Historical Sketches of Statesmen who Flourished in the Time of George III: To which is Added Remarks on Party, and an Appendix, Volume 1

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Page 129 - It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in— glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendour, and joy.
Page 37 - I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people, so dead to all the feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest.
Page 40 - If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms — never — never — never.
Page 41 - Spain; in vain he defended and established the honour, the liberties, the religion, the Protestant religion, of this country, against the arbitrary cruelties of popery and the inquisition, if these more than popish cruelties and inquisitorial practices are let loose among us...
Page 45 - I confess, Sir, I had but too much reason to expect your Majesty's displeasure. I had not come prepared for this exceeding goodness. — Pardon me, Sir," he passionately exclaimed — " it overpowers — it oppresses me...
Page 41 - I call upon the honour of your lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to vindicate the national character.
Page 128 - A species of men to whom a state of order would become a sentence of obscurity, are nourished into a dangerous magnitude by the heat of intestine disturbances ; and it is no wonder that, by a sort of sinister piety, they cherish, in their turn, the disorders which are the parents of all their consequence.
Page 137 - When popular discontents have been very prevalent, it may well be affirmed and supported, that there has been generally something found amiss in the constitution, or in the conduct of government. The people have no interest in disorder. When they do wrong, it is their error, and not their crime. But with the governing part of the state, it is far otherwise. They certainly may act ill by design, as well as by mistake.
Page 40 - it was perfectly justifiable to use all the means that God and nature put into our hands!" I AM ASTONISHED ! — shocked ! to hear such principles confessed — to hear them avowed in this House, or in this country ; principles equally unconstitutional, inhuman, and unchristian ! My lords, I did not intend to have encroached again upon your attention; but I cannot repress my indignation.
Page 40 - I know not what ideas that lord may entertain of God and nature; but I know that such abominable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. What! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature to the massacres of the Indian...

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