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Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797

"The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 04 (of 12)"

At that time,
however, and with regard to that object, in my opinion, Great Britain
and France had a common interest.
[Sidenote: Possible project of the Emperor and king of Prussia.]
But the position of Germany is not like that of Poland, with regard to
France, either for good or for evil. If a conjunction between Prussia
and the Emperor should be formed for the purpose of secularizing and
rendering hereditary the Ecclesiastical Electorates and the Bishopric of
Muenster, for settling two of them on the children of the Emperor, and
uniting Cologne and Muenster to the dominions of the king of Prussia on
the Rhine, or if any other project of mutual aggrandizement should be in
prospect, and that, to facilitate such a scheme, the modern French
should be permitted and encouraged to shake the internal and external
security of these Ecclesiastical Electorates, Great Britain is so
situated that she could not with any effect set herself in opposition to
such a design. Her principal arm, her marine, could here be of no sort
of use.
[Sidenote: To be resisted only by France.


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