THE TRUE POLICY OF GREAT BRITAIN
TOWARDS HER AMERICAN COLONIES.

BY EDMUND BURKE.

(From speech on "Conciliation with America.")

[EDMUND BURKE, British orator and political philosopher, was born in Dublin, Ireland, January 12, 1729. He gained a scholarship at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1746; in 1750 went to London to study law, - but never was called to the bar; became noted in literary and theatrical circles, and in 1756 published his "Vindication of Natural Society," in answer to Bolingbroke, and the treatise on "The Sublime and the Beautiful." In 1759 he became private secretary to "Single speech" William Gerard Hamilton, but a few years later quarreled with and left him. In 1764 he became a member of the famous club with Johnson, Goldsmith, Garrick, Reynolds, etc. In 1765 he was appointed private secretary to Lord Rockingham, just made first lord of the treasury, and was shortly returned to Parliament. His speeches are part of the enduring monuments of English literature. In 1769 he published his pamphlets, "Observations on a Late Publication (George Grenville's) on the Present State of the Nation"; and in 1770 "Thoughts on the Present Discontents." He was made privy councilor and paymaster of the forces in 1782. For several years from 1783, he was occupied with the affairs of India, the prosecution of Warren Hastings, etc. Late in 1789 he wrote "Reflections on the Revolution" in France, issued a year later; in 1796, "Letters on a Regicide Peace." He died July 9, 1797.]

I AM sensible, sir, that all which I have asserted in my detail is admitted in the gross, but that quite a different conclusion is drawn from it. America, gentlemen say, is a noble object. It is an object well worth fighting for. Certainly it is, if fighting a people is the best way of gaining them. Gentlemen in this respect will be led to their choice of means by their complexions and their habits. Those who understand the military art will of course have some predilection for it. Those who wield the thunder of the state may have more confidence in the efficacy of arms. But I confess, possibly for want of this knowledge, my opinion is much more in favor of prudent management than of force, considering force not as an odious, but a feeble instrument, for preserving a people so numerous, so active, so growing, so spirited as this, in a profitable and subordinate connection with us.

First, sir, permit me to observe that the use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment, but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.

My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror is not always the effect of force, and an armament is not a victory. If you do not succeed, you are without resource; for, conciliation failing, force remains; but, force failing, no further hope of reconciliation is left. Power and authority are sometimes bought by kindness; but they can never be begged as alms by an impoverished and defeated violence.

A further objection to force is, that you impair the object by your very endeavors to preserve it. The thing you fought for is not the thing you recover; but depreciated, sunk, wasted, and consumed in the contest. Nothing less will content me, than whole America. I do not choose to consume its strength along with our own; because in all parts it is the British strength that I consume. I do not choose to be caught by a foreign enemy at the end of this exhausting conflict; still less in the midst of it. I may escape; but I can make no insurance against such an event. Let me add that I do not choose wholly to break the American spirit; because it is the spirit that has made the country.

Lastly, we have no sort of experience in favor of force as an instrument in the rule of our colonies. Their growth and their utility has been owing to methods altogether different. Our ancient indulgence has been said to be pursued to a fault. It may be so. But we know, if feeling is evidence, that our fault was more tolerable than our attempt to mend it; and our sin far more salutary than our penitence.

These, sir, are my reasons for not entertaining that high opinion of untried force, by which many gentlemen, for whose sentiments in other particulars I have great respect, seem to be so greatly captivated. But there is still behind a third consideration concerning this object, which serves to determine my opinion on the sort of policy which ought to be pursued in the management of America, even more than its population and commerce, I mean its temper and character.

In this character of the Americans, a love of freedom is the predominating feature which marks and distinguishes the whole; and as an ardent is always a jealous affection, your colonies become suspicious, restive, and untractable, whenever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by force, or shuffle from them by chicane, what they think the only advantage worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the English colonies probably than in any other people of