitulating all the circumstances of the reign, every one of
which is more or less a melancholy proof of the truth of what I have
advanced, let us consider the language of the Court but a few years
ago, concerning most of the persons now in the external
Administration: let me ask, whether any enemy to the personal
feelings of the Sovereign, could possibly contrive a keener
instrument of mortification, and degradation of all dignity, than
almost every part and member of the present arrangement? Nor, in
the whole course of our history, has any compliance with the will of
the people ever been known to extort from any Prince a greater
contradiction to all his own declared affections and dislikes, than
that which is now adopted, in direct opposition to every thing the
people approve and desire.


Pages:
73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97