Burke wished to have America rather conciliated than
vanquished, that he must wish well to the army of republics which are
set up in France,--a country wherein not the people, but the monarch,
was wholly on the defensive, (a poor, indeed, and feeble defensive,) to
preserve _some fragments_ of the royal authority against a determined
and desperate body of conspirators, whose object it was, with whatever
certainty of crimes, with whatever hazard of war, and every other
species of calamity, to annihilate the _whole_ of that authority, to
level all ranks, orders, and distinctions in the state, and utterly to
destroy property, not more by their acts than in their principles?
Mr. Burke has been also reproached with an inconsistency between his
late writings and his former conduct, because he had proposed in
Parliament several economical, leading to several constitutional
reforms. Mr. Burke thought, with a majority of the House of Commons,
that the influence of the crown at one time was too great; but after his
Majesty had, by a gracious message, and several subsequent acts of
Parliament, reduced it to a standard which satisfied Mr.
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