The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 06 (of 12) by Edmund Burke
page 52 of 377 (13%)
page 52 of 377 (13%)
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bosoms." No! It is not making its way into their bosoms. It has forced
its way into their mouths! The evil spirit by which they are possessed, though essentially a liar, is forced by the tortures of conscience to confess the truth,--to confess enough for their condemnation, but not for their amendment. Shakspeare very aptly expresses this kind of confession, devoid of repentance, from the mouth of an usurper, a murderer, and a regicide:-- "We are ourselves compelled, Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, To give in evidence." Whence is their amendment? Why, the author writes, that, on their murderous insurrectionary system, their own lives are not sure for an hour; nor has their power a greater stability. True. They are convinced of it; and accordingly the wretches have done all they can to preserve their lives, and to secure their power; but not one step have they taken to amend the one or to make a more just use of the other. Their wicked policy has obliged them to make a pause in the only massacres in which their treachery and cruelty had operated as a kind of savage justice,--that is, the massacre of the accomplices of their crimes: they have ceased to shed the inhuman blood of their fellow-murderers; but when they take any of those persons who contend for their lawful government, their property, and their religion, notwithstanding the truth which this author says is making its way into their bosoms, it has not taught them the least tincture of mercy. This we plainly see by their massacre at Quiberon, where they put to death, with every species of contumely, and without any exception, every prisoner of war who did not escape out of their hands. To have had property, to have been robbed of it, and to endeavor to regain it,--these are crimes irremissible, to |
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