The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03 (of 12) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 571 pages of information about The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03 (of 12).

The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03 (of 12) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 571 pages of information about The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03 (of 12).
made.  But to degrade and insult a man as the worst of criminals, and afterwards to trust him in your highest concerns, as a faithful, honest, and zealous servant, is not consistent in reasoning, nor prudent in policy, nor safe in practice.  Those who could make such an appointment must be guilty of a more flagrant breach of trust than any they have yet committed against the people.  As this is the only crime in which your leading politicians could have acted inconsistently, I conclude that there is no sort of ground for these horrid insinuations.  I think no better of all the other calumnies.

In England, we give no credit to them.  We are generous enemies; we are faithful allies.  We spurn from us with disgust and indignation the slanders of those who bring us their anecdotes with the attestation of the flower-de-luce on their shoulder.  We have Lord George Gordon fast in Newgate; and neither his being a public proselyte to Judaism, nor his having, in his zeal against Catholic priests and all sorts of ecclesiastics, raised a mob (excuse the term, it is still in use here) which pulled down all our prisons, have preserved to him a liberty of which he did not render himself worthy by a virtuous use of it.  We have rebuilt Newgate, and tenanted the mansion.  We have prisons almost as strong as the Bastile, for those who dare to libel the queens of France.  In this spiritual retreat let the noble libeller remain.  Let him there meditate on his Talmud, until he learns a conduct more becoming his birth and parts, and not so disgraceful to the ancient religion to which he has become a proselyte,—­or until some persons from your side of the water, to please your new Hebrew brethren, shall ransom him.  He may then be enabled to purchase, with the old hoards of the synagogue, and a very small poundage on the long compound interest of the thirty pieces of silver, (Dr. Price has shown us what miracles compound interest will perform in 1790 years,) the lands which are lately discovered to have been usurped by the Gallican Church.  Send us your Popish Archbishop of Paris, and we will send you our Protestant Rabbin.  We shall treat the person you send us in exchange like a gentleman and an honest man, as he is:  but pray let him bring with him the fund of his hospitality, bounty, and charity; and, depend upon it, we shall never confiscate a shilling of that honorable and pious fund, nor think of enriching the Treasury with the spoils of the poor-box.

To tell you the truth, my dear Sir, I think the honor of our nation to be somewhat concerned in the disclaimer of the proceedings of this society of the Old Jewry and the London Tavern.  I have no man’s proxy.  I speak only from myself, when I disclaim, as I do with all possible earnestness, all communion with the actors in that triumph, or with the admirers of it.  When I assert anything else, as concerning the people of England, I speak from observation, not from authority; but I speak from the experience I

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The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03 (of 12) from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.